An senior stray called Eddie surrendered himself to the Black Dog Animal Rescue (BDAR) shelter in May 2023 at an estimated 18 years old.
Matted and emaciated, he appeared as staff members were conducting their bi-weekly meeting. As they opened the door, Eddie didn't run. Instead, he walked right up to his rescuers who lifted him up and brought him inside.
"He was very sweet and readily accepted any attention we wanted to give," Emilee Intlekofer, executive director of BDAR, told Newsweek.
The team fawned over Eddie and gave him food, and scanned him for a microchip with no success—although the rescue center found out that Eddie had been neutered.
Before long, he was settled in an enclosure with a full stomach and slept soundly. A few days later, Eddie was scheduled for a checkup with the vet, and blood work revealed more about the mysterious feline.
Eddie's results suggested he was around 18 years old, and at the end stage of feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). This is a lentivirus that affects domestic cats and other felid species. Similar to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS in humans, it weakens a cat's immune system, making them more susceptible to various infections and diseases. Primarily transmitted through deep bite wounds and typically occurring during fights, FIV is particularly common among stray cats.
Eddie's platelets were so low that, without a blood transfusion, he would not survive. After tough consideration, the team members realized that they could not use their limited resources to give an 18-year-old cat a blood transfusion. So they followed the vet's recommendation to euthanize him humanely.
"After we presented with his diagnosis and prognosis from our veterinarian, it wasn't really that difficult of a decision to make," said Intlekofer.
However, despite knowing it was the right thing to do, Eddie had a profound impact on the team at Black Dog Animal Rescue.
In a blog post telling Eddie's story, Intlekofer wrote: "It took me a couple days to reconcile his death even. A stray cat I knew for barely a moment. I finally decided he came to us because he knew we would help him and Eddie needed us to help him not live anymore.
"He knew that we would do what was best for him. We still have no idea where he came from or where he'd been and, like nearly every animal we help, we wish we would have known him sooner," Intlekofer added.
Black Dog Animal Rescue is located in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and was founded in 2007. A private rescue entirely funded by donations from the public, the shelter is foster-based so most animals are not kept in the facility. The people at the shelter, the staff, volunteers and veterinarians he encountered, all gave him a happier ending than would have been possible without them.
"He made such an impact on us in the short time he was with us," said Intlekofer. "It was just so incredible how he showed up out of nowhere and brought himself to us, a place that could help him."
