Strangers Save Elderly Blind Cat Who Fell into Frozen Pond

Dawn Felicani / Washingtonpost.com

We are all familiar with that “You’re walking on thin ice” warning about impending disaster. One very lucky cat in Massachusetts was rescued after literally walking on thin ice, and initially falling through to the frigid water below.

Tiki – a 20-year-old, blind, black and white tuxedo cat – had wandered away from home and onto the barely frozen surface of a pond in Westford, Massachusetts. Dawn Felicani, who was in town visiting family, looked out the window on a chilly morning and spotted a small black animal moving around on the thin ice.

Dawn rushed outside to the pond shore and discovered, to her horror, a cat in severe distress while slipping around on a brittle sheet of ice, about 40 feet from the shore. Terrified for the poor cat, Dawn called Westford Animal Control. But before officers arrived, the ice cracked, and the terrified cat fell into the ice-cold water beneath.

“His little head was sticking out,” Dawn told The Washington Post. “I was hysterical.”

Thankfully, a godsend came in the form of two construction workers: Nate Puza and Kris Seymour, who spotted the animal and realized it wasn’t a duck but a doomed cat. They sprang into action to save the feline before it was too late. Puza got into a rowboat and used his paddle to break the ice, and Seymour got into the water to push the boat as far as he could. Puza plucked the cat out of the water and rowed back to the shore, where Dawn and family members were waiting with blankets. A newscast shows some video footage from the rescue here.

Dawn Felicani / Washingtonpost.com

“They put themselves at risk for an animal that wasn’t theirs,” Kirsten Hirschler, an animal control officer, told The Washington Post. “If the guys hadn’t grabbed him immediately, he for sure would have gone down and I for sure would have been doing a recovery instead of a transport.”

The cat was still alive, but barely. He was not moving, and his body was very cold. Animal control soon arrived, and an officer rushed the male cat to a veterinarian, who could not get any reading on a temperature from the freezing cat.

Dawn Felicani / Washingtonpost.com

But, thankfully, warm fluids and TLC at the vet clinic gradually healed the cat. Meanwhile, the shelter posted on Facebook in search of the owner of the cat, who did not have a microchip.

Jon and Melaney Arden saw the Facebook post, and they realized it was their beloved senior cat, Tiki, who had gone blind about a year earlier. The couple picked up their lost cat, whom they said usually stays by the back door on his occasional outside visits, and brought him home. They were flabbergasted at how the cat that usually sticks close to home ended up at a pond about a half mile away. Kirsten, the animal control officer, thinks a predator may have chased Tiki. Imagine trying to outrun a predator when you can’t see where you’re going – no wonder Tiki ended up on a frozen pond!

“This is the craziest cat story ever,” Jon told The Washington Post. “I think he used up more than just one of his nine lives.”

Perhaps it was a Christmas miracle that gave Tiki, who has healed from his late December ordeal, a happy ending. We are happy to hear that Tiki’s humans have pledged to keep him inside as much as possible; cats do best when kept inside. We hope Tiki’s humans also will get him a microchip, which helps animal control reunite lots cats with their families.

Dawn Felicani / Washingtonpost.com

Kirsten offers this wise advice to anyone who comes across a cat in crisis: “My hope is that the story, with all of the courage and compassion demonstrated, will inspire others to make similar motions when seeing animals that need assistance,” she told the WaPo. Amen!

Speaking of blind cats like Tiki, I’ll take this opportunity to pump our readers to consider adopting one. Cats are amazingly resourceful and tend to do quite well with disabilities like blindness, whether they were born with it, had their eyes removed as kittens, or developed blindness with age. We don’t know what Tiki’s circumstances were, but the fact that the made it to age 20 speaks for itself!

I recently fostered a blind cat – a black and white tuxedo named Quincy – who lost his eyes due to an infection as an adult cat. I was nervous about bringing him home, and I wondered if I could meet his needs. Even though he was confined to a small foster room, I worried that he would not be able to find his litter box, food, etc. without a daily struggle.

But, to my surprise and delight, Quincy wasn’t much different than a cat with vision. He just figured out where everything was located, and I even entered the room occasionally to find him at the top of a cat tree! Amazing. Quincy relied on his other senses and memorized the layout of the room. My heart was happy when I called the shelter to ask whether Quincy had been adopted after a few weeks back at the shelter. Thankfully, someone with a big heart gave a chance to this wonderful disabled cat with no eyes but a big heart.

Here is another story we published recently about a remarkable blind cat finding a happy ending to a sad story. Ethel, an overweight and blind cat, spent an entire year at a shelter in Columbus, Ohio. Then, a woman who visited the Cat Welfare Association shelter to see a friend unexpectedly found her forever best furry friend in Ethel. The woman fell in love, took her home, and made some adjustments in her home to help the blind cat find her way around. Ethel is doing wonderfully and is working on losing weight.

On behalf of Tiki and Quincy and Ethel, here’s to cats who live their best lives despite blindness or another disability! May they all find the loving homes they so deserve.