Diamond's Story.

I don't know very much at all for certain about Diamond's life before I adopted him, although I really would love to meet his original family. He's got a very unique personality and I strongly believe at least some of that has got to come from how he was raised.

From what I understand of what the Humane Society workers told me, he grew up in a family home, but they had had to move into a new home that didn't have room for him. I suspect that the mother of the family was a blonde, because he still sometimes perks up when he meets women with straight, bobbed blonde hair. He was also declawed, something I don't personally believe in doing to animals. His original name was "Yaggie," but since his medical records showed that he was deaf, I was sure he wouldn't mind if I changed it. I still call him "Yaggie" when he's in trouble anyway. ;-)

I ended up fostering him twice. I fostered him for a week, then dutifully returned him to the shelter. On the way back to the shelter though, he moaned and cried in his cat carrier, and I finally took pity on him. I took him out of the carrier, placed him in the basket, and tied a piece of rope to his harness. He loved it from the very first moment! To my shock, he was also perfectly well behaved. I was impressed, but I carried on with returning him to the shelter.

I let a week go by, and then went back to find another kitty to foster. However Yaggie was still there, so I decided to foster him "one last time" and then "NO MORE" so I "wouldn't get too attached." This time, we spent nearly that entire summer week getting out of the house and having fun seeing the city, with Yaggie perched jauntily in the basket and waving his little paws at whatever struck his fancy. I was utterly amazed... and didn't realize that I was getting more daylight out of the house than I had in years.

The last night I was to have him before I gave him back to the Humane Society, on a completely unrelated note I sat myself down and tried to figure out my financial situation. But I couldn't do it without getting upset, and I had another major panic attack. That's when the magic began.

I remember very clearly that I was "trapped" in my panic, sitting on the couch, and Diamond was enjoying running around the house at high speed. Suddenly he stopped in front of me, and watched me intently. I could see him out of my blurred vision, but I couldn't move. He suddenly leapt up onto me and began sniffing me intently. He began to paw at me, and then he began to give me little "love bites" for lack of a better description, on my lips.

I slowly extended my arms and began to pet him, and as I stroked him I felt like I could breathe again. He stayed with me and snuggled until I had loosed up completely. Then he looked me in the eyes intently, gave a chirp that seemed to say, "Well that's better now!" and ran off to play again like nothing had happened. But I bawled like a child. The next day, I purchased him.

A while later, I introduced him to my physician, who saw the dramatic change in my personality, and literally wrote a prescription of Diamond for me, thereby giving me the right to keep Diamond as a service animal in my home, and allowing me to take him in public and into businesses with me.

Later that year, Diamond and I met a wonderful local woman who trains service dogs, and she trained me to train Diamond to behave properly in public. The training process for any service animal is about two years, and I'd say it took about that long for Diamond to learn to be fully cooperative.

My theory is that because Diamond is deaf, he isn't threatened by the cacophony of everyday outdoor noises the way hearing cats are, and this calm allows him to focus on other things. Because he's deaf, he and I have a polygot of lip-reading and hand-signal commands, and even specific ways of petting him, that we understand completely between the two of us. For that reason in particular, I generally don't allow strangers to touch him. It kind of sucks when a stranger reaches out and grabs at him, unknowingly and annoyingly giving him the signal for "Jump out of the scooter and walk." *Sigh*

Here is a photo of Diamond and I from 2003:

Photo taken by Will Simpson.

Diamond will be five years-old on Auggust 28th!