PHS Adopts an Olympic Touch

Continuing last week’s topic, I’ll share a quick story that hopefully further helps calm public fears and concerns associated with a current PHS/SPCA adoption promotion -- no adoption fees for all cats and kittens – that caused the fur to fly, raising hackles and eyebrows.

Meet Patty Homan (nee Elsener).  She’s an accomplished athlete, an Olympic champion. I’m quite sure you’ve never heard of her. You couldn’t pick her out of a group of two, in fact.

Patty was among the 116 cat adopters over the past 10 days who either visited after learning about our promotion or was pleasantly surprised to learn of it after she visited.  Either way, she went home with two kitties and all parties could not be happier.

In the course of our adoption counseling session, Patty opened up; she lost her husband and their beloved dog this past year. She was feeling incredibly lonely and thought she might adopt a cat (or a pair of bonded kitties) for companionship. 

While chatting, we also learned Patty had another story. She won silver and bronze medals for diving (3-meter springboard and 10-meter platform) in the 1948 Olympic Games. She could have made it a repeat and gone back to the ’52 games but was pregnant. 

We’ll accept that excuse!

After Patty took a few days to settle in with her new cats at home, she called back. She correctly sensed that we were all pretty jazzed about meeting an Olympic champion and that we just might like to see her hardware. She was back in a few days, medals in hand, and we all took turns holding them.

Not every adopter since our promotion began has an extraordinary story like Patty’s, but they’ve all given our adoption counselors reasons to be equally happy about their adoptions.

Posey and Miss Daisy, Patty’s cats, have done well for themselves after a rough beginning, essentially dumped as unwanted kittens. Just like their new “mom,” a former platform diving champion and local gal who made good even though she had a fear of heights!