PORT HADLOCK — When Maggie was brought into the hospital a month ago, she was on her ninth life and counting.
One leg dangled from the hip socket, the broken bone exposed. The wound open and infected, and she was near starvation. Her owners wanted Maggie euthanized.
Now, despite the fact that her right rear leg was amputated, the calico cat is back on her paws.
“When I first saw her, she was all closed down,” Janet Baker said. “Now there’s a sparkle in her eyes.”
Baker is one of a handful of volunteers who provide post-operative care for orphaned pets at Chimacum Valley Veterinary Hospital on Chimacum Road.
There, owners Tony and Jeannette Rogstad take in pets whose owners can’t afford care and perform the necessary surgery or treatment at their own expense.
But because the animal associates the hospital staff with pain, volunteers are needed to provide the holding, petting and loving necessary for post-operative recovery.
“We need some more foster parents here to help them recover once we’re done,” Jeannette Rogstad said.
“We’re the bad guys here — we’ve been doing all the procedures.”
