Dumped cat was terrified of everything
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00:00 We brought her home and she just scooted underneath the couch.
00:03 Are you okay?
00:04 Where she pretty much lived for weeks.
00:06 She was just so scared.
00:08 She was found next to a garbage can in Cuba.
00:12 Someone had dumped her there as a kitten.
00:13 One of the fosters down there, who rescues cats frequently,
00:17 took her in and had her in foster care for a year and a half.
00:20 And she was brought up to Long Island to Beth Stern's Best Furry Friend organization,
00:24 where they took her in.
00:25 Her bones weren't formed correctly.
00:27 Can you say hi?
00:28 It wasn't just her legs. Once they looked at her,
00:30 they realized she had eyelidigenesis.
00:32 She did not have any upper eyelids.
00:34 I got a call saying, "Did we still want her?"
00:36 And he said, "Absolutely."
00:38 When we picked her up, her whole body was trembling.
00:40 I was rubbing under her chin and her ears.
00:42 My mom and I laid on the floor and would hand feed her
00:46 one piece of food at a time just to get her to eat.
00:49 Good girl.
00:49 Look who's waiting for you.
00:52 I mean, it got to the point where to try to make her comfortable,
00:54 I was playing Cuban music.
00:57 Come on.
00:58 Then I was trying to speak to her in Spanish and just be like,
01:00 "Okay, you know, it's going to be okay."
01:02 Oh, you need some help, baby.
01:04 Within a month, she was starting to come out with me.
01:07 Good girl.
01:08 As she's become more comfortable, she's found her voice.
01:16 She doesn't meow, she chirps.
01:20 She won't stop chirping until she gets what she wants.
01:23 Do you need more scratches?
01:26 More?
01:27 We made ramps for her to get up the stairs.
01:30 So I measured the width of her legs when she walked because she kind of does a split.
01:34 And my dad and I made ramps to go up our stairs to try to get her
01:38 so that she could be with us when she wanted.
01:40 It took about a year for my kids to be able to go and touch her
01:45 without her kind of being like, "What are you doing? What's happening?"
01:48 And it took her, I'd say, probably seven or eight months with me to sit on my lap
01:55 and like seek the attention.
01:56 She loved to be pet, but to actually try to find me and say, "Can you give me love?
02:02 I want to be on your lap. I want to be touching you."
02:05 Good girl.
02:06 When we realized she could do stairs with carpet,
02:10 we took the ramps down and we got carpet treads
02:13 so that she had something to kind of grip onto so that she could get up the stairs.
02:17 She goes down the stairs in a handstand.
02:21 So just using her front limbs, and it's incredible.
02:23 I mean, she should get a gold medal.
02:25 [Music]
02:32 She is kind of the gatekeeper of the stairs.
02:35 Oh, Taurus, I don't know.
02:36 I don't think it's going to happen today, bud.
02:40 You pass her and you don't give her pets, she'll chirp right at you.
02:43 Did your toll increase?
02:44 Three head pats?
02:47 Her upper body strength is so strong.
02:50 It's unnerving.
02:51 Come here.
02:52 [Music]
02:55 Get your legs up.
02:56 Her vision is good.
02:59 They ended up doing cryo-freezing and they got rid of the hair follicles on her upper lid.
03:04 And then they put filler in and so it kind of created a barrier.
03:07 She is a ball of Cuban fire.
03:10 My husband and I have been rescuing cats since before we were married.
03:16 Oh, look at this.
03:17 She's in a household where there's constantly rotating cats
03:20 and she will tell them who's boss.
03:22 Did you find the heater?
03:28 Is everybody coming to steal your spot?
03:29 With all these cats running around, it would be anarchy.
03:34 There would most likely be a mutiny.
03:36 So Lola has to keep everybody on track, including us.
03:40 My kids do the same thing.
03:41 They have to go and pay the toll of saying hi to Lola
03:43 and giving her a pet before they can come up.
03:45 Good job.
03:46 In the evenings when I come up and I get the kids to bed,
03:48 she wants to come up and have some snuggles.
03:50 So that's what we do.
03:51 I still talk to her in Spanish.
03:55 I think it's our language of love.
03:56 Oh, good morning.
04:00 It's just nice to see like when we first got her how scared she was
04:05 and you could tell she just it was like such a drastic change
04:08 and it took her so long to be comfortable.
04:10 And so for her to trust me, that's just the greatest thing ever.
04:13 [Music]