A Devoted Röbelerin Adamantly Refuses to Enter an Altersheim Until She Has Successfully Secured a New Guardian for Her Beloved Felix

Although Old and Sickly, Karin Tietz Would Not Abandon Felix

"Ich gehe erst ins Heim, wenn ich weiß, dass Felix gut untergebracht ist."
-- Karin Tietz

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all," celebrated American author and inspirational speaker Dale Carnegie once observed. Indeed, success does not always smile on the strongest and swiftest but rather on those who are the most determined.

For instance, Karin Tietz of tiny Röbel on the west bank of the Müritzsee in Mecklenburg- Vorpommern, one-hundred-forty-six kilometers north of Berlin, recently woke up to find herself in the crosshairs of a dilemma. At seventy-seven, time was fast running out on her and, adding insult to injury, arthritis was making it increasingly painful for her to even get around her apartment, let alone to venture out into the world.

Compounding an already difficult situation, her husband was long dead and she was all alone in the world with the notable exception of her beloved ten-year-old brown, gray, and black resident feline, Felix. It might not be an exaggeration to state that he had become her shining light and raison d'être.

"Das sind schöne Momente," is how that she described their time together to the Nordkurier of Neubrandenburg, sixty-seven kilometers northeast of Röbel, jon May 3rd. (See "Ohne Heim für Kater kein Heim für Seniorin.")

By that time, however, the "schöne Momente" had become numbered. Not only was she experiencing difficulties in caring for herself but her debilitating arthritis was making it extremely painful for her to even bend down and feed Felix as well as to empty his litter box.

All was not lost, however, in that she had the resources in order to retain the services of an unidentified nursing service which was dispatching caregivers to look in on her three to four times a day and thus to assist her with the minutiae of everyday living. One of those outpatient nurses, Katrin Jacobs, was affiliated with Müritzer für Tiere of Waren, twenty-three kilometers north of Röbel, and she therefore also gladly fed and otherwise looked after Felix.

A place had been readied for Tietz at an unidentified Altersheim but, like all such warehouses for the aged and infirm, cats were strictly verboten. That in turn left the fast-fading Tietz in a totally untenable position.

"Ich gehe erst ins Heim, wenn ich weiß, dass Felix gut untergebracht ist," the gutherzig Röbelerin defiantly vowed to the Nordkurier.

Sometimes good intentions and a desire to do the right thing end up floundering on the rocky shores of hard reality. In her case, for example, she was attempting to pull off a near-impossible task with the clock fast running out on her.

Given that the vast majority of would-be adopters want kittens, the demand for elderly cats is almost nil. Furthermore, Müritzer für Tiere has experienced difficulties in rehoming even cats as young as one year of age.

It therefore was not surprising that the mere fact that Felix is in excellent health and has a life expectancy of eight to ten years counted for almost nothing with all the loudmouthed phonies who like to shout their abiding love for the species from the rooftops but whenever they happen to stumble across a real-life cat in extremis their hearts turn to stone faster than a snowball melts in July. (See Cat Defender post of May 27, 2016 entitled "Snubbed by an Ignorant, Tasteless, and Uncaring Public for the Past Twenty-One Years, Tilly Has Forged an Alternative Existence of Relative Contentment at a Sanctuary in the Black Country.")

True aficionados of the species, however, march to the beat of an entirely different drummer. For them, a cat's appearance, age, breed, health, and temperament are every bit as irrelevant as are all other accidents of nature and history. Unfortunately, given the ingrained prejudices and selfishness of mankind, the prospects for elderly cats such as Felix are unlikely to improve.

Tietz briefly considered surrendering him to Tierschutzverein Waren in Malchow, twenty kilometers northwest of Röbel, but its shelter was full and it therefore could not accept him even if she had been willing to have gone through with that expedient. As things turned out, that was a bit of Glück im Unglück for Felix in that he likely never would have made it out of there alive.

Even those elderly cats that end up in those truly rare shelters that respect their right to live have a difficult time of adjusting to a regimen of life behind bars, an almost endless parade of foster mothers, and multiple failed adoptions. (See Cat Defender posts of August 31, 2017, March 12, 2018, and July 29, 2019 entitled, respectively, "With His Previous Owner Long Dead and Nobody Seemingly Willing to Give Him a Second Chance at Life, Old and Ailing Harvey Has Been Sentenced to Rot at a Shelter in Yorkshire," "Much Like a Nightmare That Stubbornly Refuses to End, Harvey Continues to be Shuttled from One Home to Another at the Expense of His Health and Well-Being," and "Repeatedly Shunned, Maligned, and Bandied About from One Place to Another, Harvey Is Now Engaged in the Most Important Battle of His Life.")

The obvious solution would have been for one of Tietz's relatives to have taken in Felix but that apparently was not an option. Either she does not have any close living relations or they were unwilling to assume the care of Felix. It is, after all, pretty much a foregone conclusion that individuals who are so uncaring as to dump their parents and siblings in Altersheims could care less about what becomes of their cats.

May quickly gave way to June without any solution to Felix's desperate plight on the horizon. Jacobs and Müritzer für Tiere stubbornly refused, however, to let go of Tietz's dream that Felix be placed in a private residence that was sans any young children.

Like Melanie Gottschalk of the Kilianstädten section of Schöneck in Hesse, Jacobs belatedly came to the realization that about the only individuals who care about old cats are the elderly themselves and she accordingly was able through due diligence to identify five individuals who had expressed an interest in adopting Felix. (See Cat Defender post of March 26, 2018 entitled "A Dedicated and Compassionate Kilianstädterin Has Found at Least a Partial Solution to the Tragic Plight of alte und obdachlos Katzen.")

The particulars have not been spelled out in print but sometime in late June Tietz's love and devotion for Felix coupled with Jacobs' hard work paid a huge dividend when Felix was adopted by an elderly woman in Malchin, fifty-two kilometers north of Röbel. That happy dénouement could not possibly have come at a more propitious time in that Tietz's already precarious health soon thereafter gave out altogether on her.

She accordingly had to be hospitalized and never again was able to make it back to the apartment that she and Felix had shared for so many happy years. (See the Nordkurier, July 2, 2019, "Happy End für Kater Felix aus Röbel.")

Felix Gets a Hug from Katrin Jacobs as Karin Tietz Looks on from the Rear

So in the end everything turned out about as well as could have been expected under the circumstances. Even so it is nonetheless heartbreakingly sad that Tietz had to part with her beloved cat and that is especially the case given that she has so little left. It likewise is equally tearful that Felix has been deprived of an owner who unquestionably loved him very dearly.

On the other hand, it is downright scary to even so much as contemplate what might have happened to him if it had not been for the unstinting efforts waged on his behalf by Jacobs and Müritizer für Tiere. With all due respect to Carnegie, determination alone is not always sufficient; rather, to succeed one often requires the invaluable assistance rendered so freely by kindhearted strangers.

An analogous drama was played out earlier this year in Basel when Lucy F. became ill and was forced to enter a hospital. Although she was supposed to have been away from home for only a few days, her condition worsened and she instead was transferred directly to an old folks' home.

As a result, she never again so much as laid eyes on her beloved eleven-year-old black beauty Susi that she had left behind. Unlike with Felix, there was not any Katrin Jacobs to look after her and as a consequence what happened to her was tragic if not indeed criminal.

Specifically, every individual and organization that had been entrusted with caring for her failed to lift so much as a lousy finger in order to save her. First of all, Lucy F.'s unidentified guardian apparently did absolutely nothing for her.

The public welfare office, Amt für Beistandschaften und Erwachsenenschutz (ABES), at first wanted to kill her but in the end settled for outsourcing her care to a private nursing service, Betreuungs und Pflegeservice (BPS Basel). That agency apparently did feed Susi once a day for several months but how much and what quality of food that its representatives supplied her with has not been disclosed.

As was the case with Tierschutzverein Waren, the local shelter, Tierschutz bieder Basel, likewise wanted no part of her. Even the owner of the building, its superintendent, doormen, maintenance personnel, deliverymen, and residents refused to intervene on her behalf.

Susi therefore was cruelly condemned to tough it out all by her lonesome in Lucy F.'s apartment from either late January or early February until June 4th when BPS Basel finally got around to delivering her to Tierhilfe Regio Basel (TRB) in Allschill, 4.3 kilometers south of Basel. Rushed to Daniel Stauffer of Kleintierpraxis in Reihen, 7.5 kilometers northeast of Basel, she was diagnosed to be so severely emaciated and dehydrated that she did not even have the strength to stand on her four legs.

If that had been all that ailed her, Stauffer and his staff might have been able to have pulled her through but, unfortunately, she was suffering from even worse maladies. For example, she was running a high temperature, plagued by an undisclosed infection, and her white blood cells were dramatically elevated. Worst of all, she was suffering from an untreated case of Feline Hyperthyroidism.

TRB and Stauffer did what they could for her but she succumbed to the ravages of unspeakable neglect on June 7th. "Das ganze stellt meines Erachtens einen schweren Verstoß gegen das Tierschutzgesetz dar," Stuaffer swore in the wake of her demise.

Nicole Rudin of TRB, who has asked the authorities to investigate Susi's death, succinctly summed up the profound neglect that Susi had been forced to endure. "Seit Februar war die Katze allein in der Wohnung an der Bärenfelserstraße," she explained. "Niemand wolle die Verantwortung übernehmen."

Loneliness and isolation sans doute also contributed to the deterioration of Susi's health. "Sicher hat Susi die alte Dame vermisst," Rudin observed. "Vermutlich war sie nie viel allein vorher, und plötzlich wurde ihr nur einmal pro Tag Futter hingestellt."

Although it should not have been necessary, Rudin felt compelled under the circumstances to point out the obvious. "Tiere haben wie wir Gefühle," she declared for all those who still have ears to hear, eyes to see, and minds to think. "Eine solche Einsamkeit ist schrecklich." (See Cat Defender post of July 13, 2019 entitled "Susi Is Knowingly Left All Alone in an Empty Apartment to Slowly Die of Starvation and Untreated Hyperthyroidism after Her Owner Is Confined to an Old Folks' Home.")

Regrettably, cats such as Felix who are able to survive the loss of their owners are an exception to the rule in that the vast majority of those that end up in that predicament either die of abject neglect, like Susi, or are systematically slaughtered by those individuals and institutions that are supposed to be looking after their welfare. Above all, elderly owners cannot depend upon strangers to take care of their beloved cats once they are gone; on the contrary, it is imperative that they make provisions for their continued care while they are still above ground themselves and in that regard the assistance of an able-bodied attorney is paramount.

Nothing further has appeared online regard Tietz. Suffice it to say that losing both Felix and her home have not been easy on her. She also has been forced to adjust to life at the Altersheim as well as her deteriorating health.

Although she has described Felix as a timid cat, Tietz is nonetheless confident that he will be able to adjust to a new guardian and surroundings. Nevertheless, doing so will not be all that easy for a cat his age.

Perhaps an even bigger concern is the long shadow cast over his future by a glaring paradox inherent in his adoption process. Namely, given that only the elderly are willing to adopt old cats like him there is not any guarantee that the Malchinerin will outlive him.

If her health should suddenly deteriorate, Felix very well could find himself back in the same boat. The only palliative for such an eventuality would be an existing agreement, hopefully one that is legally binding, that would mandate that Müritizer für Tiere retake possession of him and judiciously respect his right to live as it endeavors to place him in yet still another home.

The odds do not look particularly promising at the moment but there nevertheless is at least a slim chance that there is yet still another chapter to be written in this great love story. "...ich dem ich Felix vielleicht auch mal besuchen kann," Tietz speculated to the Nordkurier on May 3rd.

If The Fates should be in an obliging mood, her arthritis might just abate long enough for her to summon the strength in order to journey Malchin for such a joyful, no matter how brief, reunion. If nothing else, it is a thought for her to hang on to as her days dwindle down to a precious few and the elderly, both humans and cats, need some Vernunft in order to continue their decidedly uphill struggles.

Photos: Susann Salzmann of the Nordkurier.