Georgie Finally Finds a New Home and a Second Chance at Life after Having Been Abandoned and Condemned to Spend Twelve Hellish Years Homeless in the Wretched Scottish Highlands

Georgie Rests Up Before Starting Her New Life

"I am adopting her today."

-- Margaret Petrie

It was an exhaustingly long and difficult road that she was forced to travel but the heartening news recently out of Glasgow is that Georgie not only has made it through the equivalent of Hell on earth but that she is still alive and apparently doing rather well.

Oddly enough it is none other than the coronavirus that she has to thank for her eleventh-hour deliverance. Earlier in the year when Forestry and Land Scotland was forced into closing the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park in the Scottish Highlands, thirty-nine kilometers north of Glasgow, staffers at the facility belatedly rounded up the strikingly beautiful tortoiseshell and delivered her to Cats Protection's shelter in Glasgow.

At the charity, a routine scan for an implanted microchip not only located one but in the process eventually led to the unraveling of one of the most amazing feline survival stories in history. As it soon was learned, she had been transported to Loch Lomond in the park in October of 2008 by her owner Amy Davies of Rochdale in Greater Manchester, four-hundred kilometers to the south.

When it came time for her to return home, Davies cruelly and unforgivably left Georgie behind to fend for herself. Even more revoltingly, she does not appear to have made any effort whatsoever to have mounted a rescue effort or to even find out what had become of her five-year-old resident feline. That in turn has fueled suspicion that she not only intentionally dumped Georgie but did so without so much as either a second thought or a twinge of conscience.

Robbed of her family, home, food supply, and all the protections that she had once enjoyed against a hostile world in one wicked twist of totally outrageous misfortune, Georgie was forced to quickly learn how to survive in the cold, rain, snow, wind, and darkness of the godforsaken Scottish Highlands. As best as it is known, staffers at the park and tourists occasionally fed and sheltered her but for the most part she was entirely on her own.

How that she was able to avoid both animal and human predators for such an extended period of time never will be fully understood. Likewise, it is a miracle that she did not succumb to either starvation, sickness, or the bitter cold.

Once contacted by Cats Protection Davies, unbelievably, still did not want any part of her. She even had the audacity to attempt to laugh off Georgie's interminable suffering as something of a lark.

"It was such a lovely surprise to hear that she was not only well but had seemingly been having a great time meeting campers," she mindlessly chortled to The Guardian of London on August 4th. (See "Cat That Went Missing on Scottish Holiday Found Twelve Years Later.")

Georgie Awaiting Transport to Her New Home

It is just too bad that there are not any laws against abandoning cats because what she so richly deserves is to be arrested and publicly horse-whipped. It simply boggles the mind how that any cat owner could ever be so heartless and cruel. Furthermore, her making a joke out of Georgie's suffering is just too much to stomach.

Davies' abdication of all of her moral, filial, financial, and legal obligations to Georgie left her  totally dependent upon the good will of Cats Protection for her continued survival and in that respect it certainly did not disappoint her. In fact, it could be argued that the loving care that it bestowed upon her may very well have been its finest hour.

Regrettably, that has not always been the case with the organization in the past and sometimes it has lied to the public and killed off cats that it earlier had promised to help.  (See Cat Defender posts of August 26, 2015 and February 17, 2016 entitled, respectively, "A Myriad of Cruel an Unforgivable Abandonments, a Chinese Puzzle, and Finally the Handing Down and Carrying Out of a Death Sentence Spell the End for Long-Suffering and Peripatetic Tigger" and "Cats Protection Races to Alfie's Side after His Owner Dies and He Winds Up on the Street, Swears It Is Going to Help Him, and Then Turns Around and Has Him Whacked.")   

The charity did not even flinch when Georgie was diagnosed to be suffering from Feline Hyperthyroidism (FH) but instead stoically paid for the surgical removal of both of her thyroid glands in late August. Sleeping rough and going without veterinary care for a dozen years or more had, unfortunately left her with a slew of additional ailments as well.

First of all, she was suffering from a fused vertebrae in her tail. Secondly, a significant amount of plaque had accumulated on her teeth and that necessitated that they had to be cleaned and scaled.

Thirdly, she was suffering from arthritis and accordingly was placed on a daily regimen of painkillers. Fourthly, a large tick had to be removed from her lovely face.

Fifthly, according to an untitled November 29th article on the Glasgow Adoption Centre's Facebook page, she was so emaciated that she weighed only 2.8 kilograms. The charity therefore was tasked with putting some weight on her before it could even begin to think about offering her up for adoption.

"We're looking for a quiet home for Georgie where she can be the only cat, enjoy her space and have plenty of garden to explore," Lynsey Anderson of the charity explained to The Guardian in the article cited supra. "She's very loving and enjoys human company so (she) will make a brilliant companion."

Most importantly, Cats Protection faithfully honored its commitment to remain steadfast at Georgie's side. "Georgie will be cared for by us until we to are ready to find her another loving home," it wrote July 28th on Facebook. (See Cat Defender post of September 8, 2020 entitled "Cruelly and Heartlessly Abandoned in the Godforsaken Scottish Highlands a Dozen Years Ago, Georgie Is Amazingly Found to Be Still Alive but Her Former Owner Does Not Want Any Part of Her.")

For a cat accustomed to coming and going as she pleases, the more than four months that she was forced to spend locked up at Cats Protection's shelter must have been a trying time for Georgie to say the least but on November 29th she finally was released from custody in order to go and live with Margaret Petrie. No information has been divulged about her but she, presumably, resides somewhere in the Glasgow area. If that is so, it then would appear that Georgie is destined to remain a Scottish feline.

Georgie Explores Her New Home

"I am adopting her today," Petrie rejoiced November 29th on the Facebook page of the Glasgow Adoption Centre. "She has comfy memory foam beds, toys, lots of food and lots of love waiting for her. Can't wait. She'll have the best of everything here."

Based upon her initial reaction, it would appear that Georgie has taken an immediate liking to her new abode. "She came right out of the cat carrier and ate a bowl of chicken," Petrie continued in the same article. "She hasn't stopped purring or wanting petted."

It is not known, however, if she will have access to a garden as Anderson earlier had promised or if she will be the only feline resident in the Petrie household. After all that she has been through it could be that she has had her fill of the great outdoors for a while but the presence of other felines could possibly infringe upon her happiness.

In any event, hopefully Cats Protection will not simply forget about her but rather it should make it a top priority to occasionally drop in on her in order to ascertain how that she is doing and to make sure that she is receiving the top-notch veterinary care that all elderly cats require. It additionally would be considerate of the charity if it were to periodically inform her many fans around the world as to her health, well-being, and happiness.

Realistically speaking, however, the outside world likely has seen and heard the last of Georgie. It will not be easy, however, to forget a cat of her caliber.

In celebrating her triumph over outrageous misfortune it is equally impossible to forget how cruelly she was abandoned and how needlessly she was made to suffer. Davies, campers, and staffers at the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park only nakedly exploited her for their own selfish motives without endeavoring to do a solitary beneficial thing in order to relieve her desperate plight.

She accordingly is alive today, not because of them, but rather in spite of them and their machinations. Too few individuals nowadays care about cats and other animals, Mother Earth, and their fellow man and that, in a nutshell, is what that is so terribly wrong with this world. In Georgie's case, her travails have conclusively demonstrated that most individuals only know how to take, destroy, and to kill and accordingly have little or no interest in giving, creating, and preserving life.

Although her weight is now up to 4.4 kilograms, at sixteen years of age and suffering from FH it would not appear that she has all that much time left but her remaining years can be indeed happy and fulfilling ones. As far as the dozen of them that she lost to the unforgiving Scottish Highlands are concerned, Petrie cannot restore them to her but that sobering reality should not deter her from endeavoring to try and do just that with all of her heart and might.

Georgie is a hard cat to let go of but sooner or later one runs out of words and the time comes to put away both pen and paper; after all, what is done is done and the past cannot be altered. The best that can be hoped and prayed for is that Freyja, Bastet, Ailuros, and the remainder of the feline pantheon will watch out for her, protect her from harm, disease, and the ravages of old age and, above all, guide her every step of the way in the days and, hopefully, years to come.

Photos: Cats Protection (Georgie on a blanket and in a cage) and Margaret Petrie (Georgie in her new home).