Lizzie's Turn

Lizzie is three years old and has been with me since she was barely six weeks old. She was rescued from certain death by a young man to whom I will always be grateful, not just because I love Lizzie but because I need to know from time to time that there are people who will do kind things for animals when they don't need to and when you least expect it.

Lizzie was starving because she had some kind of a kink in her esophagus which kept food from getting into her stomach. She had to be hand fed and, this is the cute part, picked up under her little paw-pits and dangled until the kink straightened out and she burped so the food could get into her stomach. She weighed 1.4 pounds so dangling was no problem.

For several weeks she dangled and burped until, as her vet hoped, the kink straightened out all by itself and she started to gain weight. She hasn't stopped yet and now weighs about 20 pounds. We're trying to diet but the theory is that once having been starved, Lizzie's system treats food differently and she's probably always going to be a plus-size girl.

She's fiesty too and was a bit of a terror when she was younger, and slimmer, so I named her after Lizzie Borden because she would dive at my ankles and latch on. I always thought that if she had opposable thumbs and got close to an axe I'd really need to worry.