About Turtle

Turtle (about 10 years old as of February, 2020) is a spayed female tortieshell shorthaired cat. Turtle was trapped when she was young as part of a trap-neuter-return project in Waukegan. Her caretaker was very kind and took extra special care of Turtle's colony; they had a heated tent for the winter and on really cold nights she would even let them in her house, which probably explains how Turtle grew up to be so sweet! Turtle, unlike many torties with so called 'tortie-tude' is a super friendly and loving girl. Sadly last fall her caretaker fell ill and had to go into hospice care. As we were trying to move her kitties over to a neighbor's colony we found Turtle and her sister were much too friendly (and too reluctant to share space with the neighbor cats) to leave outside. We figured even if we couldn't get another rescue or shelter to take this beauty her good looks and charm would get her adopted fairly quick, but after a few days her new fosters noticed her tilting her head and she was diagnosed with an ear infection in both ears. Her sister went on to another rescue but Turtle had to have her ear infection sorted, and after months of trying all sorts of antibiotics it wasn't getting any better. Finally we had a CT scan done and she has a persistent drug-resistant infection all throughout her ear so she needs a special operation to enter her inner ear and clean it out directly, and thankfully a crowd-funding campaign raised the money to have it done! She had her surgery May 16th and did very well. Unfortunately, during post op visits they noticed a bump in her other ear was growing and with those types of things they prefer to remove the entire ear canal because there isn't enough clearance around the mass to get clear margins. Turtle went in for her ear ablation surgery on the other ear in December 2019. She did well, though the surgery left her completely deaf or close to it. However, the other ear is still looking great and there should be no problems with the second ear now that the ear canal is removed. Despite not being able to hear, Turtle is absolutely wonderful with people of all ages, a little nervous and sassy around dogs, and a bit of a bully with the less outgoing cats in her foster home. We're thinking she could be the perfect pet for a family looking for an only kitty to spoil or with one or two confident but not overbearing kitties.

Lake County
Grayslake, Illinois 60030