This past week, I wrote the story of Charley, now renamed Chaplin, who was dumped off at Capital to be euthanized and had obviously been abused by one of our adopters. I mentioned at the end of that story that last week had been pretty terrible as we had another Charley returned to us the following Saturday (one week after Chaplin) by another adopter with the initials J.K.

Before I go into this new story of my disappointment in an adopter, I just want to thank everyone who responded to Chaplin’s story with encouraging comments and a ton of love. The heartaches of rescue work are lessened when I know that others care what happens to our kitties, too. 

And now my second disappointment with an adopter and a sweet boy named Charley.

On May 2, I had an email from an adopter, J.K. who had just adopted Charley, a loving, gorgeous tabby boy on February 17 of this year. Her email said: “I adopted a cat named Charlie from Black and Orange in mid-February of this year. I am writing to touch base with someone to make arrangements because, unfortunately, I am not able to keep Charlie anymore. I will be happy to go into more detail over the phone, but basically it is a combination of my not being able to keep paying for medical issues as well as his chronic urinating outside of the box. I have been working with my vet for this issues since I adopted Charlie, and I feel I have exhausted my options and am not able to do any more for him. I am also concerned about putting any more additional stress on him, or onto my other cat I have had for six years who has been adjusting to things since I brought Charlie home.

“Please send me an e-mail so I can arrange for someone to pick Charlie up.”

Notice that J.K. said she had been working on the issue of the inappropriate litter pan use since she adopted Charley. You will find out in a moment that this was not the case.

I immediately wrote J.K. back. Charley had a sibling who had had a urinary tract infection and I worried that perhaps he had one as well that had been overlooked. I apologized to J.K., offered to have her take Charley to our vet to be checked (and we would pay), and gave her suggestions so she could ultimately keep Charley. 

She did not want him.

In her follow-up email J.K. said: “Yes, Charlie has been found to have some kind of lower urinary tract infection issues. I have taken him to the vet multiple times and paid for many different types of tests. He is currently on the last few days of an antibiotic. No crystals were found in his urine though, according to the vet. Charlie has had significant diarrhea since I adopted him, (we had sent her home with a bag of special food just for the diarrhea, but she changed his food) but the vet doesn’t seem to think that is related to the urination since he is gaining weight still and deficates in the box, even though he doesn’t urinate in it. At this point, my vet has said the options for trying to deal with the urination are either anti-anxiety medications or re-training him. I have had to draw the line on the money I am going to keep spending on Charlie, so I just can’t afford to try any more medicine. My current living situation is a rental, and my carpet is now a mess. I can’t even justify getting my carpet cleaned until Charlie is not in the house anymore. As far as retraining goes, I am gone at work for a large part of the day. The only uncarpeted area in my apartment with a door is my bathroom , and I feel this is too small a space to lock him in for such a large part of the day. As far as my other cat, she currently does not have any issues. I am concerned, though, about the effect all of this is having on her. I can’t have a second cat start urinating all over my carpet because of her seeing Charlie do it.

“I am very sorry I didn’t contact you sooner, as I was unaware of the 30 day expiration on the return (I had told J.K. that within the first 30 days we take a cat back immediately if there are problems, but after 30 days, we ask the adopter to work with us until we can find a foster). I wish I had known Charlie and his sibling had all of these issues before I adopted him. At this point, I have decided it is in his best interest as well as for myself and my other cat that I don’t keep him. All of this has been much too stressful the last two and a half months, and has taken a toll on me emotionally and financially. This is my busiest time of year at work, and looking back, I obviously wasn’t prepared to adopt a second cat into my home.”

After this email, I made arrangements with Dr. Kim West, our friend and vet, to foster Charley as I thought he had major medical conditions that would need her expertise. I let J.K. know that Dr. West would be out of town, but as soon as she was home, we would get Charley from her. 

On Saturday, Bobbie and I met J.K. at PetSmart and picked up Charley. I had asked her to bring back his folder with his medical records and to also bring her vet’s records showing what they had done. 

I was not expecting to find what I found in the vet records.

J.K. had Charley declawed. 

Charley was adopted on February 17 and at that time, J.K. signed our adoption contract stating that she would not have him declawed. Kristin, who was his foster, spoke to her in depth about declawing. We also provide paperwork about the problems with declawing in all our adoption folders. 

On March 5, J.K. took Charley for a declaw consult. At no point did she contact us to tell us she was having problems with him scratching and ask for solutions. On March 10, barely two weeks after adopting Charley, she had him declawed. 

According to the vet’s records, there had been no problems with Charley urinating outside of the litter pan until he was declawed. After the declaw surgery, he would not use the litter pan, at all, because his paws hurt too much. He did start defecating in the pan after a few weeks, but continued to pee right beside the litter pan. 

The vet stated that the change in Charley’s behavior was due to the declaw surgery.

At no point in any of our correspondences did J.K. mention the declaw.

Here is where I need to educate the uneducated. And forgive me, since many of you are in rescue, if I am preaching to the choir. Declawing is not a simple surgery. It is very painful and very inhumane. Declawing actually involves cutting a cat’s toes off at the first joint. If a human were declawed, it would be like cutting our fingers off at the knuckles. Many cats have issues after the surgery with walking and using the litter pan, because their feet hurt. Due to the pain, they often associate the litter pan with the discomfort in their paws and refuse to use the pan. This was the case with Charley. 

You can read more about declawing at www.declawing.com

What makes me angriest about this whole episode is that J.K. led me to believe that we gave her a flawed, unhealthy cat. She never took any responsibility for her actions or admitted that she had caused Charley’s issues herself. Instead, she made me think this was our fault and that we were obligated to take back this “problem cat.”

When we asked Dr. Jensen to check Charley out, she didn’t do any tests to see if he had a urinary tract infection or other health problems. She believed, just as the other vet had, that Charley’s problem was due to the declaw surgery. She said she sees problems arise often after declawing, but people still continue to have the surgery performed out of convenience. Rather than teaching the cat not to scratch in certain areas or keeping the nails trimmed, impatient owners have the cat declawed.  In many countries, other than the United States, declawing is outlawed, because it is so inhumane. 

Charley was very stressed with J.K.–not only because of the declaw, but we think he may have been having problems with her other cat. This was not a good home and he needed out of there. He is now with Dr. West and guess what–NO MORE LITTER PAN PROBLEMS. The very first night with her, he used the litter pan like a champ–even with regular litter in it (Dr. Jensen told us we might have to re-teach Charley to use a litter pan without litter in it or with a puppy pad). 

Sometimes, just getting a cat to a safe, loving environment takes care of everything.

At the end of April, my friend, Cynthia, called me in a panic. She was walking back to her house and found two tiny kittens in the ditch. They were both healthy, although the smaller orange fluff ball had crusty eyes. Cynthia called me to get advice on what to do with them. She did not think they had been dumped. She just thought that perhaps the mother cat had been moving them and dropped them, planning to return, but getting sidetracked. Cynthia was afraid to leave the kittens where they were because within a few hundred feet there were two large chained dogs that she feared would kill the babies. So she scooped them up and took them down the hill to her house. 

Cynthia set the kittens up in their own little kitten “play land” and took care of them. 

A few days later, Cynthia was talking to a neighbor who told her about a mother cat that had babies under a shed. The neighbor warned that her husband was going to shoot the cats. Cynthia asked her to please not do that and to let her know where the cat and babies were. She figured this was the mother to her two little ones. The woman had reported that there were two babies still with the mom, but she thought there had been more. 

Cynthia asked me last week if she could borrow a trap to try to catch the mom and find the other two kittens. I lent her a trap and she planned to begin her trapping efforts later in the week.

When I talked to Cynthia on Monday, she reported that there had been no sign of the mother cat and kittens. The neighbor said the mother cat had moved the kittens again. 

Cynthia also reported, however, that she had “another new face” show up on her back porch. She sent me photos of a very petite tortoiseshell kitty who she said was “very noisy.” Cynthia was worried that the little cat was in heat or already pregnant and asked if we could get her in for clinic this week. We agreed to meet up on Tuesday to do the cat exchange. Cynthia thought the cat had been recently dumped as she was very friendly and was familiar with cat flaps. She also kept continually trying to get in the house with Cynthia. 

This morning Cynthia wrote me and said she was “speechless” and there was a crimp in our plan to get the tortie girl in to be fixed. 

Turns out, this little girl is the mom to Cynthia’s two kittens. That little cat had somehow hunted down her babies inside Cynthia’s house, ingratiated herself to Cynthia, and then darted inside to find her kittens. 

Cynthia said the babies went wild when their mom finally found them in their room. Cynthia also said that she thinks she misjudged why mom was so anxious previously. It was not because she was in heat, but because she was searching for her kittens. 

I still cannot believe that this little cat tracked down her two kittens this way. They were in a house and she had to fight her way past Cynthia’s outside cats, go through the cat flap into the back porch, and convince Cynthia to let her inside. And she did all of that to get to her babies. Amazing!

And how, in the world, did she know where they were?

I asked Cynthia if she thought the little mom would lead her to the other kittens. Cynthia said she thought something must have happened to the other babies, as the mother cat had no milk. The kittens tried to nurse, but it was more just a bonding ritual than an actual feeding. Because of the lack of milk, Cynthia thought the other kittens were no longer around and that was the reason the little mother had come looking for her other two babies.

In any case, this is one of the happiest stories I have heard in a while. Of course, we’ll keep you posted if Cynthia does find the other two kittens.

This little family will eventually need new homes, so if you are looking for fluffy, cuddley kittens or a smart mama, we have the cats for you.

I cannot help but notice that the mother cat looks as if she is smiling in these pictures. One satisfied and intelligent creature. Never underestimate the power of a cat…or of a mother. 

A lady we had worked with in the past sent me an email about one of her outside kitties who she thought had “something wrong with his jaw.” I collected him to take in to Dr. Murphy at the Spay Neuter Clinic, intending to have him neutered and let Dr. Murphy look at his jaw. I had poor Exodus the night before and noticed that his one tooth hung out of his mouth, but I thought he just had a “snaggle tooth” that needed pulled. Imagine how awful I felt when the Spay Neuter Clinic called me and said the poor cat had a broken jaw that was seriously infected. He had also tested positive for FIV (feline immunodeficiency virus).

While this raggedy kitty had lots of things working against him–his ear was all sliced up, he was missing fur all over his body, he had an engorged tick hanging off his earlobe–he had one major thing working in his favor: his personality. Exodus is the nicest cat you would ever want to meet.

I picked this lover boy up from the Spay Neuter Clinic and took him to Dr. Tom Klein at East Hilliard Veterinary Services. Dr. Tom is the feline dental guru. He is the vet who fixed our little Bean Bag’s jaw last year when it was broken in a trauma. 

Dr. Klein was not deterred by the fact that Exodus was FIV positive. He thought that he was too nice to kill and so he kept Exodus to work his healing magic. 

This cat had a ton of problems. Whatever broke his jaw came up from the underside of his jaw (sort of like getting hit with an upper cut), pushing a tooth up into his upper palate and fracturing the bone. Fragments of bone were embedded in his nasal cavity. To me, this sounds like a kick. Most animals do not grab under the jaw. They go for the back of the neck. I hope some human did not do this to this cat. It makes my stomach ache to even think of it. 

Exodus’ injuries were at least several weeks old. I cannot imagine going around in this much pain for weeks. His whole mouth was filled with infection. Yet, believe it or not, this boy is such a fighter that he was eating hard food and meowing even in this horrible condition. 

Just to give you an idea of what Dr. Klein had to repair, here is a list he gave me of all the problems Exodus was facing:

1. His palate was fractured into his nasal cavity–and this happened at least several weeks previousy.

2. His center of his lower jaw was fractured as well as a complete fracture of the middle part of his lower left jaw. Both areas had severe infection.

3. He was under anesthesia for 3 and 1/2 hours (yes, you read that right-3 and 1/2 hours!) and Dr. Klein removed his upper left canine tooth and his lower right one and the remaining teeth on his upper left due to fractures. 

4. Dr. Klein attempted to move over the palate defect and repair it.

5. Dr. Klein wired the lower jaw center fracture. 

6. The lower left jaw fracture was left after cleaning the site and suturing it. Dr. Klein could not repair the bone at this time due to infection.

7. Exodus was given a 14 day long acting antibiotic and pain medicine. He was bathed and neutered while under. Two ticks were removed and he was treated for tapeworms. 

Whew!! Can you imagine if this had happened to a human? Exodus came home with me after two days in the hospital and is eating soft food like a trooper. He is on NO pain medicine. He is on cage rest, however, because Dr. Klein wants him to stay fairly inactive while he is healing.

This cat is just so wonderful. He utterly loves people. I had a hard time taking photos of him because he kept flopping down and rolling around for me to love on him and give belly rubs. 

The lady who called me about Exodus is willing to take the boy back with her. But he would have to be an outside kitty as she has a very jealous inside cat. I asked her if we could work on finding him a home and she was very happy to think he might have a safe, inside only haven. So that is what we are doing now. 

Exodus will need more vet care in the near future. He goes back to see Dr. Klein on May 20 and will probably need his lower left jaw fixed at that time. Being FIV positive is not a death sentence and Exodus, who is only three years old, can live a long and healthy life. He just needs a home with dogs only, another positive kitty, or by himself. He would be happy to share his life with anyone who wants him.

The virus that produces FIV is usually only passed from one cat to another by fighting or mating. Since Exodus is now neutered, he won’t be doing any of those things any more and will have a hard time giving other cats the disease. 

I have to thank Dr. Klein for once again coming to our rescue. He also had a vet student help him with Exodus’ procedures and because of that used the surgery and repair work as a teaching tool, giving us a giant discount.

Dr. Klein’s final words in his summary report were: “Exodus is a great cat!”

I completely agree!

Now it is up to us–I am counting on all of you to help me–to get Exodus into a safe, loving home with a family that does not care that he may never win a “Best in Show” ribbon for his appearance! What Exodus lacks in looks, he makes up for in love. 

I just recently learned that two groups I support, one national and one local, will be moving into new and bigger homes, which will allow them to help even more animals. 

The first group is Dogs Deserve Better (DDB), a charity in Pennsylvania that is committed to “ending the cruelty of chaining and penning dogs.” Dogs Deserve Better is buying “Bad Newz Kennels,” the property that was previously owned by Michael Vick and facilitated his dog fighting ring.  The former site of cruelty and suffering will be transformed by DDB into the “Good Newz Rehab Center for Chained and Penned Dogs.” 

I can think of no better way to honor the dogs that died there under Michael Vick’s reign than by giving other dogs that have suffered a new lease on life.

The 15-acre property on Moonlight Road in Virginia contains a house and various sheds. DDB is buying the property for $595,000. The group has already put down 30% ($178,500) and has been approved for a loan for the rest. Now they just need to raise the additional money to pay off the loan, build a fence around the property, and renovate the buildings for their state-of-the-art rehabilitation center. They hope to begin the transformation from Bad Newz to Good Newz by the end of May.

With this new facility, which will also include a memorial for the dogs that died under Michael’s Vick brutal ownership, DDB will be able to help 500 more chained and penned dogs each year. They currently rescue and rehabilitate 400-500 dogs per year in foster homes nationwide. Until now, the group has never had a shelter.

To read more about DDB’s efforts and to make a donation, please go HERE.

The second group that is expanding into new digs is the Humane Society of Madison County (HSMC).

With their move, the shelter will actually be relocating closer to Plain City (which thrills me). Their new building used to be a church. In fact, in a weird twist of fate, it was the church that one of my dear friends, Paul Carpenter, attended before his death in 2001. Paul was a huge animal lover and I know he would be delighted to know that his former church will now be a sanctuary for homeless animals. I went to several church services with Paul and his wife, Jean, at this building. It was also the place where Paul’s funeral was held in December 2001. I know a tiny part of him will be there watching over the animals. 

The building, located at 2020 State Route 142 NE, is just off I-70 at the Plain City exit. While the new shelter will have a West Jefferson address, they will only be 10 minutes from Plain City. The building is 5,000 square feet and includes five acres. Geo-Sites, Ltd. bought the property when the church moved and now plans to lease it to the humane society for $1 a year for twenty-five years. 

The new site will allow HSMC to house all of their animals in one building. Currently, the dogs are in a block building and the cats are housed in two trailers.

The shelter’s upcoming fundraiser, Cash 4 Kibble Dinner and Auction, will be held at the new building on Saturday, May 21. If you would like to attend and check out the facility, please go to the HSMC web site and download your RSVP form.

HSMC will also need additional funding to help them with their move and renovation. They hope to be in the building by July or August. 

With the expansion by DDB and HSMC, more animals will be helped across the country and in our own back yards.

To celebrate their 15th birthday, Petfinder is asking everyone to spread the word online about adoptable pets on Tuesday, March 15. 

There are a number of things you can do to help get the word out. 

1. You can take the Petfinder pledge saying that you will tell just one person about pet adoption on March 15. If you take the pledge, you will be entered in a drawing to win one of 10 Bissell Pet Hair Eraser Vacuums. And then make sure you do tell one person about pet adoption on March 15!

Take the Pledge HERE.

2. Add your own caption to a Petfinder adoptable pet photo on ICanHasCheezburger. Those pets with the best captions will be featured on the ICanHasCheezburger web site on March 15.

Caption a photo HERE.

3. On March 15, donate your Facebook photo and status to an adoptable Petfinder pet (preferably a B and O kitty–if you need a photo of one of our adoptable cats, visit our Facebook fan page or email me for a picture you can post–bandocats@columbus.rr.com).  Or you can also pull a photo from the “Adopt the Internet All-Stars” gallery HERE. 

Once you have changed your picture, post one of these messages in your status:

More than 320,000 pets are waiting for homes on Petfinder.com. Help Petfinder Adopt the Internet today and find forever homes for as many as possible. 

OR

I adopted my pet from Petfinder and now I want to help get this pet adopted! If you want to help pets in need of forever homes, please repost this!

4. Additionally, on March 15, share an adoptable pet on your Twitter page with the hashtag #adopttheinternet.

For more information on Adopt the Internet Day, please visit HERE for more ideas, badges to post, and other helpful links.

Ollie

I had an email today about a purebred Ragdoll kitty named Ollie. He is about a year old and is up-to-date on vaccines and is neutered. The owner does have his purebreed registration papers, so he must have come from a breeder.

If you click on the word “Ollie” above, it will open up the flyer about this boy. The owner wrote that he has “exhibited generalized anxiety syndrome, some aggression to petting, status aggression, and fear aggression.”  It sounds to me as if he is a dominate cat who is not getting enough attention.

Furthermore, Ollie “needs a loving home with no small children and other pets should be secure, large animals.” Probably Ollie is picking on other smaller animals and would not be suitable for little kids.

He also “will need lots of play time throughout the day and an owner who has time to work with him.”

I think Ollie just needs to be an only cat or he needs to be with a large dog who likes cats and will not be bullied.  I also think he needs someone to pay lots of attention to him. He is a gorgeous cat and probably has a gorgeous personality for the right person.

If you are interested in Ollie, the contact phone number is 937-309-9524.

Many of you may remember last May when we began working with a lady in Logan County who supposedly had 45 outside cats that needed fixed and re-homed. We have continued to work with that woman and I honestly think her estimate of 45 cats was very low. If I would have to guess, I would say we’ve probably helped fix nearly 100 cats. And we still are not done yet. She thinks there may be 10-15 more that she is having trouble catching at this point.

The latest batch to go in to be fixed were a mother cat and a litter of four kittens that I had coerced the woman into taking inside to care for. The woman has a male cat outside that routinely kills newborn kittens. I told her she could not let that happen to these babies and she agreed to take them and mom inside until they were old enough to fend for themselves.

A few weeks ago, I contacted the woman to see if the kittens were big enough to be fixed and if the mom had weaned them. Many, many of the cats in this woman’s colony have horrible bouts of upper respiratory infections–sometimes so bad that they die. The woman told me that all of the kittens were really ill and she was treating them with antibiotics. When I contacted her again two weeks ago, she thought they were well enough to go to our weekly clinic, but she told me that one of the kittens, who she had named Ruby, had almost died. Because of the upper respiratory infection she had survived, Ruby was tilting her head. The woman thought the head tilt was because the kitten had not received enough oxygen to her brain while she was ill. I told her that cats usually develop this tilt because of damage to their inner ears from infections or severe ear mite infestations that cause their equilibrium to be off and so they continually tilt their heads. 

When I picked up the kittens for clinic the following Wednesday morning, they all seemed very congested. I wasn’t sure if they were well enough for the surgeries, but I left them at the shelter for Carol and Dr. Amy to check over.

Later in the afternoon Dr. Amy called me. Two of the kittens had stopped breathing during their surgeries and she had to intubate them to bring them back. Dr. Amy was very concerned about the kitten named Ruby. She wasn’t sure if she would have a normal life, because it appeared that she only had one kidney. Additionally, she was having a very hard time breathing and Dr. Amy did not know if she would live through the night. She wanted to know if I wanted to euthanize the kitten. I told her that since the kitten was already waking up from her surgery that we’d give Ruby a chance. If Ruby got worse in the meantime, before I arrived to pick her up, or tested positive for feline leukemia/FIV, then it was okay to euthanize. 

When I got to the humane society to pick everyone up from clinic, Ruby was still alive, but breathing with very labored breaths. Dr. Amy asked me if I could keep Ruby and her brother, Stevey, for the next week to make sure they were going to live. Both kittens were in very poor shape and were struggling to breathe. I knew that they could not go back where they had come from, so I talked to Carol and we agreed to help these babies.

I put them in my spare bedroom with a vaporizer on them and began administering antibiotics and hefty doses of Lysine, since I believed they were probably suffering from both the herpes virus and a bacterial infection. The little boy, Stevey, who looks like a Maine Coon, also had a weepy eye.

Besides struggling to breathe, the kittens were also very frightened, not only of their new circumstances, but because of how rotten they felt. They had just endured major surgery and were gasping for breath. I suppose I would be terrified, too, in those circumstances. They cowered in terror in the back of the large dog crate I had placed them in. But even though they were very sick, they still ate like troopers and that gave me hope that they had a chance. 

They lived through the night and continued to get better. 

Because I had to be out of town for a few days, Carol took the kittens from me and continued on with their care. She asked me to stop over recently to see how much they had improved in just two weeks. She also wanted me to evaluate Ruby, who she thought was deaf. 

When I arrived at the shop where Carol was keeping the siblings, she demonstrated why she thought Ruby was deaf. Opening the door to the room where Ruby and Stevey were playing in a large dog crate, Carol advised me to creep in very quietly. Stevey instantly looked up when the door opened. Ruby continued to play, unaware of our approach until Carol reached out to touch her and she jumped. She had not heard us coming.

Carol said she had noticed Ruby’s deafness the very first morning she had her. She had walked into the room and Ruby had not responded. Carol rushed over thinking the kitten had died, but then saw Ruby’s sides moving with her ragged breathing. Ruby, however, had not noticed Carol. 

We tested Ruby further, making noises and watching for her responses. It does appear that this poor baby, with the tilted head who has survived so much, is deaf. 

The kittens are doing much better now, eating and playing. They are very bonded and we think they will need to be a team for the rest of their lives. They love to be petted and begin purring immediately, but they are not very sure about being picked up and held. We don’t think they were picked up much previously. Carol is working on that and they are coming around. 

Carol told me that it will take a very special person for these two, since they have a few things stacked against them. I assured her that with a bit more time and attention that I think they will be adoptable and someone with a big heart will want to give them a home.

I’ll keep you posted.

I received a thank you card in the mail featuring a chihuahua in a sombrero and the message “Muchas Gracias.” The dog on the front was adorable, but I was also intrigued to read the back of the card and find out that the pup “pin-up” was an “Underdog” named Maggie who had been in a shelter seeking a home. Maggie was the last of a litter that was left in a “cardboard box in a grocery store parking lot.”  Maggie’s “Special Power” was that she was a “Rottweiler wannabe and part time desperado.” The card continued, “If you need a fearless guard dog, she’s your hombre.”

The card, part of a line called Hooray for the Underdog!, was sent to me by a dear lady, Caroline, who knows a lot about rescued dogs needing a home. She adopted a formerly penned and heart worm positive dog named Maggie Moo (or just “The Moo”), who Bobbie, Dr. West, and I worked for months to help. So, of course, Caroline would be sending cards featuring other pets looking for a home.

Hooray for the Underdog! cards are made by husband and wife photographers, Janet Healey and Joe Grisham. The dogs and cats in the pictures are up for adoption in shelters or have been rescued and adopted. Ten percent of all proceeds from the card sales are donated to shelters and animal welfare organizations. The cards have been featured on Oprah as a “gift that gives back.”

The motto for Hooray for the Underdog! cards is: “Celebrate the power and spirit of rescued animals everywhere.” And the card line is defined by this: “Great stationary with exceptional images and inspiring profiles of pets that were abandoned and then given a second chance at life.”

Since I am somewhat of a “card junkie,” this may soon be my favorite place to visit online. But beyond cards, they also offer journals, notepads, prints, folders, place mats, and pet tags. A little bit of something for everyone–especially ME (I’m a journal junkie, too…sigh).

To see the Oprah story, go HERE.

To browse the line of cards, go HERE.