back to Panzer's Journey

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Homeless, hurt, or otherwise in need, felines gets some TLC and healing treatment.

By Jon Anderson

Tribune staff reporter

“Come here, sweetheart,” says Marijon Binder, easing a large, reddish tabby cat out of a cage on the second floor of a big clapboard house on a tree-lined street  in a Chicago neighborhood.

If cats could talk, Panzer would have a tale to tell.

Swirling waters. His owners fleeing on a helicopter. A brother cat drowned. Two months on his own, foraging for food.

Now, five months after he was caught up in the chaos of hurricane Katrina, panzer is safe – and on his way to being sound – under the care of Touched by an Animal, Inc.

“He’s such a sweet cat. He deserves our help. They do too,” sister Marijon says.

She was referring both to Panzer, whose weight is back up to 17 pounds, and to the Gribanov family of New Orleans. In late October, they called her not-for-profit organization, Cats-Are-Purrsons-Too, a home for felines in trouble.

“We went back to find him. He was standing by our front door. We can’t walk away from him again,” Jade Gribanov explained on the answering machine tape. She was telling how her husband Mike had returned to New Orleans days before – and found Panzer waiting outside their ruined home.

Before the storm hit, she said, the couple’s six children had been evacuated to stay with relatives in Texas.

The parents remained behind with the family’s four cats and a dog. The waters rose. They fled to an upper floor. They opened all the dog and cat food they can find. Then, in chaos, they left aboard a rescue helicopter, ending up with other relatives in a crowded home in Hammond, Ind.

The dog survived. One cat drowned. Two cats are still missing.

Panzer was one sorry looking animal.

He had back sores, from a parasite that has shown up on many Gulf Coast animals caught up in the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And the Hammond relatives weren’t up to adding a pet to the bulging household.

“I’ve spent two days calling shelters,” Jade Gribanov moaned on the answering machine, “None of them will take him – until we get settled – and then give him back to us. If you have a space, please, please call us back.”

Marijon, of course, did.

“It takes a lot of time and effort to rehabilitate an animal,” says Gene Mueller, a licensed veterinarian and president of the Anti-Cruelty Society of Chicago. “The care she has given this cat is wonderful.”

It’s also been costly. Sister Marijon’s organization has paid about $1,200 so far for vet visits and antibiotics, creams, and baths recommended by a consulting veterinarian, Cecilia Friberg of Animal Dermatology Center of Chicago. But it is part of a mission she describes on her group’s Web site, www.touchedbyananimal.org.

Animals teach us how to love, she suggests. We should return the favor.

And Panzer now purrs, she reports happily, especially when the top of his head is scratched.

janderson@tribune.com