'Listen to your animals'

The little three-legged Moose scampering across the floor couldn’t be more 
different from the terrified cat who hid for a week when he first arrived at his 
new home.

“He was in a bad way when he got here – terrified,” owner, Carol Watson, who adopted him in 2017, recalls.

Moose had been hit by a car and left at a vet’s when he was about two years old. His left hind leg was amputated and he spent a long time in rehabilitation at Blue Cross Thirsk, in North Yorkshire.

Understandably, he was extremely nervous. 

But with Carol’s gentle encouragement – progressing later to daily tuna, cuddles and even morning massages – Moose’s confidence started to grow.

“He started to get closer and trust me,” Carol, who had initially only planned to foster Moose before adopting him, explains.

“Bit by bit he started coming out of his shell.”

She continues: “From then on, he’s just been a sweetheart. He’s a real character. You feel utterly privileged that you’re in his orbit. He’s a survivor, but he’s also a bit soppy.”

Their bond has gone from strength to strength.

A few years ago, as Carol sat processing news of her uncle’s death, a tear ran down her cheek. Moose was suddenly by her side.

“He licked the tear off my cheek,” she remembers. “He’s in tune with stuff.”

But nothing quite prepared her for a day in May last year, when Moose flew across the room to claw at her breast – totally out of character for the sweet and gentle boy.

Carol forgot about it until the area became painful, which she first put down to a possible infection.

But following a routine mammogram soon after, she came home one evening to a letter.

Normally Carol would have left reading it until morning, but Moose’s odd behaviour made her open it there and then.

An abnormality had been found and she was due at hospital the next morning for further tests.

A biopsy was taken from the exact same spot that Moose clawed her, and she was soon diagnosed with breast cancer.

Carol says: “Without Moose, I wouldn’t have opened that letter, so I’d have missed that appointment.

“I would have got treatment, I would have had surgery, but not as fast. And it was a fast-growing cancer. I’m eternally grateful. He’s not behaved like that before or since.

“Listen to your animals. They’ve got skills we do not understand, and they should be respected.”

Moose has since been a fantastic support to Carol while she receives chemotherapy, cuddling up to her each evening.

She adds: “I’ve rescued him, but he’s rescued me. They rescue you, without you realising you needed it.”