A gift of the heart.

Yesterday we came close to losing a member of our family, our cat, Katie.

She had been outside and when my son noticed she wanted to come inside he let her in. That's when he noticed she had one leg caught up in her collar, he and his sister got the collar off. They said she looked distressed so my daughter took her into her bedroom so she could keep an eye on her. She noticed that she was panting and that her tongue was bright red and got onto the computer to Google those symptoms, she found out she was suffering heat stroke. They ran the bath and tried putting her into it, only succeeding in getting her paws wet, before calling my Mother to come over. Mum once ran a pet shop so knows a bit about animals and told them that they did the right thing.

By the time I got home from work the cat was fine, at one stage she took a little swipe at me as I passed her by. But she seemed a little subdued, my cat is usually a little bitchy, she slept by my head last night and then today she happily sat on my daughter's lap - usually she shows contempt for my daughter and will not stay on her lap at all without scratching and or biting to get away.

Just now I heard her making strange noises and ran to investigate, she had bought a mouse in and was calling us to come. She knows she is not allowed to bring them inside and usually sneaks in or races past us in the hope we won't notice that she has something in her mouth. But this time it was as if she was bringing us a gift. We let her outside, I praised and patted her. She had dropped the mouse in the grass and even pointed it out for me. She's still calling us to come outside to get our gift.