On February 8, Amy Jung and her 7-year-old son Ethan walked into the Door County Humane Society so that Ethan could play with the cats. Ethan wants to be a veterinarian, so playing with cats is work as well as fun for him.
Amy and Ethan had no intention of bringing anyone home that day, but something happened when she met Pudding. "I was filling out some paperwork," she told me, "and while I was doing this - he's just a really big cat - he's laying across the counter and he's looking up at me like, 'Are you going to pet me or what?' and I kind of rubbed his head a little bit and went back to writing and he took his paw and just put it on my hand, and it was all over."
Pudding is a cat who gets what he wants, and this particular act of boldness got him a brand-new home along with his friend Wimsy, who doesn't really figure all that much in this story, which is fine because (according to Amy) she doesn't really want the spotlight anyway. Wimsy is more than happy just to follow Pudding around: "She goes where he goes," says Amy.
Pudding immediately made himself at home. "I went to bed and he jumped on the bed next to me and he just laid there and stared at me, which I thought was weird for a cat that you've just brought home." But that was just the beginning. At around 11 that night Amy began to have a diabetic seizure in her sleep, and if it hadn't been for Pudding's quick thinking and decisive action she might not have survived the night.
I woke up to this thud on my chest and I'm trying to move and i can't do anything. And he's batting my face. Then, he bit my nose and I managed to get up. The cat looked at me like, "I've got this under control," and he went running. Then I heard Ethan yell, and he had pounced on him from the floor.
Pudding had woken his new owner up for just long enough that she could call for her son, and when Ethan didn't hear her calls, Pudding made sure that he woke up too, using one of the most effective weapons that any large cat who wants attention has at his disposal - the pouncing method.
When I asked Amy whether this was normal nighttime behavior for Pudding, she laughed: "The cat snores. He just sleeps at the foot of my bed and that's it." But that changes any time her blood sugar drops.
When my blood sugar drops when I'm awake, he will sit at my feet and he will yell. if it drops one point below 76 he will sit and scream. I know his former owner passed away which is how he ended up back in the shelter. I don't know if this is familiar to him, but he drops into it like this is normal for him.
And since putting up Pudding's Facebook page, Amy's been contacted by a lot of people who say their cats do the same thing. Pudding isn't even the first cat who's protected Amy in this way - when she was young, she had a cat who would bite her feet whenever her blood sugar dropped. There are, after all, numerous organizations (such as Dogs4Diabetics) that train dogs to detect low blood sugar, so it's perhaps not such a strange thing that the occasional cat might be willing to perform the service as well. At any rate, Pudding has now been registered as an official service animal, which means he can legally go to bars (I think? I feel like you should be able to take your service animal into a bar with you) as well as saving his owner's life and just generally coming to the rescue like the badass that he is.
Amy was also good enough to provide a Review of My Cat of Pudding according to the four official rating criteria for cats, so here's that:
Appearance: A
"I think he's a beautiful boy so I give him an A on that one. Just look at that picture of him sniffing flowers."
Sociability: C
"I'd give him a C here because he's not a real social cat. He's very laid back: 'You stay in your space I'll stay in mine.' Normally, I get the snuggly type cats, but he is not at all snuggly."
Usefuleness: A
"Um, yeah definitely."
Huggability: A
"He gets an A for huggability if you can catch him."
Overall Grade: B+ A++
[Upgraded to an A++ because HE IS A HERO AND HE SAVED HIS OWNER'S LIFE.]
And Here's The Story That Started It All, By Samantha Hernandez Of The Door County Advocate
doorcountyadvocate.com