Perfect Love from Imperfect Pets

For purebred dogs and cats, the definition of perfect often hinges on how closely the pet meets the standard of that breed. How the ears lay, how long the body is, the length of the tail, the animal's carriage - all these things conform to a standard of what a breed of dog or cat is expected to look like. Their beauty is measurable.

But ask any pet parent, no matter whether they own a pure breed or pure mutt, and they will likely tell you their "fur child" is absolutely perfect to them. The perfection is often in the unconditional love that pets give their owners.

Beauty seems to, indeed, be in the eye of the beholder. It's a good thing, too, because very few of us, whether we walk on two or four legs, are without flaws of some kind.

Take Diana. She's a loving and lively 10-week-old kitten who was dumped in a stranger's backyard when she was about 2months old. Whoever dumped her didn't look too hard because the yard they dropped her in belonged to a good dog who had a bad habit of killing cats. A woman rescued her and soon Diana ended up at the no-kill shelter run by LifeLine Animal Project because no other shelter would take her.

Diana is just like other kittens her age, except for a curious and interesting malformation.

Curious because the rescuers at LifeLine had never seen a cat with quite the kind of bottom lip and jaw that Diana has. It's almost like part of her lip is missing or her jaw is too wide. Interesting, because it often makes her look like she's smiling, ala the Cheshire Cat from "Alice in Wonderland."

It's not a big problem but it's a unusual one. The jaw was not infected as far as the vet could tell, unless it's a deep-seated abscess, which she's so far shown no signs of having. It could be that she was shot with a pellet gun, which the rescuers have seen before, and there's some shrapnel in there somewhere.

It could also be, as Lady Gaga sings, that she was just "Born This Way."

One thing is for sure, however.

"She's definitely as sweet as she can be," said Mickie Blair, LifeLine's cat adoption counselor.

"She eats really well, " Blair continued, "The lip problem only seems to affect her when she grooms herself. The hair gets caught in her bottom teeth, so we have to clean the hair out of her teeth."

Blair reports that Diana is healthy and has been tested for various common cat diseases and all the tests came back negative.

"I'm just afraid that this otherwise perfect kitten will get overlooked for adoption because of this," Blair said. "That's really not fair. She's growing into such a lovely cat."

LifeLine is also taking donations for Diana in order to get X-rays from specialists who can look further too see if something happened to this young cat or if she has a simple birth defect.

"We always like to give pet foster and adoptive families as much information as we can," Blair said.

Diana is up for adoption or foster from Lifeline. The rescue will supply food and medical care when a pet is fostered in your home, and often crates or anything else you need.

"Diana is perfect for somebody," Blair said.

If you think this cute tabby kitten might be perfect for your home and family, please contact mblair@atlantapets.org