By Sharon Sheridan
When first rescued on a cold fall night, Sneakers looked like a chipmunk. But the allergies of his rescuer’s family, if nothing else, soon proved he was a kitten.
So a co-worker, Morristown writer and photographer Kristin Elliott, brought him home and raised him – except he didn’t grow as planned.
“He just continued looking like a kitten longer than he should have,” Elliott recalled. “After about a year, the vet looked at me. He said, ‘I think this cat is a munchkin.’”
Munchkin cats are born with abnormally short legs. “It’s kind of comedic to look at,” Elliott said. But it also proves a challenge out in the wild – trying to catch prey or escape predators – or in a home. “In a house, he couldn’t jump up to a windowsill.”
Still, “nothing got in his way,” Elliott said. “He was very determined. … Did he know he was different? No.”
A year after Sneakers’ death at age 8, Elliott has published a book about her “dwarf cat” and the lessons he taught as he creatively overcame obstacles – such as adopting a criss-cross walk to navigate stairs – that his leggier feline cousins never encounter.
“I don’t use terms like disabled, handicapped. Those words are not in the book,” Elliott said. “I called him my special-needs cat. He was special in my heart. Everybody loved him.”
Including the handyman, who called him his buddy and placed him on the kitchen counter while he worked. “Sneakers loved being up high,” Elliott recounted. “He was the kind of cat that people wanted to help. He had a very, very big personality for such a little guy.”
Elliott’s book, In Sneakers: The munchkin cat whose every day was an adventure, comes in a regular size for $13 and a “munchkin” version with pages the size of a business card for $5.
“The kids really like this little book, which they can put into a hand or into a pocket,” the author said. “They respond to little kitties, and they respond to little books.”
Part of the proceeds benefits St. Hubert’s Animal Shelter in Madison, where Elliott teaches humane-education classes for children. This summer, she’ll teach a class based on the book during the shelter’s Critter Camp that will include visits from some other special-needs kitties.
“It’s important for children to learn how to empathize and how to put themselves in the mind and the hearts, if you will, of others, whether it’s someone who’s of a different color sin or someone who’s just of a different size or someone who is ill, perhaps suffering from some disease, or perhaps someone who is physically challenged,” Elliott said. “Kids need to learn how to feel like what that could feel like.”
Elliott will read and sign copies of her book Friday from 9-11 a.m. at the Morris Animal Inn. She also will hold a book signing Saturday from noon-1 p.m. at Mendham Books. The book is sold at Sages Pages in Madison and th Madison Grooming and Pet Supply Center.
The book “was my way of dealing with [Sneakers’] legacy,” said Elliott, noting that she’s still “a cat woman.”
A month or so after Sneakers died, she discovered a litter of kittens under her deck and called St. Hubert’s for assistance. “Guess who is the proud mother of two of those wild little kittens?”
