I know that most husbands believe their wife is the best there is (or at least they should believe that!), but for me it’s pretty much true. That she loves me deeply is obvious, and I am blessed to have her in my life. Besides caring for me, she spends her minutes and days thinking about and caring for animals, dogs and cats in particular.  We long ago lost count of how many she has helped, and to list everything she does would take me a long time, but I’ll list a few here. Why do this? Well, this blog is for me and more than likely no one else will ever read it. But my “job”, as Amy’s husband, is to love her above all else. As we all know, marriage is work, and part of that work is continuously reminding myself just how blessed I am to have a partner in life like Amy.

Every day, Amy cares for our 7 dogs and 10 cats by feeding them twice, scooping litter at least twice, and continuously talking and singing and loving them. They are spoiled much more than most people in the world, and it truly shows. They love it and we have wonderful companions in our home as a result.

Every day, Amy also goes into our garage where she currently has 18 foster cats. She feeds them, scoops litter, and of course talks and sings and loves them warmly. Even living in the garage, they are also spoiled more than most people. One of them has a broken front left with a cast, so she patiently lifts him into a freshly-cleaned litter box, lays him down, waits for him to do his business, then she cleans him off and holds him for a while before continuing her cleaning and caring.

Every day, Amy screens people that contact her wanting to adopt one of the foster cats. She turns away those undeserving of the privilege (“I want the cat to live outside only,” or “I will mutilate… I mean declaw… to save my furniture.”). Too often the potential adopters themselves fall through when they get down to the adoption stage (“I wanted a kitten, but this cat is already 8 months old,” or “I wanted an all black cat, and this one has 5 white hairs on it’s underside!”… true stories). As Amy works so hard to locate a safe new home for the foster cats, shrugging off each adoption that falls through and continuing the search gets tough to do.

Every week, sometimes a few times per week, Amy goes up to the Humane Society of Southeast Texas and photographs all the new dogs and cats that have come in during the week. This is no easy task, photographing nervous, energetic, sometimes sad animals that have often been dumped by their prior owners. She wants to bring most of the home, but she sets aside this strong urge (usually 🙂 ) and dutifully photographs and jots a note about their history. Then she comes home and uploads this information to PetFinder (using a painfully slow server on their end) so that these animals can find a new family to care for them.

Every week, Amy travels to the Vidor Animal Control and rescues as many dogs (and sometimes cats) as she can. She drives those animals back to Beaumont and gives them to me before my drive to Houston to pick up Peter. In Houston, a rescue organization meets me before taking the dogs for grooming, shots, a vet visit, then adoption events at PetSmart so they may also find a new family.

Most days, Amy scours our community website (southeasttexas.com) looking for dogs and cats that seem to be in a dangerous situation (and so need rescuing) or for owners who have lost a pet. She helps everyone she can.

Amy runs the feral cat program within the Humane Society. This amounts to several phone calls every day, even early in the morning or late at night, from people that have contacted the Humane Society for help regarding one or more feral cats. The Humane Society passes Amy’s name and number on, and Amy screens each and every one of these. Those who truly need assistance (and most do) are mailed certificates for free spays or neuters at the Humane Society. Amy’s job is tedious and amounts to secretarial work, but she happily and voluntarily does this job as yet another way to help the animals around us.

Once a month, Amy joins the Humane Society at PetSmart, volunteering her time at adoption events to help get one pet at a time find a new home.

Occasionally, Amy fills in for a regular person on the local TV network news segment called Pet of the Week. Bascially she selects one or two dogs or cats in need of a home and she talks about them for a few minutes live on the evening news.

Very often Amy can be found cleaning cages and walking dogs at the Humane Society. Once while we were driving down Calder Avenue (a very busy street) on our way to a formal dinner, she spotted a mother dog and her puppy dodging traffic. She screamed for me to pull over, and the car was still rolling as she jumped out in her formal gown and high heals, yelled at oncoming traffic to stop and chased after the dogs. When she couldn’t catch them, we drove around a few blocks looking for them. Although we could not find them, I have little doubt that she drove around there for days to come (and asked all of her friends to do the same!!) looking for those dogs.

Once, I was telling my son a story about Amy saving a dog or a cat. He cut me off and yelled, “Super Amy!” He equates Amy to a superhero. Is there any doubt?