“Laws can’t change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.” ~ Martin Luther King

After college, I moved from Madison, Wisconsin, where I was born, to New Orleans, Louisiana. Just before leaving, my boyfriend’s family cat disappeared and we visited the Madison animal shelter to see if she had been turned in. There I saw a beautiful young silver Persian male who was about to be euthanized. I promised to come back to get him. The next day, with my mother off on a trip, I took him to her house, where he promptly used her living room shag carpeting as a litter box.

At the time, it cost $4 to adopt a cat and the shelter had an arrangement with local vets for a health visit. One could return the cat if he was sick. So I took him to a vet who pronounced him “probably with a…