Hero Pets: The Lifesaving Kitty

When Amy Jung, 36, and her son, Ethan, eight, visited the Door County Humane Society in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin last February, they had no idea that one of the frolicking cats would, within hours, save Amy’s life.

Mother and son weren’t looking for a new pet, but Pudding, an old orange Maine coon mix “owned me the minute our eyes met,” Amy says.

Photo courtesy of Carrie Counihan

That night, the trio went to bed around 9:30 p.m. Ninety minutes later, Amy, a type 1 diabetic, not realizing her blood sugar had been plummeting, began to convulse. As tremors shook her body, she felt something heavy and warm on her chest. It was Pudding. The cat mewed loudly, swatting Amy’s face with soft paws and biting her nose. Pudding’s prodding alerted Amy to the extent of the danger she was in.

“Ethan,” she cried out weakly. Pudding scampered to the boy’s room, jumped onto the bed, and woke him up. The boy ran to his mother’s room and called his father, Matthew, 35, who was away on a business trip. Matthew gave Ethan instructions for injecting his mother with medication; soon Amy recovered. She credits her courageous son and quick-witted cat for saving her life. “Somehow Pudding learned Ethan’s name within hours of coming home with us,” Amy says.

These days, Pudding mostly sleeps, eats, and lazes around the house. But when he somehow senses that Amy’s blood sugar is low, he springs into action, meowing loudly and parking himself stubbornly at her feet until she takes her medicine. Amy sums up the adopted cat simply: “Pudding is amazing.”