When Beth Stern needed to get in touch with her foster cat Yoda’s feelings, she turned to a “pet communicator” who told her that her sad, matted rescue was depressed.
The puffy white Persian, who joined Beth and her husband, Howard’s, family last spring, had been sitting in a cage at the North Shore Animal League America in Port Washington, L.I., months before Beth, an avid animal activist and fanatic foster-kitten mom, laid eyes on him.
“That day my intention was, let me find a really tough-luck case, let me grab a really pitiful guy,” Stern tells the Daily News. “And I see this cat, skinny … you could see his bones, and shaved, because he was never brushed and had poop matted in his hair. He was sitting at the back of his cage, staring at his litter box. I’d never seen a more pitiful creature.”
So she scooped him up and took him home. Howard, who calls his house “Catnado” during kitten season — the couple fosters handfuls of them in spring and summer — took a liking to the skinny, sad cat and gave him his name, which Beth says was for the feline’s facial resemblance to the wise “Star Wars” Jedi master.
To making matters worse, the duo soon discovered Yoda had a heart problem. The vets said it was the equivalent of a human needing a heart transplant, and the little kitty was given just a few months to live. The couple had already fallen in love and immediately made preparations to keep Yoda for whatever time he had left, so he could live out his final days comfortably as a Stern.
“He was depressed. I think he was giving up,” Beth says. “But about a week after he was with us, I took in a new litter of kittens, and things began to change. I always wait a few days for my adult adopted cats (six in total — Apple, Walter, Leon Bear, Charlie Boy, Bella and Yoda) to meet the fosters, because they can have kitty colds. So a few days in I said, ‘Yoda, come with me.’ “
What happened next brought Beth — and even her shock-jock husband — to tears.
“Yoda came to life. He began grooming them twice a day, made sure they ate, led them to their food. He finds them if they escape the foster room, goes up on his hind legs and shimmies them back in. He has a whole routine,” Beth says, describing the cat’s newfound herding ability. “While this is going on, his hair starts growing, he’s thriving, and he doesn’t want to leave the foster room. There is something magical about him.”
After months of successfully fostering litters of kittens, Yoda looked like a cat in a commercial — fluffy, clean and a newly minted Instagram “rock star.” And, in a mysterious turn of events that neither Beth nor her veterinarian could explain, Yoda’s heart began to heal.
“On each of his vet visits, it got stronger and stronger. The heart of his original EKG is not at all what it is now,” Beth says. “He’s better and totally off the meds for his heart. It’s proof that love and purpose can heal.”
One night in August, Beth says, while talking about Yoda’s life with Howard, she got the idea to write a children’s book about their new furry friend. “Yoda: The Story of a Cat and his Kittens” will be released Tuesday, with 100% of the proceeds benefiting Bianca’s Furry Friends, a 15,000-square-foot, cage-free addition to NSALA. The facility is named for the Sterns’ beloved bulldog, Bianca, whose death in 2012 from heart attack left the couple heartbroken.
But there’s one final twist of fate in Yoda and Beth’s story. The pet communicator who told her that Yoda was depressed revealed something else — that Yoda was a gift from the dearly departed dog.
“Yoda is all white and has a smushed face like Bianca,” says Beth, noting that Bianca died two years ago and Yoda is 2 years old. “She said, ‘It’s no coincidence. Look at him as a ‘kiss from Bianca.’ “
mgarvey@nydailynews.com
