Carol Novello - Mutual Rescue: How Adopting a Homeless Animal Can Save You, Too

F rom my office at Humane Society Silicon Valley, I look out on a small plot of land dotted with bushes that we call the Community Cat Garden. Inside the fenced space, undomesticated cats, or Carols Ferals, as my co-workers call them, live until we can find safe homes for them in a barn or garden nursery. These creatures tend to hole up in their condos, like Floridian retirees, emerging predictably at dusk, when their dark profiles are hard to distinguish from the lengthening shadows. My German shepherd rescue, Tess, and I often stare out the window, both hoping to catch a glimpse of one of these reclusive creatures that exist in the netherworld between the average coddled housecat and their large, predatory ancestors who are sometimes sighted in the nearby California hills. The untamed cats Garbo-esque nature (they vant to be left alone) is fascinating partly because it stands in stark contrast to most of the pets Ive had over the years, who craved my company and care. But they bring to mind another feline from my long-ago past, whose appearance was formative and set the stage for some of the most meaningful decisions Ive ever made.

It was the holidays, and my parents and I were shopping at a Christmas tree farm near our home in the Philadelphia suburbs. I was five. The frigid air, alive with the scent of spruce and the tingly anticipation of the season, heightened my sense of purpose: I would find our family the perfect tree. I was eyeing a promising specimen when a slinky shape emerged from beneath its branches. A cat! He walked up to me, and when I knelt down to pet him, his pale amber fur felt like flimsy protection from the cold. He head-butted my knee and began to purr. Why is he here? I asked my mom, already smitten. Do you think he has a home? If hes on his own, can we keep him? Please???

Ill find out, she said. As I watched her walk away to talk to the farms owner, my heart was caught in a tug-of-war between hope and disappointment. Based on my five years of experience, the latter appeared far more likely. In our family constellation, my dad and I rotated easily in the same orbit, but my mother always seemed more remote and unreachable. I understood that she loved me in her own way, but it didnt feel the same as it did with my father, whose companionship was like a cozy fire. Warm. Welcoming. Safe. And thats one reason this moment remains firmly rooted in my memory. When my mom returned, she was smiling. Someone dumped the cat here, so we can keep him, she announced. I was thrilledand dumbstruck. My mother had said yes. More than that, she felt the same tenderness toward this stray that I did. Animals were the crack in her shield that allowed a glimmer of love to break througha space that enabled her to feel and express love. And, now, miraculously, here she was, after we chose a tree, saying, Well, come on, Carol, lets get the cat in the car before he freezes to death. For the first time in my young life, I sensed that we might be able to connect. Animals might bridge the divide.

Together, we went to the supermarket and bought our new family member a flounder, which we gift-wrapped and placed under the tree on Christmas morning. All three of us laughed as we watched Nicholas Quattromano (named after St. Nicholas and four hands in Italian, a nod to my fathers heritage) sniff out his present and shred the paper to uncoverand devourthe fish. Not surprisingly, his rescue ignited my passion for adopting homeless creatures. Rescuing Nick, as we called him, created a way for my mom and me to share the same world. It didnt fix our relationship. But it allowed me to glimpse her softer, more kindhearted side and revealed that we shared something in common.

Even though Nicks initial tentative friendliness turned out to be a calculated gambit to get us to bring him in from the coldthereafter, he spent the majority of his time atop the refrigerator, safely out of reach of my grasping, cuddling armsI felt happy that he had a safe home, that he was ours, and that he could depend on us. The seed of my passion for rescuing homeless animals was planted.

Nick was the first of many strays we welcomed into our home over the coming years. His rescue laid the initial stone in my meandering path that led from Harvard Business School to a decade with high-tech software producer Intuitwhich set off a search for greater meaning and eventually steered me toward the work I do today as president of our bustling shelter in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Given my lifelong love of animals, accepting the job at Humane Society Silicon Valley was, in my mind, a