Cat saved new owner's life hours after being adopted

A Sturgeon Bay woman has a lot to be thankful for after her newly adopted cat woke her from an insulin reaction just hours after bringing him home. Amy Jung and her son, Ethan Jung, originally went to the Door County Humane Society on Feb. 8 to play with the cats, not to bring one home. Then Jung, 36, saw Pudding lying on a counter. She made a quick decision to adopt Pudding and his pal Wimsy.

When the Jungs arrived home, the 21-pound, orange-and-white Pudding made himself right at home, acting as if he had always been there. "He just really took right over. Really second nature," she said. At around 9:30 p.m., she went to bed and about 1½ hours later, the prodigious kitty came to her rescue. Jung, who was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 4, started to have a seizure. According to Jung, Pudding planted his weight on her chest and, when he could not wake her, began swatting her face and biting her nose.



"Anything he could to pull me out of it (the seizure)," she said. It worked. She woke up and the convulsions stopped long enough for her to call to her son for help. When Ethan did not respond to the calls, the cat ran to his room and jumped on his bed. Ethan later told her that he didn't know anything was wrong until the giant cat landing on the bed woke him up. Jung is convinced that she would not have survived the night if Pudding had not intervened.

"If something or someone hadn't pulled me out of that, I wouldn't be here," she said. The next day she spoke with her doctor about her seizure and her cat's unusual actions. The doctor told her he had heard of animals alerting their owners to a health crisis but had never known anyone who had experienced it. "Realistically you can't be without him," he told her. Jung is registering Pudding as a therapy animal. Pudding will also sit at her feet and meow when her blood sugar is low, she said.