From Newsday:
Gayle Knowlton, 49, of Tucson, Ariz., trained her first service cat more than a decade ago. Her most current one is Pushette Pudie - named for her less-than-shy demeanor - who Knowlton rescued at four days old from a drainage ditch during a downpour.
“I suffer from severe anxiety and panic attacks, and I have seizures because of it,” explains Knowlton, who didn’t want a service dog because, at the time, she was a vendor at cat shows, and the species shock would have been too much for her customers. When Pushette detects an impending seizure, “she becomes extremely guarded and won’t let anyone near us, and she strokes my face and gets me to focus directly on her.” This can often avert a seizure, Knowlton adds, because the interaction lowers her blood pressure.