Cat Tales ~ Sassy

Ernie didn't handle the loss of her buddy very well.  She would sit at the door and cry.  I really, really wish she had cried like that the night Spooky broke out.  We might have realized he was missing in time to find him.  I kept thinking Ernie would settle down, but she didn't.   A few months after Spooky went missing, I impulsively stopped at the animal shelter and filled out an adoption application.  A few days later, I brought Sassy home. 

It so happened that Ernie was due for her annual physical the same week I brought Sassy home.  While at the vet with Ernie, I mentioned our new kitten, and that he must have allergies because he kept sneezing.  The vet told me to leave immediately and go get Sassy.  It turned out that Sassy had an upper respiratory infection and was severely dehydrated.  The vet told me that kittens as young as Sassy usually didn't survive this particular type of infection.  He warned me to keep Sassy away from Ernie for a couple days, until the antibiotics had a chance to work.  I had a pretty small apartment, but the closet was huge - bigger than the kitchen - and had a big, sunny window.  So Sassy lived in the closet for three days, and I spent most of my time in there, too, playing with him.

 
Sassy was a good boy.  My biggest issue with him was that he would not stop digging up my houseplants.  He dug out the roots, and when the plant would fall he'd drag it around the apartment until it fell apart.  I lost most of my plants the first few months I had Sassy, and I spent a fortune buying filters for my vacuum cleaner. Eventually I covered the remaining plants' soil with pea gravel, which Sassy did not enjoy digging up.  He also liked to knock over trash cans.  All the trash cans.  I ended up getting rid of the wastebasket in my bedroom, but had to put up with the mess he'd make in the kitchen and bathroom.  I didn't have a vanity or cupboard to hide them in, either.  I finally found a mini trash can with a snap on lid - a perfect replica of the garbage cans that go outside - and that kept Sassy out, so long as the lid was snapped tight.  The bathroom waste basket was always a problem. I considered it a small price to pay for such a sweet kitty.


Eventually we all moved to a pretty apartment on a high bank over the Mississippi sloughs.  About that time, Ernie went into overdrive defending her territory.  She had always been feisty, but suddenly she became an attack cat of sorts.  She sat on the steps inside our front door and God help anyone who came inside without me or my boyfriend for  an escort.  She literally attacked, leaping for the face and hanging on with all her might.  It's a wonder I didn't get sued.  Honestly, I warned people not to go in the house, and if you see the gray kitty, leave her alone.  Ernie was so pretty with her silvery fur and big eyes, nobody listened.  The attitude continued.  Eventually we were asked to find another vet, due to Ernie's, ahem, personality.  We moved out of the river apartment, and I bought my first house.  Walker and I ran into each other at a friend's wedding, and we've been together ever since. 

Walker never had pets before living with me and the kitties.  He did well with them, but he isn't in a hurry to adopt another fuzzy kid.  We lost Sassy to kidney failure a couple years ago, and of course, we lost Ernie this last January.  I was pretty devastated both times.  Walker isn't in a hurry to go through that again, either.


Walker would prefer a baby kitty, if we do get another one.  I'm leaning toward an older cat, one that has finished with the kitten chaos and just loves to curl up in a sunbeam or on a lap.  Walker is afraid we'd end up with a cat who has developed all kinds of bad habits. I think it's the luck of the draw, no matter what you do.  So: will we get another kitty?  Maybe. I want to wait at least until I can give up my second job.  I think one of the reasons Ernie was such a handful might be because I wasn't home enough. She was probably bored, and probably acted out for attention, just like a kid. Or maybe she was just a brat.


For now, we're considering volunteering at the local animal shelter.  That would give me my kitty fix, and we'd be doing something useful.  We'll see about signing up when we get back from Florida.

Cat Tales ~ Three Little Kittens

So here I was with Ernie and three newborn kittens, living in an apartment that did not allow pets.  I took care of those kittens, feeding them with the syringe every three or four hours.  I worked, I went to school.  I know one weekend, my sister and her husband were visiting at my mom's and they babysat the kitties for me while I was at work.  My mom helped me, too, when she wasn't working.  The rest of the time?  I have no idea. It's all a blur. I put the kitties in a box lined with towels, wiped them down morning and night with a damp wash cloth, fed them, cleaned them. I raced home on my lunch break to feed them.  The little orange guy, the one who got stuck, didn’t grow as fast as the other two.  When their eyes opened and his didn’t, the vet told me to wipe his eyes with saline until they opened.  His eyes were gray, no defined pupils, and the vet said he was blind.  He was three weeks old when he died.

About this time, my relationship started to fall apart.  Things had been heading south for a while, so when my boyfriend made noise about staying with some friends in another town, I helped him pack.  He wanted to take the little girl kitty, but I said no.  A couple days later, he came into my work during the lunch rush and told me, in front of my coworkers and customers, that he’d accidentally stepped on the girl kitty and she died.  I think he lied to me.  When I got home that night I asked him what he did with her body, and he said he couldn’t remember.  Not only that, but if he’d really hurt that kitty I know he would have been much more upset.  I’m pretty sure she went with him to his new place.  I hope he gave her a good life.

So that left me with Ernie and one more baby, a little boy with beautiful black fur and big green eyes.  I named my little guy Spooky. Eventually I moved to a bigger place.  The landlord there didn’t have a problem with kitties.  Spooky grew into a great big bear of a kitty.   I started a new job and a new relationship, and things were pretty sweet.  Spooky was about two years old, Ernie was four, I think, when we lost Spooky.  My sweetie and I were standing in the open doorway, talking, and somehow, Spooky got out of the apartment without our noticing.  I honestly do not know how he could walk right past us, but that's what must have happened.  My sweetie left, I went to bed, and in the morning, when Spooky wasn't waiting at his food bowl for breakfast, I knew something was wrong.  I searched not only my apartment but the rest of the house, too.  We lived in a big Victorian home that had been divided into six apartments, and there was a back hall that nobody used, along with a dusty old attic and an empty basement.  He was nowhere to be found.  What baffles me still is that not only would Spooky have had to get by both of us at the door to my apartment, but he also would have had to get out of the big, heavy door at the bottom of the stairs.  None of my neighbors fessed up to letting him out.  I doubt they would lie to me, so they must not have seen him.  Being all black, if they didn't turn the lights on in the hall, I guess it could happen.  I ran ads in the paper, searched the neighborhood, called the pound and all the vet clinics, but I never found my Spooky.  

Come back tomorrow to meet Sassy ~

Cat Tales ~ Bert

One night I was walking home past a gas station when I saw some teenage boys chunking rocks into the bushes.  I got closer, and realized that hiding under the bushes was a terrified little tiger kitty.  I do not have words to describe how angry I was.  I ran the boys off, coaxed the kitty out, and carried her up to my not-pet-friendly apartment.  Since I didn’t know anything about her, and since my apartment was just one big room, I had to put her in the bathroom to keep her separate from Ernie until I could have her checked out.  In the bright lights of the bathroom, I could see she was as many weeks pregnant as a kitty would be a week before having babies. 

My boyfriend was not thrilled. He had been around animals much more than I had and knew that a litter of kittens was more than we could handle.  And by “we”, I mean “I”, because his job kept him traveling three weeks out of every month. We called the new kitty Bert and set about trying to find her owner.  We were unsuccessful. The vet told us to put out rags, a large box, old towels, etc, and Bert would make a nest for the kittens.  We did, but she didn’t.  I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but I figured she’s do it when she was ready.  Bert went into labor a week later.  I sat up with her most of the night, waiting for kitties.  I think I made her uncomfortable, because she kept moving to new spots around the apartment.  Finally, I went to bed so Bert could have some privacy.  In the morning, it took me a long time to find Bert.  She was still pregnant, and she wasn’t acting normal.  I called the vet.  It took some doing to convince the vet that, yes, I know I’ve never seen a cat in labor before but this one was in labor, yes I am sure, and will you PLEASE just let me bring her in?  Finally the vet agreed to see us. Ten minutes later, we were at the clinic.  Yes, Bert was in labor, but the vet could not get any signs of fetal movement on her fancy machines.  She told me the kittens had likely died.  Bert was much too small to be pregnant.  The vet was very kind, but I still felt like I had done something wrong.  I knew in my head it wasn’t my fault but my heart about broke.  The vet gently explained that the dead kittens needed to come out or Bert would get an infection that would likely kill her.  I don’t remember what I asked her, but her answer was, “They do not come out intact.”  Well, that was more than I could handle.  I told the vet she had to do a “little kitty c-section” unless she was absolutely, 100% sure those kittens had died.  The vet thought I was nuts, but I think because I was so upset she agreed.  I went to work, and Bert went to surgery.

Two hours later, the vet called: two boys and a girl.  Alive. 

 

The first kitty Bert tried to deliver naturally was the biggest, and he got stuck.  The vet warned me that being stuck like that had likely caused him some damage, and that he might not survive.  She also told me that Bert woke up from surgery and didn’t seem to understand that these kitties nursing on her were hers.  She kept trying to nudge them away from her.  The vet told me they wanted to sedate Bert, so the kitties would be able to nurse. She thought that after a good sleep Bert would feel better and be able to mother her kittens.  She gave me a can of kitten formula and a syringe, just in case, then she gave Bert the sedation.  Sadly, it was all too much for little Bert.  She died in the car on the way home.  I wonder if Bert knew, somehow, that she was dying.  If she had not pushed the babies away, I would not have had the formula to feed them.  She saved them by not taking care of them.


Tomorrow, I'll tell you about the babies ~

Cat Tales ~ Ernie

A while back DD asked if we’re getting a kitten.  The short answer is, maybe at some point but not right away.  The long answer is more complicated. I started thinking about all the "stuff" I've gone through with my kitties and I'm not sure I have it in me to go through all that again.  Normal people go to the pound or the pet store and pick out a cute little fur ball, take it home, and love it for fifteen or twenty years.  My kitty chronicles are a bit more dramatic.  Sitting here, writing this out, the story got pretty long.  I broke it down so y'all wouldn't be nodding off before we got to the end. 

Ernie was my first kitten.  I got her for my 21^st birthday, a gift from my then-boyfriend.  I was not, technically, allowed to have pets in the apartment I lived it.  Okay, technically, I was not supposed to be living in the apartment I was living in.  Two of my besties took me in after a very bad fight with my mother (my fault).  I crashed on their couch for three months, but I never went back to my mom’s to live.  My roommates had a kitten already, a pretty gray and white girl named Sophie.  They didn’t mind me bringing home another kitty, so long as we called it Ernie, after a Bette Midler bit they were both partial to.  So that’s what we did.

 

Sophie was not thrilled with the new addition to the family and batted Ernie around like a stuffed mouse.  For Ernie’s safety, I kept her crated when I was at work.  At night, she slept with me on the sofa.  When I was home, she had the run of the place, but I made sure to keep a close eye when Sophie was in the room.  Ernie was just a baby when I got my own apartment.  I wasn’t allowed pets at that place, either, but I figured I wouldn’t be there long.  The landlord had offices in Minneapolis, hours away, so I knew we wouldn’t see much of him.  In fact, in three years I never once saw him.  

At that point, I worked as a waitress in a diner that served breakfast and lunch.  I often left the house at 4 or 5 am.  And I often came home to a mess.  Ernie would shred toilet paper, dig up house plants, climb curtains…..my boyfriend was the type to send flowers, which Ernie regarded as a salad bar.  She ate pretty much any flower, but roses were her favorite.  It didn’t matter where I put them.  She’d knock the vase over, spilling all the water, and munch away.  The most interesting Ernie habit started when she was about six months old.  She would jump up onto my dresser, bat at the drawer handle until she got it open, and flick all my underwear onto the floor.  She loved to chew the elastic out.  Seriously, peeps, I took this picture of her tossing my skivvies. During that time I took classes at the community college, too, and I can remember coming home dog tired only to find the apartment trashed and Ernie stuck at the top of a drapery rod, yowling her fool head off.  It was a miracle that we didn't get booted out of that apartment.

Come back tomorrow to meet Bert ~