We have nine cats. Yes, you read that correctly. Nine. Ten if you count Mika, who is a dog, but who acts like a cat. We never set out to have nine cats, but they needed us. The number is not so staggering when you know that there are four adults in this household; my parents, older sister, and I, but it is still a lot of cats. We came by them honestly though, as you'll read a bit on, and each and every one is doted upon and given equal attention. While I'm going to introduce you to all of my cats, I'm also going to talk about the importance of feral/stray cats and good homes. And I'd like to comment on the above photo. That is our newest rescue cat, Inky, though he is now almost three. He is not the one responsible for the torn chair fabric, though that is the handiwork of cats. No, if you simply call his name to talk to him, he'll turn and look at you like he's done something wrong. Makes me laugh every time! This infographic comes from Alley Cat Allies and can be seen in a larger format here. One good thing that I learned from my mother, who learned it from her father, was being kind to animals and taking care of abandoned ones; also how to know if the animal really has been abandoned or not. That bit is really important, because there's no sense in taking babies away from their homes if there is no need to. As the infographic states, unless there is a dire medical emergency do not take kittens from their mom's if they are under 8 weeks of age. At our house we watch and listen for a bit, which is key, as I've not been met with any medical emergencies, thankfully. One, the kitten will cry and cry and cry because it is lost. You'll need to also listen for the mother. Because she will maow to get her kitten to come back to her. In this instance there is nothing to do, because they'll find each other and all will be well. However, if the kitten is crying and crying and no cat comes to its aid, then the cats you are seeing in your neighbourhood are not this kittens' parents or have chosen to abandon it for whatever reason. It is sad, but I know the sound of loss from a mother kitten. It was not considered a bad thing, and was in fact encouraged in the eighties to let your female cat have kittens at least once. Vets do not encourage that today, but they once did. So, all of our female cats, when I was growing up, would have at least one litter of kittens, and we would then turn around and offer them free to a good home with a donation to help with the cost of spaying for the mother. You'd give a kitten away and she's maow for it, wondering where it had gotten to. Once more of her kittens started disappearing, she'd maow more frequently. When they were all gone, she'd maow for days until she'd given them up as a lost cause. Out of all of the cats we rescued from around our house, not one was maowed after by its mother. There was only one instance with the cat we assumed might be mother to some of our kittens, where she maowed. She'd had a kitten and we would see it trailing after her through our yard. Then she started maowing for it, because it was lost. Then I found it had been hit on our road. The mom had been maowing for two days by that point. I couldn't leave the kitten to rot in the road because that is beyond sad, so I was going to bury it. I moved it to my yard and dug a hole, when the mother came around, I'd tried to tell her that her baby died and I was going to bury it; even tried to get her to come to it, to smell it and realize that it was her baby, but she's so wild that she wouldn't get near me. I buried the little girl kitten, cried some, and then the mother maowed for two or three more days before giving her baby up as gone for good. There was another, not sad instance where two kittens were in our yard crying. They were larger than the kitten who had been hit, but they were still babies. They were lost beside our garbage cans. I had seen them with their kitty family only a day or two before, so I was not going to rescue them. But, I also didn't want them to starve if they'd been abandoned or might be lost for more than a day, so I took out some tuna and left it for them. I was just going to put it by our garbage cans, but when they saw me, they dashed across (the non-busy & different than the other kitten story) road, into the woods. So, I put the tuna in there. I went back the next day to see if any cats had eaten from it and to see if I could see the kittens or any adult cats. I saw the kittens and they hid and then I saw their mom lounging in the grass. Whew! Kittens found their family again and had a good meal of tuna, so it was a good day. This is Scully, named after Dana Scully on The X-Files. She will be 13 in October. This is not technically true. We rescued her in the spring of 2005, but I do not know when her birthday is and she seems like October and is also fine with her Finding Day being on Halloween, so that's when I set it. I do Finding Day's for cats, if I can remember exactly when we found them. If they were born in the house (as was my dear cat Bao-Bao, who passed away in 2014, then we'd use that). She was tiny, but we're not sure if it was because of her age or malnutrition or both. We kept hearing a kitten cry for two weeks. First in the MG used for parts just inside our fence in the back yard. I would go looking and would see her little head pop in and out like one of those Whack-A-Mole games, but she was extremely afraid of humans. Then we heard her crying from the opposite side of our house, on the breezeway next to the kitchen, so I'd go out there when I heard her and give her food. I could get her to come closer and closer, and only once after a week, could I barely touch her for half a second. One night mom was out there feeding her, and she started petting her, then there was a loud clap of thunder and the kitten bit my mothers finger and wouldn't let go, so my mom brought her in the house and I coaxed her off of mom's finger. No cat had ever been maowing for her. She was just completely alone. I also like to give our cats back stories since we don't really know where they came from, so Scully is an Alien. A Mothra from a planet beyond the stars (in alien form she looks like Insectosaurus from Monsters vs Aliens) and they made her into a cat so she could come here and study. She earned the name Scully because TNT was playing 3 epi's of The X-Files a night and The Sister was recording them. This kitten would come in and cuddle up next to her, watch all three epi's and then leave. She also loves it if I hum or whistle the theme song. And since she's red and fussy, her name became Scully, which also means money in Choctaw as we have some Choctaw friends and one of them, a guy, laughed when he heard her name and said what it meant. Which is amusing because my very first cat I named Cash Mittens. This is Bunny. He is twelve. His entire, official name is Theodore Pookie Sputnik, but we never call him that, though sometimes we'll call him Pookie. His is a sad story because he was not wanted. He came from the equivalent of a Puppy Mill and his fathers name was Thor (which that bit is funny), but the breeders in North Carolina were not great people at all and the cats weren't being looked after well. So, Bunny came from a bad home. Secondly, we didn't even obtain him, nor want him. A friend of ours and her husband went and looked and this kitten ran right up the husbands body and wanted to be taken home, by them. But, the wife purchased him and brought him down here and said here ya go, even after we had said, no we do not want to purchase this cat. We were selling products with The Body Shop at Home during this time, so we traded her $300 worth of products for a cat we didn't even want. It would have been fine if the wife had said, "If y'all don't want him, we'll keep him." but she didn't. They were just going to take him to the animal shelter, which is something we believe strongly against. No one would have adopted him and they'd have just killed him. He was already a year old, so not a kitten. He's not very smart and he's more of a one person kind of cat. Very needy, kind of dim-witted, and also kind of bad. We weren't going to have him killed, which is why we agreed once he was here. So, while we didn't want him, he's part of the family now though he doesn't fit in at all with any of the other cats, we do love him and wouldn't cast him aside. Which is a thing with us. Cats are people too. They're just as important as people and are treated like family members within the household. They're not "just the cat", they are family. Actually I think they're treated as better than human or human family members, or at least I try to achieve that. They are royalty and they own us. They are spoiled and loved and I'll will forgo a chair if they are already using it. I'll go so far as to kneel on the floor or pull up something else to sit on. This is Mika and she'll be 14 on 4. June, which is her actual birthday and which she shared with my Bao-Bao, who was our last cat born at home in 1997. But, I couldn't lead off with a dog on a cat-centric post, but she is our oldest animal. She does cat pretty well though for a dog. Cats are friends, not food to her, because I think that she assumes she's at least part cat. She loves the cats so much that she wants to play with them and baby them, but they won't let her. A cat that we rescued after Scully, who was also abandoned, was her BFF. He was a chubby grey tabby that I named Kirja which is Persian for The Sun, though mostly we just called him Chicken. The Sister would take her new (and large) puppy out for walks and bathroom time in the front yard and feral kitten Chicken would come rub up against her and they'd play. Once we brought Chicken in the house and he was part of the family, he'd shove his head inside Mika's mouth so she could massage his skull with her teeth. I'm not even kidding. He loved it and would insist she do it. His head would come out covered in dog slobber and he was contended as can be. He was an Alien kitten too, by the way. He met a tragic end and I don't want to talk about it, but he is the reason that no more of our cats go outside, as they used to be indoor-outdoor cats. I'm not a dog person myself. I don't wish ill-will towards them, I've just never really wanted one for a pet. But her and the sheepdog, Nannah, that we had when I was a kid are pretty much my favourite dogs ever. This is Willow whose Finding Day is coming up and she'll be 11. She's a Faerie and in this lifetime is a cat. This Sister is her human. Dad tasked her and I to go to Walmart to pick up a lawnmower blade. The lawn in from of Walmart, at this time, allowed people to bring pets for sale though they don't anymore. There was a sign that said kittens and I audibly said, "Kittens!" and pulled into a parking spot, not heeding my sisters head shake and "No..." I wasn't going to take a kitten home, I just like to visit them. We even visit the "inmates" at Petsmart, be they kittens or chinchilla's or mice. This girl had two kittens, free to a good home. One was skinny and yelled a lot and was black and white. Then there was willow all fluffy and cute with whispy fluffs and a super fluff tail. She was also quiet and putting on her best show. We walked to the car and these other people came over to the cage, picked Willow up and yelled to their friend, "Look at this kitten, you think so and so will like it?" She put the kitten back and The Sister said, "That's my kitten!" and ran back to the girl asking if Willow was still free and available. She was. So we went to Walmart for a new lawnmower blade one sunny spring day and came back with Willow. She loves hearing her Finding Story as much as we love reminiscing about it. She's also Bunny's baby. He's a good mommy to baby kittens and claimed her as his own. He'd bathe her and put her down for naps and the like. They still get along though he can be weird and pestery and stalkerish, so he's not allowed in her Faerie Tree House very often. The Sister and Willow live in the attic, thus the Faerie Tree House. This is The Baby, whose official name is Thai Tushka. Dad is his human and wanted to name him something to do with Thailand even though he is Siamese, and also I was unaware that dad was even interested in Thailand, but OK. Our guy Choctaw friend supplied the Tushka which means warrior. So, he's a Thai Warrior... or The Baby. In fact he has a lot of names including Big Brown, Baby Wombat, and Raccoon. He will be ten this December. We do not really give pets as gifts, but The Baby was a gift for the dad, because of course animals are not gifts to be given lightly and then cast aside once the newness wears off, so I'm a firm believer in don't give your kid a bunny for Easter or a dalmation dog because 101 Dalmations is popular, etc. But we had been looking for The Baby for a long time. We weren't really trying to replace our chocolate Siamese, Nuttmegg, because you can't replace cats or people, but we really wanted the chubbier version of this Siamese, which is what Nuttmegg was. Not the skinny version because they are mean. Though I always liked the fact that in Lady and the Tramp, Aunt Sarah had two Siamese cats (even though they were the mean, skinny kind) because I like cats, and Siameseseses (siamese esses; which I know is wrong wording, but I like it) and my name is Sarah. I used to play that part of the movie just for Nuttmegg to watch. But, I digress. So he was a gift, but not really. We were just actively seeking him and he wasn't a stray, though we did rescue him from the animal shelter via Petsmart. We went to shop, and visit the "inmates" like ya do, only The Sister got there first and came running to find me. "I think I've found him!" We got to hold him to see if he was perfect for us and he was. As you can see in the above photo, The Baby and I are BFF's! So we come home to find dad in the den and placed in front of him this cardboard carrying box they gave us at Petsmart with air holes in it. "This better not be a kitten." He opened the lid, peered in, closed the lid, looked up with nothing to say, then opened the lid again, reached in and pulled out The Baby and then immediately snuggled him to his neck. It was love at first sight and Dad is definitely The Baby's most favourite human. This is Colonel Mustard. His Finding Day is coming up soon and he will be six. My mother wanted a Marmalade cat, which I call Gingies, so we went to the humane society to find him, because during this particular weekend they announced that they were suspending the adoption fee. As soon as we went into the cat building he ran right up to us, sat down and said, "You're here! Good, I'm ready to go!" I had to look at all of the cats and kittens though first and even when other people came in, he didn't run up to them. He'd been waiting just for us or else he immediately liked the look of us and no one else, because he'd already staked his claim. So, either one is adorable. He obtained the name Colonel Mustard because we were playing a lot of Clue. He's a huge cat. Long stilt-like legs and an exceptionally long tail and he's so sweet. He also became mother to the kittens we'd obtain after him. And he's a good mommy too and takes pride in that. His other names include Legs, Afrika Cat (because he's like a smaller wild cat from Africa), and Kangaroo. This is Marzipan. She'll be six this year. Dad named her though he didn't know what marzipan was. She was abandoned and crying across the busy street. When I realized no one was looking for her, I made to go and rescue her. She wanted to run to me, but there was a car coming and the first thing I did was say, "No, wait, not yet! There's a car coming!" and she stayed in the grass. When it was clear I crossed the road and before I made it to the other side she had run up to me and scrambled up me and into my arms. She cried, loudly, for two hours straight until we'd fed her enough that she was full, then she promptly fell fast asleep. I have no idea how long she'd been without food, but she certainly doesn't go hungry now. Dad is her human, and The Sister is her second human. She owns them and isn't afraid who knows it. She's also really tiny, though the larger photo seems to say otherwise. If there is a bug or the cats are getting fed something special and I can loudly "Maow!" and she'll come running for whatever it is. It is her battle cry and she'll use it when playing or when she's ready to eat the good food, and thus knows its call. She also enjoys watching war movies with her human, Pappy (that's dad), and he predominantly watches WWII films, so I've nicknamed her Marzenpanzer (to mean semi-sweet lightweight military tank \ marzipan and panzer. And she's tiny but fierce and also sweet but can be tough with the other cats). I also call her our little Chipmunk-Squirrel, because she was a chipmunk-squirrel who fell out of her nest, which is what I made up for her finding story; also the name Baby Bee gets bandied about sometimes. She's also an honourary Gingie as she's allowed to pal around with them, has orange on her, and was rescued in the midsts of them, but she's an honourary Siameseseses too because The Baby and Inky pal around with her as well. This is Puff-Puff who will also be six this year in October. He is an alien and does not know how to cat at all. He found himself stuck in the engine of a truck that was parked in the neighbours yard. They were college kids living there and I didn't want one of them to start the truck, thus killing the kitten. His is a great finding story though and he loves hearing it. I couldn't get the kitten out (even with the can of tuna I had), so I knocked on the door to find the owner of said truck. It was four o'clock in the afternoon and they'd obviously partied hard the night before and were still asleep. The guy that answered got the guy that owned the truck and soon there were six college boys and one girl (dressed like Sailor Moon) out in their front yard. The owner of the truck popped the bonnet, and after a while reached his long, skinny arm in and gently pulled the kitten out. He was this orange marshmallow cream fluffball and every one immediately exclaimed "AWWWW!" There's a more ominous tone the the story but it bears repeated because 5 of those guys were rather swell. So one of them couldn't see the fuss over a "dumb" kitten and just suggested turning the truck on to get rid of it. All the other boys, and Sailor Moon and I turned to him and shot him dirty looks. But, it seems natural that a girl trying to save a kitten and then a college girl would be upset by that, but the fact that five college boys were upset about that and wanted to save the kitten made my heart melt. Everyone else went inside and one of the boys and Sailor Moon kept holding the kitten and cooing over it. They really wanted to keep it, but the mean boy was mean and owned a dog and they wouldn't do that to the kitten. They promised me that I'd name him something to commemorate the moment and Sailor Moon suggested Ranger, because that was the make of the truck. I agreed. His official name is Ranger Puff-Puff, but mainly we just call him Puff-Puff as well as Puffling, Puff-Puff Ling-Ling, and Chubby Floof. He's not all that bright, but he's smarter than Bunny, and he's just so sweet and wants nothing more than his kitty mommy, Colonel Mustard to bathe him and give him love, or to be petted and cooed over by us humans. This is Poe. He's my baby. He's the gimpiest little kitten in the world, but he is healthy now. He's also really bad. His official name is Jupiter Poe (Jupiter for an Edgar Allan Poe character, and Poe for the author). He also goes by Poepy (poe-pee), and Honey Kitten. He'll be six this coming November. After Puff-Puff dad put his foot down. "No cats. No more cats! No kittens! Not at all!" Then he was outside helping a lady fix her flat tire and came into the house and said, "Do you know where Puff-Puff is?" "No, but I just saw him recently upstairs." "Then who is this?!?" and he produced a tiny, scrawny dirty kitten from behind his back and placed him on the kitchen table. "Dad... I don't know who that is, but it's not Puff-Puff." Then he threw his hands into the air and left, because he's just broken his own rule and brought some other cat into the house. This kitten was purring and doing his best, but wonky, kitty march on our kitchen table and I didn't know who he was or what to do with him. Dad said that he'd marched right up the side street to dad, stopped at his feet and meowed, which is why he assumed it was Puff-Puff. He said an adult Gingie was down the road watching. Well, this kitten has a family, I thought, so I found a cardboard box and an old clean blanket and put him in it on our front stoop so the mom would take him back. The next morning I opened the front door and that kitten was still there, but he was all groomed and spiffy looking and the mom cat was hiding behind a tree hoping we'd finally take him inside. I picked up the kitten and tried to give it back to her but she just looked at me and then walked away. "OK little fellow lets bring you in." He'd been purring the entire time I had him in my arms. I put him on our sundeck because he'd looked so bad, I didn't know if his health was poor or not. I'd spend time with him out there and feed him special vitamin food. He had a gimpy, drop foot that would just drag behind him, so I would work with him everyday fixing his foot into the proper position and getting him to walk on it normally. After two weeks he was so healthy looking and walking properly that I let him run free in the house. He kept trying to eat all the other cats food, and he was of the age when we would let other kittens start eating adult food, so I allowed it. But then he started getting sickly again and I knew he wasn't getting the proper vitamins, so I started him back up on his first diet, and he soon perked up. So, before we rescued him, apparently the nerves in that foot had agitated him because he'd gnawed at it and some of his claws are more exposed than they should be and something happened to him or was wrong with him because he came to us with a droopy, saggy belly. But the vet checked him out and he was perfectly fine and there were no internal injuries or anything amiss. However, he does have a significant overbite, the extremely saggy belly (which I tell him it's the most impressive squish belly I've ever seen), and those two claws are exposed (though his foot doesn't bother him and he walks normally now). But when we took him in to be neutered, one of his testicles never dropped, so they had to neuter one and then go inside and find the other one to fix that, so he had to have girl and boy surgery poor thing. So he's gimpy, but perfectly fine. But, I'd not intended to keep him because we had so many cats. But, I couldn't take him to the shelter because they'd kill him for sure since he needed so much extra care and had the drop foot. I wasn't going to let anyone kill him. By the time I'd gotten him so improved, we'd all fallen in love with him so I couldn't bear to find a person to give him to. I know that mama cat with his mother, but she was abandoning him on purpose. Probably knowing he wouldn't make it in the wild or else because a male cat would kill him. I don't know the exact reasons but she never tried searching for her missing kitten (or Puff-Puff or Marzipan if they too were hers). And now we come to Inky, our newest rescue, who will be three this May. His official name is Zorro Bonsai Disco Dickens, though we never use that, but it was funny and was his first name while we were deciding on something more appropriate. Our friend rescued him and was going to give him to her local shelter but was told they would just kill him. So she told mom and dad about it, and they both said "We'll take him!" For one, he's a Snow Shoe Siamese which mom has always wanted, but for two he was a tiny kitten and they were going to kill him! My parents could stand by and not take him knowing that. He's a mess. I've nicknamed him Inky The Terrible, and with good reason (to see more of his misadventures you can follow his Instagram - @InkyTheTerrible). He's kind of bad and super intelligent, but he's also really, really cute! Other names are Mr. Dickens (mom's name for him), Inky Spadinki, Inkacinte Fox (who is El Presidente de Cahico [cat Mexico], don't you know.), Cuckoo Pig, and Red Panda. He's just so fluffy too. Willow is by far the fluffiest, and Puff-Puff is only floofy, but Inky is second fluffy. And he gets hot and sleeps with his legs out behind him like in the third photo or else like he's about to sprint for something. It's weird and adorable at the same time. Nine cats is too many, but we adore them so. The Universe also seems to think that this is our number, as it never supplies us with more than this, throughout my life. However, I would never encourage cat hoarding. If you can not properly take care of a cat, do not bring it into your family. Ever. Do the right thing and find a person who will give it a good home or take it to a no kill shelter. And I can not stress that part enough. NO KILL shelter.
You could even participate in the trap, fix, and release program, where you humanely trap an adult cat, have it spayed or neutered, and then released back to its wild area. There are even times when Petsmart will donate money to certain places so that you may have your cats (or feral cats) fixed for free. Which they did here a few years ago, donating money to the Spay and Neuter Clinic here in town. One part of the year was for residents of this county, and another part of the year for residents of that county. If you do not have the time to raise a baby, leave the baby with their animal family. Or if it's abandoned, do the noble thing of finding it a home & not with a kill shelter or animal control. If your human baby was missing you wouldn't want me to give it to someone to kill, would you?
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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