Thanks to SWG's story about feeding the stray cat on his trip yesterday I now miss my pets again. I can't have pets where I live now so let’s take a trip down memory lane...
As a kid we rescued/saved each and every one of our family pets.
Dummy - he was a fluffy white cat that my parents already had when I was born. I'm not sure how they came to adopt him but they did somehow. He was as dumb as a stump, hence his name. In actuality, he was probably partially blind or something. If you put food in front of him, he still couldn't find it. He was one of those indoor/outdoor cats so he got to run around the neighborhood a lot. This apparently pissed off one of the neighbors (who was a giant uh... not nice person... on a good day). Dummy went missing for a while and no one knew what happened. Later my parents found him near the backyard, shot dead. We could never prove it, but the neighbor was always the prime suspect.
Lucky - he was a big grey cat with a white chest and boots. He got his name because we almost hit him with our truck. We were driving home from vacation one summer and he was sitting in the middle of the highway. At first, from far away, my dad thought he was trash in the road. As we approached and slowed down, the cat didn't budge. My dad stopped the truck, got out, and picked up the cat. We were out in the middle of farmland but he didn't look like a farm cat. We checked a few houses around but no one had seen him before. That made him ours. He was infested with all kinds of nasty things but once we got him cleaned up at the vet he was good as new. He was an inside cat from then on. He loved our house and got big and fat there. Unfortunately he had a not so bright vet. We never really knew how old he was but he was probably pretty old once he got sick. He started getting sluggish and would howl. He didn't want eat and eventually didn't want to move. We took him to the vet several times but it wasn't until the last visit that the vet realized what was wrong. He ended up on the operating table and just couldn't handle the stress. His body had been through so much that he just didn't pull through. (At least this is what my parents told me)
Little Foot - a black and tan tabby that my mom found as a kitten. He got his name because I had just seen the Land Before Time movie and I loved the main character. Mom worked in the doctor's office in a small town (yes, I said the, as in the only office). The doctor lived in a house across the alley behind the office. One day they had an emergency in the alley and when it was over my mom noticed the kitten. He was very young. Doc said he had been hanging around for a while. Mom went and put him on the Doc's porch so he didn't get hit in the alley. At the end of the day he was still sitting there, exactly where my mom had left him, so she put him in a cardboard box and brought him home. Lucky didn't really appreciate the addition at first but he got used to him after a while. Little Foot has been a hell raiser ever since we got him. The outdoors are the most fascinating thing to him and he always tries to escape. He always ends up coming back but without claws and having lived indoors for nearly his whole life, battling coyotes doesn't sound like a good plan. He lives with my mom still but he's getting daily medical care because his kidneys are just about gone. Poor kitty...
Nugget & Silky - these two kittens were picked up from a friend that was a member of the humane society as soon as they were able to leave their mom. Nugget was a short haired orange tabby. Silky was a long haired cream color. There are lots of stories about these two since they were the pets that I got to pick out as a child. I don't know what happened to them though. When my dad decided to sell the house and move in with his girlfriend (now his wife) he gave them away. It was a seriously traumatic experience because he didn't give them to a family, he took them to the shelter. Taking the time to find a loving family for two adult cats was too much for him to take on and I wasn't told he was giving them away until a few weeks or so before he did. They were very attached to us and each other. Taking them to the shelter and watching them cower in fear as they howled for attention was the most heartbreaking thing I think I've ever done. Supposedly they were adopted together just a week later to a family ... but I will never know for sure what happened to them ...
Heidi - the smartest, most beautiful German Shepard you'd ever meet. My aunt and uncle kept her out on their property when they rescued her from some abusive friends. She never really got any attention so we brought her to our house. She loved playing with us and running around in the California sun. She lived a long and happy life. She got hip dysplasia like a lot of Shepards but she did alright with pain meds. We ended up putting her to sleep because of the cancer instead.
Next time I get a pet, I'll find him/her at the shelter too...
Posted by Princess Cat at May 10, 2005 02:40 PM @ 02:40 PM in Random Much? // Permalink