A Tale of Two Kitties…

This is the story of two kitties…Not my kitties, but my grandson’s two kitties.  I usually save all of my grandchilden stories for my second blog, “MiMi’s Mini Tales”, but this story was just too good not to share over here, too.

Several months ago, a tiny black and white kitten showed up at my son’s house…and it stayed.  Brett and his family didn’t really want or need a kitten, but they got one anyway. The kitten stayed outside, hung around their back porch, and ate their left-over scraps.  Because the kitten was always underfoot, Brett quickly nicknamed the kitten “Stupid”. 

It wasn’t long before Brett’s wife decided that “Stupid” wasn’t an appropriate name, so she changed the cat’s name to ” Toby”.  Brett and Christina’s two-year-old little boy, Caden, had his own idea of a name for the kitten, and soon he began calling him “Bingo”.   The little stray black and white kitten soon became known to our family as “Stupid Toby Bingo”, or “STB” for short.

Months passed, and “STB”–I mean, “Bingo”,  grew larger, and quickly earned the love and respect of his family when he kept the mice away from their home for an entire winter!  Caden became very fond of his furry friend, and it was obvious that “Bingo” loved Caden as well.  “Bingo” became a plump, happy little kitty, and he could always be seen outside,  switching his tail and running around the yard.

"Bingo" after his ordeal

About two weeks ago, on a Sunday evening, Christina was on her way to church.  She left home, and was about three-fourths of a mile down the highway when she heard a thud.  She quickly checked her rear view mirror because she thought she might have run over something.  She saw something black running off the side of the road, but didn’t think much about it– until later that evening when she returned home to discover “Bingo” was missing.  

Soon Christina began to realize that “Bingo” must have been hidden somewhere underneath her car, then fell out while she was going down the highway!  She realized that it must’ve been “Bingo” that she saw run off the side of the highway.

As bad as it was, I felt a little optimistic, since Christina had actually seen something black running off the side of the highway, but several days passed, and there was still no sign of “Bingo”.  We assumed he was either dead or lost for good.  Caden, who loves animals,  missed his friend, “Bingo”, terribly, so his mother decided to get him another kitten.

"Spencer" the new kitty

About eight or nine days after “Bingo” disappeared, Christina adopted a new kitten from a friend.  This kitten was also black and white, but was very small.  The family quickly named the new kitten “Spencer”, and began to get to know their new family pet.  He’s so tiny, they’ve been keeping him in  box inside their house for now.  

About two days after the adoption of “Spencer”, Christina went outside early one morning, and discovered a very skinny, very battered “Bingo” walking into the yard!  Somehow, the young cat had managed to survive falling out from under the rapidly moving vehicle AND found his way back home after ten days of being lost!  “Bingo” was very happy to be back home! 

Judging from the looks of him, “Bingo” had a wild ride, and is very lucky to be alive.  I think he may have used up one of his nine lives…and it will take a while to fatten him back up!  Talk about bad luck–how about surviving a fall from a moving vehicle, ten days of being lost, without food or water, only to arrive home and discover you’ve been replaced! 

Hopefully, the two kitties can co-exist and will eventually become friends!  I also hope that “Bingo” will continue to eat and drink, and become his chubby playful self again.  I enjoy stopping by, checking on him, and leaving him an occasional treat…sometimes, I’m funny like that.

By the way, after this ordeal, “Bingo” has totally earned our love and respect.  We now lovingly refer to him as “Mister STB”!

And that concludes my “Tale of two kitties”…have a great Tuesday!

I’m hoping on board Tuesday Train.  If you’d like to join, click the button to find out how…

Shelter Tales…Freckles

***I’m linking up today with http://www.mrsmamadrama.com and http://www.bellycharms.blogspot today for their co-hosted blog hop called “Think of Me Thursday”.  If you’d like to hop along, check out either blog for details on how to link up.

I was going through old photographs the other day, and I found some pictures of “Freckles”.  It’s been a while since I’ve posted a “Shelter Tale”, so it seems like a good day to write one.  Be forewarned though, this one doesn’t have a happy ending. 

Way back in 2004 I was volunteering at our local animal control shelter.  I was adopting LOTS of animals, because I couldn’t stand the thought of those beautiful, innocent, kittens and puppies being destroyed.  I was letting my heart overrule my head…I couldn’t help myself!  More times than not, after doing my Friday afternoon volunteer shift at the shelter, I would end up bringing some kind of an animal home with me. 

I already had several cats and kittens, as well as two adult dogs, and a hound puppy at home–when I went for my usual Friday visit to the shelter and saw “Freckles”!  It was love at first sight!  He was a white, fat, fluffy, little butterball of a puppy!  I knew my husband was probably going to kill me, but I had to have “Freckles”.  

Freckles--just look at that face!

I have no idea what kind of puppy that “Freckles” was, but he reminded me of a “Chow”.  His fur was thick and fluffy, and he was white all over except for his ear.  He had little black spots sprinkled all over his muzzle–hence the name “Freckles”.  “Freckles” also had a hernia, so I took him to the vet to get him checked out. The vet said that it would be fine to let the hernia wait until it was time to have “Freckles” neutered, then he would repair it at the same time he did the neutering.  

About four months later, “Freckles” was neutered and had his hernia repaired without any complications.  He was a happy healthy little puppy.  Our old collie mix “Hobbs” (the first dog that I adopted from the shelter) acted as “mother” and caretaker to “Freckles”, as well as the hound puppy that I adopted a few weeks before “Freckles”.  They were one little happy family. 

Freckles is giving Hobbs a kiss

Then when “Freckles” turned a little over a year old, his troubles began.  He developed the red mange.    He began to scratch a lot, and due to frequent scratching, he began to develop huge sores on his skin. I never did totally understand everything about mange, except that it concerns a dog’s immune system and mites.  There are two types of mange, regular mange, and the red mange.  The red mange is the most difficult type to cure.  80% of all dogs treated will be cured, the other 20% will not.  

The treatment for red mange is a dip prescribed by the vet.  It’s a strong chemical type of medication that is  mixed with water and sponged all over the dog.  You have to wear gloves to protect your skin.  It burns if it gets on your skin.  Judging from the way “Freckles” behaved, it must have burned his skin, too.  Treatment consisted of two treatments given two weeks apart. 

After being dipped, “Freckles” would act really sick for several days.  He was one miserable-looking dog.  After we’d dipped him twice, “Freckles ” still had huge sores.  I took him back to the vet, and they shaved all of his beautiful fur off.  We followed that with two more rounds of that horrible chemical dip.  “Freckles” just got sicker and looked more miserable.  He was no longer active.  He didn’t play with the other dogs anymore.  Instead he laid around licking his large, bloody, weeping wounds.  

Unfortunately, our poor “Freckles” fell into the 20% category of dogs who are unable to recover from red mange.  He could not be cured.  I was forced to make the toughest decision that I’ve ever had to make regarding one of my pets.  I made the choice to have him put to sleep to end his misery.  It was a sad day when my husband and I took “Freckles” to the vet for the final time.  I stood outside the office building on the steps and cried.  It makes me cry to this day to even think about it.  My husband went in and held “Freckles” until he breathed his last breath.  He came out with tears in his eyes, and swore that he would never do anything like that again. 

So that is the story of “Freckles”…a life that didn’t go exactly as we planned, but we gave him the best that we could–we tried.  The Christmas following “Freckles” death, I hung a small ornament of a freckle-faced dog, wearing angel wings on our Christmas tree.  I like to think that he’s still with us in spirit somehow.  At least he’s not alone in “Doggie Heaven” anymore, the old collie “Hobbs” who took on the role of  his”mother” and caretaker, passed away this year at Easter.

Bobs the Cat…She’s At It Again!

If you follow my blog, then you already know about my cat, Bobs.  We have a special relationship that goes back about three years ago when she was still a feral cat.   If you aren’t familiar with our story, I’ll give you a short version of it. 

This is "good" Bobs...

Bobs was abandoned as a tiny kitten near my daughter’s former home.  Despite repeated attempts by several of us to tame Bobs, she remained completely wild.  Nobody could get close to see if Bobs was a he or a she, and since she didn’t have a tail,  my daughter named her Bobs.  Eventually, my daughter and her family moved and Bobs was left behind.  I felt so bad for her that I would take her food every day.  Over time,  Bobs and I eventually became friends, she let me touch her, hold her and I finally brought her home with me–against my husband’s wishes, and after she had become pregnant, given birth to kittens, and experienced having all of her kittens killed within a week of their birth…and after she spent 10 days at the vet in quarantine because she attacked the vet tech before being spade!  Yes, I know what you’re thinking…

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how Bobs had suddenly started “boycotting” her litter box.  She’d been caught using the bathroom in several strange places–among them a pile of papers in the kitchen chair.  I began to make  Bobs  spend more time outside, so that sort of solved that problem–then the weather got really nasty here. 

I’m not cold-hearted enough to leave Bobs outside in the freezing rain, so I let her come back inside.  I do make her go outside on a regular basis which has taken care of the litter box problem–but just the other day she was feeling ornery and I caught her backing up to the front of the television and marking  it just like a male cat!  Back to the yard for Bobs…for a while.

This is "bad Bobs"...

 The problem with Bobs is her personality.  She’s always been contrary and hard to deal with sometimes, while being snuggly and lovable other times.  She reminds me so much of a bad child!  I think she’s bipolar sometimes because her moods swing so far from one extreme to the other.  Perhaps she’s hormonally imbalanced, who knows?  This week her ugly side has reared its head!

I haven’t felt good for the past 3 days, and when I am sick, Bobs acts worse–just like a child!  She has several annoying habits that she knows aggravate me, and she’s been showing all of them this week!   Habit number one is to act like she’s even thinking of clawing the back of the new sofa… She’s been heading for the back of the couch lately and giving me that look…out in the yard Bobs!

Another habit is plundering in my bedroom in the middle of the night.  She knows how bad I hate that!  It makes me so mad that  I’ll get up, turn on the light and we’ll play hide and seek until I catch her…Go directly to the yard, Bobs!

It’s common for Bobs to plunder and get into trouble.  She can open the doors to my storage room with her paws and loves to climb on top of my storage boxes and plunder.  She plundered this week and knocked over a lamp–luckily for her it was brass.  She was also  guilty of playing soccer in the hall with a pretend scoop of ice cream– in the middle of the night.  Did I mention that she loves pretend food?  Plastic eggs are her favorite toy–she loves the way they roll in crazy ways…crazy cat!

Bobs also knows that my husband’s room is off-limits to her.  He will tolerate her in the house, but draws the line at his bedroom.  Bobs loves  to sneak in Ed’s room if she can catch the door left open.  Yesterday, he came home to find her in his bed!  Later when he left his coat on the couch, he returned to find her curled up inside of it!  Bad Bobs! 

Lately, Bobs has decided that she loves my long tubular bead pillow that I sleep with every night.  She and I have fought over who is going to use it lately.  I usually let her win…if it means getting some sleep. 

Did I mention what happens after I send naughty Bobs to the yard?  She sits at one or the other of the glass doors and “digs” at the glass with her paws–like a crazy cat!  So…I usually end up letting her back inside just to get some peace!  Life with Bobs…it’s never boring.