Malcolm Octavious and Sophie Claire,
Malcolm and Sophie were found behind a store wedged behind an ice machine, scared to death and extremely hungry when they were found. It was obvious, that like the rest of our cats, they had been abandoned as kittens. It took over an hour before they were coaxed out and put into an empty box before they came home to us. When I opened the box on the stove a pair of green eyes and a pair of golden eyes were staring up at me, and we were smitten. Malcolm was friendly right off, while Sophie took a few hours of love and snuggling before she started purring and did not stop. Malcolm has a great temperament but around other cats he is not so good so he has the run of the basement doing as he pleases. Sophie on the other hand is still hoping she can have the run of the house, but she has grudgingly settled back on her spot on the back of the chair in the dining room waiting for her next chance to be free. With us and other cats she is all right, but around new people she becomes extremely frightened still so we let her be her. Both of them can be maddening, but their attitudes can sometimes be hysterical.
Vagabond D. Butt (aka Bond) aka (Tubbnuts) aka (His royal tudness)
Bond came to us as another stray, abandoned in the middle of the winter, and taking refuge in our barn to be warm. When I found him it took almost twenty minutes of coaxing before he came to me and we put food down for him. Bond then migrated to the back porch where he had his own little nest until the winter got colder and he froze the tips of his ears off. Bond then migrated into the kitchen so that he would be warm. He settled into the kitchen and his favorite box by the window. During the day he got to go out and at night he would almost always come back and ask to be let in. This continued for quite awhile until one night Bond didn't come back, and he didn't come back. For three days he was gone, and we were sick calling our hearts out hoping we could find him. Then when it was almost midnight we went out to call Bond again, and he came back, badly hurt by something he had tangled with. He was dehydrated with a bad infection, the skin underneath his jaw hanging down. We were sick and unable to get ahold of a vet until morning, so we put Bond in a box on the back porch and hoped he could hang on. Come morning Bond was still alive, and we realized that his injury was not as horrific as we first thought and the vet squeezed us in once my Mom was home from work. Bond went into surgery as they tried to sew his skin back up, but the weight of it was too heavy and kept pulling free, so back to the vet we went, and this time they took a V of skin out of the injury and stretched it across. This time it held and Bond could finally come home. He had to wear a soft blue collar around his neck, a blooming tulip, as the vet called it, and Bond was on a baby food diet. 8-9 cans of baby food a day because his highness got picky, and we had to make sure he stayed clean and didn't dig his stitches out. He became the darling of the vets office during his multiple vet visits and it took three paychecks before he was paid off. Now Bond is a strictly inside cat except for the few times he has managed to sneak out the door and he is very spoiled rotten. He has no skin underneath his bottom teeth, surgery was an option, but since Bond was so happy and healthy we decided not to have the surgery, and he has done quite well without it. Bond has a soft spot in all of our hearts because we came so close to losing him, and what a ham he is.
Lucky Daisy Belle
Daisy as she is lovingly called came to us as a four week old kitten eighteen months to the day since my grandma had passed away. My father and some of the men at the cement plant he works at found her. They had tried to catch her before but Daisy kept eluding them always finding some place to hide with no mother in sight. When they found her again she was behind the garage nearly dead to the point they weren't going to try and save her. Then one of my Dad's friends decided to take Daisy home for the night to see if he could help her and somehow she pulled through and my Dad brought her home the next day in a box. When I saw him carrying that box the way he did, and by the way he was acting, my first words were What the heck do you have, and Mom is going to kill you. Then he opened the box up on the stove and there were the cutest little pair of blue eyes you ever saw, and I was hooked. I lifted her out and held her rubbing her soft little head and waiting for Mom to get home. My sister took her for me for a little while then I took her back. Daisy was starving and she made her protests well known until I settled her in the crook of my arm and she calmed right down purring and nestling in until my Mom came home. When my Mom came home Daisy knew how important her approval was and she made herself as precious as she could be sitting in my hand and looking at Mom with every bit of cuteness she had. Mom took one look at her and said Name her. We went to Walmart and got Daisy kitten milk replacer and thanks to a tip from someone, a little bit of Ensure in each dose of kitten milk replacer. Daisy took to it immediately and she grew like a weed. When Daisy first came home she was tiny enough to fit in my hand, snuggle under my chin when she wanted warmth and sleep on my laptop in the space between my left cursor button to the edge of my laptop and fit. She is still precious even at three years old, and she has a soft spot in my heart because of the sweet personality she still has.
Blizzard Elizabeth, (aka Blizzabeth)
Blizzard came to us about a month after we had Daisy at about a week younger and again, the victim of someone going through and throwing animals out like they were garbage. I never would have known there was an animal around the house if someone walking by had not stopped my sister asking if we had a cat out. Apparently the cat had been crying loud enough that he had been afraid a cat had been trapped and he actively looked around before giving up and moving on. I almost did not hear Blizzard until I stopped to take one last listen before we went grocery shopping. It was starting to rain, then all of the sudden I heard Blizzard crying her heart out using her last bit of energy in hopes someone would hear her. I searched and called for her finally seeing this tiny kitten hiding underneath the pine tree out back. She wanted to come so badly to me that she was kneading the ground and purring loud enough to wake the dead but she was scared to come to me as well. Finally Blizzard came and I rushed her inside wrapping her up and putting her in front of the heater. We got her some milk and after a couple road bumps she started growing and playing with Daisy. The two of them can still make us laugh when we think about the antics they used to pull together and still do.
Blizzabird!
Then there is Lindy, my sweet parakeet. Lindy is a quieter parakeet than what my old parakeet Claudie Bob was, but she can still make me laugh especially when she gets caught beating on one of her toys, or watching us chase Sophie around. She doesn't sing constantly, she prefers to wait until it is quiet, then she erupts chirping so loud that she bounces herself off the perch or she bobs her head up and down while she is screeching. She is still a baby but having her adds so much more to the house.
And finally, there is ShrimpLouie, aka Louie, or his royal fishness,
I got ShrimpLouie out of Petco when he was no bigger than a pencil eraser and I had my doubts about how a fish so tiny could survive. I have always had a weakness for beta fish, and his gorgeous colors were so bright even as a baby. I brought ShrimpLouie home anyways, despite his tininess, and put him in a tank that somehow managed to swallow him up because he was so little. Little by little, the Shrimp started to get bigger and his gorgeous deep purple red color came out, colors that he loves to show off every chance he gets. ShrimpLouie is my favorite beta out of all of them that I have had, so much so that before we left for Ohio to pick up Torean we stayed up until after midnight constructing a cage to go around the tank so that the cats could not get to Shrimpie. Pathetic yes, but the cage was one of the best things we ever built, and I still use it, and it deters curious little pussy cats quite nicely. The main reason I am concerned about Shrimpie's safety now is because he apparently has a death wish, and has managed to use up most of his fishy lives. During one of his last tank cleanings we put Shrimp in the same container we always do to protect him while the tank is being cleaned and filled. Well, during that cleaning Shrimpie got it in his head to explore outside the boundaries of his container, and how he stayed alive with the cats around is beyond me. Shrimpie managed to jump out of his container on the shelf, hit the desk, and fall to the floor staying out of his water for minutes longer than he should have. When we found him, my Mom scooped him up and held him in his tank water for over ten minutes until he finally started swimming on his own, and now he has completely recovered from his excursion. But how he survived is still beyond us. Shrimpie always cracked us up when he was growing because he wasn't quite big enough to fluff his beard out, but he would still try to fluff. When he finally had a beard for the longest time he could only fluff one side out so he looked completely ridiculous and adorable at the same time. Shrimpie is almost a year old now, and just as arrogant as ever. Just another creature that has made their way into my heart.
That concludes my run through of our critters, and I hoped you enjoy reading it. Time to make Torean his birthday biscuit dinner and give him a special laser pointer play time before bed. Have a great night everyone.
Love your blog!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I'm glad that people enjoy reading it, since I enjoy writing it so much.
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