A FURRY JOURNEY...a Tale of 3 cats

In April my favorite kitty of 13 yrs died of a stomach tumor while i was gone working in South Dakota for the month. She was a real sweetheart and a cuddler. Over the 38 yrs of marriage I have had numerous furry friends although my poor husband is NOT a pet person as did not grow up with animals( except for his dads one man dog). So I am grateful for the years of fuzzy comfort from my furry friends and a loving husband who put up with all the shenanigans they caused!

I grew up with a menagerie of animals as childhood pets. My pets included: a Springer Spaniel dog named Duke, guinea pigs, cats named Puffy, Foxy and Misty, a hamster named Hammy, a bunny named Snowflake , and a parakeet whose name i forget. We had litters of kittens and 100 guinea pigs at one time( my dad didn't spay or neuter just gave away the litters- gave the guinea pigs to the pet stores but at one time had two large outdoor cages with about 30!). My brother had white mice which multiplied in crazy numbers until we gave them to the pet stores to feed the snakes- yikes!! Wow...... i never listed them all before!!!! So needless to say i love animals and their quiet companionship and affection ....yes and even their shenanigans!

Throughout the 38 yrs of our marriage we have had many numerous indoor only pets. We had one cat the first year we were married, later multiple cats when our one got out one night and had 2 kittens which we kept. Later when the girls came along we had other cats , gerbils, a newt, a giant fish, and a dog. They were all rescue animals from shelters or friends( except the fish and lizard).So needless to say i am an animal person. I always tell people"i do kids and pets not plants" when all my plants die of neglect or too much attention( i am not the green thumb of my dad)....hehe

Boo Boo, my late great kitty, was one of three black kittens we found on a very cold October afternoon in a 6 ft deep window well of a local business while walking with a middle school group of drama students to our downtown (to sell ads in their playbook for their upcoming play) after following the faint sweet meows we heard from the sidewalk. It was mid Oct. and the weather was unusually cold and i thought the kitties must have been placed there by the mother cat in distress or a family that had a cat but did not want the kittens. I am an animal lover so could not leave them there as they were so very small( 2 months old by size)and would surely have not remained warm enough to survive the cold Oct. night ahead. We took them home( Liz and I) and then took them to the vets office hoping they could find them a home for them( as we had a dog at home). But when we saw the vet she said "NOT to give them to a pet shop or shelters until after Halloween as people actually buy black cats to mutilate them at Halloween"( REALLY?? Who are these people? YIKES!) So we took them home with some mother's milk substitute the vet gave us, as they were still nursing kittens. I knew we could not keep them as we already had our 2 yrs old dog . I broke the news to Dave who promptly said,"YOU ARE NOT KEEPING THEM ...WE HAVE A DOG." Now in all fairness i must add Dave has bad allergies which pet hair irritates his sinus, so on his behalf i understood. This was not our first rodeo (about pets) if you know what i mean..hehe So i promptly said we would just keep them until after Halloween.

They were so tiny and needed regular feeding as well as needed to be litter trained so we kept them in our small bathroom on the first floor next to the kitchen. After 10 days ,Halloween came and went so to speak and by then each of the kittens had been given a name by us three girls( me, Liz and Katie)...they were Boo Boo and Pumpkin and Chiquita Banana( because a sticker got stuck in her fur one day..hehe). Boo and Banana were short hairs and Pumpkin was long hair but all had beautiful shiny black fur and green eyes( pumpkin had striking yellow eyes).After a few weeks we asked Dave if we could keep them if they lived in our basement rec room, to cut down on the chaos of multiple pets and fur upstairs. He reluctantly agreed.So after a month or so and when they were litter trained and weaned onto regular kitty food we made the basement their new home Our carpeted, heated rec room with furniture was a cozy place really. We would bring them up each day to play with them which was so fun as they would scamper around and sometimes hide under the couch . The dog just loved them to our surprise and was quite the surrogate mother so excited to see some furry playmates each day.

Our dog's name was Cinnamon, a brown and white Lab/ Beagle/Hound we adopted from our friend Mary's puppy litter on Washington Island. I would say "where are the kitties?" in an excited voice and Cinnamon would run around our family room until he found what couch they were hiding under or behind and point his nose to the floor with rump and tail way up in the air. pointing to the exact spot they were hiding. Cinnamon would even lick the kitties as if they were her litter( she had been spayed). The kitties were very shy as lived such a quiet existence in the basement and all took on different personalities through the years. Boo boo was the hold and cuddle kitty and both Pumpkin and Banana could only be petted and did not like to be held. Banana was frightened of every thing and Pumpkin was the feisty one( so withdrew for very different reasons). Pumpkin was the clearly dominant cat. Once they were 9mos i think they were very strong personalities.

Our wonderful Dog Cinnamon died at age 7r from skin and bone cancer.....i think this was directly due to the Advantage flea prevention RX we put on the same shoulder her cancer started on!!(Don't use this product if you have a dog!). She had a few procedures done but died suddenly one day while the girls were at grade school. She was so sweet i still think about her fondly. After Cinnamon died, the cats came upstairs more and more until they were allowed to live upstairs all day until i beckoned them down to the basement for overnights. This was an interesting progression as they got to like the upstairs in our cozy house and were somewhat reluctant to go downstairs at the end of the day. At first i just called out "TREATS" from the bottom of the basement stairs and they would all run to the bottom of the stairs where i gave them cat treats( which was expensive and i realized unnecessary as later i just switched to another brand of cat food!).I felt like the "pied piper" as the girls would laugh when the cats always came running and i just walked up the stairs and closed the door behind me. Well after a few years things changed and the pied piper only got Boo to come down ...no Banana or Pumpkin. So then i became the "great white hunter", having to chase them and drop them on the first step and then promptly close the door. It was not a peaceful end of my day as they would hiss and bat at me and i had the scratches to prove it..yuk!It became quite the circus act to get them all in the basement...so after a few years of doing this i simply let them stay upstairs with the basement door a jar and only put them in the basement if we were gone for the weekend. Life is too short to have all that stress every night before bed ,as it turned into quite the safari- treasure hunt to find and get them all downstairs!!

Their personalities were really molded after a few years. Boo and Pumpkin seemed somewhat friendly as they would at least sit together on the same chair for the first few years but poor Banana tried but never got accepted and became the loner. Later Pumpkin became unfriendly even to even Boo and at age 13 (this year)Boo and Banana were still sweet but a bit paranoid of the sassy dominant Pumpkin. I still could not pick up Banana but she loved to be petted and brushed even if i could not hold her and she never scratched me. Pumpkin was always sassy, as you would pass her and she would hiss or bat at you...lovely pet?! But this past Fall things began to change. One of the cats was wetting on the basement floor next to the litter boxes. Well we tried months of different little box configurations with different litters and at one point 6 littler boxes!! But no luck so while i was away for the month of November doing service work in S Dakota, Dave put colored collars on each cat and WEB CAMMED them every 3 minutes( about 400 photos a day, isn't that crazy desparate!!). He would come home from work each day and view the photos to see if he could see which cat was wetting outside the box and finally after 2 weeks saw that it was Banana. We decided after MONTHS OF EFFORT to solve this situation to give Banana to a pet shelter.... i thought maybe if she was an "'only pet" and not around the sassy Pumpkin she might be fine and use the littler box. Dave sweetheart as he is drove Banana to numerous shelters but as it went none of the shelters were accepting any more cats in Dec. as they said they were full?! So then Dave went to a few vet's offices and being the beautiful looking cat Banana was the receptionist at one vets office said she would adopt Banana if Dave agreed to pay the vet bill for a physical to see if the wetting problem was medical...which he did. Problem solved..whew!!

So now we only had Boo and Pumpkin. Then early this Spring, Boo's fun was looking dry and she shed more than normal and lost alot of weight. The problem with multiple pets is it is hard to see symptoms..ie one of the 3 cats had been throwing up in the basement alot when i was gone in November but we did not know who. So i just changed the food and things got better but Boo still continued to lose weight. After a full check up at the vet she said Boo's blood work looked good but she felt a stomach mass. To figure out what to do next would involve a specialist vet who would give her an ultrasound, biopsy and possible surgery. Now Boo was 13 yrs old and i was not sure if i should even put her through all that. But i did call the specailist to get a price check of the possible procedures. I had pd $500 to my vet and the other procedures were estimated to be as much as $3-5000...all to just get a diagnosis!This was crazy as I do not believe in putting a pet through all that nor due i justify the expense, for as much as i loved her so she was 13 yrs old and at best would have only a few years left to live. I changed her food to the best brand out there- WELLNESS and her appetite increased and no more throwing up. I also got her a vitamin/ antioxidant oil to put on her food and oil enriched foam shampoo to nourish her fur and she seemed to be on the mend. But while i was in S Dakota in November she just passed away while Dave was at work :(

I miss my sweet Boo and now who do we have left??????.... Pumpkin,the LION KING or LUMP( short for pumpkin) as we call her! Tough to love a cat that bats and hisses at you if you just walk past her and who could never be picked up and cuddled...yikes! I had to agree with Dave on this one, but wanted to give her a chance. She was 13 yrs old and stuck in her ways and i was not too hopeful we could "teach an old cat new tricks". But i also felt if Banana or Pumpkin may have been nice holdable cats if ONLY pets( one pet to a household). Both were paranoid,one withdrawn( Banana) and one aggressive( Pumpkin). After Banana and Boo were gone ,Pumpkin would just walk around in circles all evening meowing and driving us nuts at the end of the day when Dave just had a few hours to relax before bed, but i knew she missed them even in her feisty way. I tried to pet her or pick her up at first but she would growl, hiss and bat. But i am happy to report that just this week I am now gradually getting her to sit next to me on the couch, on my lap while at the computer , and can actually hold her for a few minutes with just a few minutes of growling /meowing to protest each of these things. I think she is loving all the attention as an "only pet" (and do not missall the drama of the 3 cats who did not get along well due to Pumpkins aggressive behavior). She is still a nervous, feisty cat and i can't even trust her to hold her too close to my face but the LION KING is MELTING gradually into a "Cuddly Cub" "..... an amazing gradual change! There is hope she will become the family pet as time goes by!!


I really thought she was too old to change but as the "Dog Whisperer" says, 'animals do not have long memories and can change their behavior easily if the human takes charge and does not let the animal dominate the situation', and he is right! I just ignored or laughed at her ridiculous feistiness in the past years after YEARS of trying to pet and hold her, but all along she probably had the potential to become a nice pet but ONLY if the other pets were not present. I will never be a multiple pet owner again!! This was a rescue after all, as we saved these 3 cats from a cold death in a window well 13 yrs ago. So i have to feel good about the long lives we gave them and just enjoy the remaining sister cat that is left. It is so much more peaceful now that she is learning to relax and we do not have the three ring circus of the past...lesson learned!