Just another short story

[olds442jetaway]

     This one goes back to 1991. First you have to picture the neighborhood. Small houses on 50x100 lots mostly built in the 30's-50's. Heavily Italian and Irish neighborhood, but the good part is just a stone's throw from the beach.
     A wild but beautiful Angora mother cat decides to have her kittens right under my shed. She comes right up to us even though it was obvious she was wild to show us her prize litter when they were about 4 weeks old. She only had 3 and we adopt them all. Until they were old enough to leave the mother who actually left on her own, I built an outdoor shelter with bedding and a small tent next to the shed. The back yard is fenced in with chain link, so they were safe for the most part from a few roaming neighborhood dogs or even a stray coyote.
     The smallest one used to walk right through the hole s in the chain link fence and go to the elderly Italian neighbor in back of us. She fed the little one homeade Italian meatballs. The first time she did that my wife said....look at that little one walking right through the fence and that is how she got the name Little One.... The others stayed put and were too big to fit through the fence.
     We never saw the mother after they got to be about 6 weeks old and of course we took all 3 kittens to the vet for the works. One of them had a partly closed eye and we named him One Eye. My friend and dentist adopted him and he lived happily curled up with 3 Labs to be 19 years old. My dentist friend named him Sam, tossing the name we had given him. We kept the other two one of which we named Wild, because that is how he acted most of the time. He acted very friendly to us though. Unfortunately, he chased a small rabbit into the street one day and got hit by a car. Sad day for all. He was about 6 months old then.
     The last named Little One because of her ability to walk right through the chain link fence stayed with us for many years and became both an indoor and outdoor cat and the family pet. She survived a stray dog attack somehow and even our vet who sewed her back together can't believe she survived. She also had a knack for curing Bronchitis. She would curl up on my upper chest when I would would get these attacks usually in the winter and somehow within 3 days, it would be gone. The Dr. was amazed since the antibiotics hadn't worked. We eventually lost her to cancer, but you just can't put into words how much enjoyment and comfort Little One brought to the family over the years.

[Minn. Fatz]

Someone once said it best: the more I learn about people the more I appreciate cats and dogs. Thanks for the story.

[OTABILL]

As I've said before, you are a good soul Olds. We have 5 cats, 4 of which were born in our backyard. We had been feeding the mother but something happened to her so the kittens were abandoned. They must have been about a week old. Took them in, bottle fed them and now they run the house.

[olds442jetaway]

I know about the running the house part. Once in awhile, they even say thank you in their own way which for cats, is not an everyday occurance. One thing I know for sure and have verified many times. A nice pet will take 15-20 points off your blood pressure machine reading.

[DaBurglar]

Awesome story.....even though i currently am into dogs & pugs, I am also a cat person as well...both species are fascinating to me......I had a tomcat named felix growing up, from when I was age 11 all the way to age 23, after I had graduated and was getting ready to move to los angeles, Felix lived and roamed free in our neighborhood......he loved people and hated anything on four legs;  it was amazing he lived as long as he did through as much as he went through given our backyard, and our front yard next to a busy route...Felix was incredibly smart, as well as BIG....we never had him fixed so that no doubt contributed to his development and his behavior, but it was awesome to witness.He reached, at his apex, nearly 30 pounds (HUGE for a domestic tabby, even a tomcat)....after age 6 when he got all his initial vacs, we never took him to the vet again......in fact at age 9 months when we were going to get him fixed he took off for a week, and we assumed the worst....after cancelling the procedure, he returns like nothing ever happened, but this was clearly the moment he came of age and determined what he wanted to do and be.....for the next 12 plus years he would come and go, winter spring summer fall, as he pleased.He was always getting into fights, he'd come home with gaping wounds on his head, bumps bruises and an occasional limp.....still, he'd just shrug it off, act real nice to all people (even strangers) and hang around until he healed up, then off he went again on a new adventure.   At age 4 we finally realized how special he was given his ability to survive & thrive like he did.....he had RAZOR sharp claws, which is no doubt one reason why he did survive as long as he did...one time my dad brought him a piece of cheese as a snack and he held it too close and Felix swiped at the cheese and accidently nailed my dads hand, which was laid open like a scalpel hit it!Felix fought everything, he backed down from nothing, not even german shepherds....one time a strange German Shepherd roamed into the yard, Felix (age 7 now and in his prime) was in the middle of the yard taking a bath when he saw the intruder....the dog initially barked and moved forward in an aggressive way, but Felix merely stood up, cocked himself sideways to make himself appear twice as large, and hissed as loud as I've ever heard any animal...the dog stopped dead, lowered its head and backed down.....then Felix, showing his smarts, made a beeline for the nearest tree and watched keenly until the dog was long gone.   No doubt, that shepherd ultimately could have won that fight, but he realized it was not worth losing an ear, and eye or worse...this enlightened us all on Felix's amazing survival skills.    And in all the years he lived, we never ever saw him go near the road, which is usually what kills cats around here.Felix died when he was past his 13th year, but it was not a natural death....one day, the by now ragged looking felix (like an old punch drunk fighter by now) came home emaciated and with matted fur....upon close inspection it was clear to us he had been  doused in gasoline, and in the process of licking himself to clean he ingested enough poison to slowly die.....we could do nothing for him except put him down.    Since Felix approached ALL people with fondness and affection, we figure some kids no doubt decided to douse him with gas and light him up, but being the smart cat he escaped that fate, only to die from poisoning.   we never found out who the kids were and given the range of Felix's roaming, we never could have.....