The Seven Wonderful Cats!

Oh my, such a long time since I last posted. Betty Lou has been most busy, I can assure you. And whenever I say "busy" I always think of that cartoon magician that the great comedian, Terry Thomas, played in "Frosty the Snowman" during which he said, "busy, busy, busy"
countless times.

Today, I rejoin you, friends, to tell you about my cats ... all seven of them. Yes, SEVEN! Even as a child, Betty Lou had the makings of being a crazy cat lady when she grew up. I've always loved cats and my favorite book as a little girl was a picture book called "The Seven Wonderful Cats." I still have it and now I live it. The only reason I'm not a crazy cat lady now is because, in addition to the cats, I have a husband and children. Only old maid spinsters can truly wear the label of crazy cat lady.

My cats range in age from 14 years to 9 weeks. They are:

Ernie ... who's a girl but I didn't know that when I named her "Ernie" so to make her feel more feminine I sometimes call her Princess Ernestina. She's the grand dame of the felines at 14. I don't have a favorite but if I did, she's it. I've always had a particular fondness for black cats.

Kassey ... A calico sweetheart who was literally thrust into my arms by a neighbor child several years ago. The child found Kassey dodging traffic in a busy street.

Scat ... Just over a year old, Scat has already borne two litters of kittens in her short life. She was a feral cat who lived outside our former apartment. It took me 7 months to get her to trust me enough to touch her. She became more affectionate when she was pregnant with her first litter and her kittens were born in the box I put on our patio. Scat is grey and white and has wise, knowing eyes. Of her first litter of three, one died. He was Mose and he had a spinal deformity and was teeny tiny. When he died at 8 weeks, I cried for him and me. Her other two kittens were -

Smokey Joe and Charley ... They're identical twins ... solid gray and now 6 months old. Because I can't tell them apart from any distance (it's only by their eyes and only up close) I call them "The Twins" or "The Boys." They're a little different in temperment. Charley is easier to purr and purrs in a higher pitch than Smokey Joe. They're both sweet and stick together like glue but secretly I wish they looked different because I would probably spend more time with each of them individually and develop a closer relationship than I have. But I love them just the same.

Rocky ... Rocky is the surviving kitten from Scat's second litter. (Scat got pregnant while she was still nursing her first litter and before I could capture her and get her to the vet to be spayed. By the time she gave birth to the litter in August we had moved from the apartment to a house and brought her with us. She stayed inside prior to and after her pregnancy and had good care. Still, four of her five kittens died in their third week of life. I think they all got an upper respiratory infection that is always fatal in newborns.) That's one of the reasons Rocky is Rocky. He's a champ; an adventerous soul whose energy knows no bounds. He's just 9 weeks old, white and black (note I didn't say black and white for there's more white than black.) and, despite a firm agreement between my husband and I that we would find a good home for him when he was weaned, neither of us has brought it up again. Rocky's been weaned for weeks now. I adore him.

And finally ...

B.W. ... a black and white cat who was another feral cat who hung around our apartment. She was a tiny kitten when I first saw her and travelled with her mother, who finally left her with us. I guess Mom knew she'd get food at our place. When Scat had her first litter, B.W. was there as a second mom. She cleaned the newborns, cuddled with them when Scat went off for short periods of time and came to be a great playmate for Charley and Smokey. But she never let me near her. I've never touched B.W. When we moved to our new house and took B.W.'s "family" from her, I knew she'd never make it on her own. I borrowed a live trap from the police department and figured I'd have no trouble trapping her with a can of cat food. All it would take was her stepping on the lever to close the cage behind her as she was eating. I figured wrong. I'll be danged if she didn't put one foot in front of the lever and one foot behind and eat the food at an odd angle. How did she know? I went back to our old apartment 4 nights in a row and tried the same trick until finally she tripped the lever. She went crazy in the cage but I brought the cage into our fenced in backyard and let her out. That night we had a ferocious thunderstorm and I feared she'd be long gone by morning but she was there and has been there ever since, happy to be reunited with Charley and Smokey. She and Scat were very close but now they had to be close through the window. Scat was still inside until I could get her spayed and she'd stare out while B.W. stared in. When Scat had her kittens and two of them had black and white coloring I wondered whether B.W. could be a "he." I'd never heard of a male cat nurturing newborn kittens but I got my answer once Scat was spayed and recovered and we let her outside finally to be reunited with B.W. Within a short time I caught him trying to mount her. Yes, B.W. is a male and while he's accepted that Scat is no longer "in the game," they still act like lovesick teenagers together. I also realize that B.W. is Rocky's Dad and they too, play together along with Smokey Joe and Charley.

Now to the drama - the week that the newborns were dying, one on Friday, the next on Wednesday, then Thursday then Friday again ... Ernie was dying too. She'd come down with the upper respiratory infection and gotten sick very quickly. I took her to the Vet who said she had a temperature of 102 (high for a cat) but that she'd be fine. he gave her a shot of penicillin, sent me home with amoxicillin to give her twice a day and said to bring her back if she worsened. That cost me $85 which was a bit of a shock and more than Betty Lou could realistically afford. Within 12 hours, Ernie was worse and she deteriorated over the next several days. She stopped eating so I rubbed canned food against her gums and tried getting syringes filled with kitten formula into her. She fought it all. Her eyes became glazed, her hair lost all its lustre and became matted with the food I was trying to force into her despite my best efforts to clean her. It's amazing how a cat can look when it stops grooming itself. She simply lay in what looked to be an uncomforable position under my sons' dresser and labored to breathe. Every morning I dreaded finding her dead. Six days after I took her to the Vet it was apparent she was fading away. I didn't even try to give her the amoxicillin. Why bother. I lay down on the floor and stroked her and told her goodbye and cried and wondered how I'd move past her death. There were five other cats to take her place but I knew that not one of them could come close. I finally went to bed, still crying. The next morning she was still alive. I stopped on my way home from work that day and bought a shovel. To bury her. When I got home and steeled myself to recover her body I found her still ... and better. She had definitely improved. It was her eyes. They were her eyes again, not sick eyes. I measured her medicine into the syringe and started to open her mouth to inject it in. But she stopped me. Ernie reached out her paw and dug her claws into my wrist and literally pushed my arm away from her. Aha! It finally dawned on me. The medicine was making her sicker. The medicine was killing her. I didn't give her another drop and in the following days Ernie got better. She was horribly gaunt and still sneezing like crazy but she was breathing without making it seem hard. I continued to rub food against her gums because cats won't eat if they can't smell their food. And the stronger she got, the more water she drank and finally she started eating food again.

Today, a month later, she's back to her old, ornery, lovable self. She's used up all nine of her lives now, I fear. But I don't fear much. Ernie beat every odd against her and won. She's my champion.

Next, in the coming days .... more drama ... I went away and Kassey went missing.