my wife and i spend our lives taking care of unwanted pets.
our first cat, abbey, was a stray who lived in miami. my wife and i lived in millbury, massachusetts. abbey had a terrible habit of running into the middle of the street, rolling over, and showing her belly, whenever my sister in law came down the street. she'd literally have to stop, get out of her car and pick up abbey in order to pull in her drive. eventually abbey stayed parked at her door. my wife was down visiting and decided abbey needed to be with us. she's been our child for going on 15 years. here's a picture of her loving life:
years later....like 13 years later, we moved to maine where our lives were interupted by a little white cat with black spotting. endeared to my wife by chasing butterflies in the field across the road, and moreso when a neighbors dog was trying to catch the little thing and my wife helped it escape. little thing was starving so we put out a bowl of dry food, which it ate. it continued keeping its distance. i worried where it was living as it seemed to be stray, then one day i discovered it was living in this disgusting old rolled up garden carpet the previous owner had left in a back portion of the property. i saw its little head sticking thru a hole in it like it wanted to trust me, but was affraid. my heart just dropped when i saw it in there. i pretty much decided we needed to move full force and make this little kitty understand we need to be her parents. that's when i broke out the chicken pieces...real chicken!! i wasn't messing around. she walked up to me sniffing my hand, ate out of my hand. and allowed me to pick her up. i took her the vet and even tho she was only months old, she was already pregnant. the vet told me if she went to term she'd die due to her enemic condition, so she lost her litter. i did go ahead and have her fixed, as we did with abbey years ago. the kitty's name is Casey, and she is a Ninja!!! i say she's a ninja because a couple weeks ago she thought i was being attacked by the neighbors huge dog who was barking and approaching me aggressively. that little thing (Casey) jumped into action, fly by me like a bolt of lightning, and jumped into the dogs face, wailing away!! i thought for sure she was dead meat, but the dog got scared and hid behind his owner. man, my cat was pissed!! lol. i got get back in the yard and she thought the dog was coming back so she charged him again. this time he ran back to his owner again and hid.
more recently we were introduced to two boys, who showed up on our doorstep like they owned the place. i thought they beloned to someone as they looked pretty healthy so i told my wife not to feed them and they'd go home. long story short, they never went anywhere, and everytime i turned around they were either on our deck, on a window sill, or in the yard. after about a week i realized these guys were getting thin! that perhaps i was way wrong and they were on their own. it was pouring down rain and the boys were hiding under my grill and grill cover. i loaded a big bowl with meow mix and tried to shove it under the grill, but they saw it coming and jumped out into the rain and started eating. they totally did not care it was pouring on them, and they devoured that food in no time. honestly, i was heartbroken and felt like a scumbag. having two cats, and no room for two more, we took them in and nursed them back to health hoping to find a home for them. after a while we decided to call the local animal shelter for help, and they came to pick up the boys, we had named Brody and Hooper. when they were taken away they both looked at me like "what? you don't love us?". i felt like garbage. later that night my wife read online that many times animals taken in are put down in 24 hours due to the amount of animals they have. i was a maniac!!! i immediately called animal control and told them i'd made a mistake, and wanted the cats back. they had already been given their shots and were supposed to go to another facility, but the guy in charge saw how upset i was over it and let me have them back. he took me to the room where they were locked up. when they saw me they went nuts!!! i can't begin to tell you how relieved i was they were okay. brody, somehow, had broken out of his cage and was in the feed cage. he was rubbing all over my legs and jumping up on my knees. got them home and opened up a can of tuna in an effort to ask for forgiveness. at work the next day i was telling this story when a girl said "i'd love 2 boy cats" and the deal was done. i know her well, too, and she and her daughter are big time animal lovers. she sent me a pic of the boys recently that i'm posting below. they are happy and healthy and, according to shanna, very loving. brody is on the left.
