Some pics of my childhood cats

First up: Tommy





All black male, domestic long hair, 1969-1972. My parents got him from a friend of a friend (some friends of my parents had a cat, and the people they got their cat from had another litter of kittens). My sister and I named him "Tommy" because he was a "tom cat" (hey, we were little kids). He was such a sweetie. Very gentle with my sister and me, and very patient considering that we were young girls who liked to play dress up with him As you can see he had an unfortunately short life. He was an indoor/outdoor cat and on my parents' wedding anniversary in 1972 he got injured severely by some neighborhood dogs and had to be put to sleep.

After Tommy crossed the Rainbow Bridge, there came Tiger and Princess.




They were brother and sister. My mother saw an ad in the newspaper about free kittens, and took my sister and me to the owners' house to take a look. There were six kittens in all: three orange tabby males, and three tortoiseshell females. I took one of the males (the oldest of the litter), and my sister took one of the females (the last of the litter).




Tiger: orange tabby and white male, domestic long hair. 1972-1981. I chose "Tiger" for him because in the first few days we had him, he was attacking everything. However, he ended up being quite the lap cat. Not quite as gentle as Tommy, but still a good kitty. He loved to sleep in the sink (even though it was really too small for him) and the tub. I had him for nine years. We put him to sleep when he got feline leukemia and was very sick to put him out of his misery. He was my first cat. I cried for him.




Princess: tortoiseshell and white female, domestic longhair. 1972-1986. My sister named her "Princess" because she acted like a princess in those first few days. She was never really a lap cat, though, at least not to anyone other than my sister, whose cat she was (and even then, not entirely). Throughout her life, she liked to suck on your finger, like she was suckling her mother. We figured she was taken away from her mama too soon. She lived to be 14 years old.

awww sorry to hear about tommy he looked so sweet..but very sad...
they were all nice kitties.

I wish I had photos of my cats ....that I had when I was growing up..but can't find them.

Aww, beautiful kitties!

They are all gorgeous!!

Precious photos

Precious photos

Click to expand...

So true...

And here's some more of my later cats:





Sundance: gray tabby male, domestic shorthair, 1982-1997. (This is actually my sister's cat, but I'm including him because I shared housing with my sister on and off while she had him, plus he stayed with me for two years while my sister lived in an apartment where she couldn't have cats.) My sister got him as a kitten from a pet store right after I left for college. Apparently he was the only/last kitten they had. This was a year after Tiger died, while we still had Princess. She named him Sundance after "The Sundance Kid", but usually called him "Kitty Kitty" or just "Kitty" . He was your basic mellow lap cat. He lived for 15 years.

So we had Sundance and Princess until 1986 when Princess crossed the rainbow bridge, then just Sundance, until I got Rascal in 1989:





Rascal: black and white tuxedo male, domestic shorthair, 1989-2008. I've written about Rascal extensively
here since I just lost him at 18 years old.

Next, my sister and her husband adopted Ripper:





Ripper: black and white tuxedo female, domestic shorthair, 1989(?)-2004. My sister and her husband adopted her from some kind of rescue/shelter operation (I don't know which one), in 1990. It was believed that she was a year old at the time, hence her tentative 1989 birth year. Apparently she'd been abused and perhaps even hit by a car before being rescued. She was quite a psycho cat, I have to say. She was named Ripper partially because when she was first brought home, she "ripped" up my brother in law's hand pretty badly. She lived with me for a couple of years at the end of her life, and at that point she wanted to sit on my lap like 24/7, but she'd also lash out with no warning. You had to approach her very carefully to not get injured. And there was no way to handle her to take her to the vet, unfortunately. One day in 2004, at 15 years old, her health just crashed and she had to be put to sleep.

A year after my sister adopted Ripper, I adopted a second cat to keep Rascal company, Sasha:





Sasha: dilute tortoiseshell female, domestic shorthair, 1990(?)-??. I adopted her from a private home based on an ad on an online bulletin board. She was about a year old. She came with the name Sasha, and I couldn't think of anything else I liked, so I kept it. She was never really much of a lap cat. She was pretty aloof. And she and Rascal never got along terribly well (they tolerated each other, but didn't cuddle or anything). In the summer of 1997, she disappeared. I think she ran away because she'd been spending a lot of her time outdoors all summer. I like to think she found another family to live with.

Well, that's it. Thanks for reading!