cats from your past...

been thinking about my cats ive had growing up....most where strays(happens alot when u live in the country)

My first cat JayDee(got him for my second birthday) i remember him b/c he died when i was 18. that cat was an outside cat. was shot twice(stupid people stupid parents). he lived through both of those. he died of natural causes.

my second cat Milo. I got him from my dad when i was 9 or 10. he died at 4 yrs old. he swallowed christmas tinsel and by the time we got to the vet it was too late.

then you have 3 siblings. Mouse, Spanky and Spaz. they lived till they where 10 all died within weeks of eachother. Mouse was the last to go. He seemed to be the leader of them and the one who took care of the other two.

Fancy Pants found her in a dumpster. she had a litter of kittens that consisted of two babies on my pillow and hair. all passed away.

EggRoll...my step dads cat. the reason i love siamese cats. she died this year at 18 yrs old.

Charley: my parents gift to me a chocolate point siamese. he died due to liver failure. never knew the reason behind it. still owe the vet $300 but they have been really nice. he passed away in 2006. i miss him very much. whenever i see a monarch butterfly i know its him.

Growing up, my family was not into cats, but rather German Shepherds. In fact I don't even remember any of my school friends having cats. They might have had them but were in hiding when I visited. And of course, cats in my neighborhood never ventured on our property when the dogs were out.

I offered a life to my first cat was when I was on my own and out of college. Apartments allowed cats, but not dogs. So, I figured a cat would be better than a hamster. My first cat was a Sealpoint Siamese from a rescue. She was a beautiful example, and had that wondrous meow. When I finally bought a house, got another cat and a couple of German Shepherds, and since then have always had at least two cats and two GSD's.

That lady lived to reach her 19th birthday.

Originally Posted by colorpointcat

been thinking about my cats ive had growing up....most where strays(happens alot when u live in the country)

My first cat JayDee(got him for my second birthday) i remember him b/c he died when i was 18. that cat was an outside cat. was shot twice(stupid people stupid parents). he lived through both of those. he died of natural causes.

my second cat Milo. I got him from my dad when i was 9 or 10. he died at 4 yrs old. he swallowed christmas tinsel and by the time we got to the vet it was too late.

then you have 3 siblings. Mouse, Spanky and Spaz. they lived till they where 10 all died within weeks of eachother. Mouse was the last to go. He seemed to be the leader of them and the one who took care of the other two.

Fancy Pants found her in a dumpster. she had a litter of kittens that consisted of two babies on my pillow and hair. all passed away.

EggRoll...my step dads cat. the reason i love siamese cats. she died this year at 18 yrs old.

Charley: my parents gift to me a chocolate point siamese. he died due to liver failure. never knew the reason behind it. still owe the vet $300 but they have been really nice. he passed away in 2006. i miss him very much. whenever i see a monarch butterfly i know its him.

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Having 17,000 photos on my computer, I was sorting through them recently and came across photos of Greycat. Greycat just showed up on my doorstep one day and I started feeding her and she became a resident in my house along with Krazy, my other rescue cat. I reviewed the photos with tears in my eyes but had such great memories the rest of the day.

This got a bit long!

I've been thinking about my two childhood cats, Mag and Battery, quite often lately. I had a dream the other night about them, and they were both still alive and I was worrying about when they'd die. They would have been 17 this year.

We got them in 1993, from a litter my dad's shop cat Muffler had. All of her kittens except 4 out of her two litters were adopted - no one wanted the gray tabbies. My dad kept Spark-plug and Tune-up at the shop after Muffler died, they were from the first litter. Tune-up ran away, and Sparky died at 5 yrs old of a broken heart (blood clot due to heart murmur) less than a month after her best friend, our 14 yr old German Shepherd, died of lyme disease. We brought Mag home as a kitten, because he had a maggot eating away at his neck (partly the reason for his name, the other was for Mag wheels, since all our cats then had car-related names), and Battery was left in the box by himself. My dad convinced my mom to bring him home because Mag needed a friend.

Battery was a pudgy kitty, but he and Mag were the most loving cats you could ask for. They cracked us up, following us in the woods when we'd play back there, sleep in our forts, catch moles and eat them, etc. Battery always slept with me and Mag always slept with my younger brother at night.

In 2003, at 10 years old, Battery began snorting a lot and eating less. The vets thought it was just allergies, gave him cortizone to help his breathing, and sent him on his way. After 4 or so cortizone treatments, they tested him and found he had a malignant tumor in his nose and would only live a maximum of 10 miserable months if we decided to do $5k in chemo. We didn't - Battery's favorite thing in the world was eating, and he was no longer doing that. We didn't want him losing his whiskers and living a pain-filled 10 months, so he was put to sleep on July 1, 2003. My brother and I each held a paw in the vets office while my mom pet his head. I was 16 and that broke me big time.

Mag mourned his litter mate brother for awhile. He began sleeping in my bed, where Battery used to sleep. 2 weeks after Battery was PTS, my mom adopted a tuxedo kitten named Chassis as a friend. At first they hated each other, but a few weeks later, they were inseparable.

In 2004, we moved to NC, and my mom brought the cats down. Mag had begun growling when you picked him up, something he never did before. My mom thought he was stressed. The cats were given tranquilizers for the 10 hour drive. Chassis woke up 9 hours later. Mag had to be forced out of a coma almost 2 days later. It turned out he had kidney failure at 11 years old. We had him on the fluid treatments, and the vet told us he could live 2 days or 2 years or more. Two weeks after starting treatment, he had the best day in NC - chasing birds on the deck, watching the koi fish, rolling in the grass. We adopted a new kitten in case his life was going to be short, that way Chassis wouldn't be so alone. We named her Caliper, and Mag took to her instantly. He stood over her every time Chassis tried to swat at her. The next morning, July 18, 2004, my mom found Mag dead in the den. He just stopped breathing, they think his heart gave out. We cried and kissed him in the box my dad put him in to bring him to the vet. My mom has both their ashes and their collars next to the bed.

I miss those two amazing cats every day

I also will never forget the other cats in my life: Sunshine (carried away in a dump truck), Muffler (died shortly after having her 2nd litter of kittens), Sparky (blood clot), Tune-up (ran away), Camshaft (distemper), Turbo (ran away/cat-napped), Tigger (fluid in her lungs during I-131 treatment), and Monte (hit by a car).

Most of the other kittens Muffler had were adopted out to my dad's customers. One of my friends adopted one, he was about 9 years old then. 20 years later, Willie was still kickin'!

I always had cats growing up, but with Mom, animals were disposible objects to get rid of when they were no longer convenient.

The first one I can remember is Cuddles. She was an calico who went outside one day and never came back. I don't remember a LOT about her though.

We then got Cuddles II. From what I can remember, she passed when she had an unfortunate accident where a toilet seat fell on her head.

Tabby came next, who was of course, a Tabby. The only person she ever liked was my evil exstepfather, go figure. She was an indoor cat, but she got out one day and was gone for 3 months. One day I was walking to school and she came running up to me! I was shocked to see her! When we brought her back in, she was peeing blood, had numerous health issues and Mom had her put to sleep.

Minnie was my heart cat, my soulmate girl through and through. She was a black and white tuxido girl who would sleep curled up with me every night, would jump into my arms when I got home from school daily and who would meow constantly, looking for me when I went away to camp, etc. I adored that cat. Well Mom didn't want to pay to have her spayed, so she got to the point she was constantly in heat and starting peeing/pooping throughout the house. One day I got home from school to find Minnie gone. Mom said she had taken her to a barn and left her there. I was DEVASTATED! I cried for weeks, and I think that experience is why I am such a huge animal advocate today and so pro spay/neuter.

Wicked came next. He was a beautiful long haired grey and white boy. He would groom me like his baby. Everyone thought he was gorgeous, and he knew it! He was such a good boy, never caused any trouble. One day my ex was sleeping on the couch and opened the window. The window had a tear in the screen. Wicked got out, and we were never able to find him. We put up posters, talked to neighbours and searched for so long, but never found out what happened to him.

Just going to remember my very first here. When I was 3 we went to visit my grandparents in Kentucky. The had a beautiful gray and white kitten named (ready?) Tom Pennycuff. My cousins and I fought over him constantly, so my folks promised me a kitten when we got home. That's how Mimi (pronounced me-me) came to live with us; she cost Dad a quarter, and was solid black with a dozen white hairs on her throat and big green eyes.

She was an inside and outside cat (remember, this was a long time ago). While she was still a youngster she got into our chicken coop one night and managed to get one of her front legs caught in a rat trap. Not a mouse trap, a rat trap. I can remember my other Grandma, who was staying with us, sitting on the sofa and holding poor Mimi all day, telling my 3 brothers and me to 'leave the poor little thing be'. There was no extra money in our household for a vet; Mimi walked with a slightly turned out paw and the barest of limps from then on.

She lived with my folks even after I got my own place; I couldn't rip her away from the only home she'd ever known. One morning, when Mimi was 21 years and 2 months old, my Mom called me to tell me Mimi had died. I went to the house to say my goodbyes; when I put my hand on her she let out a feeble little 'meow'. I carried her into the kitchen where my Mom promptly exclaimed, "Why are you carrying a dead cat around?!" I told her, "She's not dead." I sat in a rocking chair and held Mimi for 2 1/2 hours until she finally did pass away. I buried her in my Dad's flower garden.

My early cat memories are sad. My first cat was Alexander, lost in a flood in Puerto Rico when I was about five years old.

There was a long period of no cats. Then when I was about eight or ten, my aunt who bred Persians gifted me with a solid white kitten. She was a joy, gentle and beautiful. We kept her in the house, but she longed to go out. My parents felt sorry for her, constantly at the door, wanting to see what was outside. They finally relented and she became an indoor/outdoor cat. She got into a car motor (or where they go under the hood, I am unclear) and had to have a leg amputated. She did fine with the amputated leg. We never thought she could have kittens, but she had two, just a couple of weeks before her death. We heard mewing out in the rain, and went out with a flashlight. There was one white and one gray tabby, tiny and wonderful. Then the neighbor's pit bulls got loose attacked their mom and broke her back. She had to be put to sleep. It was awful and I hate those dogs, long dead now, to this day (we won't go into what I think of their owners - this is a family site). My mom's friend had a cat that would nurse other cats' kittens, so we had hope for the babies. Unfortunately, they died after a week or so of becoming a part of the new litter.

There was also Smokey - a stray that a neighborhood boy caught for me. He was strictly an outside cat, sweet and loving. He was ran over on the dirt road that we lived on it.

I have good memories of my cats, but am haunted by the horrible ways in which they died. They didn't deserve to go out like that.

I grew up with four cats. Elwood, a grey tiger shorthair, was my mom's first cat when she and my dad got our house, along with his brother Jake who passed before I was born. Sam and Dave were brothers that my mom got as kittens from some kids down the street who owned the mama cat. Dave was an orange tiger and Sam was all black with a white patch on his throat. Little Bo joined the crew when my mom took Sam and Dave to the vet for their shots. He was a little black stray that'd been hit by a car and had a broken jaw; our vet was going to put him down but my mom said she'd pay for his treatment and nurse him back to health. Instead of her he ended up bonding with my dad's Norwegian elkhound, Nikki.

The one other cat that shaped my childhood love of cats and animals in general was my Nana's old siamese cat, Natasha. Tasha was never the friendliest of cats, the epitome of the cranky siamese, but she always tolerated my poking and prodding as a little kid with only a few warning nips or bloodless scratches

We've had several cats in the family over the years, but the one I remember best was Rue. She was the cutest little lover! I originally adopted her from the humane society. I was still living at home at the time, and when it was time to find my own place, Rue had to stay, mom had grown to attached. Later my sister and I used to joke that Rue was treated better than the two of us ever were.

It's been 6 years since she pasted away suddenly, but we still fondly talk about her.