OMG it's Billy's 2nd Gotcha Day!!!!!

Happy Gotcha Day Billy!

Billy and Bing showed up the summer of 2008. We know they were born feral in the Spring of 2006, but people in the RV Park were always friendly to them. Someone up the road fed them from when they were little kitties, and had to leave the area for work - and asked us to look after them (of course first order of business was getting them neutered. ).

They were almost always together. On the rare occasion they weren't, they showed up here at the same time, ran at each other, headbumped, rubbed all over each other, and wrapped their tails around each other, walking together.

They were friendly to us so fast - they deserved to be living inside, the cushy life! We tried SO HARD for MONTHS to get them adopted out together. It was getting cold, and Gary was starting to freak out. Finally, the local vet referred someone to us. She's a friend of the owner of the practice, and had recently lost her kitty friend of 18 years. She tried to talk her husband into adopting both of them - but it was not going to happen.

We felt we had no choice. We split them up. Bing went to his new home (where he is spoiled rotten!). But Billy was now outside - alone.

We couldn't do it. In advance of the first freezing rain/"winter" storm that was pending, we got him to the vet to go through "quarantine" (Tuxedo has a compromised immune system, and in the RV we have no way to separate them). Turns out he had giardia - so we very much doubt he would have made it through the winter.

He wasn't so nervous the first few days... but he was SO cat friendly, he tried to headbump our crew - and they hissed at him, or bopped him, or looked at him like he was an alien. It was breaking our hearts. He cried for Bing. And he talked about everything! So our boy - who seemed comfortable at first - became nervous.

So I started headbumping him, and "petting" him with my head. It took him three months to get his purr going....and now he purrs almost as much as Flowerbelle does.

But since having adopted Chumley... he really has a kitty friend now. Chum will groom him endlessly. As someone put it in another thread... two lost souls found each other.

Scrawny Billy:


Billy and Bing:


Billy inside. Is this a happy cat or what? (I love the "racing stripes" under his chin!)


The cuddle-bunny who sleeps on my head:


Pet the tummy!


Billy being loved on by his new pal:


Billy - we can't imagine our lives without you! You're my little lover boy (well - at four pounds overweight, not so little anymore!), and I love that you love to be held like a baby - and I love that the tummy is not off-limits!

Thank you everyone!

I love his "cloverleaf" nose too!

Me too! Everyone loves to roll around - but he's the only that you don't wind up with claw marks from the rabbit kicks on your arms if you pet the tummy!

I know. The woman really wanted to take them both - but her hubby put his foot down at one indoor kitty. We knew what good care she took of her other kitty because of the vet connection, and everyone there loved her... and we were just running out of time. We STILL cry about it, even though we know how happy Bing is there (he REALLY bonded with her youngest son ) - and how happy - finally - Billy is here. We're just SO thankful Chum is sooooooo sweet to him. You should hear him purr when Chumley grooms him. Makes Gary jealous!

P.S. Bing didn't grieve over the separation like Billy did. He had started taking off on his own sometimes, and Billy was bumming outside about that. Bing LOVED being petted, and was much needier from a "people" perspective and less so from a "cat" perspective than Billy was.

Otto, I hope you're back to see this, but here's Bing outside:





...and here's Billy - who wants to go and be next to Bing:


Bing took a while to be comfortable being inside - and going down the stairs - but he loved taunting the dog from day 2.

These days Billy is a total love bug, a lap cat - and if I lean over, he'll "stand up" and put his paws on my shoulders and "hugs" me (which is just TOO sweet!) - and he even loves being held like a baby. But it took a while to get there. And now that he's got Chumley to love on him all day long... he is just in heaven.

We hated splitting them up, and still feel guilty about it... but I do think that in the end, everything happens for a reason. With 20/20 hindsight, it seems Bing was going his own way, and Billy's heart would have been broken anyway.

I very much doubt there's any Russian Blue in there - but you never know, I guess. There are generations of ferals here, and absolutely heaps of small farms and LOTS of barn cats. We have never met ANYONE in the area that has a pure bred anything (cat-wise).

Interesting question though - I'm going to ask the vets we work with what percentage of the cats they treat are pure bred.