- Joined
- May 19, 2013
- Messages
- 13
- Purraise
- 10
I want to begin the introduction of my furry family with a tribute to one of the most precious souls ever to draw breath. We lost our Weezer a couple of months ago. Her story began 12 years ago when a feral cat had a litter of five kittens in our boat. When she became aware that we had seen them, she moved them to a “safe place”. Tragically, she was killed in the street in front of our house a few days later. I knew those motherless kittens were out there somewhere and I spent the next five days looking. I had pretty much given up hope that they could still be alive when one brave little boy came out of hiding, screaming as loud as his little lungs allowed. Miraculously, all five were still alive after five days without a mother’s care, no food, no comfort. But they weren’t in good shape; blow flies had found them and they were covered in maggots. One died before I could get them to the vet and one was so badly damaged that the vet helped him to the bridge. I took the surviving three to work with me every day until they could be weaned. Weezer was the runt of the litter, hence the wee one, Weezer. The other two were adopted by co-workers and I finally realized that I wasn’t fostering Weezer, there was no way I could part with her. She had recurrent ear infections from the maggot damage when she was tiny, but eventually got stronger and healthy. When she was 10 years old she was diagnosed with diabetes, but after several months of being unable to regulate her blood sugar, we found out the diabetes was only a symptom of acromegaly, a tumor on the pituitary gland. We struggled with the diabetes, megacolon, kidney failure, and other complications of the acromegaly. My goal was to keep her pain free and engaged in life. She finally told me that it was time to let her go, so with broken hearts we did. We still miss her every day. RIP sweet Weezer.
Now to our furry family today. We adopted a little beige tabby three weeks after losing Weezer. Bingo was two months old at the time and has been the perfect addition. He joined Doobie, a ten year old male Maine Coon mix with an attitude and Whitey, a super sweet adult male DSH with a permanent tilt left over from an ear infection, and our resident dog Mini, a female Welsh terrier mix of eight years. They are all now perfectly integrated into one big happy family. Whitey took to little Bingo right away, with gentle play and grooming. Doobie watched the whole thing from the sidelines for a while and figured out that this could be better than a toy. Now it’s game on between those two. Mini thought we had enough cats already, but she’s sweet and tolerant by nature and has been seen to do a little kitten licking too. There is nothing like kitten hijinks to bring the smiles back.
Now to our furry family today. We adopted a little beige tabby three weeks after losing Weezer. Bingo was two months old at the time and has been the perfect addition. He joined Doobie, a ten year old male Maine Coon mix with an attitude and Whitey, a super sweet adult male DSH with a permanent tilt left over from an ear infection, and our resident dog Mini, a female Welsh terrier mix of eight years. They are all now perfectly integrated into one big happy family. Whitey took to little Bingo right away, with gentle play and grooming. Doobie watched the whole thing from the sidelines for a while and figured out that this could be better than a toy. Now it’s game on between those two. Mini thought we had enough cats already, but she’s sweet and tolerant by nature and has been seen to do a little kitten licking too. There is nothing like kitten hijinks to bring the smiles back.
