Binky came to work with me the other day before a trip to the vet to get her stitches out.  She found a nice window to perch in while I worked.

Binky and Junior find their favorite spot on the sofa after a big dinner.

They’re soon joined by Summer.

Junior finds the food…box..

In 1998 I had just moved back to Atlanta from Chattanooga and had rented an apt in a nice complex.   Every morning, as I walked Midgie,  I would see this beautiful cat sitting at the back door of my neighbor’s townhouse.  They never let him in, even when it rained or got cold.  They said he was feral and he and his littermate had been dumped in the neighborhood as tiny kittens.

They adopted his littermate, but left him outside.  However, they did feed him.  Then one day  I noticed he was pawing at their back door asking for his dinner, but the drapes were closed.  The next day the same, and the day after that, etc.  A week went by and I finally went over there and saw the “for sale” sign in the front yard.   They had moved and left him behind.

I started feeding him and gradually he began to follow me over to my apt, but he was very skittish and wouldn’t let me near him.  When winter came, I set up a warm cabana bed at my front door with a warming pad inside and plenty of old quilted bedspreads, plastic, and blankets over it.  And he would use it.

Well long story short, 11 years later I still have him.  I tried to give him a cool name, but because I kept calling “Supper” in those early days to get him to come eat, he decided that was his name.

He’s always been a semi-feral, going in and out as he pleases.  He loves his mom, but to this day will trot in the other direction if I reach out to pet him.  He likes to be near and even in the house, but not in my lap.  Which is why when I was able to pet him the other day, I knew he wasn’t himself.

For the past several months, I noticed he was looking a little ragged and had lost some weight.  He’s always been long and lean, but this was different.  I chalked it up getting older. He had stopped grooming himself. He was eating with everyone, and putting on a cat’s usual stoic face, so I didn’t really pay too much attention until the other day.

He was sitting on the back of the sofa looking out the window when I sat down close to him.  Normally he would have bounded off to find another spot, but he stayed right there.  So I reached out and he let me pet his head. Then I ran my hand down his back and discovered under all that long hair he was just skin and bones.

Horrified and upset, I took him straight to my vet.  Dr. Hitchcock did a senior panel and for a 12yr old cat, everything came back pretty normal.  He has the beginning signs of kidney disease, but it’s not bad. Everything else is right where it should be.  But he had an elevated white blood count. So Dr. Hitchcock concluded there’s an infection going on somewhere and put him on Baytril, a strong antibiotic.  Which is fun considering I have to chase Suppie around the house, scruff him, and wrap him in a towel to get the pill down him.

It’s always hard to see our beloved pets get old. And because fe-lions are what they are, it’s usually a surprise when we find out they’ve gotten old and things are starting to go wrong.   I’ve been treating him with extra dinners of stewed chicken and he seems to be responding.  I hope he’ll get through this and I’ll have him a few more years anyway.

I shot this with my digital camera video tool so it’s a little blurry, but my cat Baby thinks my fake fireplace is real. So funny.  She lays in front of it to get warm.  At our old house we had a real fireplace that she used to lay in front of in the winter. 

Will try to get a better video next time she does it.

Received this email today from Betty’s new “parents.”  This is what makes fostering so rewarding.

Margie writes:

“We have had Ms. Betty for a week and she has been fun, funny, and a delight. She is aggressively affectionate. The other cats have settled down quite a bit. But, it was Ms. Betty doing most of the growling. She cuddles up wherever I am at. We have been leaving the door open for now and she sleeps right beside me. As I am typing this email she is sitting on my lap grooming herself.

The other night we were eating and I had cooked some chicken in a crockpot and it was on our plates. The only “rule” I have is for the cats not to be on the table while we are eating. If they are and are not bothering anything then it really does not bother us and I don’t try to keep them off.

Anyways, Ms. Betty is still a kitten and she is curious. She got on the table, started sniffing in the plates. I was going to put her on the floor but before I could, she got the chicken on my plate and ran off the table with it in her mouth. When she got to the floor she had dropped it and she walked away licking her lips as if  to say,

‘it sure did taste good.’   It was quite humorous.

Just thought I would email you to tell you, and let you know she really is doing fine.”

Had I not sprung her from the shelter, Betty wouldn’t be alive today and Phil and Margie would not be enjoying such a wonderful kitty.

His name is Junior or JR.  It’s the only name he answers to.  Anyway, JR’s last day at the shelter was last Wednesday.  So Tuesday afternoon, he went home with me.

This video was taken this morning in the front yard with Binky.

What a different purrsonality from Betty.  Whereas Betty was wide open…as they say around here…into everything, going 100mph, constantly demanding attention, this guy is much calmer.

He loves to play as you can see, but he’s quiet with a tiny little mew you can barely hear.

He’ll make a great addition to the fe-lion crew if he doesn’t get adopted.

Meantime, the last of the stray tom cats is now at the shelter. They said they would likely neuter him and have him live at the shelter as the resident mouser. Spike is also a resident mouser.  They’re good people there. Euthanasia rate is 30%. The rest are adopted out, pulled by no-kill shelters into foster care, or a truck from North Shore Animal League in NYC comes down and takes all the puppies they have.  All puppies are pre-adopted and once there, they are immediately adopted out.

I’m happy to be able to help in my small way by fostering a kitten now and then.