Crazy Cat Lady

From a young age I have loved animals.  I begged my parents to get us a cat when I was just six or seven.  I'm pretty sure it was wild or just hated me because it always hid under our car.  She ran away eventually--and I can't remember her name.

But I wasn't deterred.  I begged and got another cat for our family to enjoy.  Her name was Cookie and she was a big fluffy dark tabby cat.  She was so sweet and would let us put clothes on her and would cuddle with us.  She too eventually ran away or possibly got hit by a car.  We had a little bit of a dry spell there for a while with cats, but in my mid-teens I begged, seeing a pattern here?, and got a cat from the Humane Society.  

As a kitten Daisy was sweet and feisty and very energetic.  As an adult cat who got spayed a little too late, she was a devil cat.  Even fixed she was a hellion.  She would let you pet her for maybe a minute before she would flatten her ears, twitch her tail, and growl that deep-throated yowl that only cats can make.  She would hide and pounce on my siblings' feet when they walked by, terrifying them.  I got many deep scratches from sweet Daisy.  The only one she really liked was our disabled sister, Annalee.  She would sit on Anna's lap and let her pet her as long as she wanted.  So it was with tears (because we had to take away Anna's pet, not because we would miss Daisy) that we took Satan back to the Humane Society, figuring she was too feral to be a cat for a house with five kids.

After that bad experience I moved onto dogs.  Any stray dog that I could find, and an occasional cat or two,  I would bring home, nurse back to health, and then they either died or our Dad would give them away.  (I have always had a soft spot for hurting or abandoned animals.)  There was Buster, an old, abused hound dog that would cower when we lifted our hand to touch the top of his head.  Dad told us it was probably because he'd been beaten.  So we learned to pet under his chin and eventually he learned to trust us.  We loved that old dog and when he died we buried him in our back yard.  We all cried, but I was happy we could give him some happy days in his life.  

Then there was Ticker, a little white mutt.  We named him Ticker because when I found him he was covered in ticks--real original name, I know.  His belly was distended with worms and he had a wound on his front paw.  Our mother, ever the patient one, gave us hydrogen peroxide and bought de-worming medicine and tick and flea powder.  Over the course of several weeks we brought that little dog back from the brink of death.  He was a cute little thing and a neighbor noticed.  Our dad, not wanting to feed a dog, gave him to the neighbor.  I have never quite forgiven him for this.  

So I begged him to let us have a black lab puppy from another neighbor's litter.  He and Mom agreed and we got Maurice.  He was a friendly dog but really quite dumb.  He had a fascination for chasing cars, the spinning tires made him go crazy.  I had moved out for college by then but I think Maurice lived a happy life with my siblings until he was hit by a car--the risks of living in the country.

For a while I wasn't able to have pets and I thought I'd go crazy.  I would rather have animals around me than people.  Animals love you if you love them (except Daisy) and they don't usually intentionally want to hurt you.  As soon as I found a place I could have pets I would start gathering them.  Since moving out I have had several pets:

Tiger--a big fluffy orange tabby tom cat

Mama cat with her litter of kittens

Three big toms I named Alexander, Napoleon, and Caesar

Grandpa cat--an old sick tom that I felt sorry for (whose bones now lie under a big oak in the country)

Merlin and Merlin the 2nd--two black cats

Gwenevere--a cute gray tabby

Crystal-another cute gray tabby

Midnight--another black cat

Sammy Sunshine--a cockatiel

Petey and Polly--two parakeets

Hugo--a boxer

Heinrich--a miniature pinscher

I have also fed and taken care of a multitude of stray cats.  I swear they talk because more would come every day. My siblings call me the Crazy Cat Lady, and I sort of am, but these pets have all been at separate times.  The most I've ever had in the house is two.  Any more and I would really be the crazy cat lady.

Anyway, if you have made it to the end of this post--Hooray!--I'm sure I've bored you.  Go watch The Walking Dead.  =)
P.S. This is Hugo and my husband, David.