WE ARE sooo NOT CAT PEOPLE !!! or A Tale of Four Kittys

 I recently read a blog that had posted about how she hated to read about "old ladies and their cats".  So, if by any chance the owner of that blog is reading this blog you will want to RUN not walk outta here...because I am an old lady and this is a cat post.  Fair warning I think.  Let me preface this story by saying that it's not that we didn't like cats, we just always had dogs.  We had wonderful, funny, loyal dogs too. They each stole our hearts. We are dog people.  It's not that we didn't like cats, we just never thought about having a cat because, well, we just aren't cat people.

Until we bought a 100+ year old house. The walls are plaster and lath and have a space in between.  Every year some little critter or another would decide to move in.  One time while I was reading a book late at night, a mouse would run from one corner of the living room to the other... I would see it and yell "EEEEEEK" (yup, you can't help it EEEEEEK just comes out !) that would scare it and it would run back.  I would go back to my book and then see it run across again and yell "EEEEEEK" again and once again the mouse would run back....we did this about five or six times until I gave up and went to bed.  My Sweetie finally caught the mouse and let him loose in a field. (Ah, ask him how difficult it is to find and buy a mouse trap that wouldn't kill the mouse, he said everyone looked at him like he was nuts :)) )  But I was really tired of the field mice, rats, squirrels etc. and read that just the smell of a cat would keep the critters away.  So, thinking that cats wouldn't require a lot of work or attention ( ha ha ha, but that's another story) I told my daughter I was looking for a cat.  She had a friend who worked for a vet and it just so happened that a litter of kittens, eyes yet unopened, were dumped, in a shoe box, on her doorstep.   So we acquired Willie.  That Willie was sooo darn cute and so tiny and I worried about him being home alone all day.  Now, I'm not a cat person but still he was so tiny and I didn't want him to be lonely.  There was one kitten left, his sister Wynona....so I told my daughter to bring her to us.   Now, we are NOT cat people but we have two cats.  And guess what, not a single critter has tried to move in with us.(..except the flying squirrel but that's another story too).   My Sweetie, who will swear to you that he is still NOT a cat person, would carry the kittens up the stairs until they could get up by themselves. But...he is NOT a cat person.  He would turn the water on in the bathtub and let it dribble because Willie loved to drink the running water.  I told him he had to stop that ... so he went out and bought a water fountain for them. But...he is NOT a cat person.   I always leave dry food and water out for them and would give them half can each of food in the morning. Mr. Nota CatPerson didn't think that was enough so he added another can in the PM.  Mmmmm hmmmmm.  He is SO not a cat person.  Willie and Wynona are "Hemingways" which means they have extra toes.  Shoulda known by the size of those mitts that they would grow into fairly large cats. They still think they are tiny kittens and Mr. Nota CatPerson will let them sit in his lap until his legs go to sleep...which doesn't take long :))
So we were a happy family with "two cats in the yard" ( a little nod to any Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young fans here) except we don't let them out, too much danger out there.  But we do have a screened in front porch and Mr. Nota CatPerson put in  a kittie door so they could go in and out at their leisure.....Willie and Wy have been with us for about four years and I'm not sayin' that they are spoiled, they couldn't be because..well you know.
Last year we kept hearing this pitiful little wail.  It was heartbreaking.  We would see this tiny wild kitten just skin and bones, wailing.  It finally got so hungry it's fear of us lost out and it came close the the front porch,  I gave the tiny thing part of a can of food and as it gulped it down it wailed, it would gulp a bite, then wail some more.  You could see it's backbone.  Mr. Nota CatPerson  got one of the cat carriers, shoved the tiny thing in and took it to the vet.

Well, of course it was a "she", sigh.  We got her fixed, her shots etc. and the vet said "She is a real sweet heart".  and she truly is. We had to name her "Wailin" a take on Waylon.  The photo on the left was taken when she came back from the vets.  The one on the right a few weeks later.  Wailin' gives us so much joy.  She is a happy, loving kitty.
One day not much later, as I opened the door to the back deck, another tiny little thing ran in and started rubbing my legs.  Wouldn't go back out.   Poor little thing looked starved too, altho not as badly as Wailin'.  Soooo another trip to the vets by Mr. Nota CatPerson. Turns out this kitty was pretty sick and another girl kitty, sigh, two weeks of boarding, special diet, medicine,  grocery money gone (the vet loves us of course!) and now we have Wynette.

Wynette is also very loving and sweet...a bit mischevious too. Uh oh , now we ... who are NOT cat people...have four cats.  Willie, Wynona, Wailin' and Wynette. Luckily, we are out of  "W" names. This is how we ended up with four cats, even though we really are NOT cat people.  Now I'm kinda warming up to them, I just wish  Mr. Nota CatPerson, would too.  Just sayin'.
My wish for you: The love, comfort and companionship of a special dog or cat.  (())