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A Tale of Two Cats

We Don’t Like Cats . . . We Adopt Them Anyway

I never liked cats. Neither did Eric. Cats scratch you. They are aloof and boring. They shed all over the place. One can be allergic to cats. They walk on the counter where food is. They poop in the house in a smelly box. So how did I end up feeding a kitten with an eye dropper every few hours?

Cats | Pets | Life Lessons | Love | Nurturing

Rabbit is Rescued

One blustery October afternoon, Eric is puttering about in the garage. He hears a noise like someone crying in the alley. Sure enough, there’s a tiny and distressed black and white kitten hidden under a pile of leaves.

Not knowing what to do, Eric comes into the house. “MaryJo, there’s an abandoned kitten between the back fence and the alley. What should we do?”

We could call animal control. We could ignore the kitten. We could take the kitten to the Dumb Friends League. We could call our son Chris and see if he and his wife want a kitten.

Or we could adopt the kitten, even though we don’t like cats and know nothing about the care and feeding of a kitten so young its eyes aren’t open.

Eric climbs in between the fence and the garage and hands Rabbit Wagner over to me. We name him “Rabbit” because his back legs resemble rabbit legs. We call him Rabbie or Rab Ru. He answers to both.

Now we have this kitten. He’s cold so we cover him with a towel. He’s still crying so we try to give him some milk (mistakenly thinking one gives milk to kittens). We hold him. He seems to like that.

The next morning I begin a thorough investigation of raising kittens. I take him to a vet. He gets shots and I get answers to questions. She tells me he’s a Tuxedo cat. I go to the pet store and buy appropriate healthy kitten “milk,” a plastic tray for his box, some kitty litter, and a dropper for feeding him the kitten “milk.”

Every few hours, I dutifully feed him with the eye dropper. He likes me. I’m his Mom now. He likes Eric too and enjoys sitting on Eric’s head. Eric can hold him in the palm of his hand. He likes it when Eric gives him a bath in the kitchen sink.

He wants to follow “Mom” everywhere she goes. Rabbit can’t see much since his eyes are still closed. So following Mom is hazardous and involves much bumping into walls.

Kittens like to climb and following Mom into the kitchen offers lots of climbing. Rabbie climbs on top of the fridge. When Mom leaves the kitchen, Rabbie isn’t sure how to get down. He meows loudly.

Mom returns to the kitchen to rescue him. She puts him down on the floor where he promptly bumps into the stove. Now he hears and smells Mom returning to the office and makes his way back to the office with her, only bumping into the wall once.

Eventually he opens his eyes and is brave enough to explore on his own. He discovers the wonders of the inside of the filing cabinet. Mom doesn’t know he’s there until she shuts the drawer. Much meowing.

Then off to the vet. His leg is bleeding, and Mom doesn’t know what to do. The vet diagnoses a broken leg and applies a bandage not unlike a cast. Yes, a cast on the leg of a kitten only a couple weeks old!

Now he’s thinking maybe Mom can take the place of his cat mom and starts lying on her chest and sucking on her neck, as if her were nursing. (He’s still doing this 8 years later and quite grown up! Thankfully he’s graduated to sucking on her t-shirt.)

Mom looks up this behavior in the how-to-raise-a-kitten book. The author explains that this behavior is common for kittens who’ve been abandoned by their cat moms. And don’t be surprised if they do it on into cat adulthood.

He’s growing up, exploring more, beginning to have a love affair with Mom’s computer. No, No, a thousand times no! Now he wants to be always with Mom, always getting attention from her. This won’t do. Mom has work to do and Rabbit Wagner is driving her crazy.

Rabbit Gets a Sister

Perhaps Rabbie would enjoy a sister. Maybe he’d be so delighted at having a sibling that he’d leave Mom alone so she could work.

Off we go to PetSmart to adopt another cat. We get a friendly Abyssynian. Older than Rabbie but much smaller. We name her Mitzi. We get everything she needs, put her in the cat carrier, and off to meet her brother.

Oops, maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all. The two cats immediately hate each other! They chase each other down the basement stairs, snarling all the way. We isolate Mitzy in the guest bedroom with her own food and water bowls and litter box.

Every so often we cautiously let her out. Doesn’t work. More snarling. Back in the bedroom she goes. A couple weeks go by. Then Rabbie begins to get interested. Starts sniffing around the bedroom door.

Finally, success. We let her out and slowly Rabbie and Mitzi become loving brother and sister. Sometimes playing, sometimes tormenting each other. And often sitting next to each other on top of the file cabinet to look out at the birds and squirrels in the back yard.

We get cat leashes and take them outside. Rabbie loves it until the woman across the street comes to visit. He hates her immediately and pulls on the leash for Eric to take him back into the house.

We remember that this unpleasant woman and her grown son probably killed a neighborhood cat we’d seen wandering about in their yard. Rabbie senses she’s dangerous.

Mitzi has so much fun outside that she discovers how to get out of the basement window to explore the big world. She does this frequently, preferring the middle of the night. We get up, get dressed, put on shoes, and trudge outside to find her.

Too many loose dogs in the neighborhood, not to mention foxes, for a small cat to be wandering about. Eric fixes the window so she can’t go outside.

Rabbie’s not interested in leaving the house unless on a leash with Eric. No doubt his memory of shivering under a bunch of leaves as an tiny kitten discourages him from wanting to explore.

Rabbie decides he’s king of the world. Mitzy is the boss, but she’s content for him to believe otherwise. When both food bowls are filled, he must dash over to eat first. She lets him do it, knowing her food is there so why get in a hurry. Let him be Mr. Piggy.

Rabbit and Mitzi Go to New Jersey

We move from Colorado to NJ after getting a second cat carrier. The trip goes smoothly enough although a long road trip wouldn’t have been their first choice. Mitzy cries a lot the first day. Rabbie sleeps through it all.

They like the house in NJ. It has a wonderful screened-in porch just made for cats. They love to watch the birds, deer, and occasional wild turkeys in the Jenny Jump State Forest.

The house comes with several resident mice. Mitzy adores these taste treats. Rabbie not so much. On the rare occasions that I would actually see her nibbling on a dead mouse, Rabbie would watch intently . . . at a distance.

We get tired of finding mouse carcasses and disembodied mouse heads on the living room floor. Eric spends a day patching holes in the walls and around the pipes to prevent mice from coming up from the crawl space. It helps. We have fewer mice.

Occasionally a mouse tries to come up the heating vent behind Eric’s chair. Both cats rush over and soon the mouse scurries back down into the crawl space.

We put them back in their cat carriers for a road trip to New Hampshire. Maybe they’d enjoy Christmas with the grandkids.

Rabbie loves it! Sits right in the middle of the floor during the unwrapping of presents on Christmas morning. What could be more irresistible than lots of ribbon and crumpled wrapping paper? Finds the Christmas tree delightful. Mitzi spends three days hiding under a bed.

Rabbit and Mitzi Move Back to Denver

Four years later, we move back to Denver with Rabbie and Mitzi in their cat carriers. They do better on their second long road trip. Less crying from Mitzi. And both enjoy the motel rooms at night, exploring new things.

They’re happy in the new place in Denver. Lots of windows to look out of. Plenty of squirrels in the yard and even an outdoor cat to watch.

Most of the time they’re content with each other, still playing and chasing as they did when they were younger. They’ve chosen their favorite lap. Rabbie sits on my lap, Mitzi on Eric’s.

Mitzi Gets Sick

One evening Eric notices a lump on Mitzi’s side. It’s worrisome. I take her to the vet who diagnoses a tumor, probably malignant. The vet thinks it will grow quickly. It does and Mitzi gets very sick.

Now she’s no longer playing with Rabbie and not eating much. He is worried and goes over often to see her lying on a towel. Rabbie knows she is sick and is unusually gentle.

We realize she needs to leave us. She’s so sick and getting worse each day. Nothing can be done for her. The tumor is oozing. Eric gives her pain medication and gently rubs salve on the terrible sore that has developed around the tumor.

Finally one morning after Eric has gone to work, I put Mitzi in the smaller of the two cat carriers for her last trip. The vet is gentle and loving, tells me I’m doing the right thing to let her go.

I pet her one last time, tell her goodbye, and cry on the way home with the empty cat carrier in the back seat. Rabbie is distressed. For several days he wanders about the house looking for her.

The months go by. We still miss Mitzi. Rabbie enjoys another Christmas tree, the squirrels in the yard, and now two outdoor cats. He dashes from window to window to make sure he doesn’t miss them as they wander around our yard and the neighbor’s yard

His annoying love affair with my computer continues. He still chews on my t-shirt. And Eric and I no longer dislike cats.

Because I’m an adoption coach for women, my writing, as one might assume, focuses on adoption. In addition, I offer words of wisdom for adult ADHDers. (Not only do I suffer from ADHD, but so do many adopted folks.)

You’ll find me at LivingWithAdoption.com. For a list of common adoption challenges, grab my free Adoption Checklist for Women: 25 Life Issues.

Given raging ADHD, it’s no surprise that focus does not come to me easily! In addition to adoption and ADHD, I also write random stories from my life, what I’ve observed, what’s in the news, about writing and editing, anything that tickles my fancy.

For a Black Lives Matter from a white perspective, see my stories For White Folks from an Old Gray-Haired White Woman with Arthritis. And Teaching Kindergarten at an all-Black school.

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