Tropicals & Tender Perennials: The revised World of Hoya - coming soon?, 0 by upanatemat3am

upanatemat3am wrote:
O.K. you twisted my arm!...Where to begin? Maybe at the beginning. First..well, I love cats, love dogs too and have always had several, usually poodles, the small variety. But cats are my first love. I love their little angel faces and the way they snuggle into my neck when I pick them up. I love the way they curl up on my lap and will snooze for hours, I love to see them stretch and yawn, and I'm a real sucker for a baby kitten. I won't go into all the cats I've had through the years or the happy times with them and the sad times, I'll just say we've had lots of both. For the past 10 years I've had at least 10 cats at all times, with the lastest acquisitions being 2 Bengals that I've had for about 3 years. Late last fall someone dumped a little mother cat and a tiny baby kitten on my doorstep. The baby had his eyes open but was so young he was still wobbly on his legs. He only lived a few weeks. I had a heck of a time catching the mother cat, as she was about half wild..or maybe just scared to death, but I finally coaxed her into the greenhouse and started feeding her in there. It took me another month to be able to pick her up and get her into the house. After about a month of being in the house with my cats, I took her to the vets to have her spayed and get her shots. She was there for a few hours when I got a call from the vet. He said he had bad news. I figured she had died from the anesthetic, but no, he called to tell me she had tested positive for the FIV virus. That is a virus in cats that is equal to the aids virus in humans. I asked him what we could do, and he said nothing for her, she must be put to sleep and all my cats had to be tested to see if any of them had gotten the virus from her. Had any of them tested positive, they would have had to be put to sleep also. Fortunately none of them did but we had to start them on a series of shots to make sure they didn't pick it up later from where she had gone potty. They all had to have an initial shot, then 3 boosters, one every ten days. We were down to just 3 cats left to finish up the boosters when my husbands uncle died and left 16 cats for someone to take care of. Of course the job fell to me since everyone in the family knew I loved cats and they all lived at least 45 miles away, and his home was only 4 miles from me. This is the latest Cat Crisis that I was hinting at. I drove up and fed them at his house for about a week, then started catching them to get their shots and spayed and neutered. Out of the 16 there were 6 big males, none which had been neutered, and 10 females, 8 which were already pregnant. One was too young (just a baby) and the other was too old. We've been trying to find homes for them, the Cats Organization and the Humane Society are both helping us, but the truth is everyone wants baby kittens and besides I have become so attached to everyone of them that I'm not sure that I can part with any of them. One of the males found a way out of the garage and ran away and I've been pining for him ever since.
Well that's my story. Everybody on my block calls me the "crazy old lady at the end of the street with all the cats". Yep, that's what I am. This is a photo of one of my Bengals, her name is Annie.