In the summer of 1998, I met a pastel calico, stray cat in the parking lot of Eddie's apartment at the time. She was a friendly little thing. Being the soft-hearted animal lover that I am, I made the infamous mistake of coaxing her to the apartment and feeding her some leftover catfood (left from Eddie's ex-roommate's cat). After she ate her fill, I let her go. As you've already guessed, this ended up to us later keeping the little stray simply because she decided not to leave one time when we gave her the opportunity. We named her Ember because of the colours in her fur.

    It didn't take us long to figure out that she was pregnant. On September 3rd, she gave birth to 4 kittens. Unfortunately, only 3 survived. The second kitten was born with an open stomach and I had her put down at the emergancy vet since could not be fixed. Now we had one cat and three kittens - a regular calico girl, a grey tabby girl and a orange tabby boy. We knew we couldn't keep them all but they were quickly named. The quiet calico found the name Jackie (after Jackie Chan because she one time she went nuts on Eddie and it looked like Jackie Chan moves), the curious grey tabby was named Asha (because of her fur and the song title), and the boy was simply named Boy (knew we probably weren't going to keep another male cat after ex-roomate's spoilded hellion cat).

    For 3 months we kept the kittens and tried very hard to find homes for them. I had grown attached to sweet Jackie and Eddie really took to inquisitive Asha. Since Eddie would keep the cats at his apartment, I let him have the choice of kitten. He, of course, chose Asha because she was smartest. I liked Jackie because she liked to curl up with you or sit on your shoulder. We eventually had to give Jackie and Boy up to the local animal shelter. It broke our hearts but we couldn't afford 4 cats. I checked with the animal shelter often until the kittens were adopted the next week. I'm glad they found homes but to this day I still regret giving them up. I'm not sure I could ever do that again.

    Now Ember is about 4 years old and Asha is 2 and a half. Asha LOVES Eddie. He can do anything with her. If I pick her up, she growls. Ember at least tolerates my affections. So that's enough for now.. here are some pictures of the kitties.

                  

.. Ember                 ... A cute picture of the kittens ...                Asha ..
(top-bottom ~ Boy, Jackie and Asha)

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"Who can believe that there is no soul behind those lumnious eyes!"
~ Theophile Gautier

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My Other Cat

,,,>^..^<,,,

 

My Parents' Cat, Jaikk

    Last September, my Mom picked out a little black kitten from the vet's office shortly after our 18 year old, black cat, Mikki passed away. My Mom had seen him while taking care of the remaining details of Mikki's passing. She liked him so much that she asked my Dad, who was away on business, and the next day the little kitten went home with her. He's from a litter that had been abandoned by their mother. They were barely 5 weeks old. This little black kitten was the runt and could fit in the palm of your hand!

Jaikk (prounced Jake) is so named from a combination of two names.. Jay, a gray tom that my Dad once had and, of course, Mikki. He's now about 11 months old and is growing into a large, healthy cat. He's currently 13 lbs (some runt)! He can be so rambunctious at times that my parents keep saying they are going to give him to me because they can't handle him anymore. I think he's a real sweetie because he lets me pick him up and carry him around. However, with the way I see him growing on my parents (especially my dad, he spoils him rotten!), I really doubt he'll end up being my cat.

This is the last picture I got of Kira before she passed away.
She was already very ill.

        In the summer of 99, I adopted a baby rat from the local Petsmart. I named her Kira, after a character in the 80's movie 'The Dark Crystal.' A week later, I decided to adopt another female baby rat because I thought Kira would be better off with company. I named her Nimh, after (you guessed it) another 80's movie 'The Secret of Nimh.'

        For those of you that can't believe I had rats as pets, they were wonderful. Rats are intelligent, fairly easy to care for, charming and very affectionate. Kira and Nimh were both 'hooded' rats. This is just a term for their colouration. Their heads and shoulders are coloured and a stripe of colour runs down their back. I don't know why people have anything against their tails. I think they are cute. The only bad things I can think of with rats is that they only live 2-3 years and are prone to tumors if you do not get them from breeders.

        Unfortunately, I have lost both of my little ratties. I had to have Nimh put down at the end of last November due to a terrible tumor she developed in her stomach. Later, Kira developed a tumor under her left foreleg and another in her abdomen. She passed away in my arms in April. Neither ratties reached to be 2 years of age. I feel terrible because I can't really afford an operation for them. Even if they had operations, it's very likely she wouldn't survive the trauma. I did all I could do to make their last days as comfortable as possible.

I don't think I've ever spoiled a pet more than I have my rats. I love my ratties and miss them dearly.

One of the few good pictures of both of my ratties.
Kira and Nimh playing tuggawar with some cooked corn.

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"If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."
~ James Herriot, English Vet

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My pets are happy that people have come here to read about them!

 

~ Back to my Den ~

 

Currently being worked as of 06/23/01.