In Memoriam - Part II

Daisy, the perfect cat. She soon ruled the roost at that vet clinic. She slept on a chair by the front door and stirred for no one. Not even the large Labrador or Great Danes that barked load enough to bring the roof down. Many people thought she was stuffed. Daisy knew she had it good. Everyone loved Daisy. Everyone asked about Daisy if she had gone off to the back - the food was stored in the back and every now and then she would find a critter trying to enjoy the food. Daisy took care of those critters. She never forgot her roots. One day Daisy decided that the food she was given each day was not enough and each morning as we began the clinic’s morning routine of walking and feeding we would notice that a new retail bag of food had been opened. Yes, a new one each day. We discovered Daisy in the act one morning. Daisy had to go. But where? was the question. She had to stay in the family. Daisy came home with me. Daisy thought the clinic was good living, but there were beds in this new place. Oh, my! And these people live over a barn - the mice are so FAT! Cat heaven.

One day Lady come in with seven kittens and a dying mother cat. Kittens were two weeks old and mother cat had developed an infection - it was too late; she died quickly. Seven kittens now need food around the clock, just like a baby. So, first order of business - they gotta have names. My boss takes two home with him, I take two home with me, two other employees take the other three. Let me see if I can describe these cats. Mother Cat was a calico and father cat was known and he was an orange tabby.

Sidebar: Now for those of you who don’t know, the calico gene and the orange (not blonde, but true orange) gene are the same. All calicos are females and all true orange tabbies are males. It is a sex-linked gene. If in the rare case that one is born of the opposite sex, it is sterile. Now with two parents having this gene, all these kittens had it too. The three female kittens were tortoise shell calicos and the four males were dark orange tabbies. The smallest kitten, a male, we called Little Buddy. The biggest male we called The skipper, the male cat that seemed to be the smartest, always finding the food and toys first, we called Professor, the first female who seemed to groom herself the most and who had the most orange of all the girls, we called Ginger. The second female had a small white diamond on her nose between her eyes, well, we called her Lovey and the fourth male naturally had to be called Thirsten Howell, III. And the third female was MaryAnn.

What does this have to do with Daisy? I’ll tell you. She was miffed at me for bringing Little Buddy and The Skipper home to take care of them. It was only for a few weeks to feed them and keep them alive and healthy until we found homes for them. We all took the kittens back each day to work. They played, they slept, they had fun together, they showed off for everyone that thought they were cute. And one by one each of us quit bringing them to work with us. We all kept our cats. Now, Daisy hissed at those kittens like they were Satan. They were in HER house, HER kingdom, and how dare I think I could ever pet her again. These poor kittens didn’t know how to groom themselves or anything; they had missed out on a great deal of nurturing. Daisy said they had to go, but dogs were OK.

Tagged as: cats, Pets