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Hi, This is my first time posting and I am answering this question as trial and error before I make other posts. [/SIZE]
I have eight cats. They are all spayed or neutered and vary in age from 2 years to 18 years. Six of the eight have come from where I work. I work at a fish hatchery and cats are considered a nuisance and promptly sent to animal control unless I am around to take the adoptables home. There have probably been close to a dozen more cats or kittens that I have brought home, but then found homes for and that is my goal, but I have ended up keeping quite a few.
I am the first to admit I am not the most original on names. I usually pick the obvious or try not to name them at all and what ever I call them sticks if I end up keeping them.
Patches - Female Calico, 18+ years old, came from Tulsa and is very anti-social with other cats which is what the Vet believes has has added to her longevity. She has always preferred staying with the Shelties and now Poms. Does not have to fight for her right of being the oldest, just gives a look and she passes through. The power of looks!!!
Trigger - Female grey striped with white markings, came from Pet Smart adoption center because she looked like the first cat I ever had as an adult after I got married back in 69. She and Patches have always had this love/hate relationship and when one lives in the laundry room, the other lives in the kennel building.
Tabby - Again real original. She is grey, black and tan striped. Cute little flat face and the only cat that was born here. I brought her Mother home... wild and pregnant. She had four kittens which my daughter and I tried to keep in a kennel cage in the garage. She managed to get the kittens out and take them out to the woods to raise. It appeared after a few weeks that only one survived and we grabbed her from her Mom and put her in a different cage to finish raising her. That worked well for Tabby and she is very loving and doesn't go out of the garage or laundry room now. She is about 5 or so. Her Mother has never been seen again though.
Orange Kitty (see what I mean) - He is about 8. He is a big long haired orange striped cat with amber eyes. Just loving and sweet. He laid out under my co-workers truck one day and wouldn't leave. Just a scraggly teenager at that point, I tried giving him some of McDonald's fish sandwich at lunch and he wouldn't eat it because he had the real thing. Rather that see him go to animal control or be drowned, I took him home and he loves to ride in the car and meet you at the gate when I come home or have been gone a few days (like at National).
Farrell - He is about 2 and just what he is a farrell cat. Orange striped with white short hair. He will probably never be completely tame or loveable. I brought he and his sister home when they were about 4 months old and that is too old to tame well when they are wild cats. They both picked up Clarence as their alpha and followed him around like they were his kittens. The female disappeared before I could get her in to be spayed, but was successful in getting the male neutered before he matured.
Amber - She is about 7 or so. Well, again orange striped short hair with just a bit of white on the tip of her tail and chin. She was my Collies cat. Sounds weird, but I brought her home as a tiny kitten also and kept her in a puppy play pen. After about a week of seeing her surroundings I let her out and figured she would stay around. Wrong! I came out side to look for her and she was no where to be found, but Buster was doing a Lassie thing and trying to get me to follow him. When I did he took me over to the back fence and there she was playing in the poison oak, weeds and mosquito area. Bill went over the fence to get her and everytime he would bend down to pick her up she would dart just out of reach. Finally getting her, I put her back in the play pen for another two weeks or so. Buster baby sat her most all of the time making her his charge. The next time I turned her lose, she didn't run off, but followed him everywhere. They even slept together, as a lot of my dogs and cats do. He passed away during the time I was at National in Columbia in 2002. He is missed by Amber and us very much. She has taken up with my son's Boxers though. She and Tabby will both sleep with them in the Winter.
Clarence - He is about 4. He is another big boy. He looks like a Himalayan with a bobbed tail. He has blue crossed eyes and hence the name Clarence (from the old tv program Daktari there was Clarence The Cross Eyed Lion).
Tux - Yes, again, very obvious. Black and white and semi long hair. Just gorgeous and so loveable. She is as fat as Garfield looks in the cartoon though. She is only about 3 or so. I brought she and her three brothers home from the hatchery when they were about four weeks old. They had teeth and their wild mother was taking them into the shop and they were hiding under the brush hog. My co-worker helped me catch them and I took them home and litterally became their Mom. It was a riot to here them call for me when I would get home from work. They were so easy to find homes for and the three brothers went to farms. Bill wanted to keep her because of her markings. She is a very comical cat and even though I had her declawed in front, she can still climb a tree if she can get ahold of it with her paws and use the like hands.
My cats are very well fed but still like to do the normal cat stuff, like catch bugs, butterflies, birds, etc. They now have a cat door on the laundry room and go in and out as they please. Heated in the winter and a/c in the summer, you couldn't be more spoiled.
those cats!
Nancy Warner
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