A Labor of Love:
My Furbaby book
Recently a very good friend gave me a little 6 x 6 scrapbook album with the theme of CATS. It's pretty well known among my friends that I am an animal fanatic - especially cats!!! This weekend I finished the book and I love it. It was kind of an emotional roller coaster remembering and missing each and every one of them... but I am so happy to have the babies all together in one book. I want to share the "kids" with you so here they are....
Kiki was a stray who had been hanging around my friend's house for several days. When we went to a party at their house, I was told about this kitty and found her resting on the front porch. She was hungry and thirsty so we got food for her and I spent almost the entire time with her ... on the porch! She went home with us and spent 16 loving years as our 'first' kitty.
Here is our little family in March of 1963.
Here is Snoopy, our Old English Sheepdog. She was a purebred and her AKC name was "Lady Alden of Bridewell" (pretty snooty, huh?) ... her litter brother was Lord Nelson who became a television 'star' in a series called "Please don't eat the daisies" - ok, who's old enough to remember that show?
Here is Binkie. She was also a rescue ... when the girls were young I was a co-leader for their Brownie Troop and this little kitty was from a litter living in the leader's garage. They were all adorable kittens but Binkie seemed to take a shine to us... so home with us she went. Her name began as Winky but soon became Binkie. A little trivia... we always had a tough time naming the babies and had gone to Disneyland where the car we were given at Mr. Toad's Wild Ride was Winky.
Lynda at age 12 and Dari at age 10... with Binkie as a kitten.
Kiki (our first kitty) was an inside-outside cat but I had decided that I felt more comfortable keeping any newly acquired kittens inside only. So Binkie was lonely and off we went to the pet store to get her a buddy and we found Murphy. He reminded us all of "Morris" the (then) famous Purina cat chow kitty. He was the most mellow fellow of all our menagerie and shared our home for 16 wonderful years.
Duffy is out of chronological order but, as you can see, he was actually best buds with Murphy.
Here's Tinkerbelle. I've wracked my little brain and can't remember how she was adopted so I guess it was another pet store ... which I consider a rescue (of sorts). Another really lovey kitty.
Here's Tinker as a kitten - with Puffy our Samoyed who we bought after Snoopy passed away.
Here's Duffy again. Again, memory fails me but I'm pretty sure we made another trip to the pet store and came out with another kitten. When I say "we" I mean the kids and I - my husband became immune to coming home to "just one more" baby... he was pretty cool about it and merely rolled his eyes.
But, he loved them all as much as the rest of us and made them this wonderful cat tree. He even carpeted each little strut and shelf - as well as inside the 'condo' at the top. Can you see the babies enjoying it?
After we lost Snoopy I really wanted another dog (like I didn't have enough pets, right?) and our neighbors had had a Samoyed ... they are super sweet ... so I started digging in the classifieds of the paper and found Puffy. After the maintenance of our Old English, the Sammy is a breeze (except a lot of shedding).
Not enough pets? Well, I wanted a companion for Puffy but my husband thought we had enough. He was an assistant coach for Dari's soccer team and when the kids and I showed up at the game, guess who was with us? Yep... Wellie. He was a Lhasa Apso that we found (not by accident) at the local pet store. He was very sweet but dumb as a box of rocks... but we loved him... and, most importantly, so did Puffy!
Here's Tiger. I think I'm a cat-magnet as there was a stray that hung around our house and I made the mistake of putting food out for her. She was totally feral and would not let us come near her so adoption wasn't an option. I discovered her a few weeks later with a litter of kittens (in a corner of our yard) At this point I decided I'd better do something or be run out of the neighborhood, so one by one I captured the kittens and kept them in our playroom until they were old enough to be adopted. Tiger was in that litter and, although I loved them all, he was so full of mischief and personality I decided I had to keep him. He was a total character and we loved him dearly. Oh, I did call my husband at work and mention I didn't want Tiger to be adopted and he said "keep him then". OK...Will Do....!
OK... so here we go again! Tiger needed a playmate around his own age since the other kids were more mature and did lots of napping... Tiger wanted to race around and play! Um... are you thinking we went to a pet store again...? You're right. This little bundle of white fur (with his big blue eyes) was "claimed" immediately. They were inseparable for 15 years. In case you have a thing for math :-) ... I'll help you out. At this point we had 6 indoor cats and 2 inside/outside dogs... talk about a fur factory!
When Puffy passed away, after a proper grieving period I was into the pets section of the classifieds and found a litter of Samoyeds ... we fell in love with Mandy and she was another 'love'.
After Mandy passed Over the Rainbow Bridge in 1993 we were down to just Tiger and Boo Boo and we decided to leave well enough alone. However ... Tiger crossed the bridge in 1997 and Boo Boo just a year later and that left us petless. Not good. Boo Boo was the last to go and it was in February so there were not a lot of kittens available at shelters, but fate stepped in again and I saw a sign along the road that said Himalayan kittens for sale. Really? I went home and called and she had a litter who were about 4 weeks - we broke land records getting over there! We 'claimed' Higgins and Dudley on the spot but had to wait another 4 weeks before we could bring these cuties home (brother and sister).
If you're still with all the description stuff - when we first picked out Higgy and Dudley, we were told they were both boys. Turned out that was incorrect so Higgins became Higgy and it fit her. They are together now over the bridge ... Dudley passed in 2012 and Higgy just last year 2013. We still miss them.
Here's Bailey who we rescued from a local shelter after Dudley passed away. Unfortunately Bailey and Higgy were never friends and now Bailey is an only child. He never lets us out of his sight and brings me his toys which he drops at my feet ... too cute!
I hope you've enjoyed my wonderful furbabies, and the little pieces of my heart. A big THANK YOU to Linda Knapp for the wonderful book which has allowed me this nostalgic trip down memory lane.
