October 15, 2008

We've been posting for a couple of weeks now, and it's high time that the furkids made their first appearance on BigSisLilSis.  I'll be using some restraint in choosing the photos to put up first of the guys, since they are some of my favorite models and I do have a slight “Crazy Cat Lady” tendency.  I'll start with one group photo and just one of each boy.

3 Furboys

This is one of the very few times that all three boys were in the frame at once, and they weren't scuffling!  Or worse!

Gabriel

This is Gabriel, named for the Angel Gabriel in the Bible.  He can be a little angel but he's usually rascally.  He's 5 years old, and wandered up to my condo when he was only 8-10 weeks old.  HayHay was the first to spot him; a scrawny black kitten with big eyes and ears who was having so much fun playing with grass and wind and bugs and leaves that he didn't realize the gravity of his predicament.  We never knew if he'd been orphaned or just got separated from his mom and sibs.  What we did know is that we fell in love with him in about 5 minutes and he had found his furever home.

AshyPoo

Ashton was named by the Siamese Rescue group here in Dallas, but he's always AshyPoo to me.  He was also a street urchin like Gaby but his story took some hard twists.  He was picked up by the pound in Austin when he was a little over a year old.  He'd already lost the sight in one eye, and had a bum knee, allergies, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, and feline bartonella as we would learn later.  Siamese Rescue saved him from the pound and brought him up to Dallas, where he spent 6 months waiting for someone to overlook his problems.  Guess who was on the scene again?  HayHay, of course.  I only had one cat at the time and wanted another Siamese.  I saw Ashton on the web site, and took HayHay with me to go meet him.  I was leaning toward a Snowshoe Siamese named Peter, but HayHay took to Ashton immediately and away he went with us to his furever home.  He's probably around 10 years old now, and is having more trouble with his asthma and arthritis in that knee now, but he's still as thankful for his home now as he was then.  He's the most compliant, eager-to-please cat that I've ever known.  Check out his pretty blue nails, as evidence of how agreeable he is!

Warren Bitey

My big Warren Bitey isn't with us any more, but I can't talk about the kitties without mentioning him.  He's only been gone about 5 months, and was only a week shy of his 17th birthday when it was clearly time to let him go.  His kidneys had been failing for a while, and he was just having a horrible time with everything.  Warrie and I had a lot of good years together though – almost a third of my entire life was with him.  A friend of a friend told me about this last little kitten from an unwanted litter, who wasn't very friendly so his person was taking him to the pound the next day if I didn't want him.  No pressure there!  Of course I took him.  He was shy, and he went through an extended period of fearful aggression, but he came through it as a sweet cat although still aloof to some people.  He managed to get through 3 attacks of pancreatitis, and still kept his fighting weight of 18 to 19 pounds.  He was a good friend, and I hope I get to see him again some day.

So those are the furkids.  Stay tuned for “Cats in Hats” photos on Halloween!  There is nothing on this planet that is funnier to me than a cat in a cute hat!

~BigSis