peas with honey

A traitor in our midst.

We have a cat door that leads into our back yard and the kitties love it because they can come in and out as they please all day.  Mies (our other boy cat) is always running in and out.  I don't know how but that cat knows exactly when 5 pm rolls around because he usually comes flying through the cat door just when Dan puts out the canned food.  Last month, Mies didn't show up for a few days.  We combed the neighborhood but we couldn't find him.  I even slept in the living room waiting for him one night.  One day he just strolled back in through the cat door as if nothing was wrong.  I grabbed him and hugged him (which he totally hated) because I was so relieved that he was alright.  He stuck around the house for a few days and we figured that he may have been locked in someone's garage or something for those few days.  Mies and I also have a morning ritual.  He loves evaporated milk and I put it in my coffee every morning.  So, I pour a little evaporated milk onto a saucer for him when I have my coffee.  He jumps onto the island in our kitchen and meows until he gets him milk.  In other words, this little guy is very spoiled.

He is a really cool cat though.  He likes to play fetch and used to bring one of my hair ties and plop it on a chair or on our bed and one of us would throw it and he would fetch it and bring it back.  Mies stopped doing that when we moved him down to Sierra Vista though because he didn't need us for entertainment anymore....he had the cat door and all the adventures the outdoors provided....  Now I'm very biased but Mies is also extremely handsome.  He has a pink nose and beautiful stripes all over his body.  He also has the softest fur I've felt on a cat.  He likes to curl up his little body and sleep behind our knees.  On more than one occasion, Dan and I have admitted that we love him the best of all the cats.

Since Cracky has moved in, Mies has not had as much attention from his two number one fans.  Of course, after Cracky got shot, Mies has had even less attention.

Dan got a call yesterday from a neighbor about six houses down asking about Mies.  Our cats where collars with Dan's number on them and we occasionally get calls because the cats often lose their collars (they have those "cat safe" collars).  The guy calling Dan, however, hadn't found Mies' collar...he was checking to see whether Mies had been abandoned....wha?!?!  Apparently he had been hanging around our neighbor's house and they  thought he was a great cat and had even let him come into their house.  The neighbor told us that they had also fed him because he seemed hungry....this is the same cat who eats a half can of soft food in a nanosecond almost EVERY night at 5 pm!!!!  Dan told me that the neighbor didn't seem upset at all and they really liked Mies and were sort of hinting that they would adopt him.  Dan went over to talk to them about Mies yesterday and he was in their house....SLEEPING ON THE COMPUTER CHAIR IN THEIR OFFICE.  They have two little girls and they loved Mies because he would let the little girls pet him....this is incredible.  That little rat was acting like some poor homeless cat and our neighbors were taking care of him...he would then run over and eat and sleep at our house (when it was convenient for him).

So....NOW EVERYONE'S GROUNDED in our house and the cat door has been locked.  Last night and this morning there was a lot of complaining but I can't believe Mies went out and found another family.....so devious.

Cat gang violence.

Dan and I recently adopted a little white cat. Because he's the only white cat in the pride of cats already living with us, we call him Cracker or Cracky for short. He came from the mean streets of Tucson and we packed him up in the backseat of my truck and brought him down to the pastoral paradise of Sierra Vista. Wait a minute, did I say pastoral paradise? I should have said COMBAT ZONE because last week Cracky came hobbling through the cat door on our back patio with what appeared to be some kind of wound on his back right leg. It was about 8 pm and he was crying really loud. I checked the internet and found a vet open until 9:30 pm and we wrapped him in a blanket and drove him over. The doctor immediately guessed that the little guy's leg was broken. What? There was a small wound on the top of his leg which Dan thought could be from a pellet gun or something. I was shocked.

Cracky was taken away to get an x-ray and we could hear his crying out in the waiting room...it was pretty horrible because the little guy was obviously in a lot of pain. The really sad part was that he would still purr if the vet tech or anyone (for that matter) would pet his head. He is one of those really sweet little animals that may be too innocent for his own good.

The vet invited Dan and me to go in the back and see Cracky's x-ray which confirmed that his little leg was indeed broken at the femur (or top part of the leg). We could also see a big piece and several little pieces of what had broken his leg. Dan asked if that was a pellet from a pellet gun and the vet said "No...that's too big to be pellet, it looks like a .22 caliber bullet to me." My cat got shot with a .22? Are you joking? They told us that they'd call the vet surgeon (who did surgeries that week) to get an estimate for the surgery but they thought he'd probably require a pin to put his little leg back together. Unbelievable. They gave us antibiotics and told us they'd call the next day about the surgery.

We got the estimate...and it wasn't cheap at all. Dan (my sweet hero) didn't hesitate to pay for it and the little guy went under the knife last Wednesday. We were both really worried and called the vet's office all day but finally heard that he was doing really well. They kept him overnight and we picked him up the next afternoon. Dan wanted to see the bullet they extracted but the vet decided to keep it in because he said it would have caused more damage if he had gone in there to take it out. He said that, based on the position of the bullet, it wouldn't harm Cracky to leave it in there. I took a picture of the huge scar this little guy has now.

So...Cracky is (of course) making us crazy because he insists on trying to jump onto things with his three working legs. We also have to give him an antibiotic pill every morning and every evening and Dan and I are completely traumatized by the experience. Cracky acts like we're putting a cigarette out in his eye and Dan is so worried about hurting his leg that he won't hold him tightly. We try to wrap him up in what I call "the Kitty Burrito" which basically bundles the little guy completely in a towel with only his head free. Then one of us (Dan) holds the bundle while I force Cracky's mouth open and try to jam a pill down his throat while he makes gagging sounds and tries to get it out with his tongue. A very pleasant experience. Dan has a little trouble with the "burrito" concept. He likes to put him in a "taco" with his little arms and legs open in the front....that doesn't work. I've also seen Dan misguidedly believe that the "quesadilla" will work...which is just lightly draping the town over Cracky's shoulders. I've had to explain that I need a full blown burrito and none of those other lose, tortilla-wrapped mexican dishes.

I should also explain a little about why we adopted our little Cracky. My mother told us about him because a friend found him. He had a collar and was plump and clean and would come up to their house and try to eat the food they were giving to some homeless cats it the neighborhood. They kept shooing him away because they thought he had a home. He would keep coming back and sort of linger in the periphery watching the other cats and they noticed that he was getting thinner and dirtier. Finally they called the number on his collar and it was disconnected. In other words, he was abandoned. He is totally a house cat not fit for the outdoors and was dying to be allowed back into someone's home. It pretty much broke our hearts. He is also one of those little fellows who loves to snuggle and purrs at the slightest touch. He's a real sweetheart. We felt so horrible that we brought him down to live with us and he gets shot. He's recovering really well though and he's even starting to use his broken leg a little. The vet is going to remove the pin in about 6 weeks, so we'll see. I know...we're saps.

We still don't know what idiot shot our little boy. We live in a subdivision where there are a lot of homes and not much open space so it is absolutely ludicrous that anyone is shooting a gun in our neighborhood (with all the kids that run around)...even here in gun-crazy Arizona.