Panther is still sleek, beautiful, black, and very special, as befits a cat who was able to call out to me telepathically as I walked through the county shelter, probably just days before they would have taken him out of this world. That’s pretty special indeed, because as cat listeners go, I’m pretty much deaf.

Panther is by far our oldest cat but still manages to get a twinkle in his eye and chase Jennifur around the living room every two or three weeks

I was on lunch break, so I asked her to bring the kitten (who was kenneled in our grooming salon). Everyone at work knows I have cats. OK, read "sucker for hard luck cases" But where did you get her and why can’t you keep her…? Questions and more questions.

The groomer had been eating at a local fast food restaurant. The kitten came up to her, meowing, and then when she opened the door to leave, the kitten followed and jumped/scrabbled into her car. This was three days earlier. Kitten was very skinny. The groomer is renting an apartment; the lease says two pets only and the kitten makes three. Kitten has been sleeping with her small dogs. She has trimmed claws and freshly washed and groomed fur (hey, she’s a groomer…).

I am holding the kitten who is a cute, cuddly, black and white tuxedo cat. I feel her belly and she gets squirmy. Suddenly I asked about if she had a litter box in the kennel. No, she does not. So I quickly improvise one. Kitten steps in and immediately "does her business". She must have been holding it in because after that she wasn’t squirmy.

Sigh. Oh, BTW, all the local no-kill shelters we know of are full. And even the kill shelters have too many kittens this year (as if we’d leave any animal for one of those ).

So I am able to borrow the groomer’s carrier to take her home. I am sort of dreading the trip home. Sundays at work are exhausting, plus I have to persuade my family that taking this little girl in is the reasonable thing to do.

Worries For Nothing, And the Kits For Free

My husband knows me. He makes no fuss, neither does my 13 year old son. We set her up in our bedroom, quarantined until she has shots, etc. I gave her a kitten dose of Revolution, which I just happened to have handy, since she’ll be sleeping with us. She gobbles down almost a full can of canned kitten food. Sniffs the kibble. Drinks water. Explores the room and plays with the toys. Purrrrs!! After a quick dinner, she meows when she sees us and greets us at the door, tail held high.

She hisses and growls at our other cats as they come to the gated door to sniff around. Standing her ground, saying she has the right to be here. No hostility really, just a declaration of belonging.

Oh, did I mention I dreamt of a tuxedo kitten recently?

Based on her personality, we think she is a "keeper".

What a contrast to this other kitten I’ll tell you about.

About 3-4 months ago someone dumped a pregnant black and orange tabby in our area. Like all the other strays in the past, we began feeding her, seeing if we can approach her. No good. Eventually she turned up with three tiny orange furballs. We fed and watered them, too. Their den is very close by, as they come soon after we open the back door to put out food. The kittens grew.

Keep in mind we have foxes, skunks, racoons, possums, deer, neighbors dogs, etc. Keep in mind that of all the many abandoned cats we have seen here, only Agile’s parents survived even one winter in our area. Right now, Agile is snuggled up near me on the cat shelf by the window as I type this. He is the first feral kitten we were able to catch, born of two feral parents, whom we called Eager and White Paws. They lived for about three years here and both died before last winter.

We started setting out our trap, using canned kitten food as "bait".

Amazingly we caught one just three days ago and took her to our vet. She bit me — through a heavy towel — when I grabbed her to put her in the carrier (we used a lot of antiseptics at the vet’s office). She is FIV and FLV negative, about 9 weeks old, and weighs 2 lbs 13 oz. She was covered in fleas, so the vet gave her a dose of Revolution and her first vaccinations. She was so terrified, hissing, scratching, and trying to bite that the vet had to give her a dose of ketamine and valium before he could safely examine her. I helped clean her ears, all the while asking questions.

The final bill was well over $200, not something we can afford to repeat if we catch her two siblings and mother. We took her there because getting an appointment with Animal Outreach (a local non-profit low cost spay/neuter cats only health clinic) can be problematic and well, we had a wild cat on our hands.

So if we catch them, we will take them to Animal Outreach which does the medical workup and spay/neuter really inexpensively. Our marvelous Agile’s 3 day stay with Animal Outreach plus vaccines, deworming and neutering cost us only about $60. He is the sweetest, calmest cat we have, and always has a friendly greeting.

She is noisy! She yells when she knows her siblings are nearby…calls for them mostly at night, when we are trying to sleep. She is calling right now! So we have white noise generators running and doors closed so we can sleep. When we go into the bathroom she is in, she runs and hides behind the commode or in the carrier, hisses and tries to swat if we get too close. She eats wet food and kibble. We tried to give her some commercial kitten milk in a dish but she ignored it. Won’t play with toys. At least she uses the litter box.

We are fostering her, and any other members of her family we can catch. If necessary, we will spay and release the mom cat. I already have a lead on one family that wants an orange kitten. But we will screen people. No kittens in a box at a supermarket for us. Thinking about her getting abandoned while pregnant gets me angry. I may have to write a blog entry about that, too.

We were warned that the test results might show anything from diabetes to kidney disease, based on their observation that he had lost 2 pounds in 2 months. We were worried, because he’s our oldest (and first!) cat.

Well, today we found out he has diabetes, and apparently we “caught it” before things got really bad. So we’re learning all sorts of new stuff and learning to give insulin shots (or “jabs” as they call it in England), and Panther is going to have to cut down on soft drinks and candy (only kidding!). And chances are he’ll be able to keep living with us for a long time, as long as we take care of him properly.

If you find yourself having to deal with feline diabetes too, we’ve found some really good resources at VeterinaryPartner.com and FelineDiabetes.com.

This time we went and rescued two kittens at once. Yin and Yang are brothers and needless to say, they are adorable:

They are currently living in Steven’s room while they get used to their new environment. Meanwhile, Steven is very quickly getting used to feeding, cleaning, and entertaining two active kittens. It is anyone’s guess who will get tired out first! However, we suspect it will be Yang:

These two do everything together, either simultaneously or one after the other (even using the litter box!). Here they are enjoying their first bowl of crunchy treats:

Some of the things our cats say to each other are rather nasty. No wonder cats are renowned for getting into fights!

Luckily, Susan is a regular Dr. Doolittle and is in a position to understand most of this.

The other day, Panther came by the bedroom, where we have Glory behind a steel security gate for everyone’s protection. Susan missed the opening salvo of the exchange, but she did hear Glory call Panther an "unkempt vagabond". Panther drew himself up with as much dignity as he could muster in such circumstances, said to Glory, "Well, your breath smells bad", and stalked away.

After Susan told me what the to-do was about, I straightened Glory out a bit, reminding her that Panther was quite a well-groomed gentleman, even if he was (and he was!) formerly a wandering cat. I didn’t remind her that her breath does smell bad, courtesy of some periodontal problems that we’ve been working on with her.

I don’t know what set Glory off, but she’s not the only one to exhibit bad manners in conversation. A few weeks ago, Glory went to the vet because she had been under the weather, who told us that she should put on some weight (she was around 6 1/2 pounds at the time, and although she is quite petite, that is still too light). After we brought her home, I was carrying her through the kitchen past Jennifur, who said something that suddenly got Glory extremely agitated. I asked Susan what had happened, and she advised me to bring Glory into the bedroom.

After I had done that and came back out, I found Susan trying to stop herself from laughing out loud. She whispered at me, as though Glory shouldn’t hear and get riled up again: "Jennifur called Glory a ‘sickly pipsqueak’"!

(Anyone who doubts that Susan actually hears the cats talking like this should reflect on the fact that Susan never uses words or phrases like "unkempt vagabond" and "sickly pipsqueak". At least, I’ve never heard her talk like that, but then I’ve only known her for 27 years…)

Today she spent the day in Steven’s room, lying on a down sleeping bag that was just so cozy she barely moved in 6 hours. I came in to visit and she romantically bit my hair…sigh.

Finally I went to sleep around 5:30, secure and happy in the knowledge that Glory (who had slept on a chair all night) was cuddled up next to me. Various people and cats poked at me during the morning hours, but I valiantly ignored them all and slept till a reasonable 2:30 PM or so.

After I actually was walking around the house, Jennifur reasonably wanted to know where the hell I had been for so long. The interesting thing was that she was vocalizing, which she has done very rarely since she came to live with us. I realized she’s been doing that more often lately, and so I told her out loud that I liked to hear from her. She immediately started in with more and more meowing, which made me laugh happily because she really does enjoy pleasing me.

Today Steven went to visit one of his friends, who just got a Siamese-mix kitten. I went to pick him up and ended up picking her up (the kitten, that is). Her name is Marshmallow, which fits because she’s mostly white and has the most incredible soft fluffy fur…not like a Persian but kind of "springy", although it’s not curled up like a Cornish Rex. I held her and she was quite a purrball!

Of course, when I got home, I had to reassure both Glory and Jennifur that they were beautiful and wonderful. They tend not to be jealous in general but take no chances when it comes to cute female kittens!

Right now they are snuggled up, Charger stretched out on our bed and Glory nestled leaning against him, her head on his broad back. We would never have believed this could happen a year ago…

We had gotten Glory, a retired Bengal queen, the year before. As we were both working and the boys were in school, we did not always have enough time for our 3 cats. Glory, who fought with Panther and Jennifur, lived in her own territory, our master bedroom. Often she seemed lonely and would call for a cat friend.

It wasn’t just Glory who wanted a friend. Each of our three cats had adopted a human in our family, and I was feeling cat-less. That is, I got to feed, water and clean litter boxes, but no cuddling or play time, nor even a cat sleeping near me.

On my birthday, David saw an ad for a “Bengal cat male 1 1/4 years $90.00″. He called the woman who was selling the cat and we went the next day.

Gorgeous green eyes, beautiful brown spots and that Bengal striped tail combined with a powerful feline physique. The biggest domestic cat I had ever seen — and he played, pounced, purred. The mother of the young woman whose cat he had been clearly did not want this large cat playing with her petite cat and dog.

I talked with the cat, describing our family, and asked if he would want to join our family. Somewhat hesitantly he said yes. He felt unwanted and was keenly aware of being disliked. I also talked to our cats at home about Charger and his desire for a home where he was wanted and liked. I started by asking his real name. Charger was named by his mother and he wanted to keep that name. I even managed to find time to talk that night to my husband and younger son

Yes, I am what others call an animal communicator. More on that topic will appear in another article soon.

Having brought the cat carrier with us, we made our arrangements with the woman and brought Charger home, talking to him during the hour-long trip. Meow! Are we there yet? Will there be food? Can I have my own place to sleep? Can I meet the other (cats)? Will you lock the door?

Once again, we had rescued a cat from an environment where he was not wanted, to give him love and acceptance instead. And Charger is quite a sight when he gallops around our home .

Charger has taught me to be playful, calm, and to take some time to enjoy life, not just live it.

We were so happy with Panther that we became in our brother-in-law’s words, “cat-crazy”. Two months after adopting Panther, we began looking for a youngish female as a companion for him. Through a no-kill shelter (operating out of a PetSmart store) we found Jennifur. We talked at length with the woman whose house she was living in. We were happy to find a shy female who would get along with our calm, regal Panther.

Boy, were we in for a surprise!

According to the shelter person, Jennifur had a rough start in life. Born July 4, 2000 under a mobile home near a school to a feral mother, she had been at the bottom of the feline social hierarchy in the shelter home. Jenni had had her shots and been spayed, and the shelter had verified she was free of any disease or ticks. We had her checked by a veterinarian, and brought her home.

It took three days before she would crawl out from under our bed to eat more than one bite at a time. She ate fast, barely chewing her food. She only ate if we stood by her to “guard her”. Jennifur was very thin, her coat rough. Every noise frightened her. Jenni would often make mistakes when jumping and miss an easy perch and fall. We called the woman whose house she had lived in many times to ask about various behaviors and problems. A few times in the first month, we talked of giving her back to the shelter because we thought she was starving and neurologically damaged and beyond our ability to help her live.

Jennifur decided to bond with David first. They both kept late hours, he working on the computer, Jennifur prowling the big office. She ate a bit more food than before. Then she starting drinking out of David’s glass of water. In 6 months Jenni no longer ran in terror if one of us entered a room. Very slowly Jennifur reached her current weight of 9 lbs. She rarely misses a jump now and her coat is glossy.

Three years later Jennifur is calmly lying by the screened window on a shelf, next to me as I write this.

Jennifur has taught us endurance, fortitude and the power of forgiveness.

Finding our first purebred cat was an interesting experience, and much more pleasant than, say, buying a car.

For some yet unidentified reasons, we decided we wanted a wild-looking domestic cat. We used the Internet, library, Cat Fancy magazine, and a couple of local cat shows to help in our research. We wanted to meet our prospective cat in person, so buying out of state (wherein the cat would be air shipped) was not considered. We eventually focused on the Bengal breed, so finding, contacting and visiting local Bengal catteries became our top priority. Way more important than what was for dinner, for instance…

We went to a couple of cat shows and spoke to various breeders and collected business cards. Soon after, we started calling or sending email inquiries to a number of local breeders. Not all returned our calls or email inquiries (for more information see our article Buying a Cat from a Cattery).

We spoke with one breeder who was very kind and informative, telling us about the breed, possible health issues, what to look for in a healthy cattery, and general pricing. Unfortunately, she had no Bengals for sale and would not for several months. Taking her advice, we contacted another breeder in our area. As luck would have it, this breeder did have a 5-year-old recently retired queen for sale as a pet. The breeder had decided that at five years (the human equivalent of 40+), Glory was too old to be safely having kittens. She was not cat show “quality” having a whippy (thin) tail and lacking pure black paw pads. We made an appointment to visit the cattery.

We packed the necessities (cat carrier with carpet pad, Feliway and money). First, we visited the cattery, which was located in a renovated barn, nicely set up with almost anything a cat could want. All the cats looked healthy and alert. Only the newest kittens were out of bounds, as they had not yet had all their shots. Then, we entered the house and saw Glory.

For the four of us, it was love at first sight. A gorgeous golden brown marble cat stalked elegantly through the house. Glory, however, was not so sure. We had been talking with the breeder since the moment we arrived, asking many questions. The boys used a glitzy feather toy to play with Glory. We petted, stroked, and tried to hold her. I finally started using my animal communication skills and talked to Glory telling her about our family and home. I talked about what we had to offer if she came to live with us. I also spoke with our other cats about Glory.

Talking with her I learned that being a mother, bearing and properly raising kittens was very important to Glory. It had been the primary focus of her adult life thus far. Glory did not yet understand that a few months earlier she had surgery to prevent her from conceiving again. Glory eventually agreed to join our family. We paid the breeder and she signed Glory’s TICA registration over to us, gave us her pedigree and medical history papers and Glory officially joined our family.

After the obligatory vet visit, we began to set up her domain. We built carpeted ramps to our bookcases, hidey holes, climbing and scratching posts. I noticed that Glory had some trouble jumping. Her back muscles were very tight. I massaged her back for about two weeks and this helped her movements tremendously. The vet suggested it was due to her carrying many litters.

For a time, she sang to the stray tom cat outside who crooned for her attentions. It would take several months for Glory to come to grips with the fact that she was not going to breed again.

She has become a pampered pet who sleeps on our bed. Glory sings us awake — OK, our idea of what constitutes a proper wakeup time can differ from hers — so we negotiate and discuss how much sunlight there should be before she starts singing. And I have to have a pad and pen ready to write down her more notable songs and wisdom. We share some of these with you in Glory’s Songs. Glory enjoys basking in the sun, chasing greeblings at high speed (the creatures only cats can see), and gives us advice on becoming better parents and living life with enjoyment.

Glory has taught us cat style meditation, that standing your ground is very important, and better patience and understanding with our own kittens (I mean, of course, our sons).