In which I ask for one cat and get three – cat week continues!

Ferguson in his green chenille blanket

I am a firm believer in reincarnation, and I have learned if I want to see any of my pets again, I have to be specific and make it easy on all of us. When my orange cat Ferguson was dying of cancer, I sat with him during his last minutes and said, “Come back soon, you know I can’t live without you.” Then added, “But you know I don’t get out much, so can you make it easy on me and come, like, right back to the farm?” Then decided I wasn’t being specific enough. “And can you be orange so I know it’s you?” Ferguson looked up from his green chenille blanket and gave me such a look, the “give-it-a-rest-don’t-you-know-I’m-dying” look, then signed and crossed over, probably so he didn’t have to hear any more of my sobbing.

Before you judge my insanity, the rest of the story goes like this . . . two month later a feral cat gave birth to a litter of five kittens in the hay shed at the top of the hill. When I found them, they were about two days old. Two were tortoise shell, one was solid black, and two were orange tabbies. My goal was to catch the mama cat and put them all in a crate until the babies were big enough to wean as I did not need any more feral cats on the farm, but the mama wised up to me quickly; she wasn’t gonna walk into any Have-a-Heart trap no matter what kind of stinky tuna mess I used for bait. I finally gave up for the day and obsessed all night long, not only worrying about the mama moving the kittens, but also about which orange kitten was MY orange kitten; there wasn’t supposed to be a choice between two.

The next morning I ran up the hill and, as I had suspected, the mama had removed three of the five kittens. Two were left, an orange and the black one, which I already knew I could place in a home. I grabbed the two kittens, who were screaming from hunger, and called Sarah who said she knew there was a nursing mama cat at District Animal Control, and she would call and see if we could try our kittens in with her litter of five. Thirty minutes later we were all at the pound where a tiny black cat was busy nursing her brood of five fat babies. You never know how these things will go, so we carefully set the kittens in with the mama, ready to grab them if she attacked them. Within seconds, the mama reached out with her two front paws and pulled the orange kitten in with her other babies, and moments later, she reached out for the black kitten and added him to the fold. We all breathed a sigh of relief; no one would have to bottle feed these babies, and they would be healthier and happier for it. And I was also secretly relieved as I now knew which orange cat was the RIGHT orange cat, no guessing, and we named him Finnegan for his predecessor, Ferguson. Seven weeks later, I brought home not only the two kittens, but also the mama cat, now cleverly named Mama Cat, whom we had fallen madly in love with.

Almost a happy ending, but I never forgot the other three kittens that I hadn’t gotten to quickly enough. For days on end I crawled around the property, looking under sheds and porches with flashlights and kicking myself for not taking all five when I had the chance. Another eight weeks went by. I had given up on saving the other three, but on my way to the bank one day, for no particular reason, I glanced out the passenger window and saw . . . the mama cat and the other orange baby in the middle of Verab’s Nursery driveway. One had survived the torrential spring rains!

I swerved right and drove as close to them as I dared, and when I got out of the truck, the mama started to run into the woods while the orange kitten lumbered after her. The mama stopped and turned, staring hard at me, and when her young son managed to get wedged between two rocks I took the opportunity to grab him. I have to say, as often as I have tried to catch feral kittens, I’ve never managed it before without a trap. He hissed and spit while I tossed him into the truck and slammed the door. I looked up at the mama, who I realized had somehow set this up – she knew I would catch him and give him a better life than he would have in the wild. She watched us drive away, and I cried for her, and her baby, who would miss her, and drove home to reunite him with his brother.

Minutes later I dropped the hissing, spitting wildcat in front of Finnegan and Mama Cat and Mama reached out her front paws and drew him in so he could nurse with his brothers. Did I mention Mama Cat is the Angelina Jolie of the feline world?

The boys are now almost grown and still attached to their “mama” who loves them just as much as if she had given birth to them. Yes, I kept the second orange kitten, Bronson, because Finnegan insisted. Aside from being orange, you might wonder what else Ferguson and Finnegan have in common. Alas, it is a love of pizza that goes above and beyond any normal craving for a food. Finnegan and Ferguson both had/have the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound for a slice of Modern Pizza, and if you tried/try to get in their way, these normally gentle animals would/will take your hand clean off.

And there it is, another cruel joke perpetrated by an orange cat. All I did was wish that my cat Ferguson would come back to me, and he dragged along a brother and a foster mother. His excuse? Well, as specific as I was, I forgot to mention that I ONLY was looking for him, not him and an entourage. Point taken, lesson learned, I will be even more specific in the future, and I will now remove Mama Cat from the top of my head and get to bed. Next to me Finnegan is asleep on his green chenille blanket. I’ll just leave him there for now.

And that’s the whole story – you may now feel free to judge my sanity, but the next time one of your beloved animals is crossing over, I bet you start passing out instructions. Take my advice – BE SPECIFIC!
Finnegan in his green chenille blanket