We have 1 dog, Jake, and 4 cats: Nemo, Nesbitt (littermates), Buddy and Zane.
My kids, particularly my son, Jack, was fond of bringing stray animals home. One of his strays had kittens, Nemo and Nesbitt, and they've been with us every since. The mother vanished one day, not too long after the kittens were born, and she's never been seen since.
Nemo got her name because as a kitten she was fond of riding our friend's boogey board in our pool. One summer, when she was about a year old, a few of us were having drinks in the backyard. Nemo elected to help herself to one of the drinks and then tried to walk along the retaining wall at the back of the pool. Needless to say, she fell in, and hasn't visited the boogey board since.
Nesbitt got his name because my step-father always used to say if he had an orange tabby he'd name him Nesbitt after his favorite orange drink.
Not too long after I met my husband we went to the Del Mar Fair. Stan had been telling me about his dog he'd had to leave behind when he moved to Southern California when we came across one of the animal rescue societies looking to find homes for their dogs and cats. Stan saw Jake and fell in love with him. Jake is a mixed breed, probably with some Dingo in him.
On the weekends, it's not unusual to see the animal rescue societies with their pets in front of the store.
It was on one of those weekends I happened to notice a kitten that seemed to be in poor health. I stopped to look at him and noticed he was quite sickly and of course no one was paying attention to him. Eventually I had the opportunity to ask about him, and found out he'd been found under a home and wasn't expected to live the weekend. I'm not sure how it happened, but I agreed to take the kitten home and try to make him as comfortable as possible until his time came.
That was almost two years ago, and Buddy is quite the special cat. Unfortunately, he is disabled, unable to walk or stand -- but he runs quite well.
I'd been thinking for some time, Buddy needed someone to play with. Not that he plays like a normal cat, but he often sits at the back door, wanting to play with Nemo or Nesbitt, and of course, they won't have anything to do with him.
So, is it any surprise to hear, when I found a man giving away kittens in front of WalMart, I opted to bring one home for Buddy?
My husband's response was, "what do we need with another cat?" was not wholly unexpected. What was a surprise was that Stan and Zane (as Stan named him) have become inseparable.
Page Last Modified: 09/04/2011