About our avatars

Hi all! I know most of our comments pertain to dogs and so I decided to explain what my avatar signifies to me! The Queen, Rile (rhymes with Nile) and her beautiful babies were the result of someone's cruelty. My son discovered this poor cat in our backyard one day and we noticed she was following him everywhere. A couple of weeks later, I noticed that she had made herself a nest in the undercarriage of our old dodge in the backyard. I then checked her over...FUR COVERED SKELETON. Omg, it was HORRIBLE. We decided to foster her until we could find her a home. She was covered in fleas, mites and had sores all over her chin. After I got her dewormed and "debugged" and cleaned up I decided to have her spayed. To our surprise, she was pregnant, almost full term! I had suspected she might be, but because she was so severly starving, her belly hardly showed. Two weeks later her labor started and almost killed her. She was having a very hard time pushing and the first two were lodged in the canal at the same time. I had to gently pull them out. By then Rile couldn't do anything else and so as she pushed them out, I was taking them out of the sacks, stimulating the breathing, cutting and tying the cords, and placing them at the teats. The whole thing lasted almost ten full hours. Two of the kittens were born with white rings on their heads (like halo's). I had to hand feed two of them for the first couple of weeks and finally Rile decided to take care of all five of her kittens. I found them all wonderful homes (sadly 4 out of 5 went to a neighboring city) and I am proud to say that I still speak with all of them at least once a week! I receive updates and pictures of them. The one that lives here in town, I have the priveledge of being his regular groomer! As for the mother; she was a little too playful with my chihuahua and he took to hiding all the time. I did not like the stress he was under and so a friend of ours agreed to adopt the cat as soon as we had her spayed. It was like she was sent to us for help, and help her we did! They now all have forever homes and will always be remembered by us. She changed my life by letting me witness the the most beautiful experience of my life. All of this took place shortly after the death of my father and the timing couldn't have been better. It made me realise that for every cloud, there is a silver lining.

What a lovely story, thanks for sharing. I'm sorry to hear about your father, I just recently lost my Dad. I also have a cat that showed up at my door a few years ago pregnant. We took her in and 2 wks later she delivered 6 kittens (she was just a kitten herself). We nearly lost one, he wasn't getting enough milk so I hand fed him for a couple of weeks and he came through just fine. I adopted them all out to friends so I know where they all are and how they are doing, well except for 1. We ended up keeping one of the kittens as well as the mother, which upped my total of cats to 5!!! Lily (the mom) is my favorite out of all of them, she has the best personality and sleeps on my feet every night (she's the only one allowed in my room). We also have 2 salon cats, sooooo nothing wrong with cats as far as I'm concerned, I just don't groom them LOL

I too am very sorry for the loss of your father. My Dad passed on Oct.20.05. Actually, it's three years ago, tomorrow. Lung cancer is what took him and my mom died when I was nine. I guess I just feel a little like an orphan lately. You know, I tend to receive extra love from my pup "Lucky" when I am feeling down and it makes me love him even more, if that's possible!! It's funny how well they read our emotions! Our stories are so familiar! As for grooming cats, it can be quite interesting!! I find that if I give them many breaks during the groom, it helps alot. They are much more willing to let you do what's needed, if we do not rush them. Very different then grooming a dog! My rule of thumb is to ALWAYS trim the nails before doing anything else to a cat! I know a fellow groomer that ended up looking like an accident victim after tackling a cat!! lol!