Cats and Such

Here is the cat I told you about yesterday.  I've dubbed       "her" a her and              "Lovie", because I don't know her sex and she has a heart on her side.  I want to catch her, tame her and bring her to my home.  Now, I know that is not the conventional thought on feral cats nowadays, but my best and most favorite cat was indeed a feral cat that we adopted from this very property back in the early 1980's when my father lived here. 

My hubby and son came down to visit daddy one day when I had to work.  Sometime, fairly late that night, they come home and woke me up by sticking a cat in my face and saying hello to me.  I almost screamed!  In fact, I may have screamed.  Max was not a very pretty cat when  you first looked at her.  She was solid white except for a black ear and a black tail with a few stray white hairs in it.  She looked like she had been dipped in black paint.  What made her look so unusual was her yellow eyes. 

She had been hanging around my dad's place, killing the song birds and my dad had threatened to shoot her.  Hubby couldn't stand the thought of explaining that to our son, who was only 3 or 4 at the time.  So, he said he'd bring her home and she let him! 

Yes, she was indeed a real "she" and I did name her Max.  If you insist on a female name for a female cat, then her full name was -- first name - Maxine (a favorite aunt's middle name) first middle name - Maximilian (because it was one of the only Max names I could think of) second middle name - Maxwell (after my first eye doctor who was really sweet) and I called her Max for short.  

When we got her, Max was expecting kittens.  As soon as possible, after she had them, we had her spayed.  We also got a German Shepherd dog puppy around the time that her kittens were weaned and given away.  Max adopted the GSD puppy Lady and always treated her as one of her own.  You should have seen the two of them together!  This tiny, petite cat would pop out her claws and grab hold of Lady's  upper lip/whiskers area and pull her head down so that she could reach her face to groom her.  Lady never acted as if Max hurt her in the least.  She was always patient with Max and would often give her a big dog lick as a thank you.  I loved seeing them together. 

Max seldom meowed.  We thought she was mute until she was in hard labor delivering her kittens.  Even after that, she only meowed a couple of times.  We had her for many years.  She had lived a very hard life before coming to us and had lost most of her teeth by then even though she was a young cat at the time.  Lady lived more years than Max and always missed her little mother.  I miss them both.  I miss having a cat in my home.  I don't think I ever took any photos of the two together and I have very few, if any of them apart.  If I come across any, I'll let you know.