Column: Old fur babies + new fur baby

If you know me well then you know this about me. If you don’t you’re about to find out.

I’m a cat lady.

At the age of 40, I’ve finally accepted that I just might fit a few of the stereotypes. Multiple cats inside and outside of the house. Cat paraphernalia. Often spending more on the cats when I go to Walmart than I do on myself. Cat food, litter, and treats add up. And even though I shake my head, I toss it all into the cart because there will be consequences if I don’t.

Now I do want to clarify that I only have four cats. Three – Nala, Blue, and Bugs are the children of Sox whom I took in as a stray eight years ago. Sox has passed away. So has one of her children, Uno. He was the only male of the litter.

Until September 2020, they were the only cats in the house until a little stray in the backyard found her way into my heart. Hello Deuce.

Deuce was a kitten that lived across the street at a neighbor’s house. Over at that house live a sister and brother, who are older. The sister loves cats and the cats know it. Sometimes she has as few. Sometimes she has a plenty. She feeds them and takes really good care of them.

Somehow the smart felines figured out that we love cats, too. They started venturing over and would hang out in our yard or on our porch. Some we would see for a few weeks. Some for months. Some, such as Smokey, have been around for years. They’ve become our other cats.

The strays that do hang around our yard get fed just like they do across the street. They’re really working the system! Some even decide to take up residence which was the case with Deuce.

For a month, she lived in the backyard around the storage building. Every evening I would go outside, call her name and she would come running. She was a cute little kitty.

One evening I went out and noticed she was a little lethargic. Her eyes were watery and she was sneezing. Uh oh, I thought to myself. Being the cat lady that I am, there was no way I could just ignore the fact that she was sick. I called up a former neighbor who is a volunteer with the Humane Society and she brought me some meds for the little one.

I knew she needed us because she didn’t hesitate to let us help her. Within a few days, she was back to her chipper self. But a dilemma arose. I opened the front door late one evening to find Deuce on the porch sleeping and two neighborhood cats lounging in the front yard. Both were males and were much larger than Deuce who was approximately three months old.

I was scared they might attack her so I brought her in the house with the hopes of finding her a new home. See, my cats are eight years old. And they’re stuck in their ways. Trying to integrate a kitten into their life wasn’t even in my thoughts. I know them well enough to know they weren’t going to be on board.

I was right.

Sorta kinda.

Fast forward fourteen months later, Deuce is still here. She is now the fourth member of The Decepticats. But getting to this point has been a real challenge.

I was right about “The Bigs.” They didn’t want a kitten around. While they never tried to harm her, they did hiss at her, swat at her, and leave the room when she would come around. At times, it felt like this would be life as I know it then something beautiful started to happen.

They began to get in sync. Deuce began to establish her boundaries. Instead of being submissive to “The Bigs,” she turned the tables and began to assert herself. She would chase them, swat at them, and annoy them. And guess what? They liked it.

Blue has always been the most playful. Bugs will play on occasion. Like once a month. Nala ain’t never played. Now, they all have a playmate. All of them. They run with her, jump with her, and roll around with her. They even let her visit them sometimes on the back porch aka “The Kitty Kondo.”

While it was never in our plans to take in another cat, Deuce finding her way into our backyard and into our hearts is one of the best things to come out of 2020.

Pray for us though.

We need it.