v-s.net v0.6

Monday, 12:11 pm in Life

So okay, about fifteen years ago I got my very first cat. It was a tiny tortoiseshell moggy kitten from my nanna’s neighbour; the runt of an unwanted litter. I’d been nagging my parents for a cat for years, in the way of small children, and finally my parents caved in and by the time we left Sydney it was cradling a teensy little kitten. With the extreme imagination of small children, I called her ‘Shelly’ (not Crow-related, incidentally). Travelling with a kitten loose in the car for four-ish hours (this was back in the day before they put in all those bypasses along the Canberra-Sydney highway) was… interesting. Lots of stops made to empty the litterbox, but eventually we made it home and for the first time in my life I had a cat.

Life’s a bitch, though, and almost immediatley it became obvious something was wrong with the little thing. She vomited, had diarrhea and seemed generally constantly ill; eventually the vet disgnosed her with feline enteritis. Since she was such a tiny kitten from an unwanted litter, she hadn’t been vaccinated. Feline enteritis is generally fatal, especially in kittens, and so did I learn one of the hard facts of life (to be honest I’m not really sure if she died naturally or my parents had her put down, but the point of the story is that little Dee finally got herself a sweet little kitty and it died).

After Shelly died, my parents decided that they would replace her (the official story is because I was “so devastated”), and when my parents Decide On Things they don’t do them half-arsed, so the next few months were filled with investigating just about every single cat breed on the planet. I suppose my parents thought a pedigree cat from a proper breeder would have a better chance of survival, not to mention a more “reliable temperament”. After much scouring of cat books, my parents decided that a Burmese was the way to go; they’re kind of related to Siamese but with a less lanky body shape and silkier fur. They’re also notorious for being really, really friendly (and, let’s face it, talkative).

This is where Maxx (yes, named from the comic) came from; he was an award-winning Chocolate Burmese kitten the breeder found too adorable to keep as a stud (read: spend life in a cage). Open any cat book and look for pictures of Chocolate Burmese and that’s what Maxx looked like. He was a lovely cat, and we had him for about eleven years before he eventually died very suddenly about four years ago (just before I started university, in fact). We’re not really sure what killed him; we just woke up one morening to let him out of his room (we used to lock him in a bathroom at night since he would claw the carpets in order to get attention otherwise) only to find him lying in a pool of shit and vomit. By the time we got dressed to take him to the vet, he was dead (I still have lingering guilt over that; poor Maxx dying alone in the dark, we were coming I swear). Maybe it was poison, maybe it was feline AIDS (he used to get into fights a lot), who knows.

In the four years between now and then we’d occasionally talk about getting another cat but never seriously; I was away at uni, what would my retiring parents do if they wanted to go caravaning, that sort of thing. At least until a few weeks ago, when I finally came home from uni. I’m not going on any caravaning holidays anytime soon, incidentally.

The toss-up was whether to get another pedigree cat (read: Burmese) or rescuse a poor waif from the RSPCA. In the end it was decided another Burmese would be a safer bet; we’d had one before so we were all used to their temprements, and buying a kitten off a breeder meant we’d know the cat’s history health and bloodline wise.

The end result of all this was that yesterday mum made an appointment to see a breeder; though not the one we bought Maxx off all those years ago. So come 11am mum and I jump into the Yaris (which still needs a name, incidentally) and drive out to Weston to visit this lady’s house. After being greeted at the door by a husband who fairly qiuckly disappears out of the scene (it soon becomes apparent why), and a tweenage  grand-daughter, out comes the tiny, wizened Breeder, also known in this story as Crazy Cat Lady Number One. Those people who’ve bought pedigree cats will probably know two things about the breeders; the first being they’re all women, and the second being they’re all… eccentric. So mum and I are ushering into this tiny, chaotic living room, the walls of which are papered with numerous ribbons, awards and photos of cats. The whole place rustles, and it soon become apparent that this is because there are three or four nine-week-old kittens running around the place, clawing up the curtains and jumping all over the lounges.

“These ones are all sold,” explains Crazy Cat Lady Number One, who also tells us that they’re in the living room because they’ve been kicked out of their previous room by another litter. We also learn that they’rer eady to be released to their families within the next week or so (you can put ‘dibs’ on a kitten pretty much at any time, but the breeder only ‘releases’ them at ten weeks).

Past the kitten-filled living room, we’re lead down a tiny, narrow corridor whose ripped wallpaper (hard to keep things neat with so many kittens, I guess) is once again covered by ribbons ribbons and more ribbons, and into a bedroom. It has all the usual guest bedroom things – really high bed the likes of which I’ve only ever seen in the houses of old people, sideboards and dressers – as well as an elegant Brown Queen and her four scampering kittens. These ones are about five or six weeks old (“Ready to go in the week before Christmas,” the breeder informs us); two girls and two boys, though it’s not entierley clear which ones are which and which ones are for sale. The two girls are torties; one a Blue with a big patch of lilac on her little nose, and the other one… the breeder wasn’t sure about. Burmese kittens are all born pale and go darker as they get older, and as far as I could see tortie #2 was kind of lilac with lighter flecking on her face, ears and back. “Maybe Chocolate,” the breeder says, as well as just about every other colour. We pick all the kittens up and play with them (and their curious mother); there’s not a lot that makes me clucky, but teensy little kittens will do it in a trick. So there was lots of squeeing and giggling; kittens are pretty unco, and they get their tiny little claws stuck in everything, which can make them kind of hard to put down.

I liked tortie #2, the ‘mystery colour’ one.

Anyway, after playing with that lot of kittens we were lead into two other bedrooms (one might have been a laundry) filled with Queens and kittens of varying ages; one lot that had been just born the day before, another that were a few weeks old. There were a lot of cats. Like, really a lot. In a tiny house; gods only knew where the Crazy Cat Lady and her (one suspects) long-suffering husband slept. Though there was a caravan in the back yard, keys still in the door…

We knew this, of course, because we were taken out there to see the ‘adults’ – mostly the fathers – in their cattery cages. A boystrous Brown called Costa who climbed all up the breeder before leaping onto mum. A quiet cream, and the “now vasectomized” ‘top tom’; a Chocolate who looked not at all unlike Maxx (though smaller; Maxx was big for his breed). Plus some currently liter-less Queens and a Burmilla (a kind of Burmese cross-breed). “Oh, s/he’s beautiful!” announced mum at every cage. They were all beautiful.

After another quick trip round playing with some more kittens, including the ones in the living room (who were just old enough to be in the adventurous, ‘bitey’ stage; though there’s not much teensy little milk teeth can do other than give you a rash if you’re allergic like I am), and another look at tortie #2, we were about ready to leave. Before we did, however, mum and the breeder made arrangements for later int he afternoon; apprently, Crazy Cat Lady Number One had a partner out in Hall (a kind of semi-rural town just outside of Canberra in the ACT) with yet another litter of kittens, and would we like to see those, too. We sure would.

So we leave my mobile number and head on home for a while; the call comes at a little after 2pm (which is why I missed the raid, but don’t tell anyone) so we hop in mum’s car this time and drive back out to Weston, where Crazy Cat Lady Number One is waiting to lead us out to Hall. Twenty minutes later we rock up at the door to a small farm and are once again greeted by an elderly husband and Crazy Cat Lady Number Two; another tiny old granny with a fondness for cats and a shrewd eye for cottage industry. The Crazy Cat Ladies chatter in the way of old ladies everywhere, and mum and I are once more lead down narrow corridors (these ones much neater; this time the long-suffering husband is German) and through a plastic accordian door (again, the type I’ve never seen in a house owned by anyone under seventy) into a room that smelt like cats in a way you wouldn’t believe. The smell was soon forgotten when mum and I espied yet another cardboard box with a hole cut in the side, filled with yet another Queen (this one a Lilac) and her four kittens, including a male Lilac. The Scheme starts to hatch; male Burmese sure a nice looking cats, much bigger than the females, and the Lilacs sure are a pretty colour. But tortie #2 sure was cute too, and it’s not like two cats are any harder to look after than one, really. Besides, they’d keep each other company while mum and I are at work and dad’s playing WoW, especially now since the dogs are gone. Two cats aren’t bad compared to two dogs and a cat, right?

Dad wil never go for it.

… unless his survival instinct kicks in in the face of a gang of women with cats in their eyes. Besides, they really are wonderful animals.

The end of this story is that today mum rang the breeder back, putting dibs on tortie #2 (“Ready to go the week before Christmas!”) and the lilac boy (“Ready to go just after New Year!”).

Did I mention I really, really like kitties…

… poor ~Mat [h].

• Comments By » ~Mat [h]
• Mood » Kitties! Cuuute!