New Member: Cotton

Cotton

I was surprised to receive my first email. One addressed to Cotton and not to Jan or to the Funny Farm. KC invited me to join the tough a** tortie club. What an honor. What better way to prove I am a tough tortie and to show my tortie ‘tude than by sending this photo of me wearing my official Ao4 trooper helmet.

I also have a feminine side, as captured in this photo of me in my Gizzy bed on top of the fridge, where I reign with undisputed territorial rights.

I don’t remember much about the first 4 to 6 weeks of my life. I just suddenly found myself sitting in the road early one morning with traffic slowing and moving around me. Then I spied Jan as she walked out her front door to pick up the paper from the lawn. She looked to see what the traffic problem was, saw me and just folded onto a porch step. I staggered as fast as I could to her, asking for help. But she said no. I rubbed against her and on rubbery legs tried to climb on her lap, but she wouldn’t touch me. She just kept saying, “No, not another one. I can’t take you inside. You’ll make all my cats sick.”

I told her, no, I wouldn’t do that to her, but she wouldn’t believe me. I persisted. She finally melted and carried me inside where Jenny and Grayce her two older kitties and young Crystal welcomed me with open arms. Okay, to be honest, with a lot of sniffing, suspicion, and on Jenny’s part, hissing. I didn’t know it at the time but Jan didn’t think I would live through the day and she had no money to take me to the vet.

I found this in her file about the day she found me: “Boney, buggy, tapeworms, mucous pouring from eyes & nose, breathing through mouth, terrified of me, cats, toys and everything. (Abused?) Lethargic for 2 days.” I don’t remember what she did to help me but I not only lived through the day, I will be 9 years old in June.

My favorite pastime is purring and rubbing against Jan’s arm, especially when she’s busy on the computer. I helped train the new members of the Funny Farm as they arrived. When they’re annoying, I raise one paw and yell, “Stop!” and they stop being annoying – or else.

New Members: Holly & Ivy

HOLLY

IVY
Mommy already had our doggie brother, Loki, when she started thinking about how she missed having a kitty in her lap. Soon after she decided that she wanted to get a kitty for herself for Christmas, she heard that her cousin was fostering a litter of kittens that had been found dumped on the side of the road. Mommy visited her cousin to see the kittens: two tortie girls (us!) and one boy. Mommy had already pretty much decided that she would take the boy to be Loki's new friend before she got there, but then she saw how close the torties were to one another, and her cousin told her the girls did everything together but that the boy was a loner. Her cousin said she didn't want the girls to be separated, but she was afraid that they would be adopted out separately. Mommy knew all about the tortie 'tude, and wasn't sure how her house or Loki would stand up to the challenge, but she couldn't stand the thought that the girls would be separated either. So mommy adopted us both right before Christmas, and our grandmama named us "Holly and Ivy." As soon as we arrived, we made ourselves right at home, and Loki loved us right away. In our former foster home, we had a tough time. We were starved and scrawny little things, but still had plenty of that tortie 'tude! We had even fought a pig for table scraps at the foster's place, so we knew how to get what we wanted. We still do.

Holly is more of an independent tortie, but she adores mommy and will come up to her and pat her face and ask for love. Holly will also open any door that doesn't have a tricky knob. Her polydactyl "thumbs" come in handy when we want to get into some mischief! Ivy loves to be loved and can be a bit of a pest when she demands affection, and her favorite hobbies are flinging poo out of the litter box and helping Holly open doors. We weren't sure we wanted a baby brother when Tybalt first arrived, but we soon got used to him and taught him how to be naughty. Holly has even taught him how to open cabinet doors! We Terrible Tortie Twins love our home, our mommy, our doggie siblings, and our brother Tybalt . . . but most of all we both love TROUBLE!

New Member: Princess

PRINCESS

Princess became a member of our family in May of 2007. Allison, her 5 year old human sister was having trouble focusing in school. She wanted more then anything else to have a kitten, so we told her if she could pull off 3 perfect progress reports, she could have a kitten! She not only received 3 good reports, but 5!!! We went to a friend's farm where there were 3 litters of kittens. The only rules were no females (they're not friendly) and no long hair (sheds a lot.) These were Mom's rules. We'll the first one I picked up (me being Allison's Dad) was a very cute orange kitten. It was not unlike putting my hand in a running blender. I held on to it so Allison could see, as I thought possibly they all might be wild. The next few were nicer, but she kept gravitating to this scrawny malnourished (her mother was neglecting her) little tortie with sorta long hair, referred to by one of the owners as "one of those ugly brown ones." I tried to talk her into a little kitten that reminded me of a cinnamon powdered donut while her Mom rallied for an orange and white spotted one. At one point we took her around the side of the house to see some kittens under the porch and with what must have been its last ounce of strength the little tortie crawled weakly through the grass to Allison then collapsed! As we battled for candidacy on our favorite two, Allison finally decided on the orange and white one...but then she pleaded "if she could please play with her favorite one (tortie) for just 5 more minutes before we left." I had to say aloud "do you realize how ridiculous this is? Mom protested, "but she's a female, but she's got long hair, she might not live thru the night"......my thoughts as well, but we gave our little girl the choice. Mom said, "Allison, if you could have any kitten here, which one would you choose?" She said, "I'd choose the one who chose me. I'd choose this one!" We said she could, and she shrieked with joy hugging the frail little tortie.......and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Almost a year later, Princess is very healthy, friendly, great with children, and oh yes, she grew! Allison thinks the reason her mother neglected her was because she was jealous because she's so beautiful. She has a forever home here now, and she'll always be loved

New Member: Autumn Savannah

Autumn Savannah

Here is the infamous picture of Autumn Savannah when she was sick. Autumn hadn’t had her Ladygardenectomy yet. She was too sick and the V-E-T wanted to take care of the more important thing first. Autumn had an Abscess in her lung that was blocking the airway and it had to be removed. The V-E-T assured the mommy that after the recovery Autumn would be a completely normal poodin (right, like any of us are 'normal').

Well, the mommy worried, and worried, and worried some more and finally, after 3 days of being in the Poodin hospital, Autumn was allowed to come home. The beans had the spare room set up for Autumn and since she was still taking pain medication she just slept a lot. At night the mommy wrapped Autumn up so she wouldn’t bother her staples and mommy said she looked like a Jedi Master - whatever that is.

During the day mommy let Autumn run around nekkid and Autumn never bothered her staples...until 2 days before she was supposed to have them removed. Then she pulled one out, it popped her incision open and mommy caught her just as she was pulling on the stitches under her skin holding her muscle together. ICK!!!!!The Beans rushed to the car and drove really fast to the poodin hospital (it was 11 at night) and they stuck another staple in her. 2 days later all the staples came out - on schedule, and things have been okay since. Though, as a result of all of the poodin drama when Autumn finally had her Ladygardenectomy the v-e-t called mommy and asked if the mommy could take Autumn home early since she was being very 'uncooperative'. When anyone walked past the cage Autumn would charge at them and try to bite them. As soon as the mommy got there Autumn was a little angel again and has been fine since.

Now that her fur has grown back from the bad haircut days no one would ever know how sick she was.

New Member: Mouse the Cat

MOUSE the Cat

My aunt has a farm that always has lots of cats. One summer we visited her and there were 3 litters of kittens all born on the same day about 6 weeks prior. I was playing with them (how do you not play with kittens?) and I noticed one kitten was very quiet and calm. I picked her up and she sat in my hand as quiet as a mouse. I ended up holding her the whole visit. She fell asleep on me and wasn't in a hurry to get down at all. That night I discussed it with my hubby and went back the next day to pick her up. She was solid grey and still very quiet so the name Mouse really fit her. It was around 5 months that she started to get her other colors. It seems that each day she would have a new color.

She is very sweet and gives kisses in the middle of the night. She sleeps under the covers with me and has to approve of each book I read in bed by rubbing all over it. She plays fetch and can stalk a toy within an inch of its life. While she is our quietest kitty, she is also the sweetest and the funniest - she has lots of tortietude as you can plainly see from her blog posts in www.mouse-thecat.blogspot.com

New Member: Pearl

PEARL

Here's me teaching Jake to be nice to me

And I can also put the smack down on George (a woofie), only I can't find a picture! So I had Mommy take a movie! So check out my blog to see this!

My Story (as told by my Mommy)

Two years ago we decided to get a new kitten. We had been without a "P" kitty for a while (it's hard to be PB&J without a P) and were ready for a new edition. I had been researching rescue groups on PetFinder for a while, and finally found a picture of a little floofy tortoiseshell kitten that caught my eye. I called the lady immediately and asked about the kitten named Domino. She said that she was still getting over an upper respiratory infection, but if we wanted to come the next weekend she could probably be adopted.So Friday night came and we were both so excited for the next morning, we sat down with Jake and Basil (this was before Bert) and George and told them that we were going to be bringing them a new little sister. We were happy that PB&J would be back together again, they seemed less than thrilled! When Saturday came we awoke to a winter wonderland - it had snowed 6 inches overnight, but we braved the weather, cleared the driveway and got in the car for the hour drive to the shelter.Once we got there we met with the lady and met Domino, her eyes were a bit gooey still and she was very skittish. When we approached her she ran away and hid with her sister. All of a sudden we weren't sure that she was the right one. So we sat and played with all the other kittens - seeing which would be the one to come home with us. I kept looking at Domino, disappointed since she was the one I had had my heart set on, but clearly she didn't want us.As I was trying to decide between two little black kittens my hubby, knowing that I was having a hard time deciding, went back to Domino and just picked her up! He talked to her and pet her a bit, and then all of a sudden yelled to me "Hey Honey, she's licking me!” So I rushed over and sure enough she was purring and licking his fingers (which she still does when she's happy) - we both turned to the lady and said "We'll take her!”That's how we got our Pearl, and we couldn't be happier!

New Member: Catzee

CATZEE

Leigh, aka Catzee's Mom, tells her story:

I first saw Catzee at adoption day at our local shelter. It was overcrowded, so long term animal residents were "on sale." I wanted another cat, and this seemed like an opportunity to get one at a good price. Catzee caught my eye immediately, as she did the eye of a family with a kindergartener. This family asked how much she was, and I overheard the volunteer tell them she was full price ($75). So they moved on. That was a little more than I planned to spend, so I continued to look too. But I kept coming back to her. Every time I stopped at her cage she would reach out between the bars and grab my purse strap. Finally I realized that she was the one I really wanted, full price or not. I asked how much she was, and they told me $25! Turns out that they didn't want her to go to a home with young children, as she was a feisty handful! I found out that she had first been dropped off there when she was about 6 or 7 weeks old and had been there for 2 and 1/2 months. Since kittens usually adopt out quickly, I kind of suspect she may have been returned a time or two, but she's a keeper for us.