From: rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Ruth Milner)
Subject: Re: favorite cat
Reply-To: rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Ruth Milner)
Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro NM
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 22:54:29 GMT

>lydia@tarsal.dsg.ti.com (lydia middendorf ) writes:
>
>>I would like to here stories of how you folks met your kittys.

OK, here's the story of how Abby and Boots came into our lives.

Abby turned up as a stray at the end of August 1991. We had heard a kitten
crying in the trailer across the road all day Saturday, and then Sunday
morning I heard mews from the bushes around our backyard. So I quietly walked 
up to the bushes, talking quietly with my hand out, and out came this little 
tabby-Siamese kitten. Very pale body, brown stripy legs, ears, face and tail, 
about 12 weeks old. She meowed constantly. I picked her up and my husband got 
a saucer of milk and she talked the whole time she was drinking it. Later we 
took her over to the trailer, but the boy who answered the door (aged about 
10, old enough to know) said she wasn't theirs.

We really didn't think we wanted a cat then, so at first we tried to avoid 
feeding her, but she just kept hanging around, and every morning when I went 
outside she would come out of the bushes by the patio, talking. She was such 
a sweetheart, I just couldn't resist cuddling her. She would press her little 
body against me and purr and talk and knead, and talked all the rest of the 
time. Eventually my husband christened her "Abby the Gabby Tabby" (before then 
she was just "Kitty"), and of course that was The Beginning Of The End.

Three weeks after she turned up, we were in Albuquerque for the day and made
the decision to keep her. So we went to the shelter to find a companion for 
her (we both work). They didn't have any female kittens available, so we went 
to a pet store (no flames, please; I knew about puppy mills, but didn't see 
how anyone could turn a profit selling kittens). There were four 9-week-old
kittens in a cage, two of them identical black-and-white females. We had the 
manager take them out of the cage and we played with them for a few minutes, 
and picked the one that seemed most adventurous. And that was Boots. (To this 
day I wonder what happened to Boots' sister).

So we bought Boots (all of $20, I still don't see how she could have been a 
mill kitten at that price), put her in a box with a toy, and went to the
PetSmart, which had just opened near the Price Club. Spent about $80 on food,
dishes, litter & box, etc. etc. and drove her home to Socorro. She wandered
around the back seat a bit (I sat there with her) and then went to sleep in
my lap. This is the only time she has ever been happy in a car. :-)

The Introduction: although Abby had been around for a few weeks, she had only
been in the house a couple of times, so she hadn't really established it as
Territory yet. When we got home, we let her in and fed her, she got on the 
couch and started washing herself. Then I brought Boots in. They sniffed at 
each other, no growling or hissing (they were only 9 and ~15 weeks old), and 
Abby started washing Boots' face. They've been best buddies ever since.

And the rest is History!

It was kind of sad to see them become cats.  During that three-week period, 
Abby grew like a weed. She was definitely a kitten when she turned up, with 
a kitten face and kitten walk, but when we brought Boots home, Abby looked 
like a large adult cat in comparison. She must have doubled her weight in that 
time, at least. She also settled down and her talking changed from non-stop to 
conversational.

And I can remember that Boots was so tiny I could hold her sitting in the palm 
of one hand. She's still smaller than average, but I need both hands or an arm 
to hold her comfortably now.
-- 
Ruth Milner                          NRAO/VLA                  Socorro NM
Computing Division Head      rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu