Ginger Girl

 

I’ve had so many animals since I grew up and moved out of my family home. I was making up for a childhood devoid of cats and dogs, kittens and puppies, since they weren’t allowed in our townhome development.

And I certainly made up for that lack. Others actually brought me orphaned or lost animals and I rescued a few on my own and brought them into my home. Some stayed briefly then ran away. That was a good thing, mostly. Some died under our house. That was a very bad thing.

But for the most part I’ve cherished my many pets and certain ones lived exceptionally long lives or died tragically midstream. It’s very emotional for me to even dredge up these memories still, after so many decades of loving them and losing them.

Currently we have three felines and no dogs. Our dog ownership ceased after our beloved, bearded-collie, Chloe, was hit by a passing vehicle on a country road. But our pussycat population has been pretty steady and it seems that as one passes on, there’s another that enters our lives. That’s how Ginger came to be ours. Nobody gave her to us and we weren’t seeking another cat. She just appeared here as a bedraggled kitten with a dull matted coat looking more like some sort of small possum than a cat. She was a rough cut for sure, partly feral by the time we saw her, abandoned or orphaned by her mother. And she was starving and so young to be in such poor condition that we knew we had to save her, whether she wanted to be here or not.

John saw something in our barn. Some tiny, emaciated creature was hiding amongst our boxes. So he put out some milk and a little wet cat food and left the area. Later it appeared to have been vacuumed up professionally. Not a drop was left, not a crumb, not a morsel remained.

So he resorted to throwing his sweater over her a few days later, catching her by surprise. Being a wild little thing, she didn’t appear to be suitably impressed. But he caught her and put her in a large metal cage that would shelter her for a while, as he tamed her. That would be her home for a while. Slowly she began to come around to being here but she was the most skittish kitten I’ve ever owned. Ginger just didn’t trust anyone. Perhaps she’d been thrown out of a car, we didn’t know. But she was finally safe and she sensed that and so she remained with us, although shy as ever. Eventually she began to come into the house. At that time we had other cats that were fully grown adults that didn’t take kindly to another interloper but they usually just ignored her. Our son and his girlfriend were staying here with us for a few weeks and John gave the kitten to the girl to cuddle up to and shower with affection.

That seemed to clinch it. Ginger was ours. Our two male cats put up with her and our female couldn’t stand her, but there was a truce because Ginger was so young. Although she never relaxed her guard around the other cats or us, in the end she decided to make this her permanent home.

Within a year of finding this refugee in the barn, we were astonished when she proceeded to give birth to five kittens of her own. Since my male cats had been neutered years earlier, she must have had a dalliance with a tomcat that we never knew about or heard. The kitties were born in our bed while we were trying to sleep and I watched in wonder as they kept coming out over a period of an hour or so. Unfortunately we were scheduled to go away overseas for our 5 week sojourn we make to the States twice a year. So we had to leave these babies and their mother in the hands of our house sitter. That was a wrench for me, but it all worked out okay. I ended up giving most of the kittens away when they were getting underfoot and needing more attention after they’d been weaned. We kept one, that looked like a short haired version of our black and white, Shaq, who I named Domino, because of the white spots on his feet. But as it turned out, Ginger girl didn’t particularly like Domino and still to this day, they seem to detest each other.

Since then Domino has grown into a very large and powerful animal and in his spare time he chases her and antagonizes her for fun. She hisses at him in their worst encounters but that’s about it. Usually she’s lingering around Shaq, who she adores, and her competitor for queen of the castle, our Kobe, died about 2 years ago. So Ginger girl has gotten free rein to reign in the House of Cluck-Cluck and has used her opportunity to the hilt whenever possible. Lately she’s stopped going on her jaunts for a week at a time that make me fearful that she’s been trapped somewhere. I know that she just has never completely gotten the wild side of her heritage out of her system. Perhaps, as John suggests, she’s still searching for the mother who left her. Perhaps, as I believe, she would have not wanted any of her kittens to live here. Perhaps, she would have rejected them all, just as she had been. But she’s finally relaxing and taking advantage of our hospitality somewhat. She loves the sunlight in the front room that comes through the French doors and naps there sometimes. Yesterday John celebrated his birthday and was eating some cream cake he bought for himself. Ginger girl approached him slowly and actually wanted to taste it. So he gave her some and after she finished licking the whipped cream she ate a few bites of cake.

We’ve never seen any of our animals doing that and it’s probably not something that’d be good for them often, but John got such a laugh out of it. Those two are really attached. She seems to be stuck to him whenever he sits down and finds him wherever he is outside. She knows that he saved her. He’s imprinted on her. Maybe he’s her surrogate parent. It could be worse. Some others might have just shooed her away.

But he shows great compassion and lets me have as many cats as I want. Being empty nesters we give love to these little guys easily and enjoy their antics every day. We cherish these pets and they give us heaps of affection in return and keep us in the moment, for that’s really all any of us have….our moments.