hi furriends!! Meerkat here. first of all, i want to purrsonally thank all of you for your kind birthday wishes for Panda Bear and me. it is so nice to hear from so many furriends on our special day.
as some of you may know, Daddy does a radio show on a local college radio station. he plays show tunes and sound tracks. the Tony Awards are awards that recognize excellence in Broadway theatre, and are on tv right now. which reminds me about Antoinette, a former foster kitteh here.
two years ago, on Sunday, June 13, 2010, a young kitteh showed up at our back door and applied in purrson to enter Furry Bambino Foster Academy.
of course, we accepted her application. Mom named her Antoinette because it was the day of the Tony Awards, which are named for Antoinette Perry.
initially when Mom saw Antoinette on the back porch, she thought i had gotten out! Antoinette bears a striking resemblance to me. don’t you agree? that’s me on the futon.
Antoinette has a gold flame mark on her forehead.
i don’t have a gold flame mark on my forehead, but Cookie does.
Antoinette was young, approximately 10 months to 18 months old. as we soon found out, ahem, she was strongly desiring a ManCat’s attention. loudly and repeatedly! not to worry, Mom got Antoinette an appointment for her ladygardenectomy just a few days later!
Antoinette was affectionate, but would abruptly swat at Mom and Dad (with claws extended) when she had had enough petting. Mom and Dad were concerned about how they would be able to get Antoinette adopted if she might swat at somebody!
in addition, Antoinette was VERY unhappy to be confined to the kitten room, but she hated all of us Furry Bambinos, so she could not have access to the rest of the house. she meowed out the front window to complain about her plight.
one evening, our next door neighbor and his girlfriend knocked on our door because they could hear Antoinette meowing. Tiger Lily, the girlfriend’s cat, was missing, and they asked if we had found a cat. the next door neighbor was a young big burly guy who worked at a fitness club. mom was worried what he might do about us having his girlfriend’s cat. (well, most of her anyway. heh.)
luckily they were just happy to have their cat back. so, Antoinette graduated from Furry Bambino Foster Academy and was “adopted by” (AKA “returned to”) the next door neighbor on Friday, June 25, 2010.
Post Script from Mom: When I tell this story to most people, they find it hilarious that I accidentally had the neighbor’s cat spayed. However, another volunteer in PAWS one-upped me and said “I spay my neighbors’ cats on purpose! If they let their cats outside and they have not been spayed or neutered, I catch them and have them fixed. They go missing for a day or two and then show back up fixed.”
Our now former neighbor let his house fall into disrepair (let the gutters fall off and left them off for several years as one example), quit paying the mortgage, and the house went into foreclosure. His house has FINALLY been sold at auction at a ridiculously low price, which has lowered the values of all the houses on our street. The house is currently being renovated by the new owner who we suspect will try to flip it.
So, yeah, we are REALLY glad that we got that cat spayed!!! Would do it again, on purpose.
Good for your human for fixing up Antoinette – if she was running around outdoors she totally should have already been spayed.
Well done to your humans. But where is she now? If the neighbour let his place fall apart and then the house was sold at auction, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think they booted Antoinette out and have left her to fend for herself.
My parents had seven cats that stayed in their garages and hung around the yard. They were all neutered or spayed. We know at least one belonged to a neighbor down the street. She stayed in spite of the surgery!
I’m glad Antoinette got spayed accidentally on purpose, too.