How We Met

I was pulling weeds in the front yard on the first day of summer. It was 94 degrees. I heard a cat crying and CRYING, and looked to see a small cat staggering and wobbling on the sidewalk across the road. I brought him into the house and he just fell over onto his side on the kitchen floor.It looked like his whiskers had been singed, and his right eye was sore. I don't know how this happened, if it was a result of abuse or something else. He also had no hair on his nose, but it started to slowly grow back....We had to feed him water and kitty formula with a syringe that first night. The next day he was able to drink water and formula on his own. I made my famous "kitty mousse" for him, with some vanilla yogurt, which he handled pretty well....His progress was slow and sometimes not at all. He gained some ground, and then had major set-backs, but he was a fighter with a will to live.~~ Summer Rainbow Bridge November 15, 2011 ~~

AUTUMN - Late in September 2011 I started noticing a little black cat running back and forth across the street a couple houses up from us. Finally my curiosity got the best of me - I had to find out why that cat would take such a risk running across the street all the time. So I walked up the street, and found her getting a drink from our neighbor's fish pond! I decided that if she was that thirsty, then obviously no one was providing her with water. So I picked her up and brought her home....She had a slight upper respiratory infection, which we treated with antibiotics. A very odd thing about her is that she has only a few teeth! When we brought her to a spay clinic to be spayed, the vet there said she had stomatitis. She also advised euthanizing her! We said No thank you!...We have quite a bit of heart-breaking experience with stomatitis, and Autumn has none of the symptoms indicating that condition. But why she has no teeth? We don't even have a theory! Her mouth is not painful, she eats and grooms herself just fine. She never drools or paws at her mouth or cries or gives any indication whatsoever of being in any discomfort. It's a mystery....But she is a little dear, and we brought her home about five weeks before Angel Summer got his wings, so brother and sister were reunited for a short while....We laugh a little, because Autumn picked up every silly, naughty habit Summer ever had. We are sure he taught her everything her knew - because he knew he didn't have long.