If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Ten years with Lennie
This day marks ten years that I have had custody of Lennie, and his
twelfth birthday. I have written here (rec.pets.cats.*) quite a bit about him, not recently, but in the early days. Not too much has changed - he's still the little gentleman brat he always was, living in blissful ignorance of his several medical problems, except he gets 14 pills a week! I don't really know he is twelve, or that today is his birthday, but it was the day we finalized his adoption at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals shelter in Boston. At his first examination he was deemed to be about two years old. Add the ten we've been together to get twelve. When my other cat Scsi died it hit me very hard, and though I knew I would once again have a cat it took me several years to get around to it. There was always a good reason to wait, then one day I figured out that, well, there would always be a good reason to wait, which might mean I never get a new cat. So I fixed a date a good distance in the future and vowed to get a cat on or before that date: 14 February 1995. It took three or four visits to adopt Lennie. I walked over to the shelter (about 4 miles I guess) and on the way reviewed my criteria for selection. I had quite the laundry list. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to believe that aside from avoiding obviously wrong cats, there was going to be an awful lot of just plain luck involved. When I got to the shelter I walked up to the very first cage and pointed to the very first cat and asked myself "what would be wrong with *that* cat?". That was Lennie. But I hesitated to go with such a hit-or-miss approach, so I carefully interviewed every cat there. It is very sad to see how many cats are up for adoption and the stupid reasons that people list for abandoning them. There were a few that would take more love and compassion and care than I thought I could muster. There were some orange cats, and although I've known some fine orange cats I just didn't want one. There was a pair of beautiful females, Mom and daughter - they were the kind you see resting on the couch on the cover of Architectural Digest. I spent some time with all of them. The mom/daughter pair weren't especially friendly to me or to each other, but they were gorgeous and I thought I could make something of a family with them. Lennie was very bold and friendly - he charged right up to the front of the cage and tolerated some handling well, then bit me gently when he'd had enough. I went home to think about it. The next day I went back having decided to get the girls if I could. They were gone! Someone adopted my cats. I learned my lesson, or almost- the cat you decide on mightn't be there another day. But Lennie was still there so I talked to him awhile. He was an adult cat and unneutered (didn't take a vet to tell me that!) and I had read that unneutered cats can be a problem even if neutered later on, there was (I was told) a 50-50 chance that he'd always be "male". This caused me to hesitate. I left once again without a cat, but I was leaning towards Lennie. Saturday I went again to the shelter. Whereas on my prior visits I had had the place (and the cats) mostly to myself, on this day the place was a zoo. Everyone and his grandmother was there to get a cat. Lennie was getting quite a bit of attention - he was (and is) a magnificent specimen, a real cat's cat, so to speak. I remember watching a family helping their grandmother pick out a cat. They had zeroed in on an ideal cat, I thought it was a done deal. But then a crate o' kittens came in and suddenly all attention was diverted to these new arrivals. It was really sad, as I am a firm believer that older cats make fine adoptees and are really better for first-time owners and older caretakers. Kittens are a whole other world. But they are undeniably cute and I admit I look forward to raising a couple of cats from ground up one day myself. There were a young man and woman paying a lot of attention to Lennie and remembering the disappearance of the girls a few days before I decided I better act fast or "my" cat would get adopted out from under me. I got a shelter attendant and told her I had picked a cat out and had just a few questions. I had decided to risk whatever it was I was risking by getting an intact male cat. But he had a strange skin condition and I just wanted to be sure it was nothing serious. The attendant yanked him out of his cage, actually she yanked him right off his litter box while he was "in process", which sorta ****ed him off big time, and she took him back to consult the vet. She brought him back and plopped him back on his litter box, where he picked up where he had left off, and told me the skin thing was no large deal. I forget what it was, but what it wasn't was fleas. She marked the slip on the cage to let everyone know that he was spoken for and took me to fill out the paperwork and have a chat with an adoption specialist who mostly wanted to be sure that my landlady was cool with cats and that I had at least a vague idea of the commitment I was about to make. Since I had taken my old cat Scsi to the vet and hospital at the MSPCA, and I also came prepared with a letter I wrote and had my landlady sign in advance of the quest for a new cat, which letter actually authorized me to get two cats, I was accepted almost immediately. I paid the fee which included money to cover the obligatory neutering. I had Lennie transferred directly to hospital for the big snip, figuring that would be the best and he might never associate me with this arguably life-changing event. Just a few days later I went to collect him. I treated us to a cab ride home. He cried piteously the whole way. I figured it was from the bumpy Boston roadways and some residual discomfort from his operation and felt every bump myself. Turns out he just hates to ride in the car - I think he may have been remembering that his last car ride, when he was delivered to the shelter, didn't turn out so well... at least not until I adopted him! One lucky cat, I like to think. The stupid people who abandoned him did so because they claimed he was an uncontrollable nuisance. But they failed to take into account that a two year old intact male has every right to be so. It is a sad story, but it is to my good fortune that it happened this way. I have posted some recent photos on alt.binaries.pictures.animals. -- rob |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
"ram" wrote in message
news:%45Qd.36168$W16.15416@trndny07... This day marks ten years that I have had custody of Lennie, and his twelfth birthday. I have written here (rec.pets.cats.*) quite a bit about him, not recently, but in the early days. Not too much has changed - he's still the little gentleman brat he always was, living in blissful ignorance of his several medical problems, except he gets 14 pills a week! I don't really know he is twelve, or that today is his birthday, but it was the day we finalized his adoption at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals shelter in Boston. At his first examination he was deemed to be about two years old. Add the ten we've been together to get twelve. When my other cat Scsi died it hit me very hard, and though I knew I would once again have a cat it took me several years to get around to it. There was always a good reason to wait, then one day I figured out that, well, there would always be a good reason to wait, which might mean I never get a new cat. So I fixed a date a good distance in the future and vowed to get a cat on or before that date: 14 February 1995. It took three or four visits to adopt Lennie. I walked over to the shelter (about 4 miles I guess) and on the way reviewed my criteria for selection. I had quite the laundry list. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to believe that aside from avoiding obviously wrong cats, there was going to be an awful lot of just plain luck involved. When I got to the shelter I walked up to the very first cage and pointed to the very first cat and asked myself "what would be wrong with *that* cat?". That was Lennie. But I hesitated to go with such a hit-or-miss approach, so I carefully interviewed every cat there. It is very sad to see how many cats are up for adoption and the stupid reasons that people list for abandoning them. There were a few that would take more love and compassion and care than I thought I could muster. There were some orange cats, and although I've known some fine orange cats I just didn't want one. There was a pair of beautiful females, Mom and daughter - they were the kind you see resting on the couch on the cover of Architectural Digest. I spent some time with all of them. The mom/daughter pair weren't especially friendly to me or to each other, but they were gorgeous and I thought I could make something of a family with them. Lennie was very bold and friendly - he charged right up to the front of the cage and tolerated some handling well, then bit me gently when he'd had enough. I went home to think about it. The next day I went back having decided to get the girls if I could. They were gone! Someone adopted my cats. I learned my lesson, or almost- the cat you decide on mightn't be there another day. But Lennie was still there so I talked to him awhile. He was an adult cat and unneutered (didn't take a vet to tell me that!) and I had read that unneutered cats can be a problem even if neutered later on, there was (I was told) a 50-50 chance that he'd always be "male". This caused me to hesitate. I left once again without a cat, but I was leaning towards Lennie. Saturday I went again to the shelter. Whereas on my prior visits I had had the place (and the cats) mostly to myself, on this day the place was a zoo. Everyone and his grandmother was there to get a cat. Lennie was getting quite a bit of attention - he was (and is) a magnificent specimen, a real cat's cat, so to speak. I remember watching a family helping their grandmother pick out a cat. They had zeroed in on an ideal cat, I thought it was a done deal. But then a crate o' kittens came in and suddenly all attention was diverted to these new arrivals. It was really sad, as I am a firm believer that older cats make fine adoptees and are really better for first-time owners and older caretakers. Kittens are a whole other world. But they are undeniably cute and I admit I look forward to raising a couple of cats from ground up one day myself. There were a young man and woman paying a lot of attention to Lennie and remembering the disappearance of the girls a few days before I decided I better act fast or "my" cat would get adopted out from under me. I got a shelter attendant and told her I had picked a cat out and had just a few questions. I had decided to risk whatever it was I was risking by getting an intact male cat. But he had a strange skin condition and I just wanted to be sure it was nothing serious. The attendant yanked him out of his cage, actually she yanked him right off his litter box while he was "in process", which sorta ****ed him off big time, and she took him back to consult the vet. She brought him back and plopped him back on his litter box, where he picked up where he had left off, and told me the skin thing was no large deal. I forget what it was, but what it wasn't was fleas. She marked the slip on the cage to let everyone know that he was spoken for and took me to fill out the paperwork and have a chat with an adoption specialist who mostly wanted to be sure that my landlady was cool with cats and that I had at least a vague idea of the commitment I was about to make. Since I had taken my old cat Scsi to the vet and hospital at the MSPCA, and I also came prepared with a letter I wrote and had my landlady sign in advance of the quest for a new cat, which letter actually authorized me to get two cats, I was accepted almost immediately. I paid the fee which included money to cover the obligatory neutering. I had Lennie transferred directly to hospital for the big snip, figuring that would be the best and he might never associate me with this arguably life-changing event. Just a few days later I went to collect him. I treated us to a cab ride home. He cried piteously the whole way. I figured it was from the bumpy Boston roadways and some residual discomfort from his operation and felt every bump myself. Turns out he just hates to ride in the car - I think he may have been remembering that his last car ride, when he was delivered to the shelter, didn't turn out so well... at least not until I adopted him! One lucky cat, I like to think. The stupid people who abandoned him did so because they claimed he was an uncontrollable nuisance. But they failed to take into account that a two year old intact male has every right to be so. It is a sad story, but it is to my good fortune that it happened this way. I have posted some recent photos on alt.binaries.pictures.animals. -- rob Happy adoption day / purrday to Lennie! Please give him scritches from me. Kudos to you for adopting him and giving him a happy life, Rob. Hugs, CatNipped |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
The stupid people who abandoned him did so because they claimed he was an uncontrollable nuisance. But they failed to take into account that a two year old intact male has every right to be so. It is a sad story, but it is to my good fortune that it happened this way. I have posted some recent photos on alt.binaries.pictures.animals. What a great birthday tribute! What does Lennie take 14 pills for? Whatever it is it must work! Happy Birthadoptionday Lennie! |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
On 2005-02-14, ram penned:
The stupid people who abandoned him did so because they claimed he was an uncontrollable nuisance. But they failed to take into account that a two year old intact male has every right to be so. It is a sad story, but it is to my good fortune that it happened this way. I have posted some recent photos on alt.binaries.pictures.animals. Isn't it fun to think about how and why we got our furbabies? You're inspiring me to type something up, myself! -- monique, roommate of Oscar the (female) grouch ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Eros was adopted! Eros has a home now! *cheer!* |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Lennie is a very handsome fellow and you are a very lucky slave :-)
Susan M Otis and Chester "ram" wrote in message news:%45Qd.36168$W16.15416@trndny07... This day marks ten years that I have had custody of Lennie, and his twelfth birthday. I have written here (rec.pets.cats.*) quite a bit about him, not recently, but in the early days. Not too much has changed - he's still the little gentleman brat he always was, living in blissful ignorance of his several medical problems, except he gets 14 pills a week! I don't really know he is twelve, or that today is his birthday, but it was the day we finalized his adoption at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals shelter in Boston. At his first examination he was deemed to be about two years old. Add the ten we've been together to get twelve. When my other cat Scsi died it hit me very hard, and though I knew I would once again have a cat it took me several years to get around to it. There was always a good reason to wait, then one day I figured out that, well, there would always be a good reason to wait, which might mean I never get a new cat. So I fixed a date a good distance in the future and vowed to get a cat on or before that date: 14 February 1995. It took three or four visits to adopt Lennie. I walked over to the shelter (about 4 miles I guess) and on the way reviewed my criteria for selection. I had quite the laundry list. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to believe that aside from avoiding obviously wrong cats, there was going to be an awful lot of just plain luck involved. When I got to the shelter I walked up to the very first cage and pointed to the very first cat and asked myself "what would be wrong with *that* cat?". That was Lennie. But I hesitated to go with such a hit-or-miss approach, so I carefully interviewed every cat there. It is very sad to see how many cats are up for adoption and the stupid reasons that people list for abandoning them. There were a few that would take more love and compassion and care than I thought I could muster. There were some orange cats, and although I've known some fine orange cats I just didn't want one. There was a pair of beautiful females, Mom and daughter - they were the kind you see resting on the couch on the cover of Architectural Digest. I spent some time with all of them. The mom/daughter pair weren't especially friendly to me or to each other, but they were gorgeous and I thought I could make something of a family with them. Lennie was very bold and friendly - he charged right up to the front of the cage and tolerated some handling well, then bit me gently when he'd had enough. I went home to think about it. The next day I went back having decided to get the girls if I could. They were gone! Someone adopted my cats. I learned my lesson, or almost- the cat you decide on mightn't be there another day. But Lennie was still there so I talked to him awhile. He was an adult cat and unneutered (didn't take a vet to tell me that!) and I had read that unneutered cats can be a problem even if neutered later on, there was (I was told) a 50-50 chance that he'd always be "male". This caused me to hesitate. I left once again without a cat, but I was leaning towards Lennie. Saturday I went again to the shelter. Whereas on my prior visits I had had the place (and the cats) mostly to myself, on this day the place was a zoo. Everyone and his grandmother was there to get a cat. Lennie was getting quite a bit of attention - he was (and is) a magnificent specimen, a real cat's cat, so to speak. I remember watching a family helping their grandmother pick out a cat. They had zeroed in on an ideal cat, I thought it was a done deal. But then a crate o' kittens came in and suddenly all attention was diverted to these new arrivals. It was really sad, as I am a firm believer that older cats make fine adoptees and are really better for first-time owners and older caretakers. Kittens are a whole other world. But they are undeniably cute and I admit I look forward to raising a couple of cats from ground up one day myself. There were a young man and woman paying a lot of attention to Lennie and remembering the disappearance of the girls a few days before I decided I better act fast or "my" cat would get adopted out from under me. I got a shelter attendant and told her I had picked a cat out and had just a few questions. I had decided to risk whatever it was I was risking by getting an intact male cat. But he had a strange skin condition and I just wanted to be sure it was nothing serious. The attendant yanked him out of his cage, actually she yanked him right off his litter box while he was "in process", which sorta ****ed him off big time, and she took him back to consult the vet. She brought him back and plopped him back on his litter box, where he picked up where he had left off, and told me the skin thing was no large deal. I forget what it was, but what it wasn't was fleas. She marked the slip on the cage to let everyone know that he was spoken for and took me to fill out the paperwork and have a chat with an adoption specialist who mostly wanted to be sure that my landlady was cool with cats and that I had at least a vague idea of the commitment I was about to make. Since I had taken my old cat Scsi to the vet and hospital at the MSPCA, and I also came prepared with a letter I wrote and had my landlady sign in advance of the quest for a new cat, which letter actually authorized me to get two cats, I was accepted almost immediately. I paid the fee which included money to cover the obligatory neutering. I had Lennie transferred directly to hospital for the big snip, figuring that would be the best and he might never associate me with this arguably life-changing event. Just a few days later I went to collect him. I treated us to a cab ride home. He cried piteously the whole way. I figured it was from the bumpy Boston roadways and some residual discomfort from his operation and felt every bump myself. Turns out he just hates to ride in the car - I think he may have been remembering that his last car ride, when he was delivered to the shelter, didn't turn out so well... at least not until I adopted him! One lucky cat, I like to think. The stupid people who abandoned him did so because they claimed he was an uncontrollable nuisance. But they failed to take into account that a two year old intact male has every right to be so. It is a sad story, but it is to my good fortune that it happened this way. I have posted some recent photos on alt.binaries.pictures.animals. -- rob |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
ram wrote: This day marks ten years that I have had custody of Lennie, and his twelfth birthday. Happy purr day Lennie. Hobbes, Selena, Lacey, Sam and Barnabus wish for you lots of treats and toys and a sunbeam for napping when your tummy is full. You are a very smart kitty to have found such a loving hooman to adopt you and it sounds like you're awarding him handsomely with your love. Happy purrday, Julie, Hobbes, Selena, Lacey, Sam and Barnabus |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
|
#8
|
|||
|
|||
Happy adoption day to you and Lennie. Sounds like he found his forever home
10 years ago and that you really love you. May you and he live long and prosper. Jazz & his mama -- Irulan from the stars we come to the stars we return from now until the end of time "ram" wrote in message news:%45Qd.36168$W16.15416@trndny07... This day marks ten years that I have had custody of Lennie, and his twelfth birthday. I have written here (rec.pets.cats.*) quite a bit about him, not recently, but in the early days. Not too much has changed - he's still the little gentleman brat he always was, living in blissful ignorance of his several medical problems, except he gets 14 pills a week! I don't really know he is twelve, or that today is his birthday, but it was the day we finalized his adoption at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals shelter in Boston. At his first examination he was deemed to be about two years old. Add the ten we've been together to get twelve. When my other cat Scsi died it hit me very hard, and though I knew I would once again have a cat it took me several years to get around to it. There was always a good reason to wait, then one day I figured out that, well, there would always be a good reason to wait, which might mean I never get a new cat. So I fixed a date a good distance in the future and vowed to get a cat on or before that date: 14 February 1995. It took three or four visits to adopt Lennie. I walked over to the shelter (about 4 miles I guess) and on the way reviewed my criteria for selection. I had quite the laundry list. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to believe that aside from avoiding obviously wrong cats, there was going to be an awful lot of just plain luck involved. When I got to the shelter I walked up to the very first cage and pointed to the very first cat and asked myself "what would be wrong with *that* cat?". That was Lennie. But I hesitated to go with such a hit-or-miss approach, so I carefully interviewed every cat there. It is very sad to see how many cats are up for adoption and the stupid reasons that people list for abandoning them. There were a few that would take more love and compassion and care than I thought I could muster. There were some orange cats, and although I've known some fine orange cats I just didn't want one. There was a pair of beautiful females, Mom and daughter - they were the kind you see resting on the couch on the cover of Architectural Digest. I spent some time with all of them. The mom/daughter pair weren't especially friendly to me or to each other, but they were gorgeous and I thought I could make something of a family with them. Lennie was very bold and friendly - he charged right up to the front of the cage and tolerated some handling well, then bit me gently when he'd had enough. I went home to think about it. The next day I went back having decided to get the girls if I could. They were gone! Someone adopted my cats. I learned my lesson, or almost- the cat you decide on mightn't be there another day. But Lennie was still there so I talked to him awhile. He was an adult cat and unneutered (didn't take a vet to tell me that!) and I had read that unneutered cats can be a problem even if neutered later on, there was (I was told) a 50-50 chance that he'd always be "male". This caused me to hesitate. I left once again without a cat, but I was leaning towards Lennie. Saturday I went again to the shelter. Whereas on my prior visits I had had the place (and the cats) mostly to myself, on this day the place was a zoo. Everyone and his grandmother was there to get a cat. Lennie was getting quite a bit of attention - he was (and is) a magnificent specimen, a real cat's cat, so to speak. I remember watching a family helping their grandmother pick out a cat. They had zeroed in on an ideal cat, I thought it was a done deal. But then a crate o' kittens came in and suddenly all attention was diverted to these new arrivals. It was really sad, as I am a firm believer that older cats make fine adoptees and are really better for first-time owners and older caretakers. Kittens are a whole other world. But they are undeniably cute and I admit I look forward to raising a couple of cats from ground up one day myself. There were a young man and woman paying a lot of attention to Lennie and remembering the disappearance of the girls a few days before I decided I better act fast or "my" cat would get adopted out from under me. I got a shelter attendant and told her I had picked a cat out and had just a few questions. I had decided to risk whatever it was I was risking by getting an intact male cat. But he had a strange skin condition and I just wanted to be sure it was nothing serious. The attendant yanked him out of his cage, actually she yanked him right off his litter box while he was "in process", which sorta ****ed him off big time, and she took him back to consult the vet. She brought him back and plopped him back on his litter box, where he picked up where he had left off, and told me the skin thing was no large deal. I forget what it was, but what it wasn't was fleas. She marked the slip on the cage to let everyone know that he was spoken for and took me to fill out the paperwork and have a chat with an adoption specialist who mostly wanted to be sure that my landlady was cool with cats and that I had at least a vague idea of the commitment I was about to make. Since I had taken my old cat Scsi to the vet and hospital at the MSPCA, and I also came prepared with a letter I wrote and had my landlady sign in advance of the quest for a new cat, which letter actually authorized me to get two cats, I was accepted almost immediately. I paid the fee which included money to cover the obligatory neutering. I had Lennie transferred directly to hospital for the big snip, figuring that would be the best and he might never associate me with this arguably life-changing event. Just a few days later I went to collect him. I treated us to a cab ride home. He cried piteously the whole way. I figured it was from the bumpy Boston roadways and some residual discomfort from his operation and felt every bump myself. Turns out he just hates to ride in the car - I think he may have been remembering that his last car ride, when he was delivered to the shelter, didn't turn out so well... at least not until I adopted him! One lucky cat, I like to think. The stupid people who abandoned him did so because they claimed he was an uncontrollable nuisance. But they failed to take into account that a two year old intact male has every right to be so. It is a sad story, but it is to my good fortune that it happened this way. I have posted some recent photos on alt.binaries.pictures.animals. -- rob |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
What a great story! I love happy endings! Thank you for taking such great
care of him. Best wishes - and have a great day, both of you, -- Polonca & Soncek "ram" wrote in message news:%45Qd.36168$W16.15416@trndny07... This day marks ten years that I have had custody of Lennie, and his twelfth birthday. I have written here (rec.pets.cats.*) quite a bit about him, not recently, but in the early days. Not too much has changed - he's still the little gentleman brat he always was, living in blissful ignorance of his several medical problems, except he gets 14 pills a week! snip |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
Rob wrote:
This day marks ten years that I have had custody of Lennie, and his twelfth birthday. ---------------------snip---------------------- What a touching tribute to your little man on his purrday. Here's hoping you have many happy years left together. Regards and Purrs, O J |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Vet Tech Journals 21 New Year's Eve | Mischief | Cat anecdotes | 3 | January 1st 05 05:09 PM |
THE PET FOOD INDUSTRY AND YOUR PETS HEALTH (vol 1) | WalterNY | Cats - misc | 2 | February 22nd 04 10:03 AM |
Nearly two years ago | GraceCat | Cat anecdotes | 3 | October 10th 03 08:38 PM |
It's been 4 years (holistic) | jen.d | Cat anecdotes | 1 | August 14th 03 03:20 AM |
It's been 4 years | polonca12000 | Cat anecdotes | 8 | August 13th 03 06:58 PM |