Waiting

Whiskers, our other stray kitty, is looking for Boxer. She pokes her nose into the cat basket to get Boxer’s scent. She walks to the concrete block, Boxer’s favourite seat for watching the world go by, and she sits on it. She waits for Boxer.

Boxer

Out in the back porch she sits facing the backyard where noisy, black birds land on a papaya leaf stalk or fly towards the custard apple tree. Poor Whiskers doesn’t understand why her friend has disappeared.

We had taken Boxer to the vet last Thursday. He had not eaten anything since the previous day and there was blood trickling out of his mouth. “We thought he had eaten a bird,” we told the vet. The vet opened Boxer’s mouth, cleaned his bleeding gums with a square of cotton wool and showed us the broken teeth and the loose ones standing crookedly in the red gums. Poor Boxer. It must have been very painful. No wonder he had only sniffed at the last meal we gave him.

“Give him soft food,” the vet said. “And bring him back tomorrow.”

We looked for him everywhere the next morning but he was gone. Late afternoon, however, Sonny heard the soft mewing. We all rushed to one end of the long drain running underneath the porch floor. We called the cat but although he responded by mewing he must have been too weak to crawl out.

 

"Miau, miau," we called.

 

"Miau," Boxer answered. We grew more desperate when it started pouring. The drain would fill up. Boxer would drown.

Photo credit: ASC

After several attempts and using various objects attached to poles and broom sticks and fishing rods, Boxer was finally pulled out of the cold, wet drain. He was barely alive. A quick hot shower, a blow-dry, and wrapped in a clean, dry towel he was at the vet’s in less than ten minutes after the rescue.

Boxer died on the vet’s table. He couldn’t be saved. We buried him under the hibiscus bush, next to the concrete block he used to sit on.

We haven’t stopped wondering who had inflicted the injury on the five-month-old kitty, an injury so severe that it had broken some of his teeth and loosened others in their sockets.

Does a person lose anything by being kind to animals? Why attack a timid cat that is hardly bigger than your foot? Is it the cat’s fault if he strayed into a stranger’s compound?

Boxer was no stray cat but that status didn’t protect him from two-legged animals. Whoever assaulted him perhaps didn’t know—or didn’t care—that he was a loved member of a family.  

While we have said the painful goodbye, Whiskers doesn't understand and she continues to wait for the friend who's never coming home.   

Note: I learnt that out of 3,000 tri-coloured cats, there is only one male. Boxer was one of these rare cats.

Boxer the Cat

Beautiful Boxer

 

My friends would remember Boxer.

 

One of three siblings

He was born on 23 May 2012. Here he is at two weeks.

 

Even loud bangs and sneezes startled him.

He was the most timid in the litter so we decided to keep him and give away his mama and two pretty siblings.

 

Showing Whiskers how to wait for the birds

Another stray came to stay. Boxer showed Whiskers how to groom herself; how to hunt for birds.

 

A haha moment

Together they made us laugh.

 

Yesterday, so ill he couldn't lift his head.

Yesterday we took Boxer to the vet. Some of his teeth were broken or loose. His gums bled and stained his nose and cushion. He didn’t eat all day. He just wanted to be by himself. Why would anyone want to attack a timid, little 5-month-old cat?

 

Today we buried Boxer.

Cats and Kids

We named the stray kitten ‘Whiskers’ because she didn’t have any. There was dirt stuck in her unkempt fur, she was mewing non-stop and Boxer didn’t like her one bit. However, apart from hissing he didn’t act overly aggressive nor did he chase the kitten away even on that first day.

Throughout the first week, someone had to watch over them while they ate because Whiskers was fond of leaving her food and going for Boxer’s. Then Boxer would stop eating and not even fight for his share.

A few days ago, Boxer kept a wary eye on the little kitten whose dish was on his right and several feet away from his bowl. On his left two birds were scavenging for food among the grass. These attracted Boxer’s attention. I could see that he was raring to go after the birds. But he probably didn’t want Whiskers to take his food too. He looked at the birds, then at the kitten. The birds won.

When the coast was clear Whiskers, who had already gobbled down her food, stole out of her hiding place and went straight for Boxer’s bowl. She caught me looking at her but that didn’t bother her at all.

It has been more two weeks since Whiskers joined the family. Boxer has accepted her and they’re good playmates now. Meal times aren’t a hassle anymore although Boxer is still reluctant to share his bowl with Whiskers. Having a four-footed friend has reduced his need for human company and he doesn’t bother me too much these days. The requests for tummy rubs and to be petted have grown fewer. He has stopped following me around and getting in the way. He can even afford to ignore me when I call.

Writing those last two lines made me suddenly realize they could apply to Sonny! Kids, like pet cats, grow up. They may seem distant and don’t need you anymore. They have their own friends, do their own things, they live their own lives. Ironically, while all their growing-up years we, parents, teach them how to stand on their own feet, when they’re finally ready to leave the nest, we wish they’d stay longer. Don’t you agree that our children, whatever their ages, will always be our babies?

A Rainy Day Visitor

The wind was splattering droplets of rain through the window as I dragged myself out of bed. From the kitchen I heard the plaintive cries of a kitten competing with the sound of wind and rain. Has my kitten wound himself with a string? Got trapped in a box?

Boxer

Looking out the window, I saw a kitten sitting on the floor its back towards me. ‘Boxer looks shrunk,’ was my first thought. ‘He must have been caught in the rain and is wet and miserable.’ I opened the kitchen door but no Boxer came running in and that was highly unusual. Another stray kitten? I went out to check but the spot—where a moment ago a kitten had sat—was empty and the mewing had stopped.

I found Boxer still asleep in the front porch and woke him up for breakfast. As I spooned cat food into his dish I spied the stray kitty looking at us from behind all the accumulated junk in the back porch. It looked scared but its empty stomach must have made it risk the safety among Mr. Hubby’s collection of wood, nylon bags and what-nots, for it sprang forward towards the cat dish before retreating again into the shadows.

What spunk! I liked it already. Boxer, who is very timid and frightened of everything (even loud bangs!) acted scared and submissive. He left his dish and ran into the kitchen! Seeing the coast was clear, the stray kitty scampered tippy-toe—like a TV cartoon mouse character—to the food.

One hungry kitten

The way the kitten was all over the dish showed that its last good meal must have been days ago. It was also shivering, probably due more to hunger than the cold. ‘Poor, little kitty,’ I thought as it licked the dish clean. Then, for some reason, it ran towards the door where I was sitting with my camera and froze for a second before it went back to hide among the clutter.

There was just a moment to take its picture. Sonny and I examined the photo later and discovered that the kitten’s whiskers and the hairs above its eyes have been snipped. Whether it has run away from its human abuser or whether someone has left it at our gate, we will never know. However, we’ll take care of it until its whiskers have grown back. Then we’ll find a good home for Whiskers—our name for her.

Note the missing whiskers.

I’m not crazy about cats. I prefer dogs. However, turning away helpless kittens is just like ignoring the needs of human babies, don’t you think?

Boxer with his beautiful, long whiskers.

 If cat owners spay or neuter their pets there’d be no unwanted kittens to abuse, to chase out of the house or to leave at other people’s doorsteps.

Emergency!

When the stray cat came to our house she had looked more kitten than adult and the caved-in tummy indicated she was starving. She must have liked our food because she decided to stay. Months passed. Sonny and I had assumed the good food was making her balloon up. Who’d have guessed the slowly enlarging tummy contained babies?

Pudding

Two days before the kitties came, Pudding—that’s what we call her—mewed incessantly and would only be quiet when someone was with her. Sonny’s friends said that it’s normal for tabby cats to be restless when the babies are coming and that we should just leave the cat alone. So we left her in a spacious box to have her kitties.

I guess Pudding didn’t know she was going to be a mother. When the first kitty’s head got stuck and refused to come out, Pudding must have thought she was constipated. She went under the bush and tried to rub her behind on the ground. I put her back in the box but she jumped out and hid under the car. The baby stubbornly refused to come out.

“Miao… miao…,” Pudding formed the sound with her mouth but no sound was coming out. OMG, I thought, she’s growing weak…the baby is stuck…what are we going to do?

I didn’t want a dead cat so Sonny and I put Pudding in her box and rushed her to the vet for advice. The stuck kitty was pulled out, laid on the table and pronounced dead. The computer screen showed there were three more babies and we were told mama cat was growing very weak. I had to make a decision quickly: a C-section or a dead cat?

“How much for a C-section?” I asked. I knew there was a fifty ringgit note in my bag.

“RM380,” the receptionist answered. My eyes must have popped out because she was quick to add, “We accept credit cards.” That would make a big dent in my purse but I couldn’t picture myself digging a hole in the backyard. Pudding had been generous with us, sharing a bird she had caught, a mouse, several cockroaches and a few grasshoppers.

Pudding with her 3-day-old kittens

“How long will it take for her to recover?”

“Two weeks.”

I looked at Pudding half lying and half sitting down on the table. A nurse held her by her fore-legs. Her eyes were wide open but she was so quiet and docile that I thought she had been given a jab to sedate her but she hadn’t.

An hour after her operation, Sonny brought her home. She was groggy and lying down in the middle of the box. I was sure that the ignored newborns, arranged like a row of dead fish in a corner of the box, didn’t have a chance of surviving the night. I stayed with them and ran a damp paintbrush on their tiny bodies to simulate licking. Soon one kitten was crawling. The other two lay close to each other. At least they kept each other warm.

The kittens at 17 days.

It must have been about 3am when mama cat let the kitties crawl to her teats. She even started licking them! Finally I could go to bed knowing I’ve done all I could for one tabby cat and her new kittens.

Note: I'm very grateful to everyone on Facebook's Animal Friends who responded to my call for help and gave valuable advice.