Memories And Meows E-Book

Debbie De Louise

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Ever wonder what cats are thinking? If your cats could write a blog, what would they talk about?

In Memories And Meows, you'll meet four cats who share their everyday activities, health concerns, behavior issues and more.

Floppy will tell you about his hospital experience and discusses feline diabetes. His sister, Holly, talks about her weight issues, describes how she made the change from a feral to a house cat, and even writes a fictional story featuring her fur and human family members.

Harry talks about the merits and perils of being a black cat, shares his bad habit of wire and shoelace chewing, and even gives tips about how to cope with a crisis. His sister Hermione reveals her fascination with high and low places, discusses how she mastered the cat flap door, and offers her thoughts on the Cat Writers’ Association conference.

If there’s a feline in your home or you enjoy reading about these quirky, beautiful, wise, and inspirational creatures, you’ll find these fur-st person tails from the cats’ point of view a purrfect read.

Leseprobe

MEMORIES AND MEOWS

DEBBIE DE LOUISE

Copyright (C) 2021 Debbie De Louise

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Edited by Ruth E. Thaler-Carter

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

This book is dedicated to the memories of Floppy, Holly, Oliver, and Stripey, and the cats before them, and in honor of Harry and Hermione, whose stories are still unfolding. It is also dedicated to the memory of my long-time friend and fellow cat lover, Clare McCarthy, Jr., who died in 2020 after contracting the COVID-19 virus and to my mother who taught me the love of these special animals.

Here I am with some of my beloved cats from over the years, whom you’ll meet in these pages.

CONTENTS

Introduction

I. Themestream Articles:

1. Introducing Floppy

2. Introducing Holly

3. Pilling Mr. Floppy

4. From Feral to Housecat

5. Notes from a Diabetic Cat

6. The Males of the Species

7. Animal Hospital: A Nasty Place to Visit but a Worse Place to Stay

8. Help! I’m Yellow

9. Two Cats Are Better than One

10. Ms. Wobbly Knees

11. The Females of the Species

12. The High-Maintenance Cat Quiz

13. Feline Asthma

14. Does Your Human Spoil You Rotten?

15. A Feline Fantasy

16. How I Survived Being Hit by a Mail Truck

17. A Bored Cat’s Flight of Fancy, Part 1

18. A Bored Cat’s Flight of Fancy, Part II

19. She’s Not My Friend Anymore

20. Fear and Punishment

21. A Tree with a View

22. The Heavy on Hairballs (with a Poetic Tribute)

23. When I Had the Wigglies

24. Confessions of a Catnip Addict

25. The Cat’s Out of the Bag

26. The Fine Art of Petting and Grooming Your Cat

27. How I Became a Wide-Bodied Cat (includes Fat Cat Quiz)

28. Food Games that Cats Play

29. Holly’s Scoop on Litter

30. “Cat”ching Memories

II. The Harry and Hermione Kitty Korner Blog Posts

31. Harry and Hermione, the New Kittens of Debbie De Louise

32. My Purrsonal Introduction

33. My Favorite and Least-Favorite Things

34. I Love My Brother ... but

35. The One Thing I Want for Catmas

36. Spring Toys Are Fun, but Socks are Better

37. My Mew Year’s Mews

38. I’m a Curious Cat

39. It’s Cold Outside but Warm in Grandma’s House

40. My Highs and Lows

41. Hanging with My Sister

42. My Pawsome Discovery

43. My Continuing Adventures with Hermione and Stripey

44. Everyone “Adoors” Me!

45. Handsome Harry is Growing Up

46. My Grandma’s Author’s Mews

47. I’ve Been Naughty

48. Happy National Pet Day

49. I Had an “Egg”cellent First Easter

50. My Grandma Has a New Book Out

51. A Feline Review of the Cat Writers’ Association Conference

52. I’m a Basket Case

53. Something to Chew On

54. National Black Cat (Me) Day

55. Our New Scratching Post

56. Feline Tips on What to Do in a Crisis

57. Spring Is Here and So Are the Bugs

58. Taking Care of Business

59. My Brothers Have Problems

60. Enjoying the Outdoors... from the Indoors

61. My New High-Rise Apartment

62. Our “Bird Day” is Coming!

III. Bonus Posts

63. Sneaky Interviews Author Debbie De Louise’s Cat Stripey

64. Oliver’s Interview of Sneaky the Library Cat

Acknowledgments

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About the Author and Her Books

INTRODUCTION

I’ve been blessed to have shared my life with many cats. They’ve all had their own stories and some of them have even told those stories themselves.

In 2000, two cats lived in my home: Floppy and Holly. They were then five and eight years old. I had gotten Floppy in early November 1992, three months after I married. I’d found him in the pet section of Newberry’s Department Store. Having lost my gray cat, Benny, to kidney failure a few years earlier, I was looking for another cat who might keep me company while my husband worked nights. My first sight of Floppy was in a cage with his three brothers. He was the only gray and white kitten, I was told he was twelve weeks old and had already received all his shots. Not only did I like the fact that he looked a bit like Benny, but he was the most active of his siblings and seemed very friendly. However, I didn’t want to decide too quickly to bring him home.

I’ve always believed that if something is meant to be, it will happen no matter what, so I made myself a promise that if no one had claimed him over the weekend, I would go back to the store on Tuesday, which was a day off for me because it was Election Day.

When I returned, I was happy to see that Floppy was still there. I took him home after purchasing a carrier and got him settled in our apartment. When my husband came home from work, I announced that we had a new addition to our family. Floppy became like a child for us during that time.

Shortly after adopting him, we discovered he had asthma and when he turned six, he was diagnosed with diabetes. As he grew older, he also developed pancreatitis and liver issues and was hospitalized three times. We had to put him to sleep when he was 15.

Holly joined us in 1995 a year after we’d moved into our house. She was a feral cat that my mother was feeding in her backyard. When I visited my mother, she persuaded me to take Holly home. I was struck by her beautiful green eyes but was nervous about how she and Floppy would get along. I needn’t have worried because Floppy took her under his wing and even taught her how to use a litter box. They became great pals.

In 2000, I was writing articles for cat magazines and was a member of the Cat Writers’ Association. Most of my articles featured Floppy and Holly. I wrote about Floppy’s diabetes and Holly’s hip dysplasia. During this time, I also joined a website called Themestream that paid me for each article that was downloaded. This book is a collection of those articles that I wrote from Floppy and Holly’s points of view. They are diary-like entries about what was going on at that time in their lives and in mine.

In October of 2003, I put Holly to sleep after a recurrence of cancer that had spread from her back to her stomach. My only daughter was born a year to the day after I lost Holly. She was due in December but arrived in October 2004. We named her Holly.

In 2007, Floppy became very ill suddenly, and we had to put him to sleep. I fell into a deep depression that was only lessened when I began writing a book that featured him. Cloudy Rainbow was published in 2008 by Booklocker.com, a self-publishing company.

That same year, we got Stripey. I didn’t think we were ready for another cat, but my neighbor, who worked in a hospital, knew a doctor who was looking for a home for a tabby cat. He couldn’t keep the cat himself because his wife was allergic. We took the cat, whom my four-year-old daughter named Stripey. A month after he entered our home, I had an asthma attack. I’d grown up with cats and, while I was slightly allergic to them, I’d never had an asthmatic reaction. I later learned that some people can be allergic to certain cats and not others. However, my asthma was also caused by three respiratory infections I’d suffered that summer. I was in the hospital for a week and, when I returned, the doctor said I couldn’t have a cat in the house. Luckily, my brother and sister-in-law, also cat-lovers, took Stripey until I was well enough to bring him back home. He passed away at 14 in May 2022 from cancer.

In May 2013, we took in Oliver, my mother’s 13-year-old-cat, after she went into a nursing home. She loved Oliver so much but was having memory issues and could no longer care for him. My daughter became very attached to him, but within a year, he bonded with me. We were both heartbroken when we had to put him to sleep in 2017 after he’d suffered with kidney disease for two years.

Since 2015, I’ve been writing the Cobble Cove cozy mystery series with a Siamese cat, Sneaky, who was loosely based on Oliver. I’ve written a total of five books in the series and a short story collection. Sneaky also has his own blog (www.sneakylibrarycat.wordpress.com), where he interviews other pet characters as well as authors’ pets.

This blog also features columns written by Harry and Hermione, my current cats. We adopted the brother and sister, then three-month-old kittens, in October 2018 from the Golden Paws Society rescue on Long Island after seeing them at the Shabby Tabby Cat Café. Their story was featured on my Ruff Drafts blog (https://debbiedelouise.com), as well as on Sneaky’s blog and Dawn White’s Lola, the Rescue Cat’s blog. It also appears in the book Second-Chance Cats: True Stories of the Cats We Rescue and the Cats Who Rescue Us.

In the two years since Harry and Hermione entered our lives, they’ve given us much joy. I started writing about their funny antics in Sneaky’s Kitty Korner column in December 2018 and am still writing about them. This book contains some of these blog posts, along with those that appeared in Floppy and Holly’s Themestream articles.

There are a variety of subjects ranging from feline health issues such as asthma, diabetes, and thyroid disease to behavioral topics such as cat fights, wire eating, and introducing two cats, to products, reviews of cat trees and scratching posts, and much more, all told through the minds of my four felines twenty-two years apart. I hope you enjoy them.

PART1

THEMESTREAM ARTICLES:

THE FLOPPY AND HOLLY POSTS

1

INTRODUCING FLOPPY

My name is Floppy, and this is the first article in my new column for Themestream. I’m an eight-year-old, gray and white American shorthair cat who lives with Debbie, a librarian and freelance writer, and Anthony, a computer instructor. I call them Mom and Dad because I don’t recall my real feline parents and, besides, they spoil me rotten.

I also have a younger, red tabby sister (unrelated by blood) named Holly. She will be posting her own column soon because she likes to imitate me. We get along fine except for a bit of sibling rivalry, but I tend to get the upper paw because I’m the oldest and the sickest. I suffer from several health problems including diabetes and asthma that will be discussed in future columns for the benefit of other cats who have these conditions. More recently, I spent some time in that terrible place called an animal hospital for a bout of pancreatitis from which I am currently recovering. My hospital adventures are not for the weak hearted, but they do shed light (not to mention fur) on several veterinary procedures from I.V.’s to ultrasounds.

Besides feline health information, of which I unfortunately have learned a lot about through my sicknesses, I plan to cover other important cat topics in my column including a few basic courses such as Birdwatching 101 and Introduction to Cat Toys.

My sister and I will also occasionally write a joint column, and my mom may even make a few guest appearances. In particular, she and I will co-author an informative piece on the topic of pilling cats — ugh! She will instruct humans on how best to properly perform this dreadful task, while I will share with other cats my secret tips to avoid being pilled including my famous “tongue twister” technique. So, stay tuned, and I hope you enjoy and learn from my life’s adventures.

2

INTRODUCING HOLLY

Hi, Themestream readers! I’m Holly, a five-year-old red tabby with green eyes and a passion for fur mice. I live with my human parents, Debbie, a librarian and writer and Anthony, a computer teacher and golf enthusiast. Floppy, my older gray and white brother, also lives with us. He’s okay as long as he doesn’t get in my way. Although he does take away the time Debbie spends with me playing “mouse catch” and has the annoying habit of stealing my food (not that I don’t get my fair share and now weigh more than he does since he’s been in the hospital), I do owe him some credit for teaching me how to use the litter box when I first arrived in my new home and didn’t know the etiquette for housecats, having been a feral for the first six months of my life.

You may have already read some articles from Floppy’s column. He always seems to be beating me to things. It’s rough being the youngest. I have to admit he has more to write about with all his various illnesses from diabetes to asthma and lately to pancreatitis and liver problems. I’m lucky in that all I’ve suffered from has been ear mites and fleas when I was brought in from the outdoor life, one case of worms, and a loose kneecap condition that still bothers me occasionally, especially when I put on weight.

Nevertheless, I plan to keep Themestream readers, both cats and humans, entertained by my stories and will even let Floppy write a few columns with me. My mom may also join in from time to time, as she’s a very good writer. In fact, she writes cat articles for magazines and newsletters and even wrote a cat mystery for an anthology.

Unfortunately, Floppy was the star of that story. But my time has finally come. I am very excited about having my own column and welcome any comments from readers.

Thanks for giving me this opportunity to voice my purrsonal opinion on the female feline experience.

3

PILLING MR. FLOPPY

Floppy has asked me to help him write this second installment of his column for the benefit of its human readers. As distasteful a subject as it is to most cats, it is extremely important for people to master the technique of successful pilling (or plan of attack, as the case may be). This takes patience, motivation, and sheer persistence on the part of the “piller” (namely, the human). I have found the following method helpful when pilling Floppy, but each cat/human team is different and must learn to work together to find the easiest and least painful method for both of them.

Before I describe my pilling technique, let me give you some background into how I developed my expertise. As you may know if you’ve read Floppy’s first article for his column, he is a feline diabetic. His experiences with this condition along with details of his daily insulin injections will be described in a future column. However, for the purpose of this article, let’s just say that administering insulin shots is a piece of cat chow compared to giving pills because cats are very sensitive to what is put in their mouths.

Years ago, when Floppy was a kitten and I had to give him pills for his asthma, I was able to hide them in a morsel of his favorite moist food. That lasted until he detected the hidden pill and ate around it or ignored the food altogether. I was spared having to find another method at that time because Floppy was taken off the pills. However, a few years later, he developed a urinary tract infection that required antibiotics. When I told the vet about my pilling ineptitude, he prescribed a liquid version of the antibiotic and gave me an apparatus for administering it. He showed me the technique in the office, and it seemed simple. But when I got home and tried it myself, Floppy spit out the liquid all over the walls and carpet.

It was at this time that I asked other cat friends for suggestions on how they gave their cats pills. Everyone had a different method, but most people agreed that the “down the hatch” method was the most effective. I tried again, and it worked for the first few days. But then he decided not to comply. He simply wouldn’t open his mouth. It stayed closed like a steel trap. I called the vet in despair and asked if I could possibly stop the pills because I just couldn’t manage to give them. I was told to come to the office, and the vet took another blood test to check Floppy’s infection. To my relief, I was informed that the infection was clear and that the antibiotics could be discontinued.

My relief was somewhat short-lived because Floppy soon developed another problem that called for pills. This time, it was after he’d been released from the animal hospital for a severe case of pancreatitis. That story will also be featured in an upcoming column. Upon his release, I was told he would need to take several pills a day. I was panicky. I begged for a veterinary technician who could come to my house and give the pills. No one was available. Then I asked if any of the pills could be given through an injection. My vet said only one of them could be given this way but that it would sting. I decided not to try this because I was afraid it would cause Floppy to fear his regular insulin injections. My only alternative was to try pilling yet again.

I knew how important it was for Floppy to take these pills, so I vowed I’d teach myself to give them in a way that would be the least taxing on both of us. I enlisted the aid of my husband. I held Floppy down and opened his mouth, and my husband tossed in the pill. This worked for a few days, but it took several attempts and a total of 15 minutes per session. There was one bad scene where my husband ended up with a bloody finger, so he started using the pill gun. This, too, worked for a while and was less dangerous for my husband, but it was still a very trying experience for all three of us.