Steven's Feline & Furball Friday: Dylan's Story

"With their qualities of cleanliness, discretion, affection, patience, dignity, and courage, how many of us, I ask you, would be capable of becoming cats?"

-Fernand Mery - Her Majesty The Cat

Here, as promised, is the story of how cat Dylan came to live with us. I already told you that when we adopted Hendrix, we had tentative plans to also adopt another cat that was in the care of a sweet lady named Donna who had been Hendrix's foster mother. It was a beautiful cat, and it played really well with Hendrix, but somehow the adoption couldn't take place. Sigh. It is a very long, ugly story. One that left me devastated. I am not exaggerating about that. I actually cried for a most of the weekend. It left me wondering if I had any business being a mommy to a cat. I wondered about whether I had hurt Elvis? I thought he had been happy, but what if I had actually subjected him to a life of misery, and he just couldn't tell me? After losing him the way I did, I had to then consider if I had made his life a living hell. It was a question about declawing.

I intend to have my cats eventually declawed. Now, there are a lot of opinions about this, and a lot of passion on both sides of the issue, but based on the experience I have had with declawing, which was a positive one, it seems like the best thing for our kitties. When I had Elvis declawed, it was because he was living with my mother who was elderly, and rather frail. Elvis didn't have a mean or destructive bone in his body, but accidents do happen, so I felt it was best for her at the time. I took him to Dr. B. the procedure was done, we followed all of the doctor's recommendations and Elvis was as good as new in a few days. No sign of pain or discomfort... ever! In fact, he could still grab things and hang on with nearly the same fierceness he had displayed when he played with his catnip toys, prior to being declawed. He ran, he played, he smiled, he saved animals in the backyard, he jumped, he did everything he did before he was declawed. That was my experience. It didn't hurt him. I am positive of that.

Ok, fast forward to the present, and what happened with the cat that was not to be. Donna fosters kitties for a Bay Area shelter, and when they come into the care of the system, they are assigned a tracking number. Once you find a kitty you want, you go to the shelter and get approved for the official adoption. Alan and I went to the shelter, and filled out the paperwork, and of course we told the truth about our intention to have the cat declawed. That is when it all fell horribly apart. The shelter grilled us for almost an hour about the declawing. They wanted to know who our veterinarian was, and told us more then one horror story about how my cat would come home from the declawing a different cat. It would hate us for the rest of our lives, it would turn to biting, rather then scratching, and the cat would be in devastating pain forever. They stopped just short of telling us that the cat would plan our murders! It was so bad, that when I asked to hold a little orange cat that was waiting for adoption, the shelter volunteer said, "NO!" It would be better that it was put to sleep, rather then adopted by me. We called Donna, told her what happened, and told her we were sorry about not being able to take the kitten, but we couldn't lie.

I was in so much pain I could barely breathe. I just quietly walked out of the shelter. So much went through my head. Had we just caused Dr. B a lot of hassle. Where they going to put him on some mean veterinarian list? But what to do? The truth was already out there. Neither Alan or myself was willing to lie to get what we want. So, there we were. We may have just caused a ton of problems for Dr. B and no second cat. Sigh. It was a terrible feeling, but I resigned myself to simply owning Hendrix, after all, he is a beautiful cat, full of fun, and life, and he loved me so much, so, I began to move on. It would be ok. Don't get me wrong, it would have been just fine owning one cat, but I did know that Elvis was terribly lonely after we had to get rid of his brother Jack. That is why he tried to adopt everything that came into the yard. LOL. He loved everyone so much, and it was that memory of him that made me not want Hendrix to be lonely, but what were we to do? The day after election day, a call came. It was Donna, who had found an orange kitten, whose mommy and sibling had been hit by a car and killed. It hadn't been placed into the shelter system yet. "Would we be interested?" You bet!

Dylan was all alone in the world. He had just saw his very own mommy and brother or sister struck by a car and killed. He needed to have a new mommy, and I was so happy to be that for him. It was a nice fit, because I was a mommy, who just lost her little boy to cancer. We both had holes in our hearts that we could fill for each other. :) The first time I picked him up, he was shaking, but within a couple moments he stopped, and laid his head on my shoulder. He liked me, and felt safe. We became family before we left Dr. B's that day, and he has been my constant companion ever since. He adores his brother, and he lavishes love on his daddy when he comes through the door, and we are a family. :) It was a long road to each other, and there were some bumps, but it doesn't matter, what does matter is we are together. Forever.

Have you played Steven's Feline & Furball Friday? If not, you should. Write up your own pet tale, and then leave the link for Steven. Here is where you find all the information. :)

-Carly
"Dylan's Story"
November 5th, 2008