# Cats when we were kids!



## bluemilk (Oct 3, 2005)

Does anyone remember their first cat?

When I was 7 or 8, a big cat came into our yard. Beautiful calico. She'd had a rough night. Her fur was matted, she was favoring her paw, and she was hungry! Sooo... Mom and me brought her out a saucer of milk, then mom phoned Dad telling him to bring home cat food. I tried to play with her, but she just lounged around. Finally she knocked down a line of my toy soldiers! I thought such a he-cat deserved a manly name. My mom tried to argue that she was female 'and a busybody' I named her Busyboy! The neighbor who'd lost her took her home the next morning...


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## cat owner again (Dec 14, 2012)

I am cleaning out things and just found a photo of my child hold cat - we are talking 50 years ago. She was grey and white. She would come when I called her and sleep on my bed. So typical as I grew older she was more my mom's cat and I moved out of the house.


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## MowMow (Nov 6, 2010)

Our first cat was a Calico named... Calico. Very briefly another cat appeared (probably dropped off at the farm) who wanted in the house. We named him Smudge but he disappeared pretty fast. I doubt he was prepared for outdoor life and now I know he probably met some terrible end.

After Calico died we got a white kitten from the vet named that I named Lucy (after Lucille Ball).

Cats weren't very welcome on the farm and were treated like vermin most of the time. The indoor cat was allowed to stay and was offered vet care if needed (not like shots or any preventative care). We weren't allowed to feed them because my dad felt it would stop them from hunting.

Lucy was the game changer for my dad. I remember when she was really little he made me keep her in a dog kennel out in the barn. Then when we s tarted bringing her in she would sit on the arm of his chair. No matter how many times he knocked her down she'd come right back. Before long she was HIS pet. He'd feed her bits of food (although we were still forbidden), he insisted my mom give her warm milk every winter morning, and when he called..she came RUNNING. She slept on his belly every night. She outlived him by many many years and to the day she died if someone would call her her 'his voice' she'd come running and chirping.

Oh, she would come if we called but only for a mouse. If my mom did her mouse shriek (they always jumped out of the dish washer when she opened it) Lucy would come flying from wherever she was to get the mouse. She was also our first cat to get shots and regular vet care.


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## Jetlaya67 (Sep 26, 2012)

My first cat was a mostly white with black spots cat. I was about seven or eight and taking swimming lessons. The instructors cat had a litter of kittens and he was trying to find them homes. I begged and begged until my mom said I could get one. I named him Tabby. I loved that little guy.


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## Arianwen (Jun 3, 2012)

The first cat I really remember was "Mew" (yes an idiot child aka "me" was allowed to name her). She used to meet me coming from school when I was about 4. She was really stray and had several kittens - some other local people drowned the queen kittens and she took her two remaining babies and brought them to us. One of them we kept until he died many years later. The other kitten was weaker and it was felt he was better staying with her so when she couldn't cope with being largely "indoor" she became a farm cat as did he. Those were her last kittens and she lived to a good old age and was a sweetie to the end. He didn't do quite as well but died of natural causes. It was such a different era but I still love her (and him) enormously. Her other kitten stayed with us for a huge amount of time and was the terror of the local dog population and could eat foxes for breakfast (LOL)!! Times have changed so much in that time.


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## NebraskaCat (Jan 15, 2013)

Our cats on the ranch were all working barn cats. There was one, a big fluffy orange boy, that my sister and I cleverly named "Lert" (the old joke at the time 'Be a Lert (alert), the world needs more Lerts). 

But the cat that turned me on to my love of cats was an older tiny blue former mama called Spook. Although a great hunter and terrific barn worker, she was a cat who would lie on my chest as I laid in the grass and watched the clouds roll by. Many good conversations with Miss Spook.


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## Furball (Jun 9, 2011)

Yup, i certainly remember my first cat. I still can't get over the loss of him.

He used to sleep in my bed with my - not on it, i mean he'd actually get under the duvet, turn around, come back up, lay down on his side and rest his head on the pillow next to mine.

He was the best friend i've ever had and thinking about his death still has the ability to reduce me to tears now - 21 years later.

He was absolutely brilliant. Irreplaceable and if i had a time machine, I would go back and rescue him now - while leaving a decoy there to preserve the timeline.

I often wonder if i should have gone into particle / quantum physics purely to solve this problem..


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## 10cats2dogs (Jun 16, 2013)

I wasn't a kid, when I got assimilated by my first cat! I was in my twenties, just married, and in a new house, when one morning there was a tiny little black kitten hunkered down between the house and garage, covered area...
Up to then, I'd always been a dog person...so I wasn't sure what to do!
I thought, it'll leave...it didn't...well even tho' I wasn't a cat person, I had to feed it, I wasn't about to watch it starve before my eyes! Poor little thing, she had huge green eyes, that followed every move I made...and the tiniest little meow...she worked me well! Before I knew it, I was falling for her...what clinched the deal, was my cat hating dog, that I had then...
Deciding one day, when only the screen door was closed, to have her face glued to the screen, and her whole rear end was happily wagging, and she was whining....I thought, What the Hec??
Turns out the kitten was standing up on the screen door on the outside, and the two of them were sniffing noses!!
I told my hubby (then) I think we have a cat...he grinned, and said, he'd been secretly hoping that the kitten would win me over!
Jezebell, as we named her, and my dog Tesa, became best buds...
I lost Tesa to cancer eventually, but Jezzy lived to 21 years...
When my ex called to tell me that she was gone, we shared tears over the phone...
Little Jezzy, you will always live in my heart♡♡♡♡


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## Time Bandit (Aug 17, 2010)

Just a word of caution...this story is pretty sad... 

We weren't allowed to have cats when I was growing up. My dad HATED them with a terrible passion.  But I did have a sweet girl from across the street who I took care of at night. Her name was Domino, a pretty black and white girl, who was severely abused by her "owners" (I would see them grab her by the tail and swing her across the yard, among other things...).

I was 8 years old, and the first time I met Domino, I fell in love. But she had owners, and I knew my dad would kill me if he saw me with a cat. By day, Domino would wander her yard on patrol, and try to stay away from the abuse that was given her. By night, she would come to my window. The window screen was broken, and it was easy to let her slip inside. I would sneak in some extra meat from dinner (when possible...I was a slow eater so it was easy when I was the last one sitting at the dinner table to do), and we would play quietly and I'd watch her eat. Eventually, she would curl up next to me and sleep, and I knew that in the morning she would have to go back to those people who claimed to be her family and protector. It was devastating to me to have to let her go every morning.

One day shortly after I turned 9, I found her lying in the street. She had been hit by a car. I was the only one that cried. It was terrible. Still makes me tear up to this very day.


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