Carol’s Cat Chronicles

Volume 4

“FIVE cats?  You Must Be Kidding!”

No, Darrell was NOT kidding.  He had been in contact with 2 Pixie-bob breeders in Georgia.  One lady had a male kitten, the other had a female.  Although he had been talking to these ladies for several days, I was not aware that he was serious.  All I could think of was FIVE cats…in our house…at one time.  I was just getting used to three.  And to be honest, it was not so bad, so I figured, “If you already have three, how much would you really notice two more?”  So, yes, we decided to get a breeding pair of Pixie-bobs. 

The question came up again of how to get them here.  The male was ready to be sent, but the female was not yet weaned, so she needed to stay in Georgia a little longer.  We were ready to receive the male and were making arrangements to have him flown to Kentucky.  It was only going to be a one-hour flight, so we did not feel that the kitten would be stressed too much.  Later we would do the same to receive the female.  But the day before the male was supposed to be shipped, the breeder emailed us and said that she had taken him to the vet and discovered that there was a problem that would prevent her from selling the kitten at that time.  In fact, she would not be able to sell him for SEVERAL weeks.  So she referred us to the woman who had the female and said that we could purchase a male from her.

Although we were disappointed, after talking to the other breeder, she said that she had not mentioned having this male before, because she originally intended giving this male to the first breeder to complete a sales contract they had.  This meant that the male was of such quality that he was good enough to pay off her debt to the first breeder, so we felt we were still going to get a good quality cat.  He was a little older than the female we were getting from her, so we decided that the best arrangement would be to wait until both kittens could be shipped at the same time. 

On October 7^th, 2000, the little female was exactly eight weeks old.  The breeder could not ship her off any sooner, so on that date, we drove to Nashville to pick up the two Pixie-bobs.  After picking them up at the airport, we took a peek at them to see that they were alive and then put the carriers in the back seat to make the two-hour trip back to Owensboro.  It takes about one hour to get to the state line of Kentucky, and from the time we left the airport until we reached the rest area at the state line, the cats did nothing but cry.  I was driving and Darrell was trying to console the kitties!  We pulled over at the rest area and he took each one out of the carrier and held them for a minute, and then put them back in for the second hour of the trip.  I guess they just got tired, because we did not hear another peep out of them from that point on.

By this time, we had purchased another cage and had put this smaller one in our bedroom.  We needed to keep the new kittens isolated from the others, for more reasons than one.  The other three were still recovering from the upper respiratory infections they had developed and we did not want to pass this along to the new ones.  Also, it is just good practice to quarantine any new cats coming into the house until you are sure they are healthy as well.  So when we returned home, the new kitties went into our bedroom, and immediately went under the bed!  We hardly got a glimpse of them other than what we had seen in the car!

Following the theme for our names, we called the male Pixie-bob Rhett and the female, (you guessed it!) Scarlet.  She was only 8 weeks old, and no more than 6 to 7 inches in length it seemed.  I am a sucker for kittens, so she won my heart immediately.  Come to find out, just before the breeder sent them to us, she tells us that the little one has not been weaned yet.  So we did not know what to expect of her.  She was the one who came from under the bed first.  I guess she was looking for her mommy!  And she seemed to find her in ME.  She would come to me and perch herself on my highest body part if I were on the bed.  If I was sitting up, she was on my shoulder.  If I was laying on my side, my butt was the widest part, so it stuck up in the air the highest and she would perch herself there!  (To this day, she still likes to do this.)

Now, to back up a little…the breeder from which we bought these kittens was keeping us updated on their progress before she sent them.  She told us stories about what they were up to.  After her telling us over and over that the little male had quite a personality, we finally asked her just what she meant by that.  She said, “Well, if had to give him a name, it would be “Pain”!  He is really energetic and wants to get into everything.”  It did not take long to see what she meant after his arrival.  And to this day, we sometimes slip up and call him “Pain” as well!  But we would not trade him for gold…he is just that special to us.

Now, another situation came up that we had not thought about.  The breeder we purchased the Pixie-bobs from kept all her litters isolated.  So these two kittens had never met.  They had to get to know each other before being introduced to the other cats in the house.  We had no idea that little kittens could “growl” like these two did at each other.  Poor little Scarlet had to learn to take up for herself in a big way when Rhett, who was a little larger, would get after her.  She did really well though.  He thought he had her in control and that he was the “big daddy” when he was in the bedroom.  Then, after a reasonable quarantine, we introduced Rhett to Blake.

Now THAT was funny!  Rhett, who had been the supreme ruler in the bedroom, was no comparison in size to Mr. Blake.  And he was properly humbled when they met.  In fact, he acted like a little “girl y–man” when pitted against the REAL supreme ruler of the house.

In the next volume, I will be telling more “cat tales” as we journey through my life with FIVE cats…and I am NOT kidding.