We are down to three cats, and I've got mixed feelings about it. When we moved to our current house almost seven years ago, the only pet we had was our cat SCOOBIE. We've had Scoob since we lived in Denver, and before we had kids - Scoob was our kid. Scoob went everywhere with us. She made countless trips riding in the car with us to Wisconsin and back. I even took off work once to stay home with her after a rough vet appointment. After we had a baby, Scoob kind of took a back seat. She stayed home when we went places. And by the time we had three kids, she was pretty much non-existent. It didn't help matters when she started peeing on stuff in the basement. She also had a tendency to come up and bite us out of the blue, which was rather annoying - and painful. Hence, she now resides outdoors.
This is Scoob:
see how happy she is as an outside kitty?
Not too long after we moved into this house, we decided to let the boys each get an outside kitten. Will and Charlie picked out kittens from the local crazy cat lady (actually it's an old man named "Frosty"), and our cat population grew from one to three. Dale Earnhardt Jr and Macy turned out the be two of the best darned cats a person could ever ask for. They followed us around outside like puppies and they enjoyed every minute of being held upside down, tickle tortured and squeezed from the kids. When Dale got hit by a car - it was horrible. We took him to the vet where they successfully treated his head wound and broken leg, and we sent out Christmas pictures featuring our kids and a cat in a cast (had the picture been taken a week later, it would have featured two kids and three-legged amputee cat).
The boys with Macy and Dale:
I'll skip right to the bad part which is this: Both of these cats end up disappearing - first Dale, then Macy. Just up and vanished! As you can imagine, the kids were devastated. We all were! We distributed flyers all over the place and waited and waited and WAITED for someone to call or for Dale to come back...... and nothing. *ugh*
Since then, my heart has really hardened towards our outside cats. It just doesn't pay to get attached to them. Don't get me wrong, I love our cats and we take excellent care of them, BUT it's impossible to prevent them from wandering into the woods or the road or wherever they wander to where an unfortunate ending might await. As you might have deduced from some of my recent pictures, we recently had two litters of kittens. We had EIGHT kittens here - yeah, way too many. After they were weaned, I published an ad (against the kids wishes) for free kittens to good homes. Even though I knew it would be hard for the kids to give the kittens away, I knew it was the best thing. We're moving and don't have an outbuilding at the new pad yet. Plus, it would probably take some time to find them all new owners. Right? Ha. The next day a farmer called who was looking for some nice farm cats... and he wanted them ALL. Okay. I guess. It makes the most sense right? Then the kitties can stay together. Right?
During discussions with the farmer we decided to give him the mama cat with all of the kittens. I knew it made sense, but I was feeling really bad about it. But if that weren't enough, at the tail end of the transaction, Ben decided to include Scoob as part of the deal!!! SCOOB!
Ugh. I'm still not over it. I know she's fine, and she's hanging out with her cat buddies (and now cows and chickens), and probably having tons of fun on a farm. Right? Yeah I know - it's tough to put a positive spin on this one, but I'm really trying.
Sorry Scoob. :-(
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