BG and Jerry's Story

Jerry and BG

 

At this time I would like to introduce a few of my personal cats. I will start with BG and Jerry, as the calendar said it was their 6th birthday last Sunday. Of course, I'm not exactly sure if it was their birthday; it is when I estimated their birthday should be. They were probably about 4-6 weeks old when I pulled them out from under that old refrigerator on Pete's porch. They are my ghetto kitties. It's hard to believe that a town as small as Blanco has a ghetto, but it does. I wasn't the first one to use that term, but that's what Pete calls it and he should know, since he lives there. I would like to say a few words about Pete. I had seen him around town, and honestly, he looked a little scary to me. Turns out that he is gentle soul, an artist who shares what food he has with the cats. He doesn't like to see them suffer, but at that time didn't have a way to get them fixed. When I first became aware of the situation, there were about 5 unspayed females and 3 intact males, plus the two little tiny sick kittens. It was a hard life for those kitties, having litter after litter with most of the kittens getting sick, suffering and then dying. When I pulled the little ones out from under that fridge I also pulled out a piece of fur from a kitten that had not made it.

Pete



 

I was able to trap all the females and get them fixed and returned. But one of the males had a broken leg and tested positive for feline leukemia (Felv). He was a wild boy and there was no way to treat him, so the hard decision was made to put him down. The oldest female only had one eye, as the other had reportedly been shot out by someone with a BB gun. It is hard to believe so much time has passed since I first pulled them out from under that old refrigerator. They were both such tiny little things, so sick and their eyes all sealed shut, not because they where newborns, but because they had been infected with the herpes virus that so many kittens seem to get. There has been many times that I have used a warm, moist cloth to unseal a kittens eyes only to have large amounts of pus ooze out. By the time they were big enough to be fixed I had become attached to them and couldn't bear to take them back to the ghetto. I named them Jerry and BG. BG is short for Baby Girl or Blind Girl. She was such a small sick

BG

little kitten; I didn't think she was going to live. She was totally blind for quite a while. What I found interesting was that she didn't know that she was blind as she had never experienced sight. She was a spunky little thing exploring every thing her little paw touched. I remember her playing with the buttons on my shirt when I would pick her up to clean her eyes. I was afraid that she would always be blind, her eyes were in that bad of shape. I'll never forget the first time I saw that she could see. She had wandered into my bedroom and had noticed the ceiling fan slowly circling above her. It was the funniest thing watching her spinning around trying to keep an eye on that fan. Since then she has gained some sight her left eye, but her right eye is destroyed. She is a pretty little cat, with medium to long buff colored hair, and she is a happy cat. She still doesn't see very well, but she is a jingle ball pro. She can bat those balls all over the house. Her eyes are always goopy and running and I suppose that someday I will have to get the bad one removed. But she is happy kitty. Jerry is a big kitty, a bi-color gray and white, a kitler kitty, a cat that has a Hitler like mustache. Jerry has one eye that is always runny. Both cats will carry the herpes virus all their lives; it just doesn't go away.



I went by Pete's today, the fridge is still on the porch, his little colony of cats has shrunk down to 4 cats with no kittens being born since 2009.

Please Spay and Neuter your pets.

 

Ghetto Kitties and that Orange thing in the
background is the fridge I pulled Jerry and BG out from under.



Sample of Pete's artwork