Squeak!

Barbara Wallace and Squeak...

Two years ago our cat Squeak contracted a cuterebra investation. (Warning: this may gross you out!) The cuterebra is a large fly that lays eggs in the nests of rodents and rabbits. The larva, which look like small worms, hatch from the eggs when exposed to the heat of the nearby animal. Curious cats and dogs can come into contact with the eggs or larva when they explore the nest.

Squeak when aka DK (Demented Kitty)

In Squeak's case she sniffed up either an egg or a larva who then took up residence in her nose. The larva then migrated to her brain where it bore a hole and waited to hatch.

You read that right. Our cat had flies gestating in her brain.

Many exorbitant (as in my husband may never recover) vet bills later, Squeak was cured. But the worms left their damage. The cat that came home from the vet was nothing more than a furry shell. She spent her days staring vacantly at the wall or walking aimlessly in circles. If you picked her up, she went limply wherever you put her. She forgot how to groom. We took to dropping her in the swimming pool to clean the medicine and dried food off her. Worst of all, she forgot how to use the litter box. Instead, she defecated where she slept or walked. We weren't even sure she realized she was defecating. So most of her time was spent in a small contained space. (She didn't notice.) Her nickname became DK - short for Demented Kitty.

The vet told us she'd make slow and steady improvement, but when Christmas came and she still wasn't using the litter box, he told us she probably never would. We resigned ourselves to having a DK for life.

Then one Sunday in January, the strangest thing happened. Our family was busy watching the playoffs when we heard scratching sounds coming from our laundry room. Since the other cat was sleeping nearby, my husband got up to investigate, returning a moment later with a wide eyed expression. "Squeak," he announced, "is using the litter box."

She's been housebroken ever since.

Today, with the exception of a few minor personality quirks, Squeak is a fully functioning normal kitty cat. She's housebroken, social, curious and clean. (She also hates the swimming pool.) If you met her, you'd never know she'd been sick. When I called the feline neurologist (yes, my cat had a neurologist) he remarked her recover was medically significant.

Squeak today!

Why am I telling you this story? And what does a brain damaged cat possible have to do with writing? Well, the answer my friends lies in the second half of the neurologist's remark. He said Squeak's recovery was medically significant because "we don't have a lot of data on brain recovery because most pet owners give up."

The reason Squeak is sprawled on my sofa today isn't because we're some family of extraordinary pet owners (a family of pet suckers perhaps, but that's another story).
No, Squeak is around simply because she was given the time to reach her benchmarks. The exact same rule applies to your career. Since I began writing, I've seen far too many writers - many of them far more talented than me - fall by the wayside because they quit too soon. They didn't allow themselves time for success. They grew impatient or frustrated and cut their career path short.

Waiting for success is like waiting for Squeak to use the litter. None of us know when success is going to happen. It could be one submission away or ten. Best we can do is muddle through day after day, cleaning up messes and celebrating small victories until that one day when, like Squeak's potty training, success just "happens."

By the way – by helping Miss Mousie, you’ll be helping another special cat. Just like writing, great results are achieved when we dedicate our time and our resources. Here’s hoping that next year we’ll be celebrating Miss Mousie’s anniversary.

PS: The top photo is Squeak last July; the bottom one was taken this morning.

Barbara Wallace

The Cat That Won My Heart

Christina Hollis and Magic...

I grew up not liking cats. How could anyone not like cats, you ask yourself? Easy. My fear stems from when I tried to dress a feral farm cat in baby clothes. That was one kitty who was determined not to be pushed around in a dolls’ pram, but I was too young to know any better. I still have the scars.

Magic, a Norwegian Forest Cat

Spool forward a few decades. I’d refused every request from my own children for a four-legged pets. Their record with goldfish and chickens was not good, so their pleas for a kitten fell on deaf ears. Then we had a warm summer followed by a mild autumn, leading to a population explosion in everything small and furry out in the woods and countryside. When the weather turned cold, they all made a bee-line for our stores and greenhouses to nibble away at the seeds and vegetables. We set live catch traps, then drove several miles away to release our haul in the hope the little critturs wouldn’t find their way back. This performance had to be repeated several times a day as mice, shrews and voles can’t stand the stress of being held captive for long. The system worked well until one morning after a bitterly cold night. A bank vole fell out of its trap frozen stiff, poor little thing. That did it. I decided to delegate the task of pest-control officer.

‘We’re getting a cat.’ I announced to the children.

For a few seconds there was absolute silence as they stared at me, open mouthed. Then they saw I was serious, and from that moment on there was no going back. We researched on the Internet and got books out of the library. Pretty soon any member of the family could have taken “Cats And Their Care” as our specialist subject in “Mastermind”. Our first stop was the local cat rescue. They took all our details, inspected us and after a short wait rang with details of a cat in need of rehoming who they said would be perfect for us. We went to visit Tiddles in his foster home, and were greeted by a lovely lady covered in sticking plasters. Tiddles held court in her kitchen. A large bottle of TCP on the draining board should have told us what to expect, but the sight of an enormous one-eyed tom swelling to twice his size with every hair standing on end told us a whole lot more. After saying a swift goodbye to Tiddles we decided on a kitten, so we could teach it good manners before it could learn any bad habits.

Magic aka Pest Control Officer

We wanted something tough but beautiful, and unspoiled by overbreeding. Maine Coons caught everyone’s eye, but the nearest breeder was a long way away and all his kittens were booked up for more than a year in advance. I didn’t want to disappoint the children, so we went for their second choice of breed, a Norwegian Forest Cat. Harry Potter was their hero at the time, so our tiny kitten was immediately named “Magic”. He didn’t stay tiny for long! His parents were both house cats who had never been outdoors, so all our farming neighbours told us Magic would never be any good as a mouser. Cats, they said, had to be taught to hunt from birth by their mothers. Magic soon proved them wrong. From the moment he was first let outside, he has made it his life’s work to keep our grassland free of moles, and spends hours ratting in the neighbour’s stable block. Not only is he a dedicated Pest Control Officer, he’s the perfect house cat too - never sick or sorry, and as keen to be affectionate as we are to make a fuss of him.

Magic is eight years old now, and he’s in his prime. The children never were very keen on cleaning up after him, but he’s such a pleasure to have around that’s never been the problem for me I thought it would be.

In fact I’ll let you into a secret - I’d be lost without him!

Christina Hollis

City Cats

Lynn Patrick and Sheena and Magic...

Sheena was a country kitten before I adopted her during Christmas week 2003. My sister had seen a notice for “free kittens” in a local Iowa newspaper and told me about it when I visited my family for the holidays (I live in Chicago). We drove far out into the country and down a private lane where there was a small house and a kind woman who had quite a few cats and several dogs, all rescues she was taking care of. It was love at first sight when I saw my little orange girl and we brought her home.

Sheena as Pharoah

The next day I took Sheena to the vet for de-worming, ear mites, and shots. I was staying with my mother and I worried that the cat might bother her, so I locked the kitty in the laundry room that night, Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning, half-asleep, I woke to hear soft beating on my closed bedroom door. I wondered if my mother was playing a trick on me. However, the soft pounding continued, accompanied by what sounded like “ooh’s” and the door opened after a few minutes. But no one came in! No one human anyway. Surprised, I turned over in bed to come face-to-face with an orange, purring, fuzzy ball of affection. Sheena had come to tell me she was my Christmas present. Though my mother had let her out of the laundry room in the middle of the night and my mother’s bedroom door was open, Sheena knew who her person was and was willing to beat the door down to get to me.

Sheena made the journey back to Chicago in my rental car and has been leaping on my bed every morning since. She made friends with my old kitties before they passed on and trained the new addition to our family, Magic.

Since moving to the city, Sheena has become a bit punk or edgy (note photo of her as Pharaoh) and won a prize from Nicole Hollander (Sylvia Comics). See http://edgycat.com/contest.html

Magic aka Magical Mystery Paws

Magic, short for Magical Mystery Paws, is a large 15 pound torti whom I got from a rescue organization in Chicago in 2006. I found her in a PetSmart with her sister, both several months old. The two kittens had been “donated” to a cat rescue society by owners who brought them in imprisoned in a large bird cage. I adopted Magic that very day and her sister went to another woman with several cats. Once home, Magic liked her new surroundings but was very needy . . . and still is. She will wake up, discover I’m out of sight, and run through the apartment mewing desperately until she finds me. Like all cats, she likes to “hide,” but, unlike many cats, she thinks she’s out of sight if her head is stuck in a blouse sleeve (with the rest of her body outside) or under the bed. Magic helps me write and lies on the desk while I’m at the computer. In fact, I put a box on the desk for her but she’d rather be right in front of me, in place of the keyboard, so we go around and around from time to time as to who gets what space.

I think Magic also likes Country Music, since I woke in the middle of the night one time to find her on my computer desk with a Dixie Chicks CD playing loudly. She had her ears back but wasn’t going anywhere. I have no idea how the CD got turned on – busy paws?

Lynn Patrick