A story by Sarah K.S.
I would like to discuss my cat Milo…now actually I shouldn’t call him a cat
for he does consider it quite an insult! His story is one of early tragedy
followed sadly by the accidental death of his sibling.
It’s a story however with a very happy ending!
I’ll start from the beginning…
It was a warm weekend in summer when my friend Meredith and my Sis.
and I were walking home from the horse barn to where we went for our
normal afternoon outings. We walked a little too far deeply involved in
a conversation about some topic I do not remember and we missed our
usual turning point where we entered the forest trail to go home.
Pretty soon we realized it and just before we turned back we stumbled
upon a box containing two kittens.
At first we pounced at it not knowing the contents. Once we discovered
two tiny kittens within we tried not to scare the poor mites by calmly
petting them reassuring them we meant no harm. They had obviously been
left here abandoned by some non-caring human being and by the look of
them,they were much too young to make it on their own. So much to my
parent’s future dismay we took them home…
It took days weeks almost a month of bottle feeding for them. One of
the kittens was completely black in coloring and the other was not a
normal orange tabby but a peachy color with darker peach stripes. As
they grew older the blue shade from their eyes disappeared and what
remained was what I could only describe as “map eyes”. Just like the
colors one would find in the maps of the Medieval period. These colors
used to make the maps could always be found in their eyes…Rich earthy
tones and sepia colors.
We named the black one C.G.,(standing for Curious George) and the other
one Milo… (Milah at first for we thought it was a girl until their first vet-check!)
Well as the days passed my sister grew less and less interested in
C.G.,(aka “her kitten”) and I bonded with them both. The kittens and I
would take our daily walk to the empty house lot right next-door and I
would watch over them as they’d play around the trees and mounds of dirt
that had not been cleared away at that time. I was out until the call of
“supper” rang in the evening air; then I’d gather the kittens up in my
T-shirt end and walk home carrying them like a mother kangaroo.
Then came the tragic day….the day of C.G’s death. They were still
kittens as usual during the day I went to the garage to bring my pets
outside. We had a carrier for them and as we were not allowed to keep
them in the house I took them out of the garage each morining in their
carrier. I didn’t latch the door of the carrier so they were able to
exit if they wished. I then closed the garage door without another
thought and went inside.
About a minute later my father called saying that a storm was coming and
he suggested I put the kittens back inside the garage until the storm had
passed. I stepped outside to follow his direction but when I opened the
garage door I found that the door had crushed C.G in his attempt to get
back inside when I had first taken their carrier outdoors.
Milo was still outside….
Milo and I shared the most tragic moment when C.G.’s little body was
placed on a towel ready to be buried. I was crying softly and Milo was
standing beside me just staring at his dead brother. Suddenly Milo
jumped next to C.G. and batted at his side playfully as to say: “wake
up let’s go play now! Enough sleeping!!” but as C.G. didn’t stirr it
seemed as if just then Milo realized he was dead…and I did too!
The following days were difficult and on one of these days I took Milo
out to play again. Sadly he mostly stayed nearby me. His brother was not
there to join in their usual games. I’m sure he felt almost completely
alone. But within a month we began to recover – Milo becoming the
“family cat” as my sister seemed to have always wanted. However with
time I became the only member of the family who continued to really pay
attention to Milo.
However Milo grew up to be more of an ‘everyone-kinda-cat’.
By the time he was a year old he was trained not to bite anyone
It took a lot of time to train him but because I knew he would be an outside
cat he would be around children and neighbors.
To this day he has kept up a good reputation for safety
even with babies because he is so harmless.
We had him fixed of course and declawed – but only in his front paws.*
But even without them he brought me birds mice rabbits and left them
on the front step as hunting offerings. (the only time I regretted any of
his gifts was when he left a live scorpion in my shoe!!)
Well winter came and he stayed indoors. Our favorite pastimes were
watching Star Wars,(his favorite show!) and eating popcorn…(although he
preferred to dip his popcorn in soda before eating it) His favorite food
turned out to be Smores Poptarts along with rasberry fruit drink on the side.)
And pretty soon I discovered that he didn’t believe he was a cat at all.
I believe it was because he was essentially raised by humans rather than
his natural mother and was always around dogs. Because of this he
appeared to never really consider himself a cat after his brother died.
The way we discovered this unusual ‘personality conflict’ happened one
day when I was talking to my sisters friend Jamie and Milo was right
beside me. Jamie grinned at Milo and said “well hello you little
pussy-cat!”…Milo sat up immediately and gave this bewildered look to
Jamie then promptly marched himself into the road his tail held high
right in front of a moving car. I had to stop the car to prevent my cat
being turned into a pancake; quickly carrying him back to the curb.
I looked down at him with a scowl on my face saying “Clever thing you
could have been killed!!” Milo simply looked back to Jamie as if to say
“It was her fault”….from then on I made sure not many people called
him a cat….but if they ever did he would go off and sulk – fortunately
refraining from making his exits onto the street!
Milo did learn a series of tricks over time. He has taught himself to stand on
his hind feet; front paws in the air if you point your finger at him and
say: “STICK ‘EM UP!” As well he will jump onto anything when I tap on
the object and say “H’UP!!” Unusual for a cat he also will always come
if you call him. I guess he gets that trait from his dog companions!!
Happier still is the fact that Milo rescued from an almost certain death
as a tiny infant,is still with us…along with two new puppies! As
senior ‘pet’ Milo will even baby-sit them putting up with all the
playful puppy tortures of little bites and licking with just his usual
passiveness….He is 3 years old now and can still be his spunky kitten
self or just a homely comforting pet. Milo is so easy to talk to and
I hope he will be with us for many happy years to come,
despite what all others say about the short lives of outdoor cats.
| Milo |