It was the middle of July 1991 and I had just been hired by the company I had been working for the past two years. I was about half way through construction of my new house and while at work one night I saw this kitten playing around just outside of the building I was in. I’ve always been an animal lover, at the time I had two cats,{Pepper and Kitten} living with my wife and I in our studio apartment, but decided to try to call this kitten to me just to see if it would respond. Unlike most of the wild kittens that lurk around the plant I work at this little fellow ran right to me. In fact I could stick my leg out and he’d climb up.
I was taken by this and decided to give him some food and encourage him to stay around the shop area out of harms way as I was about to go to work in the rest of the plant. After about three hours I crossed the path of this kitten again he had somehow managed to get covered in cement dust and when I picked him up made a small cloud as I began to brush him off. I took him back up front gave him the remainder of my lunch, and as if he could understand told him to stay there and that if he’d meet me at quitting time I’d take him home with me. I really didn’t expect to see him again, but when leaving the next morning saw him at the front office area next to the plant exit in a small patch of grass bouncing after a frog I knew he was coming home with me.
The story I told my wife was that once we moved into the house he could be an outside cat. We moved into our new home and outside he stayed, I even let my other cats go out from time to time just because they seem to want to, but outside life, and my lack of knowledge about the dangers cats can encounter in the way of disease shortened
Pepper and Kittens life span.
I was devastated at the loss of my Cats coming within just a month of each other. I would then find out that Dusty was about to have his first battle for life with what had just taken Pepper, wolves. The worms that can invest rabbits and squirrels can also infect cats and Dusty was now sick. Unlike Pepper however he was able to over come his illness, but would be losing his outside privileges now, and this is where our bond would start to grow. He helped me a great deal in the grieving over my other cats, and would stick with me whenever I was in the house.
This cat was very loyal to me more so than my first wife I would later find out and after our divorce he would make my house seem not so empty when coming home from work. I dated for a while and he would put all the girls that came over through the usual punishment of constant antics and such, and then my now current wife Sheree came along, and seemed to love him just as much as me. Our marriage has lasted, and our family has grown steadily over the years with kids and cats and dogs, but Dusty could somehow manage to control two fifty pound dogs when I could not.
My wife and I would have a disagreement a Dusty would be there to Love on us both and make us both feel important again. The years just kept going past and age was starting to show on Dusty, we had even taken to calling him Old Man when he walked into the room.
Arthritis was becoming visible in his joints and movement seemed to be laboring at times, but my LOVE for this cat had kept growing steadily over the years, and when an infection in his eye would just not clear up, my friend and vet for the past 12 years decided we would need to run some more extensive tests. A year pasted and I wish I would have spent that time with Dusty on a more one on one level, but the other two cats, four dogs, and three kids took alot of my attention off of what I knew was coming, and not wanting to face.
The prescription cat food was no longer appealing to him and despite the constant effort my wife made to find the magic food that he would eat after a short time even tuna, ham, and chicken lost there appeal to him.
My Dear Dusty could do little more than sleep now and the latest verdict from the vet was that his liver had failed him and that it was time to do what was best for him. Jan 26, 2005 was a day I will never forget. I said good bye to the best friend I had found in a long time, and although I made it through that day without a tear a few days later while looking though some pictures of him I found myself unable to stop them.
I really loved this cat he was so very special to all of us here. I look forward to seeing him again waiting for me
when its time for me to leave again.
With Love Forever,
| Dusty |
| Rick Scott |