Nine Lives

 It has been crazy here with Mom in the kitchen making all manner of delicious treats. Not for us dogs 😞, but for people. Cujo here again. Did you know that chocolate is bad for dogs? Mom said it, so it must be true. Thank goodness for peanut butter! We got lots of licks from peanut butter.

Toni Louise has a favorite treat. When Dad empties a jar of peanut butter he gives her the "empty" container. She will run to her favorite lounging spot and lick to her hearts content. If you should be brave enough to ask for a lick, you should be prepared to run! She does not share her bounty!

Mom emptied some peanut butter jars and when she handed the plastic jar to Toni Louise, Mr. BoJangles snatched it and ran! This was funny because the jar was as big as he is. He could fit his whole head inside. He only did that once, then Toni reclaimed her rightful treat and Mom gave the rest of us a carrot. I like carrots and Mom says they are good for our teeth. I guess she forgot about the teeth they pulled last time I took a nap at the vet's office.

Toni was disappointed with her jar. Dad leaves a lot of peanut butter on the sides of the jar. Mom scrapes it clean with this thing called a spatula. She has suggested many times that Dad make use of this kitchen tool, but he says the knife is already in use when he thinks about it.

Enough about that. I wanted to tell the story of Martha, the boy cat. It was spring time and lots of stuff was going on around here, as Oscar tells me. He said it was the beginning of the first holiday weekend and everything was happening at once. Mom was in the office, all ready to check campers in and Dad was outside with his cronies and the bobcat. Not the animal, although Oscar tells me that a real one was captured here. 

These "cronies" were clearing a site and using the bobcat. They picked the bucket up full of old limbs and dead leaves and such and when the bucket was up in the air something fell out to the ground. There were three men and they rushed over to see a tiny kitten on the ground. He was alive, they could see that, but he was also covered in his own poop! For whatever reason known only to them, they all took their shirts off and wrapped them around the tiny kitten and raced to the office with it. 

"Is it dead?" they asked Mom, who was busy unwrapping the poor little thing. Mom told them they had not managed to smother him and handed the shirts back to them. They seemed to be appalled that Mom was holding the poopy little kitten in her bare hands. She sent them on their way and took the kitten inside and bathed it.

She checked the kitty from head to toe. She said it looked like it's eyes had only been opened a short while, and decided the kitty would need a bottle and some replacement formula. She dispatched Dad to the store and when he returned, she fed the kitten. Before feeding him, she swaddled him, so he wouldn't knead her hand with his tiny claws. By then the park was filling up with campers and children were gathered in the office to see the baby kitten. Rumors fly fast in a campground!

The big question was "Is it a boy or a girl?" Mom said it was too soon to tell. Oscar found this to be strange. Couldn't she just examine the cat's private area? She had no trouble checking him out when she bathed him. He said the word "private" was very misleading!

Not only children, but adults wanted to see the cat missing a couple of his nine lives. NINE lives? A cat has NINE lives! This came as a revelation to Oscar and he demanded to know why an inferior being should have NINE lives, while he had only ONE! He was still upset after Mom explained to him that it was just a figure of speech. Cats seem to get themselves into perilous situations and survive, making people say that cats have nine lives. Oscar said the joke was on them if they believed this.

The bigger question was ... where was this kitten who sucked a bottle every two hours going to live? "Surely not here!" said Oscar to all the other dogs. "We do not need a cat among us dogs!" But, Oscar had a bad feeling that Mom was becoming attached to the tiny scrap of fur.

All day long he sat by the door to the office in order to eavesdrop. Mom was talking to the cat!! It sounded like she was holding it and talking softly to it and he did not like this! He says he even heard her purring to it. He heard the sound of children coming in and out and when it was time to feed the kitten, a whole bunch of little girls would come in the store and watch. One little girl begged for the kitten. He heard Mom tell her that she would have to feed the kitten every two hours, even through the night. The little girl said she would do that. Then Mom showed them all what had to be done to the kitten after it's belly was full. Oscar was wondering about this, himself. He knew that when he was a tiny puppy his dog mom took care of his every need.

Mom had a wash cloth handy for the task and she showed the entire group of girls how to help the kitten pee and poop. Oscar cannot figure why she would do that! Now, the little girl who wanted to take this kitten home no longer wanted to have anything to do with owning a new pet. Oscar said he thought she did it on purpose, because he heard her tell Dad later that once an animal pees and poops in your hand, it owns you.

Check in tomorrow and I will continue with the rest of the story.