To start things out, both Shadow and Bubba are litter mates and I have had both of them since the day they were born 11 years ago. We had 2 cats at my parents house at the time, both Siamese mix and both litter mates as well. One was named Spike and the other was named Daisy ( go figure ). Well, Spike was an outside/inside cat that would go outside for like 3 to 4 days at a time, then he would come and meow at the door and then he would come back inside until for a couple days to rest. But after a couple days, away he went again. Spike was probably one of my favorite cats because every morning when he was inside, he would come up to my room, jump on my chest, and just press his nose against mine as if to say " Hey, Bum, Get up!!" Once I was awake though, he would jump down and go about his business.
Sadly to say, Spike is no longer with us. When I got sent out to New York for a month when I worked at IBM, I would talk to my parents every couple of days to see how things were. Well, one night when I called, I got the bad news from my parents that Spike went a little too close to the road. Well, you probably know the rest. It was weird coming back home and not having that usual wake up call but we still had Daisy to keep us company. One thing we never got around doing to Daisy was to get her fixed and one day she got out. Well, she was gone for a few days and then she came back. Within a couple weeks, we already started to notice the belly she was starting to get and we put 2 and 2 together. After a couple months, she had kittens in our utility room, 3 grey ones and a black runty one. Well, my parents and I both agreed that 5 cats was 3 too many so we found a loving home for Daisy and one of her grey kittens and another home for one of the other grey kittens so we were left with one grey and the runty black kitten. So we named the grey one Shadow ( or we even call her Miss Shadow ) and then we decided since the black one was small and scrawny, we would do a play on words and call him Bubba ( Bubby for short ).
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| Daisy and her kittens |
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| Baby Shadow |
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| Baby Bubby |
It was so funny to see these two as kittens, They would run around everywhere in the house, chasing everything from flies to each other. Bubby even had a very weird habit of his own. He had managed to find an old Barbie Doll that was missing its body so, basically, just a Barbie Doll Head. This was his adopted baby. He would carry it around by its hair, meowing the whole time with it in his mouth. He could not live without it.....if he was in the room, the baby had to be with him. If it wasn't, he would hunt it down and go find it. Oh, and if you think this makes Shadow sound "normal, you are terribly wrong. When we brought her to the vet to get "fixed", it took 3 vet techs to handle her.........one even had to have leather gloves to the elbows on to handle her. Yup, these 2 got along just perfect with our family.
So after living at my parents for a few years, we all packed up and moved to Dodge Center into my first house. We all got along just fine........My work hours were kinda weird but whenever I went to bed, they both would jump up, curl up next to me, and we were all out like a light. We would play and living in that house is also how the cats became afraid of the noise of plastic bags rustling ( trust me, it was ALL their own doing........I still get a good chuckle telling the story). Every so often I would play the part of the weird neighbor and put them on leashes and take them for walks in the front yard.
Then I started dating Shell and they started getting a little less attention. I started spending more time in Rochester then at my place in Dodge Center and I could see this was starting to take its toll on them. I would come home to see them and it was like they were attached to my feet the whole time I was home. At this point, me and Shell talked about it and decided it was about time I just sold my house, move to Rochester, and then we could combine our 2 families into 1 happy bunch. I still remember the day we decided to bring Oliver over and introduce everyone. Well, I had totally forgotten the part about the cats had NEVER had any sort of interaction with a dog before. Yeah, now that I think about it, that was a pretty important point to forget. Well, needless to say, there was barking, there was hissing, there was scratches on my arms. Everyone suffered a little bit of mental trauma that day I think.
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| Oliver and Bubby ( Notice how Scared Oliver looks!!) |
So then came the day when we moved them to the new house. We setup some blankets, their litter box, food, and water upstairs. Well, needless to say.......They.......Were........Pissed!!!! We didn't see them for 2 days until finally they started to venture down, a little at a time, but after about a week, they had total rule of the house.......Even total rule over Oliver since they would hiss at him and, well, he is not the most brave dog in the world. So things were just fine at the house again until me and Shell both decided after we got married, we needed a bigger house. So we ended up moving out to Shell's folks for about 7 months but the cats went and lived with my parents again. The reason behind this is because Shells folks already had 2 Golden's living there, No One wanted 5 animals under one roof.
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| Bubba |
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| Miss Shadow |
So once we found our new house, The cats moved yet another time but this time, the drama was next to nothing considering all parties knew each other by then. No drama at all......Until a puppy named Daisy entered the picture. The cats were OK with the puppy, since she really didn't do much except sleep and maybe play for like 5 to 10 mins at a time. They didn't mind the puppy until she started to get older and also, Daisy loves it when the cats hiss or make any sort of noise. So they pretty much went from a dog would is afraid of them to one who has no fear of them. Needless to say, they now know every spot in the house that Daisy can't reach them at.
We have had our ups and downs with the cats. But I feel they are just as big of a part of our family as the dogs are. Bubby still thinks he is an outside cat so he tries to go outside at every moment he can. Shadow loves to jump up on Shell as she is reading before bed and then thinks Shell is just perfect to sharpen her claws into. Sure they can be needy at times, but they are my kids. You always love your kids no matter what.
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| Bubby LOVES his neck pillows!! |
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