It all started with a note to Santa from my son. Not even a letter, just a small piece of paper.
My son wanted a cat. He was four. It will come as no surprise that I would become the cat caretaker. The first cat we rescued from our local shelter was a photogenic cat we named “Purrdy”. She had a pretty face, but wasn’t terribly friendly.
I thought that maybe a companion cat would improve her disposition. A co-worker had recently rescued a young cat from a downtown alley and that’s when Tiger came to live with us. Well, sort of. Tiger spent her first several months under my bed. I was rethinking my decision to add her to our family, but time passed and she became quite a cuddler. She seemed to know when I had a Migraine and would stay quietly near my pillow which was incredibly comforting. The cats in our house were very big on the cat-in-the-box game.
During one particularly bitter cold December, I got call from a friend asking if I would temporarily house a stray Collie she was rescuing. The poor creature wasn’t being fed, had no shelter and oh yeah, had 4 puppies less than a month old. The mama dog’s name was Babe, homes were found for the puppies and what a surprise – Babe became a member of our forever family. She was a gentle girl with one of the purist souls I have encountered in any animal or human being.
Next came Sallie, a Rottweiler-Lab mix, with the most wonderful traits of both breeds. She was becoming despondent at the shelter after having spent too much time there without being adopted. She was another foster fail, meaning we fell in love with her while we waited for her to find a home and she was staying with us.
When Purrdy died, I was concerned that Tiger would be lonely without another cat to keep her company. I went back to the shelter and adopted Jellie. For a while, both dogs and both cats slept in my bed and it was a lovely time. Other than the sheer joy and privilege of living with affectionate companion animals, there was a generous spirit of acceptance in them. Each new rescue in turn – Tiger, Babe, Sallie and Jellie – was added to our family without conflict. I have always considered them fixer-upper pets because their paths were not easy before they came to us. A part of my heart was rescued with the arrival of each of them and that makes me a fixer-upper too.