Iced Tea in a Hot Kitchen

Cats, they aren’t your pets, we are their servants! Most people love animals and we have one busy cat named Tygger.  We have had Tygger for a little over a year and a half now.  His mother, a stray, came to us on a rainy night in 2012 after we arrived back from Emporia, in which our daughter, a head cheerleader, and my son who played in the band,  were supporting our Udall Basketball team for state.

Snickers was a beautiful kitty cat, a calico, and I am partial toward them in the first place.  We kept her for the night in the garage, fed her and she wanted Abaigael to be her owner.  Abby named her Snickers. She had all the colors of the candy bar in her coat being a calico . This thrilled Abby.  She was around for one week and off she left and was gone for another week before she returned.  But she returned we realized she was already pregnant.

Watching her closely, we had a feral male cat in the area killing and maiming cats and we did not want this for Snickers.  But you can set up the best laid birthing area, but the cat chooses and this cat chose the big, deep vacuum box in the garage.  She gave birth to one large male, and one was not viable. She loved him and protected him.  Unfortunately Tygger became an orphan at 2 weeks old and thus began his journey raised by humans.  Noah, my son, named him Tygger, but it is not Tiger but the short “i”like the Winnie the Pooh Tigger.  But he is precious!  Here is a video of him when he was only 4 weeks old! This is a MUST to see! http://youtu.be/KA8nADTNqdY ( hope this works, if not you can copy and paste or hit Beth Hite and look for Tygger and the Fence on YouTube)

   He has been been a cat who gives us AUUUGGHHS, freaks us out with chasing us (the male hormones were raging until we had him neutered!), and stares balefully at you if you do not warm up his milk in the bowl which he knows is his treat from his “mommy” in the morning when he comes in and in the evening before he goes out to the garage . He has his special home with a heating pad in a cat house in the garage, and yet he comes in for his routines! JD revved him up with his shenanigans and then Tygger proceeds to attack me to release his energy since I am the closest sitting duck after his playtime.  You feel the jump, brief pop of puncture of skin on the back of your calf and then beats it for the high hills as he knows I am going to holler at his vampirism actions.  Then out he promptly goes outside!  Tygger follows JD around the whole farm land like a dog.  He thinks he is a human.  And thus he will not accept any new kittens, which I wanted these two….this next video proves that.  Tygger and the new kittens: Don’t think so!   Listen to him “talk” to the kittens and decide what he is saying to them.

Tygger lately has turned into a killing machine with the rabbits, mice, rats, pack rats and unfortunately some of my sweet baby birds around.  I don’t mind him until he brings the animal and lays it at the feet of the door in the garage.  It wouldn’t be so bad if they were dead, but this rabbit was still alive.  EEEK!  So I picked it up and put it in the woodpile, giving it a bedding, hoping it could recover or I didn’t have to see it expire on my watch! When I went out a few days later it was gone and so I had a sigh of relief thinking I had rescued one from Tygger.  Boy was I wrong!  Unknown to me, until the day of pruning roses for winter sleep when Ethan and I ran across a tail and fur of a rabbit.  I trotted out to the woodpile, and sure enough, with all the stuff I had put in front of the rabbit, Tygger still got that waskully wabbit!

Enjoy some of the pictures and a video, if I can get them posted of our lil Tygger, who is not lil anymore!

Tygger’s First Birthday

I will sleep where I want!

I will stare at you until you let me in!