Quote:
Originally Posted by AviationGuy
Well I thought I knew a lot about animals, but didn't know until recently that cheetahs are very docile and non-aggressive toward humans. Even the ones encountered in the wild are more inclined to ignore humans than to see us as prey. Completely different from lions or tigers.
If you want to see something really sweet, just go to YouTube and do a search on "purring cheetah". I spent about an hour last night going through about every video that's ever been posted on cheetahs.
|
I've come to love all cats, particularly the big ones. I love watching nature shows about big cats, particularly with lion and tiger cubs. It's just the greatest thing to watch them trying to be so ferocious when they are so little and can barely make a squeak.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AviationGuy
Loved your stories, QuantumX. To me there's nothing that makes life fuller than to have cats (or dogs) surrounding you every moment you're at home.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by glowrock
<more tears>
I respect the hell out of the fact you loved your cat so much, especially during his final hours. I truly, truly do.
Aaron (Glowrock)
|
Let me put things a bit more into perspective here then. My parents divorced when I was 12 when my mother divorced my stepfather. Why they ever even got married is beyond me because there was never anything that I would call love coming from my stepfather. My parents more or less played house and my stepfather used to put me down all the time even though I was the smartest kid in all of elementary school.
But for some reason, he felt that a boy should have a dog, maybe because he always had one or maybe because he knew I would get something from a dog he couldn't give me. Anyway, I learned how to love another living creature through my dogs and the give and take that comes in a loving relationship I learned from animals.
Well, when I became an adult, I never got married and had children. I guess it's no small wonder with the prime example I had in that regard. I never considered having a dog when I became an adult because I've always lived in apartments and condos and I would never dream of keeping a dog in an apartment or condo because growing up we had a big yard to keep my big dogs in. My dogs were not only companions, they actually protected me from neighborhood bullies, but I would never keep a big dog in an apartment.
For many years I went without a pet, not because I didn't like cats. I just didn't have any experience with them and just wasn't sure what to do.
Then, one day, this little kitten that acts like a dog walked into my life. If there is any such thing as something being sent by God, it was Mikey. I can't remember ever feeling lonely again since that day. My apartment was never a cold and lonely place since then because Mikey filled it with the warmth of his presence every single day. He would greet me at the door when I came home late from work to a dark apartment. He followed me everywhere in the apartment. If I wanted to sit down on the sofa and watch TV or read the paper, he would lie on the sofa too. If I went out on the balcony, he would sit out on the balcony too. In the early days, he watched everything I did the way young children want to learn from their parents and instinctively follow them around to learn about the world.
One Saturday night, when I still lived in my high-rise apartment on South Beach, I ordered a pizza. I thought it was kind of strange that Mikey didn't come and get in bed with me once I turned out the lights. I just figured I toss and turn too much for him sometimes. Then, in the morning when I woke up, I also thought it was strange that he didn't come to say "good morning" the way he usually does in his special way. I started calling him and I looked in all his hiding places, and he wasn't there. Then, it finally hit me. "Oh, no! He got out when I paid the pizza delivery guy!" I really started to panic thinking maybe somebody took him downstairs and put him out and now I've lost him or somebody else kept him for themselves. I opened the door to my apartment; no Mikey! I looked down the hall in one direction; no Mikey! I looked down the hall in the other direction, and there he was curled up against the emergency exit. I was so relieved, it was beyond words! That is my most poignant memory of him, that night I almost lost him, and he was still there.
Putting all this history into perspective, you now know why I held him like a baby before he died and how devastating it was even though I knew it was coming soon. When he first started falling down, it was actually on my desk and I thought maybe he had stepped on one my pens and it rolled, but then, he kept having trouble standing, so I knew this was the beginning of the end for us.
Little Gigi below is remarkably like Mikey, while at the same time being uniquely himself. Since so many Americans think Gigi is a girl's name rather than an Italian boy's nickname, I had to name my kitten Giancarlo-Luigi. Yup, that's my kitten's name. I ended up with three cats by accident, but they are great for little Gigi. He has two big brothers to play with and they mock fight, chase each other around the apartment, very lovingly groom each other, and sleep cuddled together.
DSC_0304 by
QuantumX, on Flickr
Prev
Linear Mode
