Did Dixie Do Her Job?

 

Last night When I got settled in bed I asked my daughter to keep my closet door open just enough to give Dixie an opening to get in there should she hear the mouse again. No sooner did the lights go off and my daughter leave my room while shutting my bedroom door behind her I heard a scuttle. That mouse evidently had no fear of  cats or people or he was still  really really hungry  because Dixie ran in the closet and though I couldn’t see anything, there was a bit of scuffle going on in their. Suddenly it got quite and I soon fell asleep.

The next  morning as I was getting up with help from my daughter and I was telling her about the events between Dixie and the mouse last evening at the same time looking all around my bedroom floor in case we might see a dead mouse.  Nothing, not a sign of a mouse. Cats usually and proudly bring their conquest to their owners  laying them down at there feet. With that thought in my mind I was fearful a dead mouse might be on my bed this morning. When I got into the bathroom My daughter asked me what the red stuff  was on my floor. I swirled my chair around and saw more red marks here and their and then the little black dead mouse,  Dixie had done her job.  Now this story does not end here because I’m still storing the bird and squirrel feed in my closet and will always keep my closet door open just enough for Dixie to slide through. 

A Day In The Life Of My Girls

When We Were Baby's

Little Girl

Dixie

Just thought we would post our baby pictures this evening.

Fall is here, my favorite time of year.

Little Girl enjoying the Fall sun.

Dixie likes the pumpkin

I'm Back!

Dixie

Little Girl

Well my girls are doing just fine as you can see. As you know I have not done any regular posting on this site because of Chatter's disappearance. At the same time my camera broke. You can't run a blog like this one without a camera. Well I do have a new one and  can work it fine but I'm having a big problem transferring the pictures from it to my computer. I'll get it worked out eventually.

My granddaughter told me her cat got pregnant and because of the beautiful markings on her I thought I just might take one which would have brought me back here to start blogging again.

Yesterday my Chelsea informed me that her cat is not pregnant. Now it got me to thinking that I really want to get a kitten to add to my family.  We'll see.

Granddaughters Cat

It's September !

I know, I'm rushing it a little bit but Dixie and I both love the Fall more then any other time of the year.

Chatter is doing fine. He's in and out of the house like he owns it and I feel good about this because I was a little worried about how we would manage things in the very cold weather. It's all good!

Lazy Hazy Summer Days

This is pretty much Chatters chair now.

It's cool at the base of the fountain.

Back on his chair.

If you look closely you can see Chatter is enjoying  the day and porch along with Little Girl and Dixie.

They like sleeping in between the large pots because they are cool  at the base too.

Dixie thinks she can stay cooler under the little table.

All and all, I think Chatter has found himself a pretty nice place to live and I am blessed to have him choose us.

Hot Hot Hot

It's hot and very humid today in Kentucky. My girls are all resting in various places on my deck and porch. Dixie woke up while I was taking her picture, got up and strolled into the house. She went back to sleep again in her favorite spot. Little girl came into the house a little later and Chatter is once again gone. She leaves every day at different times. She has absolutely no set schedule.

The Hidden Cat

She loves our Mimosa tree and I think she feels like she is very hidden in it and no one can see her.

                  Now she's hiding in my elephant ear plant,

and in the grass, no we can't see her....right.

My Dixie is Sick~(Post From The Past)

Now that it's over, I can talk about it.

About two weeks ago my little cat Dixie got sick. It was on a Thursday that she had a case of diarrhea and she vomited in the bathroom. She seemed just fine though still playing and running around inside and out in the yard.

Every morning she jumps on my bed to wake me up and then she jumps in my wheelchair to get a ride into the bathroom where I put her food dish on a little table.

This Friday morning she did not jump up on my bed to wake me, she didn't get on my chair, she was under my bed. When I got her food dish out, she didn't come eat, she just went to the door to go outside. I didn't see her face or her eyes, I just let her go out. She jumped off the porch and dropped on the ground laying on her side. I was on my porch looking down at her and calling her. She barely was able to lift up her head to look at me and only then could I see her eyes. They were just half open and runny.

It was very hot out their already which worried me because it was still early in the morning and we have been having extremely hot weather over the past two days. I tried to call her back up to the porch so I could get her back into the house. She would not move!

It seems like I'm always home alone when these things happen. Trying to think about who I could call for help, when Dixie finally got up but then followed my other cat Little Girl down the path that went down a steep hill away from our property. I was now beside myself thinking all kinds of bad things happening to her.

1. she would be too weak to get back up the hill.

2. She had no food or water in her and she will get dehydrated out in the heat all day.

3. She has never been out after six o'clock and she'll get frightened.

I was now in a fearful state of mind and hated my inability to just get up out of this   @%#!!%^&^%#*!!%@  wheelchair and go get her !!!!!!

It was now about two in the afternoon and I finally called my granddaughter Chelsea, crying I told her my situation and asked her if she could buy me a bottle of Kayo syrup and come to the house. She did. She tried to calm me down telling me Dixie will come home soon, that cats do unbelievable things and that her cat came home even though someone had shot him with a bee bee gun and he had them in his hind leg and limped home and it all turned out fine after a trip to the vets. You know, that did help me.

I had brown rice, ice cubes, and a can of chicken broth. With that and the Kayo syrup, I was able to get my little pup Pookie back to health so I knew if I could just get Dixie home I would be able to help her.

It was now eight thirty in the evening and Dixie was never out this late! I could not eat or drink anything. I could not stop looking out the door at my porch for her. And I could not stop crying, and yes, I kept praying to God about my cat.

FINALLY !!!  she was laying on my porch, but she would not come. I tried cat food, fresh fish cat food, and her evening treats and nothing helped. It was so late by now and I was so tired. I was happy she was on the porch and not dead from the heat at the bottom of the hill, but my white cat was not home yet which is not unusual for her and I did not want Dixie leaving my porch and wandering off again.

I finally did get her in by opening up the large window that is off one end of the porch and goes into my living room. She came in that window. Now I can go to bed. I know I'm going into a lot of detail about the first day of my cats illness but I want you to go through the emotions one has when in a position of helplessness and housebound and wheelchair-bound.

Saturday ~ Dixie is real sick and now she is sneezing

uncontrollably, her eyes are half shut and she's warm. I try to get some water and food in her but she won't even try. I put some syrup on my finger and she did lick it off. I gave her some warm chicken broth and she drank a little. I then put some soft fish cat food in the broth and she drank and ate a little. No vets were open on the weekend. I called one on Monday morning and she would not be able to take Dixie till Wednesday. I called another and she could get her in between others around 1:00 P.M. and 2:00. Thankfully my daughter would be home from her job at one.

At last !!! my cat's at the vets.

She has  upper respiratory disease. and gastrointestinal. She got lots of medication, lots of chicken broth, lots of rest and love. I kept her in for one week.

Finally after a week of treatment she looked great, running around the house getting into the usual trouble and begging to go outside. I really did not want to let her out but by Monday morning a full week later, when I saw her standing on her hind legs, both paws on the window of my porch door, looking out and watching the other cats in the yard, Little Girl and my daughters cat, I could not take it  any  longer, I let her out. She ran around the yard, ate grass, and chased a butterfly, I knew my Dixie was back to her self healthy and happy and so was I !

Where is She?

The stray didn't show up today and the girls and I had many questions. Did it get hit by a car, eaten by a coyote which we have many around here in the woods. I hear them howling late at night if I'm up late enough. Has it found another home that's leaving food, could be anything. It was a no show all day so I brought the food back in my house.

The next morning I let my cats out and Dixie ran half way down the yard and just sat for an hour looking into the woods. I'm sure she was watching for the stray. Little Girl sat on my porch railing for quite some time staring towards the woods. The next day, Sunday the same behavior from my girls, Little Girl watching the woods from our porch railing and Dixie running down the yard stopping in the same place and peering into the woods. Again, no show. What I find very interesting  Is that the pan of cat food is on the chair on my porch and yet neither of my cats will eat it. They know it's their yet they scratch on the door to come in and eat from the other dish of food in the house. It's Monday morning and this is the start of the day. This is new, sweet, and kinda sad, they are both at the woods edge looking for the stray. Wonder if it will show up today?

We Are Making Progress!

The stray cat has been coming around our house now every day for about a week. As I had mentioned he or she is very thin but does look fairly good. No cuts, clear eyes, alert, and it's coat of fur looks good, it's just thin to where the ribs are slightly showing. Three days ago it came up on my deck. my two cats were their and no one growled, hissed, or ran away. They just sat there looking at each other. 

I slowly opened the door and placed a pan of food on the chair. The stray jumped off the deck and went into the woods. I thought to myself, I'll put it out again early in the morning as I see the cat in the mornings in the yard. Next morning I placed a small dish of dry cat food on the chair on my deck and went about getting my cats fed and my breakfast. A little later as I was  looking out my window while finishing my coffee this is what I saw. Of course I quickly got my camera.

We Have a Stray

Well looks like this new blog is going to be interesting after all. I have been going through all the older hidden stories in my Fine Cats blog to post on here. I'm trying to post them in the order they were acted out, but low and behold something very interesting has been happening this past week. We have a very skinny stray coming around. When it was closer to the deck I didn't have my camera so by the time I got it the cat had moved away from the deck and hid behind a tree and Dixie was observing it's every move. Little girl was watching from our deck.

The black cat is Dixie, the stray is light tan and white. Don't know if it's a male or female but I think it's a girl because she's (I'm saying she until I know better) she is calm, quiet, and seems gentle. Just when it was going to get interesting some friends of mine walked up on the deck and off ran the stray into the woods.

Little Girl Part #4

It did happen, LG and  Dixie have bonded.                           

Let me back up a little here.................
I don't know if I did the right thing or not. People often say , let nature take it's course, and I'm the first to agree with that statement. Often when people interfere, thinking they have the answers , things go arie, when if left alone, things would have eventually worked out for the best. But I never experienced anything like I saw with LG after she lost all her kittens. Every cat my kids had, that got pregnant before we got them fixed, never lost all their young after two day's. Sometimes one or even two would die because they were the runts and Mama would push them out or the first baby worked so hard getting born, they would be weak and not make it. Mama cat would not seem to concerned because she had to move on and take care of her litter that survived.
Poor Little Girl. I had her box in a corner of my bathroom which is quite a good size room. Two day's later when the baby's all died, one by one they died, I removed the box. I felt she didn't need to see it, an empty box, just their, that would not do. Well she would sit right where the box was and cry. I'm not kidding you, I would be busy doing what ever I do and I'd hear her , not a meow, not a howl or a growl as cats do, but a soft moan, I can't explain it to you but it was pitiful. She did this for four days off and on.
I asked my granddaughter Chelsea to ask around and find out if anyone has new kittens ready to be placed in homes. I didn't want one too young that I would have to feed it with a bottle but young enough that it might be able to nurse off of LG if LG were to let it. I wanted a girl, would be nice if it had neat markings, I like unusual cats. Six day's later Chelsea found a cute black and white female kitten, nine weeks old for sale at a pet shop.
When Chelsea brought her in my living room, everyone, LG, Gypsy, and the new kitten growled and hissed at each other. I was happy to see the new member didn't back off one bit but did her share of hissing and growling. Good, they all like each other and will get along just fine. As always, Gypsy could care less about the new kitten which I named Dixie, no idea why, guess it's just a nice southern name. On the other hand LG and Dixie seemed to be at each other all the time. Dixie is something else which I'll go into at a later date. Dixie does not have a normal meow. She opens her mouth and a little squeak comes out. Now it's a bit longer but broken up so it sounds like squ...ee...ek. You got it.
Anyhow, I'd hear her squeaking very loudly and think LG was killing her. I finally broke them up one day because I was worried that maybe LG was upset with the fact that I would try and replace her baby's and might be trying to actually do the new kitten in ! But no way. When I pulled them apart, LG walked away and Dixie went right after her and JUMPED her! and while doing that she was loudly squeaking. I've caught her doing that loud squeak when she doesn't get her own way about something. What a faker!
Twelve days had gone by when one  Friday evening LG was sleeping on the chair in my living room. I was busy in my bedroom on my computer and I saw Dixie sneak out of my bedroom into the living room. I expected the howling and squeaking to start up but there was nothing but complete silents. I slowly rolled my wheelchair up to the doorway and peeked around the corner looking at the chair LG was sleeping on. I had figured, here we go again with her messing around with LG, disturbing her sleep and looking for trouble.
Wait a minute....... she is snuggling up under Little Girl's tummy and I believe she's nursing and LG is letting her, not only letting her but she's cleaning and grooming Dixie while Dixie's nursing, just like Mama cats do to there baby's when nursing. WOW, amazing ! 

They are inseparable now. I guess I did do the right thing.