Guest Star: Charley

Hi everyone,

Please find below a guest story from Robert about Charley:

In the late spring of 2011, one of my students came into class crying. Her father had given her an ultimatum: place the last of her mama cat’s kittens by the end of the day, or he would drown it. Can you imagine saying that to your fourteen-year-old daughter? I told her to bring me the kitten, I would adopt it. I took it home that evening, and it rode on my shoulders between my head and the headrest all the way home. Such a scared little boy, away from mama for the first and final time. I figured out that the girl’s father must have actually started to drown it, because the cat is deathly scared of bathrooms to this day.

As he settled into our home, he acquired his name, Charley, when my wife called him “the little dickens.” A slow learner, it took him six years to figure out that laps were a good thing, and he often prefers a crevice on the back of the couch to his cat tree. He’s doesn’t understand the attraction of wet food, either, preferring dry food and Temptations to tuna fish, chicken, or human food.

Through the years since, he has grown from 15 ounces to 15 pounds, and provided love and comfort to my wife and me through multiple crises and surgeries. He’s almost ten years old now, and certainly middle aged, but we call him the world’s oldest kitten when he plays with tissue paper or his toys. He’s just one of a million mackerel tabbies in the world, but he’s our sweet-tempered boy.

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6 thoughts on “Guest Star: Charley

  1. Tracy says:

    He is such a beautiful boy, and he looks so happy with you. I pity people that don’t value or understand how meaningful and rewarding this relationship can be, for the cat and humans. Thank you for caring and saving him.

  2. catladymac says:

    So glad you saved Charley ! I adopted Oscar from a no-kill shelter in October of 2010. He had belonged to a little girl who lived with her Mom. The father showed up one day, flew into a rage, and took Oscar – in his carrier the kid had bought and decorated with glitter – to the county pound to insist he be euthanized. Why ? No idea. The dad wasn’t living with the cat. Or the kid and her Mom.
    But at the pound, a volunteer from the no-kill happened to intercept him, and, with some effort, got him to sign Oscar over to her.
    After some time at the no-kill, Oscar was put up for adoption. When I read his story I was so mad I couldn’t see straight. But I waited a week, because I had other cats and no kids, and I wanted him to get a better offer. When he didn’t I adopted him. He died last June of CKD, months short of being with me ten years. Sometimes he was Oscar the Grouch, but we still miss him. His little girl (there was no way to let her know what became of him, as the shelter had wanted to let her know he was safe) would now be well into her teens. She may have forgiven her Dad by now, but I wouldn’t have.

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