Hello there. Welcome to Our Cat Family History page.
Sit back and let me tell you how I came to be such a cat "lady". It actually started a long time ago (us girls
don’t tell our ages) when I was growing up. My Father was in the Canadian Air Force and we moved about every three
years. On every base we lived, we had a cat. I loved every one of them and when each passed over the Rainbow Bridge, I
was heart-broken.
When Dad retired here in Vancouver, we picked up one more cat (from the
SPCA) that was to live with my parents until her
crossing 18 years later. Taka was pure black and was an out-door cat during the day, but come evening, she could be
found cuddled up to Mom. When they moved into their retirement home, Taka went with them and the neighbours soon got used to
Mom and Dad with Taka leading the way out for their evening walk . When Taka died, I think a little of my parents died too.
Meanwhile, I was living in an apartment and chose not to have cats only because I worked during the day and felt it would be
too hard on the cat having me gone all the time. Some friends took pity on me and started buying me cat figurines and other
cat related material for birthdays and Christmas’. It actually got out of hand for a number of years and I finally begged
my friends to stop buying me cat things. Most complied, but I still receive cat related goodies on a regular basis.
I’m not saying that I was completely innocent on this front either, mind you, as I found I enjoyed collecting a lot of cat
things – earrings, necklaces, plates, pictures, socks, shirts, etc. It’s scary when you see how many cat things there
really are out there!
When I got married I didn’t realize that I had also married a cat lover. He grew up with dogs so I didn’t give too
much thought to having cats. I thought I would be over-ruled, but no, once we bought our home, we decided it was time to
fill it with "kritters", so, off to the cat shows we went. I had it in my mind that I wanted a Russian
Blue. Two cat shows later, no Russian Blues, but I did see a beautiful Burmese cat, so picked up some info on the cattery
and eventually paid it a visit. The cattery also had American Shorthairs, so needless to say, we couldn’t have just one,
we needed two (to keep each other company as they were going to be indoor cats and alone during the day), so we got a Blue Burmese
kitten (Tennyson) and a Blue Mackerel Tabby American Shorthair kitten
(Tristan). They can tell you their own stories,
so be sure to visit their web sites.
Trissy & Tenny became our "babies". They were together always, and when we lost
Tenny, Trissy was
lost. When we came home from work Trissy and this old piece of fur would be waiting by the window for us. It also
ended up in bed with us. We had to remedy this situation so a phone call to a new friend solved the problem.
One of Marion’s queens had just had a litter and not all of them were spoken for. We only wanted a pet, not a show cat,
so she gave me a good price and a couple of weeks later, Quimsby Doc joined the Byers family. He’s an Silver/Blue Tabby
Exotic Shorthair. For those of you who don’t know, an Exotic Shorthair is really a short-haired Persian. Right from
the beginning this little cat decided he was not going to be the "baby" of the family and he let us know it in a big
way. To hear more about this, check out his web-site.
Now, how did Trissy and Quims get along? Better now, thank you, but for a while there it was touch and go. Trissy
was terribly jealous of this new "kritter" and took to hiding his fur so Quims couldn’t play with it.
Quims also felt it was his given right to play with Trissy’s tail and there were a few good "discussions" about that.
Trissy usually won, but the tail did suffer a few bites. They have banded together now because……
Along came the "lady" of the house! My Mother was in the hospital and her cat Sacha was living outdoors all the
time with the neighbour boy feeding her daily. My heart didn’t like this situation at all, so home came Sacha – a Manx
with an ATTITUDE. To be fair she handled everything moderately well – we brought her to a new house with two strange cats
already ensconced there and made her an indoor cat to boot. She was also a bit on the wild side because Mom had been away
prior to going into the hospital so she’d been fending for herself for a while.
Our beloved Trissy passed over the Rainbow Bridge in
2000, leaving us a two cat family. A year later we
welcomed Ponzi into the fold and even tho' it's just been a
short time, we think he will fit in very well. Come
read how we came to have him.
Well, I guess I've babbled on long enough. I hope you have enjoyed reading about our "kritters" and that you'll
visit the rest of our web site.
