My Scooter Cat

This is my Scooter. Those that know me would probably be surprised to know that this is my little buddy. Scooter is a once-feral tabby who has more personality than most dogs.

How did Scooter become part of the family? I lived in a little trailer park when I met my wife. Shortly after my wife (then girlfriend) moved in, we started feeding a feral tabby female who would let me pet her but would not let me pick her up. I named that tabby Ally, a play on the words "Alley Cat" and the fact that at the time I enjoyed watching the TV show Ally McBeal. Ally was unusual in that she didn't meow. When she talked to you, she would let out some sort of half-grunt, half-squeak. As 1998 and 1999 progressed, the number of feral cats in the area began to grow, and at one point there was probably 20 cats roaming the park, and my wife was feeding them all. Well, Ally got pregnant and had some kittens in the summer of 1999. Ally's brood was probably about 2-3 months old when the landlord apparently got tired of all of the cats and made a sweeping eradication, including Ally. Well, one of the cats from Ally's brood was a male tabby who - unlike his siblings - would boldly walk up to the back steps and let you pet him. My wife and I came home one day and noticed there were no cats around. A day or two passed, and suddenly this male tabby was at our back door. My wife opened the back door, and this bold tabby walked into the house, walked to the cat food in the wash room (we had two indoor cats), grabbed a bite to eat, took a whizz in the catbox, and walked out of the house! I told the wife that if he did that again that we would keep him. Well, the next day he did the same thing, so we left him in the house. I started calling him Scooter. Unfortunately, a couple of days later Hurricane Floyd struck the area, and we had to put him out of the house because we were not going to be home for a couple of days, and my wife took the two other house cats with her. When we returned home, Scooter was waiting, and we brought him back in, and he has been a household fixture ever since. Scooter is a bit overweight, but he is very loving. He loves to roll around on the floor in front of you, he makes a chirping sound when he talks to you, and comes when you call him.

Scooter almost died last year. I believe that he had consumed some of that tainted food that had been imported from China, and his kidneys began to fail. We managed to nurse him back to health, but the poor little guy was miserable with the catheter in him and being confined in a cage.

I'm not a cat person, but if all cats were like Scooter, then I'd have many more.