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Annie: late November 1993 - December 6, 2011. This Cache is placed in her memory.
Parking at: N 49.12.474 W 123.08.944
Early December, 1993, as my Mother's neighbour was walking her dog in St. Vital park one morning, she heard a tremendous yowling coming from a nearby Dumpster. She investigated and found a tiny kitten, partially wrapped in a Mac's Convenience Store bag, eyes barely opened but with a very vocal will to live. She then took this kitten to my Mother's house where they both panicked and then recruited me.
Annie fit into the palm of my hand. She had very unique colouring...sort of a Brindle of Black with White and Grey. Our Veteranarian felt sure she would become a Tortoiseshell but she remained that unusual colour.
Pre-Christmas is not the best time to care for an orphaned kitten but we managed. Annie spent a lot of time tucked close to my heart as I did chores. She was bottle fed with homemade formula and thrived. Our resident Keeshonden kept close tabs on little Annie and gently helped with grooming. From them she learned the proper Keesie greeting: "Look them in the eye and sniff their faces, especially noses. Licking optional." Annie preferred adults and Keesies to children. My young niece once commented..."she's just a cwanky kitty Aunty Kaffy."
At a very early age Annie was quite mobile. She climbed anything she could in spite of taking many tumbles and always, always preferred the highest perches.....the best position to practice that proper Keeshonden greeting! She also climbed into anything she could. One morning she was found investigating the contents of our refrigerator.
Annie was my companion and shadow. She purred often and only yowled when required to travel but travel she did. Wpg. to Vancouver via truck, Vancouver to Upstate New York via Airplane and back to Vancouver the same way. NY Destination: "Road's End" on the shore of Oneida Lake near Constantia. At "Road's End" she spent the better part of the first two weeks perched in the corner of a second story balcony ledge avoiding resident King cat, Tiger. Over the next six months they did reach an agreement. Later, when Tiger came to live with us, that previously reached agreement needed some rewriting.
At "Road's End", my Mother-In-Law, Enid, had had an enclosed cat run built adjacent to the side of her house. This enclosure had a covered "cat walk" accessed through the back dining room window. All that any of the 4 resident kitties had to do was perch nearby and meow loudly in order to summon a window opener. There was also an outside door to this enclosure so that people could enter to retrieve a cat, clean, shovel snow, etc. But the cat run builder had not taken the height of an average human adult into account when building this. Family consensus was that the cat run and crouching over was much preferred to Enid's dreaded 'harness and leash' request. Each kitty had a harness with a long leash so they could be tethered in a shaded spot down by the lake. This labour intensive outing easily ate up the hours with constant untangling and good natured mutterings about forever hiding all harnesses and leashes! However, one just could not say no to Enid. And, she quite enjoyed watching our cat tethering antics.
After 18 years, the essence of Anniecat was tightly woven into the fabric of our lives. See you at the Bridge Annieboo. Visit Link
Small trade items are Kitty themed.
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