Any converts from dogs to cats in here?! Here is my story!

I grew up as an Idaho country boy under the common assumption that if you are a guy you are supposed to love dogs. Don’t get me wrong I always have had a soft spot for furry little animals, but as for cats, they were never on my priority list to own.

Then it happened. I had a friend come home from Iraq 4 years ago when I was 22 and while at his BBQ I found a little 7-8 week old fuzzy ball of fur that was a stray in a woodshed. I brought him home for my then girlfriend (she is my wife now) and it was the start of a new way of thinking.

Over the next couple of years we ended up with 3 fuzzy balls of fur but our third little guy, Dewy, ended up being the first animal in my life that was mine…no body elses. He loved me more than anyone else, he played fetch with me, he greeted me at the door, he choked me in the middle of the night with his super sized fluffy tail when he was curled up on my pillow with me and oddly enough I was the only person that he would purr his giagantic rumbling purr for. He was huge…at a year old from the tip of his nose to the base of his tail he was 23 inches long and he weighed 17 pounds.

At the beginning of June I noticed that he was not eating. I took him to the vet whom told me he had an infection somewhere in his nasal passages. We gave him his medicine as directed but after a week he started to get a lot worse and his eyes, ears and pink little paw pads started turning orange. I knew this meant liver failure but we took him down to the vet to see if we could do anything.

We started him on medication and gave him a feeding tube to try and reverse the jaundice that was slowly killing my little man. I took two weeks off from work and fed him regularly through his tube, tried to remind him of why he should want to live through this and spent as much time with him as possible hoping to nurse him back into his onery self again.

After a week and a half of the feeding tube I woke up one morning to find him much more wobbly than normal and breathing rapidly. I knew it was time for him to let go. I pulled him into my arms and took the half mile drive to the vet. As I was in the waiting room petting him and talking to him he let out a soft meow and quit breathing. At one year and one month my monster fuzz ball that I had learned to love like a kid (our kitties are like our kids since we don’t have any) died in my arms. I felt and still feel a little robbed two and a half months later.

I had family pets growing up, mostly dogs but cats as well, but I have never felt like I did when I lost my little Dew Ball. I realized just how important these little animals are to our daily lives. They make us laugh, they make us relax, they make us feel loved and special and overall they increase the quality of our lives.

Since Dew Ball died we have gotten two more kittens. One a rescue from the vet whom was 8 weeks old in early July (Chloe) and our most recent was three weeks ago when a neighor found a 4 week old little explorer roaming her yard. When we took him to the vet to learn how to bottle feed him for the next couple weeks the vet joked that (Riley, cause he is onery! but nick named peanut just cause he is tiny) won the kitty lottery because he knows how well our cats are treated. The Rie Man is now on solid food and is a constant harrassment on his new brother (our first cat a huge maine coon named Muffin Butt) and his two sisters (Boo and Chloe). Even when Rie’s little tiny body is curled up on my chest pressed up under my chin purring (its his favorite place to sleep) I can’t help but know that no matter how much I love him or any of my other kitties they will NEVER replace my big orange buddy Dewy AKA: Dew Ball, Fatty Fatter Ton, Fluff and Stuff, Dew Dew, Dewinator, Dewy Dewarton and the best description for a nick name…Lil Buddy

I am what a lot of people would call a mans man. I drink beer, I hunt, I ride ATV’s, own guns, know how to build a house from the ground up, fish, play video games but when it comes to animals after owning both kitties and dogs you could never talk me into giving up my little fur balls of join.

When I am depressed now I come onto this site to smile at all the kittens! (my avatar on my profile is dewy when he was a kitten)