|
|
|
NoTail
|
Missing black cat without a tail, lost pet, lost cat
|
|
 |
 |
| |
|
How It All Began
|
Fuzzy, NoTail, Crooked Tail, Chinese Boy
|
Once upon a time, or to be precise, on or very near about October 5, 1995, a little black kitty was born without a tail. Not only did he not have a tail, he also was missing the last piece of vertebrae of his spine above his little behind. He was born along with three other kitties, one black boy with a tail and very slanted eyes, one black boy with a crooked tail (his tailbones ended halfway into the tail, which made the rest of the tail curled like a pigs tail), and one tortoise shell girl with one black foot.
All four of them were born on this huge pile of very hazardous heavy metals soils pile in Colton, California. Mom was black herself and she thought she found a safe spot for her babies under the heavy plastic sheeting that covered the pile. It was warm underneath.
One week later, on October 11, 1995, lots of men came with heavy machinery to load the big soils pile into trucks and take it away. They would have been crushed to death instantly.
But C was working with the crew too. He uncovered the pile from the plastic and saw mom run away and then he found the four babies. He took them from the pile and put them near the sidewalk so that mom could come and take them to a safe place. Mom lingered all day but was afraid to go and get them. A stray dog was nearby and C was afraid that the dog would kill them all. At the end of the day, C put the four furballs, who's eyes hadn’t even open yet and they had no fur on their bellies and legs, into a paperbag and brought them back to the office in Long Beach, California.
There I laid eyes on them the very first time. And fell in love with them. So tiny and so precious, each one very special, and two of them little mutants. Mom was contaminated from the heavy metals she had lived around and passed on defect genes to two of her babies. One was to become “NoTail” and the other “Crooked Tail”. The boy with the slanted eyes was to be named “Chinese Boy” and the girl with the fuzzy face “Fuzzy Face” that was later shortened to Fuzzy.
So there their lives with us began.
|
|
C brought them to my apartment in South Pasadena and for the next 5 weeks we fed them and bathed them and loved them. It was a lot of work, a lot of spilled milk, a lot of poop, and a lot of bathing. Up to eight times a day. And even more fleas and more worms. Each one started developing their own little characters. NoTail would sleep draped over my neck every single night, that is when he finally started to sleep through one night and not race about the bedroom and over the bed chasing his sister.
Until one day Crooked Tail vomited all his food. He got sick and was just laying there without responding. He had already been slow in developing his muscles. That Saturday at midnight, on November 4, 1995, we rushed him to an emergency clinic in Eagle Rock, and they told us that his little weewee was nearly eaten away, he couldn’t go to the bathroom anymore. He was poisoned by his own urine. The doctor told us that we should put him to sleep, it would be very costly to perform microsurgery and fix him and it would have been without guarantee that he would make it even through that night. He said we have three others to take care of. And he was right. In tears we agreed and tiny Crooked Tail gave one more loud wail that still rings in my ears today, and then he was gone. He had only two lives. And I still miss him terribly.
Since all babies didn’t have mom to suckle on while in their bed, they all suckled on each other, laying in a ring. That is how he got so damaged, I was heartbroken because I could have prevented it. But I didn't realize the full extent of the injury until it was too late. NoTail almost suffered the same fate, but he was stronger than Crooked Tail and healed well. Fuzzy was the strongest and the hardiest of them all. And the noisiest. While bathing after each meal, they always got food and then poop all over them, C stroked Fuzzy over the face from the nose to the ears with a wet hand all the time. She started loving that so much that she will still meet our outstretched hand today every time in almost a jump so that we can stroke her over her nose and face while she makes the funniest snorting noises.
So now there were only three little warriors left, Fuzzy, Chinese Boy, and NoTail. We separated them to prevent them from hurting each other any more. We knew we couldn’t keep all three of them. C had Whispy already for ten years and I had the siblings Chaka and Sheba since four years and Missy since 6 months, when I plucked her from a tree outside my patio. She had a huge abscess on her side that eventually would have poisoned her to death. But I was there to get her operated and get her well.
In the mean time we were all living together with Whispy, Chaka, Sheba, Missy, Fuzzy, NoTail, and Chinese Boy in my little apartment. We knew we had to find a loving home for one of them, but we decided to keep NoTail. He was just too special. We already knew as much back then.
A neighbor told me that her daughter and her husband are looking for a cat to adopt. On November 12, they came to visit and chose Chinese Boy. Lina and Walt of Pasadena adopted him the same day. We were so sorry to see him go that we decided not to let anybody have Fuzzy or NoTail. And so they became our children.
Early 1996 we visited George, as Chinese Boy was renamed, in Pasadena, and he was doing well, he looked great and they took very good care of him. He did look very much like NoTail, except he had a tail.
In 1996 we moved into a house in Azusa. I chose the perfect place for all my babies to go outside, although only when I was outside as well. I never let them out without me being there with them to watch. Cars can’t hurt them here, there is a lake behind my house. There are coyotes out there too, but only at night, and there are two fences separating us.
So there we all lived and our babies had a very happy and sheltered live.
I could go on and on and on about his life and all the silly little things he did to make us laugh every single day. Many of them were not so silly. He loved to watch C work on the computer, he used to call him NT for new technology. He loved to play with cable ties and he loved to play with a simple plastic tie from the newspaper or a copy paper box. That was his favorite. He picked up one end and chased the other end around the island in the kitchen while he had the first end between his teeth. We got endless enjoyment from his antics. He would bring us his toys and we had to throw them far for him only so that he could bring them back countless times until he was out of breath and his tongue hanging out. And that went on every single day.
He used to play hide and seek with me around the house and he always found me and then he went to hide and I had to find him. He loved that game.
NoTail always came running when I called him. Always! But most of the time he was right by me anyway no matter where I was in the house. He slept in the crook of my right arm every night. He rarely left my side until he was taken.
|
|
|
