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The Trifecta were barely 3 months old when Rodger
called me at work to tell me that he had found 4 newborn kittens,
approximately 12 days old, at the nursery he formerly managed. I
can't say I was particularly ecstatic as I knew they would have been
much better off with their mother. However, mama cat had been
hiding with her litter in a cargo trailer which had been moved from one
nursery to another. When the door was opened at the new location,
mama took off, never to be seen again. It was my lunch hour so I
drove over to bring the box of kittens back with me to work until the
end of the workday. Before I arrived there, I stopped at a local
feed store to purchase the necessities of
kitten feeding. Thus began the 2½ week venture of bringing them
from home to work and back again at the end of the day; they were too
tiny and helpless to leave at home by themselves. Some of my co-workers helped
me bottle-feed them during our quick work breaks and they shared in the
joy and fun of watching them get a little bigger and stronger through
the days. Skunk appeared to be the runt, yet she seemed to
be the
feistiest and the hungriest and was the first one to crawl out of the
plastic container I used to transport them.
When they were old enough, I found homes for two of them--the gray one
was named Boomer by his new family and has grown into a beautiful
long-haired guy with darker gray coloring than Froggy. Butterball,
the butterscotch one, went to a now-former co-worker. From the
beginning, though, Rodger maintained that we had to keep Froggy, so named because
apparently was a little different from the others. He would hop
off his hind legs when running and had trouble controlling his little
legs - his movements reminded us of a frog and hence, his
name. We agreed that he was physically challenged to the point
that we would keep him with us to ensure that he would have a loving,
safe home. Poor Skunk....no one seemed to want her so there was
no question about it - we would keep her along with Froggy.
Whoever would have thought she would grow up to the beautiful
long-haired tuxedo cat that she is today? Both she and Skunk are
exceedingly loving kitties, particularly Froggy who just melts into his
dad's arms and kneads and drools. Froggy nowadays is still
not able to jump high heights, but he is very resourceful and will look
for something like a stool to make his way from one level to a higher
level. And Skunk? We call her our demon cat--always
getting into things and leading the pack with her constant curiosity and
inquisitiveness. Once called the Quartet, they are now
affectionately known as "The Duo." The next 3 pages
are filled with pictures of our sweet Duo.
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