THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408260242
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Ida Kay's Portsmouth
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
I'm worried about Mama, Sis and Buddy.
They left home and haven't been seen or heard from since Sunday.
Even though they are extremely voracious and vociferous about food, they left some in their bowl. That really concerns me.
Mama is a small black cat who somehow found her way through narrow openings under the house and wandered into our storage area last winter. Naturally, we started feeding her even though she wasn't a very sociable cat. She refused to be petted.
We simply called her ``The Cat.'' For months she went out the same way she got in, but she always showed up at mealtime. The Cat was missing a back paw. We assumed her reluctance to get too close to another living being was fear instilled at an early age from the hard life of the streets.
Last spring, she started hanging around in the house more, and we realized she was going to present us with some more cats. Although hardly more than a kitten herself, she instinctively was a good mother to the three little ones we found one morning in an old chair.
After the kittens came, Mama even got a little more friendly. But you had to sit down on the storeroom stairs for her to come close enough to be touched. It was all on her terms. And, if you went too far, she let you know it by biting your hand.
One of the kittens eventually went to live with a relative in North Carolina and is doing fine.
We never found suitable homes for the other two little ones and gradually came to accept them as permanent fixtures. Finally, I decided they needed names and began to call them Sis and Buddy and to address The Cat as Mama. They know their names now.
That's how they are listed in the records at the veterinarian's office, where they received one shot and are due for the second one.
Sis is a fragile, fluffy little girl with a striped coat and blue eyes. Her face has a vulnerable look. She's always been the friendly one of the lot, likes to be picked up and petted. She purrs a lot.
Buddy is more like Mama in temperament. He too is black all over.
But he has an Egyptian look about him - very long legs, funny paws, a triangular shaped face and a sleek tail that he curls around himself when he sits. In fact, he could sit for people who do museum reproductions of Egyptians.
For several months Buddy was disinterested in any petting. All he wanted from humans was food and water.
In recent weeks he has grown friendlier, sidling up to me for a little attention. I even caught him purring recently. But he doesn't like to be picked up.
Buddy and Sis play games all the time. When they come into the house occasionally, one will hide behind a piece of furniture and lie in wait to jump on the other. Or one will get behind a door and the other will run a paw under it tempting the invisible sibling on the other side.
Sis likes heights and virtually can fly through the air to achieve a lofty perch. Buddy is less inclined to high places. In fact, the two are so different in temperament and habits that it's hard to believe they are from the same litter and have lived under the same conditions.
Now we don't know what conditions they are living under. That's what has me worried.
They are accustomed to having canned fish every morning. When they hear footsteps, they run in the direction of their feeding space with a chorus of mews.
At night they get dried food, which does not produce the same chorus, but which they eat anyway.
Mama has lived with us for almost a year. Sis and Buddy have lived nowhere else and, in fact, have seldom left the house. I'm not sure how street smart even Mama might be at this time.
If you see Mama with a missing back paw, gangly Buddy and sweet Sis wandering on the street, please send them home. Or, at least, tell us where they are. by CNB