Spare's Story

Hi There!  I'm Spare Cat.

Yes I know this is a PUG site and most of the articles and things in here are talking about pugs.  But I live with two pugs and I asked them if they thought it would be okay if I put in my two cents worth.  They thought it over for a bit -- well as much as a pug can ponder anything -- and they said they thought it would be ok.  So even though I’m not a pug, well okay, I’m not even a dog, I am a cat, I want to take a couple of minutes to tell you a story.

About 5-6 years ago (I never got the hang of human time), I found out I was alive, and on the streets.  Mom stayed around long enough for me to live on my own but I haven’t seen her or any of my brothers or sisters since then.  I don’t even know how many sibs I have, but anyway, there I was alone and kinda small on the streets.  

But I was lucky, I was strong enough to climb the trees to get out of the dogs' way, fast enough to out-run the shoes of mean people that would try to kick me, smart enough to not eat everything that humans put out for me.  Some of it smelled funny; I once told an opossum not to eat that food, but of course it did.  I found it a couple days later dead, with dried spittle around its mouth, and such a look of pain on its face.  Let me tell you, I never went near that house again!  

But, like I said I am one of the lucky ones.  See, there was this nice little brick house in the area I roamed, and the ladies that lived there were always putting food out for the opossum’s, squirrels, chipmunks and birds.  I had kept an eye on them and none of them died, so I figured I would try my luck.  

At first I was really scared and would run away anytime I say a human go past the window that they walked through (I figured out later they called it a sliding glass door.  What these humans come up with!).  But then I would come back and talk to the cats inside.  There were three of them.  One really old queen, and two younger ones.  The two younger ones were really just kittens and the queen kinda liked having someone a little older to talk to.  Even though I’m a tom.  

I started staying out by the door when I would see them walk by, and it got to the point where I would stay even when a hand came out and dumped some food out in the dish.  I heard one of the ladies, the one with red hair just like me, one day tell the three inside, “Don’t mess up -- I’ve got a Spare” as she pointed to me.  

SPARE.  I liked it.  It named my whole life.  I was a spare when mom had to have me outside and since I had lived on the street my whole life I kinda felt like a spare.  But at that house I wasn’t treated like a spare.  I got the same food I saw the other three getting, and after a time, the lady with red hair came out and I started letting her scratch my chin, just like I had seen her starch the other three’s chin.  

Well, it took about a year (that’s what I have heard the ladies say anyway) but finally I was ready and let myself get caught.  (I kinda felt sorry for them because one of the kittens had gone away and the lady with the dark hair cried a lot, the red head cried too but she tried to do it when the dark haired one wasn’t there.)  

They took me to a place that smelled of all different animals and a really nice man checked me all over and said that I was ok.  After a long nap and a small itchy area at the back of my tummy, I joined the ladies in the brick house, along with the other animals that live there.  

It’s been a good life.  Okay, so sometimes it gets a little too much and I run down to the basement for a couple of days, but the ladies always make sure that when I do there is food and water for me down there, and then I’ll come back up to be with the rest of them.  There have been a couple of animals that lived here that have gone away.  I know I will see them in the Meadow Land again, but until then, like I said, I’m one of the lucky ones.