The Miracles In Our Lives

Let me start by saying...I had dogs my entire life, and I never liked cats! As a matter of fact I hated cats! I hated them for the same reason all cat lovers love them. They are sketchy, crazy, arrogant and stubborn. They walk around like they own the damn joint, and god help anyone who tries to pet them when they don't want you too, you could lose a hand! They treat their owners like staff and are always knocking things off of everywhere...and on purpose no less! Getting into things and places they shouldn't! What's to love about them!

I used to think that aaannnnddd,,, now I am a crazy about my cats lady, and my husband has always had cats, even though he is allergic to everything but elephants! However, we have found that through enough exposure he is fine with most animals. Raider came to us through my work. His bio stated that he was one of more that 25 cats that roamed a trailer park in Chula Vista, they have a catch, spay/neuter, and release program there, and they cropped the top left corner of the ear to mark them so they would know which cats had already been fixed. Then East County Animal Rescue, got ahold of all of the cats on a phone call from a resident of the park who said that they were going to be rounded up by Chula Vista animal control and most likely euthanized simply because they were getting too many complaints about the massive number of cats in the park. I worked at Petco as a groomer for 12 years and ECAR had a stack set of rolling kennels that they kept some of the rescues housed in during the week. It stood in the front of our store so people could look at them and possibly adopt them. Raider was a beautiful Domestic Short Hair Tuxedo with a cute little half moustache. I would have to walk past the cages every morning to get the the punch clock, and as I would walk by his cage, he would reach out with a paw and snag my apron, the first few times he did that I would just unsnag him and keep walking, but as a week passed with him doing this every morning I worked, I began to notice him which in turn got me to stop and pet him for a couple minutes on my way to punch out for lunch, I found him to be very sweet and playful. Every weekend ECAR would hold an adoption event and he would get to come out and see people and I would find time to run and see him. What a sweet baby, he loved being loved and he would flop over on his side and curl his paws up and point his chin up looking so adorable just to get some lovin', but for whatever reason nobody adopted him. I kept stopping every time he would snag me, and I finally said to a co-worker who helped feed and clean out the kennels "don't you love how he reaches out to get your attention when you pass by him" she said "he never does that to me". I asked a few of my co-workers and he didn't do that to anyone else...just me. I kept noticing that week after week he wasn't getting adopted and I just couldn't understand because this was the absolute sweetest loveable cat on the planet and he had the cutest half moustache! Well at this point I had fallen in love with him and knew I couldn't leave him in a cage any longer. I had decided that he was going to be ours...only one problem...convincing the hubby.

I got home that night, and apparently according to my husband, I babbled on about "the poor sweet kitty with the adorable half moustache that no one wanted" and told him about how this cat would grab me in the mornings and how sweet he was and....my husband stopped me in the middle of my mindless rant and said "were adopting a cat aren't we"? I looked at him with tears in my eyes and said "are we"? He asked me three questions before he would say yes and my answers would be what determined whether we get a cat or not. question one: "who would scoop after him"? I replied "I will, you will NEVER touch the litter box", he said "ok, great answer, two: who will feed him"? I quickly replied, "I will also feed him, you will never have to touch the food bowl", he said again "good answer" question three: who is going to pay for all of this? I replied "I will, not a problem, and I will also pay out of my paycheck for all of his shots and vet care", then he said, "ok, I guess we are now the proud owners of a "Juan". I jumped up and down, called my very good friend Kathy who was a volunteer and told her we would be happy to adopt him. I also told her I was changing his name to Raider (she is a die hard Charger fan) and she almost changed her mind...just kidding we are great friends, however, she chided me the entire time we were filling out the papers. We brought him to his new home in November of 2013, he was 8 months old then. He came out of the kennel and got comfortable almost immediately, and he very much used to enjoy sleeping at my husbands feet every night, and we enjoyed his adorable kitten play, he used to play fetch with my hair ties, it was really cute, we would fling the hair tie into the next room and he would actually retreive it and bring it back. He was a very happy and spoiled kitty! I knew when I went to work at eleven in the morning, he would only spend about 4 1/2 hours alone before my husband would be home around 3:30, so I didn't worry too much, until I heard him for almost an entire week yowling all through the house every night around 11 pm. I started to talk to my husband about getting a second cat...and he agreed. I learned that cats flourish my better with a friend around.

No, we did not name him Criminal because he is black..lol. We named him that because he is always committing criminal acts like, knocking the trash can over and spreading it all over the floor, knocking my water off the nightstand, eating my chicken wings from Round Table Pizza! So you can see why. His name started out "Lil Dude" which is what Kathy called him. I had called her about six months after we had gotten Raider and decided we needed a second cat and could she recommend one that would get along with Raider. She suggested Lil Dude come spend the weekend with us and that if they got along, and we liked him too then she would finish his shots and we could pay for him then. Turns out that after about 5 hours of Raider establishing dominance, they began to romp around with each other and play. We decided that he would be a perfect fit! He started out being named "Diego" since I had a Raider but lived in San Diego, which at the time was Charger territory, and after a lot of crap from my husband and his daughter about naming him "Charger"(never gonna happen is what they got told) we settled on Diego. However, over time he had proven to be such a little criminal my husband kept saying "your nothing but a damn criminal" and I started calling him that and he responded...so this is how he got his name.

Anyone who has Kids, dogs, cats, birds, or any kind of natural or un-natural offspring has come up with at least 4 names, so Raider and Criminal both get called a muriad of names, I call Raider, buddy, bubba, and stinky. I call Criminal, Crimini, Crimmy, Sexy Panther Kitty (my daughter calls him that) and Poopa..lol I have no clue where that last name came from. Criminal came from a supposed abusive home, but we all think that someone lied because they just didn't want him anymore. I mean just look at him(in the above pic)! Does this look like an abused kitty? Not a chance, he wouldn't know abuse if it crawled up and bit him. This incredibly gorgeous, sweet kitty has been my little shadow since we met! he follows me everywhere! Incidentally they both wouldn't know what to do with a real live critter to save their lives, oh yeah they can act all tough through a window! However, they have been known to kill a lizard or two, which I have found in various parts of the house...and they love to bat it around until it is dead, THEN tear it apart! Yep, that's my favorite part! thanks for the wonderful gift boys. They also are spoiled to death, there isn't a cat toy they don't own and they get a teaspoon of canned tuna twice a day, they don't eat out of plastic dishes because I learned as a groomer that plastic holds bacteria where ceramic and metal do not. I do give them tap water however, even though I know that over time they will end up with crystals in their kidneys. I decided that I would see that they got some of their liquid intake from the tuna, so I do not drain the water out, I let them drink it with their morning/evening feedings. They eat only the best food, and they are now 8 years old and thriving! We are blessed and thankful to have them, they both bring such joy to our lives. They are our children and the only ones we will have, I have decided after them (provided we outlive them) that I will most likely continue to rescue cats, and now I am thinking about rescuing older cats that nobody wants, first of all you are helping an older cat find some comfort in their final days, and second, they are almost always free because the shelters and rescues are all over crowded, so they are happy to give you an elder cat to care for until the end of it's life, and they usually provide all the medicines they need as well. So please, always consider adoption over purchasing a cat or dog, the love an adopted pet needs is so well deserved, just think of how they must feel, sitting alone in a cage with a heavy heart, sad and just waiting for someone to come along and take them home...Adopt a pet today!