Believe It or Not
Obie, 2020. |
Don't be fooled, claws sharpened and ready. |
Believe It or Not – I love that line from the TV show Ripley's Believe It or Not. Well, I am about to share with you a story that certainly falls under that title.
This is a story about Obie, a fiery red kitten with attitude and love to give to anyone whom he thought deemed his attention.
We were almost home from a birthday party in Edmonton in June 2020. It was a rainy, cold night, Lac. Ste. Anne county had been working on the gravel road to repair all the pot holes. The ground was slick from the rain. As we were driving down the road headed towards home, about a mile and a half away, Bud turned to me and said, ‘I think there is a kitten on the side of the road.’ Naturally, I said, ‘back up and let me go see.’ So, we backed up the Jeep to where Bud thought he saw something, and I got out onto the muddy road and headed over to the ditch on his driver's side. I looked around but couldn't see anything in the tall grass, so I waded down into the ditch and spotted a wet and cold little ball of orange fluff. Now, this little fluff ball did not want to have anything to do with me; as I picked him up, his four legs and twenty tiny needle claws were aimed at me.
I quickly scoured through the wet grass, looking for any more kittens, but none were there.
I carried this ball of hissing fluff an arm's length away from me and climbed back into the car.
I looked at the kitten, then Bud, and said, ‘I couldn't find any more kittens, so now what should we do with this one?’
A year earlier, we had rescued a black feral cat we named Oliver. He moved in and decided that this would be his forever home. Within days of his impromptu arrival, we took him to the vet for a health check.
Would Oliver and Tukker (our small Maltese-shitzu cross dog) take to this ball of fluff, or will we have trouble on our hands? We weren’t too sure how this was going to play out.
The next two nights, the ball of fluff made it known that he would not be caged. The first night, we put him in the dog carrier with food, water and a litter pan; the following morning, it looked like he had expelled every ounce of his being inside that crate. What a mess. So, we decided (for his safety) to put him in the big wire dog pen in the kitchen so he could see us. Inside we placed a litter pan, milk, water, food and a little bed for him. Well, he was not having any of that business, and climbed up the wire pen and was hanging from the top, only to fall down into the litter pan, which flipped and knocked over the water and milk dish. Again, what a mess. I looked at Bud, ‘this is not going to work, now what?’ After cleaning up this wild fur ball, I looked at the kitten and said, 'OK, I get it you want to be free. Well, there are rules to being free in our house. You have to use a litter pan to pee and poop; no messing on the floor, or you are out.' To show him what I meant, I carried him to the litter pan and plucked his butt down. He had other ideas and tried to escape, only to be put back in the litter pan each time. Finally, he decided, 'OK, I'll do my business here.' Meanwhile, Oliver and Tukker are watching this with amusement.
Next, we introduced him to Tukker and Oliver. Knowing male cats are not the best companions for spunky kittens, I also chatted with Oliver. 'Oliver, you have to be gentle with the kitten; he is not as big as you. You also know what it feels like to not have a home, so the kitten will be living here for a while. We still love you, but now you have to share. Are you OK with that?' Oliver looked at me with those big yellow eyes, and I knew we had come to an understanding. Tukker, on the other hand, not so much as the kitten had decided that grabbing Tukkers legs with his claws was great fun.
Over the next several weeks, we named him Obie and searched for a new home for him. But truth be told, neither Bud nor I could let him go when a new owner came forward. For some reason, we felt that we were to give Obie his best life, so he stayed to cause havoc and chaos in our house.
It didn’t take long for Obie to adopt me as his mom, and his favourite place to snuggle was under my chin or on my shoulders. He slept in our bed when he was a bit older and had a special blanket due to hair shedding. I never had a cat that could shed hair by just breathing. The vacuum was in high demand sucking up all his hair from the floors, furniture and our clothes. At times, he reminded me of 'Pig Pen from Charlie Brown, with his cloud of dust following him everywhere. Soon, I gave up brushing Obie's coat of non-stop hair removal and started to vacuum him as he lay on the floor like a big lump.
Obie grew and grew over the next several years; by the time he was three, he weighed 20 lbs. Now, that is a big cat! He insisted he still needed to sit on my shoulder or snuggle under my chin despite his size. No matter how hard I tried to break him of the habit, he would have none of the nonsense. So, I was forced to concede that I now owned a large, hairy, weighted blanket. Due to his rapid weight gain, we took him to our vet to see if he had a medical issue, but all blood tests were normal. They said, 'Obie is just a big cat.’
Obie has gotten so large that I had to resort to washing his hiney in the dog sink since he couldn't or wouldn't clean his own butt. That took both Bud and I to hold him, Bud with big thick gloves on and me with my rubber gloves and a wash rag in the sink for his rinse off his butt. Now Obie wasn't in the sink, but his hiney perched over the side as he detested wet feet. The life of a pampered cat.
Now it has been four years since Obie came to us. We had gone away for a week, and when we got home, Obie suddenly became sick. He was diagnosed with advanced kidney disease and, after a week-long stay at the vet clinic, with no sign of improvement, we knew that we would have to let Obie go. We brought him home on September 30, 2023, to spend what time he had left with us.
I immediately started to send him healing energy, and he looked like he might perk up. The next day, I was lying on the floor with him, keeping one hand on his body, focusing on sending him healing energy.
He was looking at me, and I said, ‘Obie, if you want to go, it is OK. We will miss you but we don't want you to feel sick.’ Obie continued to stare into my eyes for about 10 minutes, then suddenly, he got up and walked away. He decided that the healing session was done for now.
The next day, I took him outside to sit in the sun on the deck. Obie’s favorite pass time was to sit on the deck surveying his kingdom like Ferdinand the Bull by Munro Leaf (a children's story). For the next week and a half, I continued daily treatments, but during this time, I started to notice changes in Obie; his mood changed; he didn't recognize his name, and he stopped sleeping on our bed and took to sleeping in our closet. These little things started to add up. I told Bud one day, ‘I don't think this is our Obie anymore.’ It seemed clear that when I talked to Obie the day after he came home, he decided to leave. When he did this a new cat transitioned into his body.
Remember the line: Believe It or Not.
Both Bud and I questioned what we were witnessing. How is this even possible?
Over the next several weeks, more changes happened in his personality, his eating habits, and how he socialized with the other pets in the house, and we were not the only ones to notice this. Friends who had known Obie since birth also commented that he was different when they visited. What was the turning point for me was when I started to become allergic to his hair. It had become prickly like porcupine quills, and his head and eyes also changed. I would never have believed it possible for a soul transition while the animal was still alive, but that is what happened. Our Obie left, and a new cat came forward at the exact same time. I spoke to several other mediums, and they all agreed that this new cat was probably a litter mate who died that night when we found Obie.
This new Obie 2 was living in a dying body, and no amount of healing energy was going to change that. So, when our Obie's body started to show signs that his kidney disease was again in complete destruction mode, we made the call to have him put to sleep at our house.
I won’t go into details of that horrible time, but let's just say the new Obie 2 was not going down without a fight, and while under sedation bit the vet. It was an hour later, when he finally conceded and crossed over.
We buried Obie with all the other pets that had gone before him on Bart Hill across from the pond on our front lawn.
He is greatly missed and we know that we allowed him the live his best life with unconditional love.
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Obie 1 - Within one month - Obie 2
