While growing up I was never allowed to have pets. No cats and no dogs. My dad is not a fan of either animal and anything other than goldfish was out of the question also. However, Maneesh is a cat lover! Last summer on a trip to India he had adopted a kitten from a stray cat. The kitten was actually abandoned by his mother, and he took up refuge in Maneesh's backyard. He also had two sisters that stayed with him. The family started feeding milk to the kittens everyday, and low and behold the never left! Eventually the two sisters left and never came back, but this little guy stayed. Even when Maneesh returned back to Canada, the kitten continued to visit the house for his daily dose of milk. I had allergies to cats and when I heard this kitten was basically an adopted pet living at the house, I had serious reservations about what the living arrangements would be. However, when I met the little rascal I couldn't help but fall in love! He was so affectionate. He rubs and rubs against our legs and would also rubs his face on my feet. He often plumps his soft little head on my foot and relaxes. Initially as he was a stray cat, he was not used to being handled. He rarely climbed into our laps or let us pick him up. Although on a couple of occasions he snook into my room in the middle of the night and climbed under my covers, startling me awake. He has the cutest little meow, although lately its been driving us crazy because he meows when ever he is hungry and doesn't stop until he gets something. He eats a lot (which isn't great for a cat). We buy him real cat food and have learned he doesn't like chicken. He prefers seafood. He gobbles up what he likes and he walks away from food thats not appealing to him. He likes drinking milk and he dies for boiled eggs. The irony is we are a pure vegetation household but to maintain this little guys health we been the rules. Conveniently there is a vendor down the the street from our house who has an egg stand. He makes people on the spot egg meals. He has become our source for boiled eggs. Second to eggs he dies for the Indian milky sweets like 'barfi'. He gets hyper and due to lack of patience snatches these little pieces of barfi as well as the plastic bag the eggs come in out of our hands. He can't wait for the treats to be put in his little feeding bowl. Recently we went away on a trip for a few days. Returning after five days, our little cat was so happy to see us! He couldn't get enough of climbing into my lap and basically all over my body. He was rubbing his face all over and purring like a car engine. I think he really missed us and probably thought we were never coming back. He had never been this affectionate. Since we have been back every night he sleeps on my bed. For the first few nights he slept close to my head, and sometimes almost cradled in my arms. He has shown similar affection to Maneesh. If he isn't sleeping with me, he is sleeping with Maneesh. We have bathed him, brushed him and tried blowing drying him ( but he didn't like that too much). We do have a lot of fun. He is very animated and carries quite a unique personality. All my initial reservations about having a cat have all disappeared and now I have learned what makes people crazy about animals. Similarly we had adopted two stray street puppies. A stray dog living on our street gave birth a couple houses down the street to two little cute puppies. After a couple of weeks the pups had opened their eyes and were walking around. We started feeding them milk as well with little bits of bread. They loved it! Eventually each day they started to grow and become more aware of their surroundings. They also became very playful. Especially with one another. Like we bathed our cat, we also bathed and brushed and blow dried the puppies. Because they still had to sleep on the street (although Maneesh created a nice cardboard box as a home for them) they were always full of dirt and dust. From dirty little street puppies, they became very handsome and fluffy adorable little cuddlies. Sadly one day, one little puppy got run over by a car and died. It was so sad. We were gone away on a day trip and weren't around. Somehow one of our neighbours' careless teenagers drove over the puppy who was sleeping on the street. We went to the pet shop one evening and brought proper dog food and treats for the other pup. We thought we would raise him and even train him. We learned from training videos on youtube, you can't really start training a puppy until he's about 8 weeks old. Our little puppy was between four and five weeks. We were getting ready with tools to start a training program for him. This little guy was extremely playful. He would tug at the bottom of our pants in a playful manner, he would lift our slippers in his mouth and carry them across the yard, and he would run along beside me around the yard. We got him a tennis ball and he loved playing with this tennis ball. We were astounded the first time he lifted the wide tennis ball into his little mouth and carried it across the yard. He would often lift the whole thing in his mouth and run to a secure spot away from everyone, where nobody would take the ball from him. He also had. It was hard not developing an emotional attachment to these little guys. Unfortunately and very sadly, he got run over by a car too. I was so sad and cried the day the second little guy got run over. I had tried saving him that day by keeping him in the yard, but somehow he escaped, and unfortunately got run over by a delivery truck. The few weeks we had the puppies it was a neat experience of what it feels like to receive the affection of an innocent little animal. All the years my dad banned pets, I didn't get a chance to experience this kind of affection. I still have my little cat left and he provides a lot of affection. I think I would die if something happened to him at this point. Its hard losing pets. | |