The Cat Came Back: Buddy, Part II

Part Two in the Continuing Saga of Buddy the Brave.

When last we heard of our hero, he had just dashed out of the vestibule of 922Cats into the great big world that had treated him so badly before his rescue by the intrepid Lizzy Kittehmeisterin, his dedicated and loving hoomin.

Buddy in the attic

Unfortunately, this little jaunt took place the very day &mdash nay, the very hour &mdash that Lizzy was setting off for an expensive professional seminar which would keep her out of town and thus unable to rescue Buddy for some days.

To Lizzy's lasting gratitude, the grandhoomin of the 922 and a kindly neighbour agreed to look for Buddy, but alas! Their efforts bore no fruit.

Lizzy returned and put up posters and notes in mailboxes and looked high and low, but where was Buddy Diamondback? Buddy Short-Tail, Buddy Three-Fang, Buddy BedMonster of the Attic Adventure, Buddy the Turtle was nowhere to be found. He did not come when called. No one had seen him. And he never made his way back to the sanctum sanctorum of 922Cats.

Buddy "turtling" again

One day, after the long-suffering hoomin had trod the neighbouring highways and byways in search of Buddy, after buckets of tears had been shed, after a worried hoomin had looked and asked everywhere, she decided to put a rug on the porch, sprinkled with catnip, to lure the beloved Buddy back.

But the hours passed, and there was still no Buddy. Tired, the hoomin prepared to shut down for the night, but before she could go to bed, the power failed. Well, when the power goes out and it's warm, a hoomin makes adjustments to ensure that all cats and kittens (and, of course, the poor lone hoomin) remain cool and sufficiently aerated. In other words, the hoomin opens windows. And as she walked sadly though the dark house, saying to the remaining 921, "Yes, I know, loves, I miss him, too," she heard, through the open windows, a little chirp from the porch.

With way shaking hands she managed to get the front door open, and, there, in the moonlight, was the vagabond, prodigal Buddy.

He paced the porch and talked, for about 20 minutes - alas that I couldn't understand a word. Once it was all out of his system, he let me pick him up and take him in. He'd got fleas and something called garbage gut, but he was back! And to this day he avoids that door...

Dear Buddy, saved! Rescued from the terrible outdoors, safe from the nasty hoomins who once hurt his tail and dumped him to fend for himself! Dear sweet Buddy, back in the loving arms (and paws) of all at 922Cats!

Ever since his return, he has been the sweetest and best of cats. Garbage gut, incidentally, is something usually suffered by dogs, but also by cats who might have to eat bad food out of dumpsters and trashcans. It occurs when animals who cannot find clean healthy food eat whatever they can find, which has often gone bad and has lots of unpleasant bacteria in it, and that bacteria makes itself at home in their bodies. Thanks to Lizzy and a very nice vet, Buddy soon got over his attack of garbage gut, but not his fear of the vestibule, into which he has never ventured again.

So if you can't take care of your pet anymore, please don't release it in the wild. It will get ill and it will most likely die an unpleasant death. Instead, please take it to the nearest no-kill shelter, and if you can't find such a thing a regular shelter will do, because the no-kill shelters often look for pets to save from your local shelter's euthanasia shortlist.

The hoomin adds:

For many years after Buddy's terrible adventure, he stayed well and far away from the vestibule door. Lately, however, sometimes when I'm leaving he'll come right up to it and look up at me through the pane of glass with his big and so green eyes. Then he'll brush against the door, and fall over and reach one paw imploringly under. It is really very flattering, and makes it oh-so-hard to walk through and close the other door.

His hoomin says, Buddy does not complain - he never does (well, hardly ever); he just looks sadly and says, But I missed you!

Other than sensibly avoiding the vestibule, Buddy the once-crazed abandoned kitty has turned into the sweetest of felines. Here he is, for example, being a surrogate father to new "kittens" Cloud and Cyrrie:

Extreme Sleeping

Lizzy's comment: Cyrrie and Cloud turn pro; Buddy coaches...

He took his job pretty seriously, and no one had to ask him to do it!

For example, his hoomin tells us, when the "kittens" &mdash or kittens &mdash have wrestling matches, Buddy is either referee, coach, or fan, or all three at the same time...

Buddy politely turns down Angel's invitation to wrestle

Like Chauncy Gardner, he preferred, that time, to watch.

Here, Buddy kitten-sits the second generation. Guess who the lucky beneficiary of Buddy's tender loving care is?



Not that he's perfect, although as close to a saint as felinely possible, and you'd have to be, to put up with Angel, yclept Diavolo. His hoomin explains:

First it was Buddy, snoozing happily on the couch until Angel dropped down on top of him and rolled him off, Saying Fun/wrestle/play with me...! Usually sweet Buddy said something else entirely, and was duly rescued by the human

More Buddy pictures and stories next Caturday!

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