Pawprints and Purrs, Inc.

A Non-Profit 501(c)(3) Organization
All donations are tax deductible
Copyright © 1997 - 2007

In our hearts, the cherished memories live on... This site is created in loving memory of our beloved FancyBoy and JoJo.

Sebastian Hinds was indeed a very big cat at 32 pounds. He was on a diet for many years...but was meant to be big. He was big for a reason - every ounce of him was pure love and he needed each ounce to share all the love in his heart and soul. When he sat on your lap, you really felt it - not just the size but the love. He loved everyone and everything with every fiber of his being. Sebastian is missed deeply, but will always be in our hearts.

I adopted Mau Mau, my little puttycat, from a couple when the wife developed asthma. He was very special as he had been the husband's gift to his wife for their 5th wedding anniversary. "Pente" is 5 in Greek, thus his name. I interviewed for him and when he let me sit on the couch with him, they said he was mine. My "new" 15 pound fur baby came home with me right away; I adopted him August 18, 1992. We were inseperable ever since. He wasn't fond of other people but gradually overcame that, especially after I remarried a few years later, becoming my husband's little buddy.

We became instant friends, and he had me trained very quickly. He was not a lap cat but did give lots and lots of love. He was the most cuddly thing, a big furball, which is what my new husband called him. Mau Mau and I were alone for 4 years. He adjusted well to the marriage, despite the addition of another cat and a little girl.

I have so many wonderful, funny memories of him and his trying to get his body into places that just wouldn't fit, or seeing this big furball running from a ladybug! Those big gold eyes are something no one ever forgets. Even people that met him once, always commented on his big gold eyes.

To see those big gold eyes close for the final time on January 19, only 2 days after my 3rd wedding anniversary, was the saddest moment of my life. He was diagnosed with a rapidly growing tumor on December 28, 1999 and was gone in 22 days. We spent the entire time together though, day and night. I never left his side. He wasn't in pain and didn't appear sick until the last few days. We shared memories and long talks, and played and just enjoyed being together, like the old times when we would just be together for hours.

Now my little puttycat rests in a cedar box on the headboard just behind my head. The same place he liked to sleep, except he didn't fit very well; now he fits just fine.

Mau Mau, I hope you know how loved and missed you are. You are constantly with me and always will be. I hope your spirit follows us to our next duty station, and the one after that. Nothing will ever take your place in my heart or my life. The years we spent alone were wonderful and am logging them in your memory book. I hope you and your new friend, Batty Hinds [first AngelKitty on this page], are peaceful and happy. I will always love you, Mom.

Monday my husband and I lost our precious Russian Blue, Sophia, to anti-freeze poisoning. Neither of us had ever heard of this until I raced her to the vet Monday night at 11:00PM. Needless to say we are both devastated, especially my husband, who had resuced her from the pound, at 2 years of age, 6 years ago. She had been used for some sort of experimentation before he got her, so the Humane Society had told Ken that she would have been destroyed soon anyway because she wasn't a kitten. So, we take comfort in that we gave her a happier, longer life. She was mostly an indoors cat, but went out for a couple of hours a day to play in our garden and terroize the lizards and birds.

My husband wrote a poem for her on the day he had to put her to sleep:

Emerald eyes in a mist of grey
The sun refuses to shine today
All I can say is that she was mine

What a beautiful loving creature
In my mind I can still see her
As the sky weeps for my Sophia

I long for her soft caress
She was my little princess
We are all so powerless in the end

What a beautiful loving creature
In my mind I can still see her
As the sky weeps for my Sophia

And I, with the sky, gently weep for my Sophia

We love and miss you Jungle Kitty! You will always be in our hearts...Mommy and Daddy

Our neighborhood is over-run with ferals. Once, some twenty years ago when my parents first bought this place where Craig and I now live, one never saw a cat or dog unless the animal was in his own yard. Somewhere down through the years, some irresponsible person(s) decided it was "uncool" to spay/neuter or for some ungodly excuse, got rid of their cat by dumping him or her out here in the quiet rurals. And so, the feral population has grown tremendously.

Craig and I do what we can knowing if we feed them, they become our responsibility. We continue to reach deep into our pockets for food and vet care for these unwanted, unloved cats and their offspring. Here in the Deep South, kitten season has been upon us for a full month, so we know the cats who haven't yet been trapped/spayed/neutered/vaccinated/released will be bringing more kittens soon to our food and water dishes. But it's something we MUST do - we cannot and will not watch these cats and kittens starve to death or die off frightened and alone with horrible, deadly diseases. It's our neighborhood: we pride ourselves in our property and we care enough about animals that we'll do more than our share to help control the feral population.

One little cat we've been feeding I'd dubbed RedBoy. He had been a shy, but cunning little man. He ran like a streak of greased lightning - he watched us from a great distance when we put out the food and water, but never had let us get within 20 yards of him. But patience and determination are the backbone of all feral cat workers. Without those two qualities in one's character, one won't last a first kitten season.

In the last two months, RedBoy had been slowly slipping closer to the feeding area, getting closer and closer in our presence. He gradually began to trust us. And in the end, trust of humans is what killed this beautiful, golden-eyed orange and white young cat. A cat who should have had years and years of good food, proper shelter, routine vet visits, plenty of catnip and toys, and much, much love.

Today, March 6, when I went to the mailbox after the postman had run, I found him on his side in the right-a-way of our property. He had been thrown into the drainage ditch, his battered little body badly beaten and broken. Somehow, somewhere, he trusted someone to get close enough to him to be beaten to death.

Craig was at work; the little cat had to be buried. I couldn't let him lay out in our yard waiting for Craig to arrive home late this evening. I don't know how I managed to dig his grave and get him properly buried with a few spoken words of love and little endearments he will never, never hear, but somehow I did. I only know now that RedBoy's at the Rainbow Bridge where there's no evil, cruel bastard to inflict pain and horrendous death on innocent cats; cats who never asked to be born into this world of self-serving humans.

NOTE: Many, many thanks to two dear friends, Franny Syufy and Vonnie Matheny. Franny let me borrow for RedBoy's memorial her image of the orange kitty above which looks so much like him. He holds a special, special niche in my heart. Read the moving article Franny wrote after the receipt of my email telling her we'd lost him. And Vonnie - dear Vonnie who has had more than her share of rescuing and caring for ferals in her lifetime. She sent the following when I needed much kinder thoughts toward my fellow humans:

I am sorry that RedBoy was given such a hard start in life.
I am sorry that RedBoy trusted the wrong person.
I am sorry that RedBoy was not given the chance he deserved.
I am sorry that this world has people in it that could do such an awful thing.
I am sorry that you had to endure this.
And as painful as this is for you...I am thankful too.
I am thankful that RedBoy got to see some kindness in this world.
I am thankful that RedBoy did know you.
I am thankful that as a Christian I do believe that God will seek vengeance on this lousy excuse for a human and will be so severely punished for taking one of God's perfect creations and abusing him so.
I also believe that God's lap is a little warmer and that heaven is a little brighter and the sounds are a little more glorious as RedBoy sits in God's lap purring and looking for others such as he. To be an Angel for cats...to protect them and send them to Angels like you.
All my hugs, Vonnie
Who says pets don't have souls? They take a part of ours when they leave.

Thank you so much, Franny and Vonnie, for the love and support you have given Craig and me during the anguishing ordeal of his loss.

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