SWEETIE'S FOURTH ANNIVERSARY

This Labor Day mark’s Sweetie’s fourth anniversary as a member of the Fabulous Jamieson Avenue Felines.

Sweetie a week after arrival

It was around the end of July 2019 that I first realized she had entered my life, when I looked out the window into the back yard and saw this black and qhite car stretched out in the grass. As first, I thought the cat might be feral, but it showed up the next day and I decided to put some food out and see what happened.

When I opened the back door, the cat ran off, but only to the back fence, where it watched me put the bowl of food out. I checked an hour later and the bowl was empty. I refilled the bowl that evening, and the cat again retreated to the back fence, but came trotting to the bowl as soon as I closed the glass door, not worried that I stood there and watched it eat

Sweetie in the sun bowl

The same thing happened the next day, but the third day the cat only backed off a little bit and came to the bowl while I watched through the open door. Definitely not a feral. A stray.

The next day the cat sat up where it was lying down when I came out with food and didn’t run away. I stepped back and it came to the bowl. I talked a little “kitty talk” and it sat there eating while I did.

The next day, I was out on the front porch when I saw the cat in the front yard. I sat on the steps and called “Here kitty,” and after several minutes, it came over and sat about three feet away from me. I talked some more “kitty talk” and held out my hand, and after considering it for a few minutes, the cat came over and sniffed my hand. I touched its head between the ears and it didn’t run off. After about half an hour, the cat had allowe me to pet its head.

That evening the cat was waiting in front of the back door for the arrival of dinner. I gave it some wet food which was gobbled up quickly. After the food was eaten the cat stayed there and let me approach the bowl. I knelt down and rubbed its head, scratched it behind its ears and ran my hand down its back. It was a cat unlike any I had seen, with the strangest “pair of dice” markings on its face.

Over the course of the month, things got better. The cat let me pick it up out front and it sat on my lap while I talked to it and petted it. This was definitely a domestic cat. It had verr formal manners, and liked my company.

Finally, on Labor Day, the cat was sitting on my lap out front and I decided now was the time. I said “You’re coming inside,” picked it up and carried it in. There was no struggle. I set it down in the living room and a couple of the clan leaders came up and sniffed the newcomer. There was no arguments, no hassle. Over the next couple days, I saw the cat acted respectfully to the others and they didn’t mind its presence.

The third day I was in the writing office working away when I felt a cat rub against my leg and when I looked down, it was the new kitty. I picked it up and sat it on my lap and it purred while I petted it.

Sweetie in the bowl with Sebastian

At the end of the week I took the cat to my vet, where I found out it was older than I had thought, and was a female. On the way home, I decided her name was “Sweetie,” which I had been calling her because she was sweet-natured, and told her she had a forever home.

The next day she got out throughthe open front door when I signed for a package, and stayed out for a couple hours. But she came back and scratched at the door to be let in. I knew she was a member of the gang.

Sweetie has been here for four years and is a proper little old lady with the best manners of any cat I have ever known’ she’s very “proper.” She’s become a total love bug since about a month after her arrival, when she first came and slept on my bed one night.

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