Destiny's Child

Well, we swore we would never have a cat in the RV even though we'd usually had them before. Before a miserable excuse for a human being thew a tiny kitten from a moving car near the cavern on Thursday.

A young girl on her way to work in town, rescued the bleeding baby, probably 7 weeks old, from the road and, sobbing, brought her in to us. One of our staff, who works with animals, determined that despite abrasions on it's face, the kitten had not broken any bones. Ironically, the girl who rescued the kitten was named Destiny. Destiny's Child, aka: DC slept most of the day in a basket next to the register, hoping someone would bring her home.

Someone did.

Around 3 PM I brought Clancy into the store for her daily stint as greeter, wondering what she might think of the kitten. Although Clancy, who was spayed soon after we rescued her, has basically raised two non- related pups, Mystik in California and Annie, in Texas, she's terrified of cats. Her first brush with one was when she was sleeping innocently in the gift shop at Moaning Cavern and Smokey the store cat launched herself onto Clancy's back with all claws extended. Here at Cosmic Cavern, the resident feline, Cat -yep that's her name, hisses and spits whenever Clancy comes into her view.

Clancy does NOT like cats! She does not attack them, she runs!

Once things got quiet in the store we put the basket on the floor. She sniffed the kitten, backed off and circled again, hearing it mewling, hesitated a bit when it sneezed in her face and then set in grooming it and cleaning the last vestiges of blood from it's little face.

After about 10 mintues we let the kitten out on the floor and Clancy would not let it out of her sight. If any customer tried to pick it up she got nervous. She knows she's not allowed to bark in the store so she whimpered when anyone got too close. Then she lay down under a table and the baby snuggled right up to her. At the close of day, our manager asked, "Who's going to take the kitten home for the night?" before anyone could say anything Clancy started barking!

One bag of kitten chow, food dish, litter pan, sack of litter and oh yeah and a mouse on a cord later( Big Jim is such a sucker) and Destiny's Child seems to have been adopted - by my dog! She has turned her little nose up at the small basket I fixed for her and taken over over Clancy's bed. ("Move over Dog, I'm cold.") She has made it known she gets to eat first, cat food or dog food whichever she chooses, while Clancy stands back and watches like a proper mama. (Clancy is such a pushover.) DC (nick name is my idea -can stand for Darned Cat, Dopey Cat, and many other appellations I have yet to have need of) has figured out how to crawl into almost every inaccessible place in the motor home and keep her location a deep secret.

Heck! even as I type this she is curled up in my lap all tiny and fluffy and cute, purring away. What can I do? I've been out voted by a sucker and a pushover. Off to the vet this week for shots etc. Sigh.

See Ya Down the Road,
Yarntangler