Nala, our rescued Manx kitten....

We have two dogs, many fish, birds (that I kept at school but are now at home), and an older cat that now lives in the basement and outdoors because of Barney our rescued border collie dog, so getting a new cat was not in the plan. But I was out walking our border collie a few months ago and we came upon the very small, young, shivering kitten. It's eyes were mannered shut and her hind quarters were a mess from who know what health problems that she had. Barney chases cats so he doesn't really seem too friendly with this small fir ball helplessly crouched on a very cold sidewalk. I had to tie Barney to the fire hydrant because he thought it was a wild creature or something. I went back and tried picking her up, but her hearing was fine and she started to spat at me and creep away, even though she couldn't see. I did catch her and she was so thin and so cold. I immediately put her inside of my coat despite how filthy that she was. She immediately started warming up and purring. I was hooked. I brought her home and had Della come down from upstairs getting ready for church. Della washed her eyes open with warm water and cotton balls and we put her into a carrier. Since we were going to church we decided we could get some milk made for kittens and a baby kitten bottle for her at the pet store. I didn't say that she was so very young. I went outside with one of the dogs right before we left and I was thinking about the kitten, and when I came back in I looked and said, she has no tail. We hadn't noticed because she was in such bad shape.
Speeding up the story we tried to feed her after church with the baby bottle and she immediately chewed the end of the nipple off because she was so hungry, so we put it in the bowl, and the rest is history.
Little did we know how much of an adventure this was going to be. We named her Nala after the female cub in the Lion King movie, as this kitten did have a determined attitude. Because she is a Manx, we learned through research, that some of them have genetic defects. People who sell Manx cats, don't sell them until they have grown up to see the they have developed normally. Our Nala has been to the vet so many times as she is numb in her anal area. She has no control of what she is doing there, and we read that because they have no tail, that they also have a bad vertebrae or missing one which may cause them to have no feeling back there. Well anyway, she doesn't go to the vet anymore as she doesn't like her and is tired of visiting there, so we work with her and give her two special medicines to help us keep her in pretty good shape. We have made a lot of adjustments in our house for her, keeping her only in certain rooms and crating her at night to keep her safe. She has Barney visitation rights off and on throughout the day so they can play, and she is a very fussy eater that keeps us guessing at what canned food to buy.
As a cat, she is a loving thing, and she is so full of energy. One relative teased us saying that it will probably grow up to be a bob cat. In some ways he was right. She has so much energy, and loves to run through the house. She also loves to sit on top of our antique rocking chair and watch the parakeets. You can see her doing that in one of the pictures. She did that when she was very young and now she is over seven pounds and she has to work at it to keep her balance on that rail.
We kept her separated from the collie for a long time, but we did notice that he wasn't going to treat her the same way as he does the cats outside. In the past two weeks we experimented and let them be together, and Nala just adores Barney. He likes her because he can herd her like a sheep and she loves him because she can stand up on her hind feet and play with his face and nose. He doesn't mind. I am working to get a picture of that as it is a made for movie scene.
Picking her up that morning, being so cold and helpless, and inspite of a her problems, we really love our cat. She has enriched our lives, taught us patience, and gave us a new perspective on rescuing animals. We are glad we have her, she adds one more character to our zoo. The dogs would be jealous if they knew I wrote about Nala first, but I will share about all our other creatures at a latter time. Thanks for reading.