Audrey: My Second Cat as an Adult

So, if you read my story about Prindle, you know when I got my little Audrey. Several months after losing my father to cancer, my husband and I visited my brother and his wife. I remember that soon after we got there, my brother told me he had a found a kitten and it was to be mine. The kitten had been found under a house that was being moved, and looked like a little black rat when they brought her home. My sister-in-law Patty had already given her one bath, and after I gave her one myself we realized she wasn't a black cat at all, but a beautiful siamese mix. She had beautiful blue eyes. She was just a baby, probably not more than 6 or 7 weeks old, and she was scared to death. The amazing thing about all this is my husband Alan didn't argue once when my brother told us this was our cat. Maybe he just knew it was inevitable.

Of course, if you have read my previous story about Prindle, you know that things did not go well when we got the little one home. My older cat was having nothing to do with her new rival. Unfortunately, I was so busy trying to pacify her that I was unable to give all my love and attention to little Audrey, and to this day she is Alan's cat. She is an outdoor kitty all the way. She likes to hang out in our shed/workroom outside or in our sun room (built for the animals). When we got her home, Prindle was not happy, but my dog, Toto, was. He seemed to think he was Audrey's mother. He would have licked her to death if he could have. She would sleep curled up next to him. She really loved her Toto. He was a cocker spaniel/dalmation mix (looked like a short and squatty black lab with spots).

Back to our little Audrey. I named her after Audrey Hepburn, for her grace and beauty. Audrey is a delicate little kitty. At almost 11 years old, she still has the MEW of a little kitten; that little high pitched squeak. She is a skittish little thing, I don't think she never got over her first days as a little orphan found underneath a house. Some days when I go outside, she looks right at me and runs off into the yard. Other days, if I'm really lucky, I'm allowed to pet her. But only on her terms. She is not the kind of cat you can pick up and cuddle with. She doesn't like to be picked up at all. If she is in the house and in the mood, she will jump up on me and knead on my legs while I pet her, and eventually she gets so into it she starts slobbering. When she is in the mood for affection, you had better comply. No one is allowed to stop the petting. I got bitten right on the nose (hard) when I stopped petting her. She was telling me I wasn't finished. She can be a feisty little cat.

She and Alan have their own special relationship. He was always a dog person, and his first experience with a cat, my Prindle, did not go too well. She never liked him and made a habit of batting at him with her paws and hissing, sometimes spitting at him, if he walked too by her too closely. He's such a dog person that he pats Audrey on the head like she's a dog. She comes back for more. She follows him through the backyard while he is working as if she were a dog. She loves to run to her catnip plant and hide under it, where she waits for Alan or me to come up and pet her. She rolls around on the catnip plant.

I always thought my Romeo was the fierce hunter in the family. One night I found out differently. It was around 2 o'clock in the morning, and I heard a very strange garbled and distressed MEOOOOOWWWWWWW. MEEE OOOO WWWWWW. Loud. Aggressive. Demanding attention. Something is wrong out here and come see what it is. I climbed out of bed and went to the sun room to see what was causing one of my cats to make such a horrible noise, like a baby wailing. There was Audrey. Nothing looked wrong with her. MEE OOOO OOOOO OO WWWWW. I asked her what was going on? MMMMEEEE ooOOOOOO WWWWW. Pauses in between sounds. Vibrating loud whining MEEE OOOO WWWWW. She wouldn't stop. OK, I thought, I'll go back in and get Alan . I go inside and wake up my husband, and I tell him that HIS cat wants SOMETHING, she is very very distressed and she won't tell ME what the problem is. He is not going for this. He rolls over and SHHHH's me. FINE. I go back outside. There is Audrey MEEE OOOO WWWW ing at me again. This time she spit out a dead mouse right onto my feet. I jumped, screamed and ran back inside. I tried to get Alan up again. No luck. I go back outside and tell Audrey what a good kitty she is, as I know this must be what she needs to hear. But I neglect to get the mouse. I don't want to touch a mouse. I hate mice. Well, that was a mistake, as the next morning when I went out to the sun room, there was a PULVERIZED mouse on the floor with black blood oozing from it. It was disgusting. It is hard to think that our little delicate Audrey could do that. But she is a murderess in her feral little heart.

Currently it's raining outside. My husband and stepson are sitting out on our sunporch with two dogs, my cat Romeo and Audrey is somewhere out in the backyard, doing her thing. She will come in and cuddle up next to one of the dogs when she is ready. She has her own agenda, and I'm glad she is having a good life.