mother's (cat) milk

Back in 1998-1999, we moved out to the suburbs. Literally if you walked across the street, you’d technically be in the county. Because we were so close to the country, lots of people would drop off animals – cats and dogs – that they didn’t want, or couldn’t take care of anymore.

One of these animals, a calico cat, was dropped off right as we were just getting all settled in our new house. My parents went for a walk, and this cat started following them. It followed them all the way home and was so bold, it ran inside the front door as my parents opened it to walk inside.  

Of course, my sister, Katie, and I decided to keep the cat. We named her Paws. Paws turned out to be preggers and a few months after we adopted her, she had a litter of kittens under Katie’s bed. Katie heard Paws purring loudly when she woke up to go to school. Katie reached under the bed to get Paws, but felt one of the kittens first. Thinking it was a dead mouse Paws was about to eat, Katie ran to get dad who had a look and saw that it wasn’t a mouse, but a litter of kittens.  

A few weeks later, after Katie and I had become familiar with the ways the kittens got milk from Paws’s teats – they sort of push at either side of the teat with their paws making a kneading action to massage the milk out and into their mouths – we wondered if we could get milk from her.  I told Katie to suck on Paws’s teat to see if she could get any milk. If she did, she would report on how it tasted.  So Katie had a go and incorporated the kneading, massaging action we observed the kittens doing. Paws didn’t seem to like this very much. Katie was unsuccessful, and gave up after a few tries.  

 Now to us, this didn’t seem like that big of a deal, but whenever I tell this story, people think we’re absolutely nuts.