Harley Rose Comes Home!

 

Harley disappeared while we were away at Tuross at the end of September.  I couldn't make sense of it, we'd had her for three years and she'd never strayed, even the many times she was on heat.  I didn't believe she'd been hit by a car as she rarely ventured out the front and there was no body and nobody told us anything had happened.  It was a mystery.  But we've lost so many cats in the past few years that we were kind of resigned to it and vowed there would be no more cats, it's too hard to keep losing them.  Then a week ago we got our dear little Scout, who is just the perfect kitten.

This morning we were lounging around in bed when the phone rang about 10.45. It was a local vet surgery telling me they had Harley, a woman had brought her in and she had a kitten!  I was in shock, I couldn't believe what I was hearing, I really thought we'd never see her again.  Harley was microchipped which is how they found us as we haven't changed our phone number since we moved here.  I'm sure the vet thought we'd dumped her, I could hear it in her voice.  I was so excited though and said we'd be right down to pick her up.  We got the cat carrier out and off we went, the four of us.  It was SOOO good to see her, and her darling baby.  She had been hostile to the vet nurse but when she saw us you could tell she remembered us and was glad to see us, and she's not a pleasant cat at the best of times.  Turns out it was the Crazy Landlady, from our first house here who found her.  I've gone over it and over it all day and all I can think is that she thought, when we went away, even though we had someone coming to feed her and Maxy, that we had left her and somehow found her way to the Margaret Street house, where we lived when we got her as a kitten.  I'm assuming the house is empty and she camped out in the stables and had her kitten/s and lived rough for a couple of months.  Apparently CL said they looked around for other kittens but found no evidence.  We'd driven down there several times while looking for Harley but saw no sign of her.  She's okay, but reed thin and very skittish.  She has taken up residence on the sofa in the games room with her little girl kitten who we've named Violet.  Slowly she seems to be gaining confidence and is enjoying having love and food and comfort.

I am still in shock and I feel horrible thinking she was down there all that time and we could have gone and got her and brought her home.  Something has happened to her, when Max barked at someone going by, as he does, she growled and when Em came in the front door Harley was very alarmed till she saw it was Emily.

We are keeping her inside, although she hates using the litter tray and asked to go out this afternoon so we took her out and she did her business and came right back in.  The vet told us, contrary to what the other vet said, that we can get her desexed right away, NOT three weeks after she'd finished nursing.   So that is what we will do, and then get little Scout done and find a good home for Violet.  The vet nurse had her at 3-4 weeks but she's fat, and quite big, but not walking steadily, not interested in solid food and looks like her eyes haven't been open too long so I'm putting her at about two weeks old.  Harley is such a great mother, always has been.

Soooo, we've gone, in a week, from having trouble finding a new cat, to now having three of the barstards!  But I am so happy to have Harley back, I didn't realise how much I loved her till we found her today.  She's a bitch of a cat, but she's OUR cat.