Cutie and Lydia, Ella Too

I was thinking about Lydia today so I thought I'd post about her. She was never the friendliest cat in the world, even to me, and she liked me. For that matter, she had only one litter of kittens, and only one of them lived. Lydia's mother, Baby Girl, was nursing her last litter of kittens, which were about two weeks old by that time. Lydia brought her one kitten over to her mom and left her to nurse it. It might be that whatever it was that caused her other kittens to be born dead made her unfit to nurse, and she realized that. But from that day, she paid no more attention to her one kitten than she did the other kittens her mom was nursing.

However, Lydia was a perfect daughter to her mother, Baby Girl. For her whole long life, they would groom one another, and she often cuddled with her mom, while it was rare for her to be in the same cat bed (however large) with her sister, Cutie, for more than a few minutes without a fight. At the age of 23 or 24, Baby Girl got cancer in her mouth. It wasn't treatable, but she lived another year. Although she got to where she couldn't eat kibble anymore, I fed her the soft food, adding water to it when I needed to. Eventually, she got to where she couldn't clean herself anymore, and I hated having to bathe her because she absolutely hated it. Then Lydia took over, and kept her clean and groomed for the rest of her life. A few days after her death, it may have been coincidental, but I found Lydia lying on the rock that I had placed on her mother's grave.

 

I was going through some photos, looking for something else, but thought I'd post these.


This is Lydia and Cutie, sisters from the same litter. Lydia lived to be 26, and we lost Cutie at 28. It was more common for them to be fighting than lying in the same cat bed.


This is Bird. She was born feral. Her mom had a litter of kittens in the porch of a vacant house next to one of our ambulance stations in Edcouch, Texas. Dogs killed all but one of her siblings and ran their mom off. I didn't have room in my house for any more cats, so we boarded up the door to the porch so that dogs couldn't get in, and left some hospital sheets there for them to sleep in, and I fed them for a couple of years. When we moved from Texas to Maine, her sister had been lost to traffic, and there was just Bird. We took her with us. She lived to be 24. She never lost all of her feral attributes but she took to the litter box immediately and loved being a house kitty. I swear she even liked being called a "house kitty."


Lydia and Ella were never best of friends but, while Lydia still had her health, she didn't give Ella much of a break. Ella is not amused.


This is Bird again. She doesn't look like it but she was in her late teens or early 20s here. She was tiny but no one would mess with her.


Cutie and Lydia again.


That's Lydia on the higher perch, Cutie below. If I remember correctly, this photo was taken right after a fight, one that I think Cutie wanted to continue.


Lydia's moods were strongly related to how high up she could be. While she could still make the climb, she preferred the high spots.

 

I just came across this photo. Neither of these girls is with me anymore, but that's Lydia on the right, and Obie on the left. My cats have never been big on sharing. These two shared this cat bed for only a few minutes and, as you can see, the paws are up and the claws are out. Although Obie was much larger, Lydia won.