Luna’s Mumma

On Friday (1/11) we are picking up the newest member of our family, a gorgeous Ragdoll X cat!

As it’s so many years since we had a cat, I had to buy everything she will need. Thanks to Chloe’s boyfriends mum, we have a covered cat litter tray and we already have a triangle corner one. I’ve bought 15kg of pine cat litter to keep us going for a little while as it’s quite economical and works out a lot cheaper in bigger bags. In fact I shopped around online and compared the prices of horse bedding, wood pellets for stoves and cat litter and on this occasion the cat litter was around the same price as those labelled otherwise. I’ve been given all of PomPom’s dietary info from the cat shelter and so I’ve bought in 80 Felix pouches and a bag of Pro Plan dry cat food. She will also need 2 Prednisone tablets per day as she suffered with stomatitis & has lost some teeth. She is 10 years old and will be on the ‘Preds’ for the rest of her life. I wasn’t as eager to meet her once the cat shelter staff told me this but the medication is so cheap and once I did meet her, I fell in love with her big blue eyes and snuggly long fur, for which I will be responsible for the grooming of. I have had to buy everything from brushes, bowls, poo scoopers, catnip spray, catnip seeds, treats and toys including catnip infused hessian toy and ball, a toy on the end of a rod, a couple of ‘laser pointers’ specifically for cats with a mouse image and a pawprint image projected from the beams. I bought a catit super senses track with 2 extra illuminated balls, 5 catnip infused fish, a scratching pad with a stiff arch of bristles for her to rub herself against, a corrugated cardboard thing for her to lie on or scratch...with catnip to sprinkle in, a 3 tier round track which balls run around and besides that I needed a cat carrier (I could borrow but PomPom will need vet trips and so it’s easier to buy), an igloo bed, a dome/ufo bed and a radiator bed. I am so very excited and so is my oldest son at home, he is very much a cat-man!

I think PomPom is going to be the best loved cat in the village! She’s an indoor cat and always has been and so rather than risk her go missing when she needs daily medication or risk her being run over, I’d rather keep her safe! My hubby gets cross when cats kill songbirds and didn’t want a cat of ours contributing to the issue, although our garden has become the territory of the fluffball/PomPom lookalike who actually lives next door. She likes the buildings in our garden.

I used to have a Labrador called Mollie as my assistance dog. She helped immensely in the house and with my anxieties, but unfortunately she was STOLEN by the most EVIL person I ever met in my life and I was devastated, knowing I could not afford to buy a ready-trained dog and for it to then have extra training to match to my needs.

However one evening whilst feeling especially low, and just randomly browsing an app called Pets4Homes, I saw a dog and just by looking at her photo, I felt a connection. I contacted her owner and asked so many questions and he sent me videos of her walking both on and off-lead because I couldn’t walk with a lead-puller. Her owner replied giving me all the answers I wanted to hear and so I arranged to go over to Lincoln to see her, and if she was what he had said, we were going to bring her home. Upon seeing her, my heart melted more than it had at the photograph, and I fell in love with her mother Amber too. Given the chance I would have brought both home with me but the owner was keeping Amber (which is why I got so upset a fair while later to find he had sold Amber too, as I would have given her the perfect home.) I still believe to this day Luna and I are meant to be together. Maybe she is the reincarnation of a dog I saved, back in the early 90’s when he was abandoned at my workplace. I took him to the police station after my shift and they said he would stay in a cell overnight and would be collected by the dog pound in the morning but I would not allow it and so I took him with me to my boyfriend at the times house. My mother wouldn’t let me keep him at my family home and I even tried to find accommodation whereby I could live with the dog. I couldn’t find anything and so the next evening, Arnie came to work with me back at the petrol station where I worked and a regular customer I knew was after a young dog who he would feel was a good house dog. He took Arnie to live with him and I never forgot him. I’d often go and take treats for him. In 1993 I moved in with a different boyfriend who I married and due to a problem, the ‘owner’ of Arnie offered him back to me but my bf was scared of dogs and said no which broke my heart. I don’t know where Arnie eventually went to live and it was that not-knowing that has always troubled me. So when I saw that initial photo of Luna, I just clicked. My husband wasn’t pleased about another dog and felt a Staffordshire Bull Terrier was not the breed I needed, but I made an arrangement with my son that if we got Luna, she would be ours, and we would cater for her needs. Thankfully when my husband realised what an absolutely perfect dog she is, he couldn’t resist her. She has helped the anxiety of both my son and I. I feel safe with her and cannot ever imagine my life without her in it and I would kill anyone who tried to take her away. She helps with my physical disabilities too but not in the way Mollie did. Luna has been in great health ever since she came to live with us but sadly she has been suffering with irritated eyes and my husband has treated her twice daily with an antibiotic cream for conjunctivitis. The cream seems to work for a day, then the infection comes back again. Her vision seems to be affected and it’s worrying be so badly. Luna needs to see a vet and has an appointment within the next hour. My hubster is taking her because he knows I am an expert at meltdowns when it’s someone I love who is suffering and I treat Luna like my child. She is currently snuggled with me in bed. As I lay facing the wall on my left side, my knees are slightly bent and my baby Lu is snuggled behind them. She sleeps with me all day from coming back off her morning walk, until her afternoon walk...then she comes back for another snoozy cuddle until it’s time for her evening walk. She is so chilled! I hope her eye problem is curable and she retains her sight. If she loses her sight then it is mine and Ed’s turn to be her assistants (although we do everything for her anyway) it would mean putting padding on anything she could walk into, to soften everything and not let her bump into stuff. Luna is my life. I will be destroyed the day when I no longer have her.