The Case of the Missing Ralphie

Yesterday Li’l Ralphie went missing. We didn't realize it, but when Edgar and I took the horses out for a ride, several people had visited, knocking, trying doors to see if we were around. They even opened the door to our cat room to see if we were home. When we came back, the visitors were still there, but Li'l Ralphie wasn't. He was GONE!


The moment we found Ralphie absent from the living room and garden room, our relatives and we headed a full house search, but no one turned up a little orange kitten: nothing--no Ralphie. After an hour of searching inside, I figured he must’ve gotten outside somehow, sneaking out when they had opened the doors. I was frantic Li'l Raphie was gone but reasonably sure a little kitten couldn't go far and that, since it was only late morning, I'd have plenty of time to find him before dark. With better things to do, our visitors left with the salutations that they hoped Ralphie would turn up soon.



They couldn't have been more wrong.



Edgar and I approached the search analytically: "Where would a kiten go? Why wasn't he answering us or appearing to us when we called?" The answer was obvious: he must be stuck somewhere--in a pipe, a vent, a cabinet. It was more likely, we reasoned, that he was still inside the house, so we expanded the house search to opening every indoor space capable of harboring a kitten-sized object--every drawer, cabinet, closet, etc. We searched each room several times, calling his name—no Ralphie.



Finally, with the inside exhausted of finding the kitten, we took our search outside--driving our cars through the alfalfa fields surrounding our woods, taking the golf cart along the brush beside the road, and walking through the woods calling Ralphie's name—no Ralphie. At 2:30, after opening every door to every outside building and callling inside, shining the flashlight around, after getting on hands and knees and prying our heads down an opening of the deck to look around underneath, I really began to worry.

Li'l Ralphie wasn't anywhere in the house, not the basement, the furnace room, the exercise room, the pantry where I stored my canned products from the summer harvest. And he appeared not to be outside either. We had literally looked everywhere humanly possible--even down groundhog holes in the woods. I had bounced across the alfalfa fields, searching and calling through the brush under the power lines. I had roared with the cart through the fields scanning the rows for something orange--nothing, except for an occasional fall leaf. I called down across fields, inspected the Pig Palace where lived four of our pot-bellied pigs, and I had driven alongside the road in search of a little red body--nothing. And all of the searching Edgar and I did separately, together, and numerous times. Each out-building was inspected three times, at least. And, in between searches to the outside, we went back into the house, checking the rooms upstairs. It was simply unfathomable that a kitten could have walked half a mile away, yet a small woods a half mile away was another area we searched: not once, but twice. Going back inside again, we tore up a couple of ceiling tiles in the exercise room, shut down the air exchanger and tapped on the huge python-like pipes leading to away from it--no movement or cries for help.



Finally, in late afternoon and without anymore options for searching, and absolutely exhausted, Edgar gave up, but I continued to walk the woods--calling, pleading for my kitten to magically appear and come to me. I had already changed to my winter coat, a scarf and hat and gloves--the temp was plummeting, which only made me more anxious and tearful because Ralphie was too little to survive freezing temperatures. Behind every bush, every tree stump, I imagined finding Ralphie, sticking his head up. I imagined his running up to me and purring as I held him in my coat, but my images never panned out, and the day steadily darkened.



Finally, I, too, could go no more. Darkness made searching outside impossible. So, imagining him somewhere out in the alfalfa field or woods alone, lost, and scared, I came in and just stared outside into the woods—no Ralphie, and we had absolutely looked everywhere, under the pool cover, even under the hoods of cars, in the barn loft, listening and tapping on the air-conditioning vents. But Ralphie had, simply, disappeared into thick air. I resorted to tears because I was out of all other options.

At around 6PM it was completely black outside, so the only place we could hunt was in the house, and we had already searched each room several times. The search seemed futile. In one last ditch attempt to locate the missing kitten, Edgar decided to turn off the air system in the house: perhaps we could hear a kitten’s meow better when the swooshing noise was silenced. He flicked the switch, and the house went quiet. At the bottom of the stairs, I called for Li’l Ralphie. The next moment I heard a tiny meow. I ran to the kitchen and called again: nothing. I ran back to the foyer and yelled: a tiny, tinny meow answered. I tore upstairs and opened, for what was probably the sixth time that day, the door to my craft (junk) room, and, suddenly, out ran Li'l Ralphie. I gasped. He ran past me, down the steps, with me following in a fury (in an instant my worry turned to anger: Why hadn't he come to us all the times when we called for him in that room?) I followed him to the litterbox where he hunkered down and peed for what seemed like a full minute.

It’s certainly good to know that, to Ralphie, we rate lower than a litter box. The only thing that mattered to Li’l Ralphie was having to empty his bladder. One piece of advice I can offer anyone with kittens is to teach a kitten to respond and come to his name as soon as possible. Had I conditioned him to do that from the beginning, he might have come to me from behind wherever he was hiding in that room.


I can't tell you the relief Edgar and I both felt at sight of Li'l Ralphie in his litterbox. I was happy because now I didn't have to imagine him in a fox's lair, being ripped limb from limb by the predator. I didn't have to worry about his being lost and scared and freezing through the night. I didn't have to worry about my own state, how I'd cope during the night and the next days and weeks wondering what ever happened to the kitten we rescued from shoulder of the highway. I was, at once, so irritated with him for ignoring us when we searched that junk room, yet so glad he was all right.

The rest of the night Ralphie was playing with my hair and romping all over me, but I refused to indulge him. I was pissed and wasn't speaking to him--just as he hadn't spoken to use when we called for all those hours--his disappearance had sucked up my entire day; I had been exhausted from worry and had walked through woods, fields, barn lofts for hours. Who knew how far he had driven up my blood pressure?--probably to dangerous heights. He had deliberately ignored our calls until, so bursting full of pee, he had no other choice but to ask for help.

This morning Ralphie greeted us when we came downstairs. I shook my head, remembering yesterday's awful experience, and still feeling a twinge of anger with him. But I'm over it now. I'm speaking to him this morning.

I am anonymous.

I posted the comment about Li'l Ralphie and his two buddies a moment ago. It was in response to Stella's and Jeannette's comments about their rescues. However, I didn't realize that my comment wouldn't have my name--so much for understanding computers and blogsites. I'll take my animals any day.

Li'l Ralphie Revisited

A month has passed since I snatched a tiny orange and white kitten, eyes and nose pasted shut, from the side of a major road. Li'l Ralphie is a survivor: he has endured being thrown out of a car onto a highway; he has conquered a terrible upper respiratory illness and an abscess; and he has found himself a lasting home with us.

Li'l Raphie, named after our old Ralphie who died a couple of months ago, entertains and warms my heart in mysterious ways. The typical kitten, he struts when he's feeling proud; he hides when the tea kettle whistles; he skips sideways in a threatening stance when I sneak up on him. And when he's all worn out from playing, he jumps onto the sofa with me, sprawled out, and drapes himself along the front of my neck. With his two-pound weight on my throat, I have a little trouble swallowing, but it's all right: Li'l Ralphie's is in sound sleep.

Admittedly, I'm a person who thinks too much and too weird thoughts; it's why I write--you know, the old "outlet" thing. But this two-pound, fur-wrapped creature is so puzzling and endearing at the same time. For instance, I watch Li'l Ralphie skipping along the carpet in a prelude to an attack upon his catnip spider. He springs then wrestles it into submission, and I marvel at the ferocious creation packed within those two pounds. And then my imagination takes over, and strange things begin to happen.

Two pounds of fur and wonder. Two pounds composed of guts, a little brain, bones, tendons and ligaments to make the bones and muscles work, a pancreas, liver, stomach, lungs--all put together so ingeniously as to allow this creature to jump, stalk, leap, twist in the air, and, in all ways, thrive. It just seems as though there's not enough "stuff" inside the fur-covered skin to allow it to manifest itself as a playful, curious, proud, wild being. And I can hardly fathom, too, how all the organs and whatever else inside him allows him to wrap his arms around my neck and purr his love for me. Such manifestation of what I consider, in many ways, human behavior, all comes out of a body weighing only two pounds. For some reason, I can more easily comprehend a human being mysterious, vain, egoistic, etc., because there's obvious size and capacity to contain the machinery for such feelings. In Li'l Ralphie's case, his being a character with strong personality and loving attributes just seems harder to fathom--yet it's all there--inside that tiny body: at times contentment, ferocity, playfulness, trust of another, very different and, in comparison, very huge body--i.e. mine--that sweeps him off his tiny paws, into the air, and plants sloppy kisses on his nose.

Because this tiny, two-pound creature is capable of reacting, feeling pain, and expressing, in his own way, love for me, and because I always like to share, I have a favor to ask of my followers and anyone else who happens upon this blog. Here it is: Li'l Ralphies exist in animal kill-shelters all over this country. In these facilities in cages stacked high, sit gorgeous two-pound kittens just like Li'l Ralphie waiting for a chance to blossom--skip, leap, purr--have a decent life. They never asked to be born and never did anything wrong to warrant being taken to a shelter to live one or two weeks in a cage before being euthanized. So, as a favor to me, to the Li'l Ralphies in shelters, and to yourself, please go to the website of your local shelter--I beg you. Scroll down the images of the cats and kittens that have never been given a chance to skip, play, be curious, and run and leap through the grass as Li'l Ralphie has. Look into their faces and make the decision to adopt one or even two. And then call, ask about the kitten and commit to adopting him or her. I promise, you won't regret it. In return the kitten will reward you with hours of entertainment--little two or three pound wonders that will make you laugh and feel a warmth of spirit that, in this world, we feel too few times. If you're worried about the commitment, don't. They don't expect much--just a small breakfast and dinner each day and a dry, warm place to sleep. And a litter box would be a good thing. If you give one of these cats a home and basic care, they will repay you hundredfold just as Li'l Ralphie has repaid me.

Adopt a cat or kitten--two kittens, if you can afford it, from your local kill-shelter. Relish the experience of rescuing a creature who really, truly needs you and appreciates you, and then write to me on this blog and share your experiences of your two-pound wonders. Your efforts will not go unnoticed or appreciated, and I promise you will feel more complete, more fine, more satisfied than you have in years.

Li'l Ralphie

Our bellies filled with a sumptuous outdoor lunch of smoked chicken wings and baked potatoes, we drove towards home on one of the last beautiful, sunshine-filled days of autumn. What a difference from the day before when our rain gauge reported an inch and a half of rain.

Going 50 mph on the main drag towards home, I saw something sitting by the side of the road, but the form didn't register with my brain as the typical groundhog or possum. Suddenly I knew what it was, and then a second image flooded my brain: a paw stepping out onto the road. "TURN AROUND!" I yelled to Edgar. "HURRY! Turn around! There's a kitten by the side of the road!"

Edgar whipped the SUV around in a cut-out alongside the highway and pulled out just as a school bus came charging up behind us. "Where is it?" Edgar said, peering ahead, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

"Just up here--in this wooded area. It was . . . " Up ahead we could see cars' break lights going on and off.

"Where is it?" Edgar repeated.

And then we saw the kitten--an orange one the size of a Campbell soup can--crouched in the middle of our lane of traffic. "THERE! RIGHT THERE! PUT ON THE FOUR-WAYS. STOP!"

Even before Edgar had brought the car to a complete halt, I was out the door and running. Cars zipped past us in the other lane, and the kitten turned away from the whoosh of the traffic-wind. I called to the kitten, and it slowly turned toward me, its face a mass of crusticles and snot. Surely it couldn't see where it was walking. I scooped the creature into my arms, turned, and ran back to the car.

Back in the car I held the tiny creature against my chest, plucked a Kleenex, and began pulling the pus-scabs from around the kitten's swollen-red eyes. The nose, too, was concreted shut with dried snot. He must've known he was in kind hands because he let me pull all that junk from his fur without any fussing. Then, as we headed down the road, I noticed a quarter-sized scab dried on his fur. I scraped at that with a fingernail, and it opened up, allowing a river of pus to run down his side--an abscess. I caught the pus with another Kleenex, and a fleeting thought passed as to whether my cashmere sweater was also catching any of the nasty fluids. But the sweater didn't concern me much All that mattered was the kitten's welfare and comfort.

As we drove toward home, I held the trembling kitten against me. Though he was safe now in my hands, I broke down into tears. How many other kittens are disposed of so violently, so nonchalantly by people who have no sense of responsibility, no sense of charity or empathy for an animal that can't care for itself? I cried because of our unfathomable inhumanity, our crass egoism that values cell phones and blackberries more than creatures that can feel pain and misery. I cried because the little creature in my lap didn't deserve being discarded like some piece of trash. I cried because, had we not rescued him in that perfect split-second, the school bus would have pulverized him for sure. I cried because luck and good timing had been on the side of this kitten but that luck and good timing usually didn't benefit most creatures cast off by heartless people. Most creature-trash succumbed by the side of the road.

That was yesterday afternoon.

This morning, after an evening of intensive nursing, antibiotics, ophthalmic treatments, and nutritious food, Li'l Ralphie, named in honor of Ralphie, one of our barn cats who died about a month ago from old age, came running to me from the garden room: one eye wide open, the other half shut with more dried pus. He squeaked at me but suddenly fell quiet--his feline enthusiasm interrupted by a fit of wheezing and sneezing. But he was happy, and he was grateful to be alive. And I was just as ecstatic for him and for me.

Remembering Fancy-III

As I said before in "Remembering Fancy II" blog, Fancy's birth back in 1979 was a traumatic one. After her mother gave birth on the crest of a hill, the foal must've lost her balance and plunged down the hill and into the creek below. Luckily, from his bedroom my father-in-law heard Fancy's mother, Merry, whinnying and snorting. He rushed into the pasture in his nightie, shined his flashlight around, and after spotting the newborn foal in the rushing waters, plucked her from the creek and delivered her safely back to her mother.

Here is my description of our newborn foal right after her rescue from the creek. The excerpt is from my book, Touched By All Creatures: Doctoring Animals in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country:

Edgar lifted the baby into the stable where the floor was thick with good-smelling straw. In the light we examined and caressed our new furry wet gift while Merry nudged it protectively. Edgar, checking the sex, announced we had a baby girl, a filly, and we decided to call her Fancy, for, indeed, she was.

She stood on skinny, shaky legs, less than an hour old. Her body was thin but healthy looking, and she sported a shiny fur coat. But this young, freshly-made equine model looked, at the same time, old, for around her thin pink muzzle had grown long whiskers that resembled a grizzled old man. These hairs would help her feel for her mother's udder when she was ready to nurse.

Her eyes, big and set too wide apart for the size of her small head, glinted a kind of crystal translucent brown. She glanced curiously from her mother to the sides of the stalls, to the straw bedding, and to the three of us. She looked perplexed, and it was no wonder, for only moments ago she had been inside her mother's womb in darkness. Now she searched, inquired, and marveled at this new world, and we three, enthralled with this newborn's wonder at a world into which she was so rudely thrust, could merely watch in silence and awe.

She seemed as fragile as a china doll, as though she would crack if she fell against something. Even her fur had pale highlights to it, resembling the color of bisque. We knew, of course, that within a few months she would shed that coat for a new, more fashionable color, possibly bay like her mother or a rich mahogany brown like her father. . . .

The Petless Person

First, not all people who live without pets do so because they dislike them. Usually, however, in the case of the petless person claiming he or she just isn't an animal person, this person has never lived with an animal. This lack of experience explains part of the misunderstanding about a pet's gift: their total acceptance and nonjudgmental approach to us.

Our pets don’t boss us, don’t judge us, usually seek to please us, and are always there for us—actions often the very opposite of most human friends and relatives. And when someone like you or me realizes the importance of pet companionship and when we prefer our pets to these inexperienced humans, our privileging the animal makes them feel inferior, smaller, and decidedly uncomfortable. What they sometimes don't realize is that they helped create the sticky situation—by ignoring you in your time of need, by laughing or snickering at your love for your pets, by criticizing you over your lifetime choices or goals--things our pets never do and wouldn't do even if they could speak, for their love and admiration for us is unconditional.

People who do not like animals usually see things in one-dimension. Their world revolves solely around people, and because of this, their personalities, motives, and values become one-dimensional as well. Though they my think themselves superior to the pet lover, they realize that you, as a lover of animals, consider them inferior because you recognize their lack of knowledge and their narrowed viewpoint of the world.

Some who claim they aren't attracted to animals seem proud of that fact. Why? Perhaps the claim makes them feel superior--but it shouldn't. They’re missing out on a whole other realm of life. The ability to communicate and respond to a different species makes us so much more able to communicate and empathize with other people who may not be like us. With a whole new set of communication skills, we animal people can more easily get past our limitatons and communicate with anyone who is of a different culture, religion, or political party simply because we have learned the nuances of communicating with our pets. This ability makes us superior to the petless person, doesn’t it?

Consider the horse and dog and cat whisperers who truly reside in a different world than most people. They are attuned to body gestures and eye contact. They are wise and compassionate people because they have learned to communicate in a way in which none of us were taught to communicate in school. Having this ability to break through to the world of animals makes us more sensitive, more intuitive, and we can bring this experience to our relationships with people as well.

So, if you are one of those people whose relatives and friends criticize your love of animals, rest proudly knowing that you reside and operate on a far higher level of understanding and sensitivity than do they. Stand proud for nurturing your ability to transcend the human condition.

Remembering Fancy II

Strange things have occurred with regard to Fancy's dying.


With Fancy's body on the bucket of our tractor, Edgar drove through two pastures--past the remaining four horses grazing in the field--to bring her into our horse pasture cemetery, where a large hole had been dug and where she would lie for eternity next to Nicky, Shadowfax, Lillie, and Merry, her mother. I walked alongside the tractor, and through my tears I saw the other horses, their heads down. Three of them were grazing as usual, undisturbed by just another piece of machinery driving past. But my hair stood up along the back of my neck at sight of Timmy.

As we drove slowly past, careful not to jostle Fancy out of the bucket, Timmy, our old Saddlebred, picked his head off the ground and snapped to attention. His head was high, his body as still as Fancy's. But it was his expression that unnerved me. His eyes held to the bucket wherein Fancy lay, and they were as wide as I've ever seen them--struck still, staring, staring hard. His expression was, in no uncertain terms, one of complete horror.

I nodded at Edgar, and he glanced at Timmy. And when he saw Timmy's reaction, Edgar, began to cry. I was already sobbing at the disconcerting sight of Timmy's shock seeing Fancy in such a compromising and ultimate position. Clearly Timmy was stunned, horrified, to see her being carried, helpless, across the pasture.

His reaction spoke volumes about the ability of an animal to realize death. To see this old horse stand so erect and in catatonic attention was proof, as far as I was concerned, that he knew Fancy was gone. His expression told us he was overwhelmed with the realization that her position in the bucket was unnatural and, therefore, final.

Here's the other odd thing about dealing with death, and it's no stranger to us, having been through many of our pets' deaths. It has to do with what our brains are accustomed to seeing. It happened with Nicky and Fax; I suppose it happens, too, when humans die. One's brain does not adjust very quickly to an animal's or person's absence. The brain "sees" the pet on her cushion, in her favorite chair, at her food dish in the corner of the kitchen. In my case, when I went to feed the horses last night, Fancy's stall was obviously, screamingly, vacant. It erupted a lump in my throat. Every time I passed by her stall, I had to deliberately adjust my brain for the absence because if I didn't, the fact of her death came pouring unmercifully over me. Habits die hard, and Fancy had been a fixture in that stall for a little less than thirty years. Fancy's presence in that stall had become hard-wired in my brain, and it was struggling to adjust.

This morning's feeding wasn't any better--still the horrific emptiness of the stall hitting me. And Julie, Fancy's sister and her pasture mate, stood by the wall between their two stalls, waiting, waiting for Fancy to come back. Julie's brain, too, had become conditioned to Fancy's presence beside her.

Until our brains adjust to this robbery, I vow to help Julie deal with her loss, too. I'm going to visit her several times a day while she's out on pasture. I'm going to fuss over her so that the 28 year old horse feels just a little less deprived of Fancy's company. And I'm going to pay extra attention, too, to poor Timmy, who almost had the life shocked out of him.