"You must be a cat lover." This has to be the comment I hear most often, when people are viewing my portfolio or my work. And yes, I admit to it, I am a cat lover. I love all animals though, not just cats, but for my lifestyle a cat fits in just fine and always having had one in my home has helped to inspire me in my work. Let me introduce you to my feline friends that have been my inspiration and companions over the years. You will find them throughout my paintings.

This is "The Cat", named after the cat that I grew up with. Now you have to understand that the cat that I grew up with got this name following a succession of cats and kittens that didn't hang around for very long (5 kids in the house might have had something to do with that), so she was never really properly named on the assumption that she too would disappear. She stayed for 14 years, and died from kidney failure. The cat pictured here was found in Jacques Cartier park at about 8 weeks of age, on her own. I was preparing to move out of home at the time, and she became my room mate. She was identical in appearance to the cat, hence her name. She survived the birth of my first two children, pouting for a couple of weeks each time. At the age of 16, her body failed her, and she died in my arms, with a little help from the vet.

We brought The Cat home, and buried her, and while this was going on, the neighbour's cat came through the fence for a visit. She was a tiny little black cat, just like The Cat, and I picked her up and held her and cried. Then I felt the kittens inside her moving. A few weeks later, the neighbours asked us if we would like a kitten. At first we said no, the thought of the emotional anguish in losing a pet was too much at the time. But this one kitten, there were only two of them, kept coming through the fence. He would be waiting outside the door in the morning, camped out on our back porch. He played on the street in front of our house, to the point that I was running outside several times a day to tell him this was not safe. He would crawl all over my three year old daughter and she would say "But Mommy, he just WANTS to be my kitty." One cold, rainy October evening I came home to find him dripping wet at the back door. I brought him in, fed him and sort of had him neutered a couple of months later. The neighbours had no problem with this, they were still looking for a home for him. He had already been named, Mickey, we assume that this was because of the size of his ears in proportion to his body when he was a kitten. For three years I kept Mickey indoors, unless of course I was walking him on his harness which he loved. He would heel like a dog, loved going for car rides and had many behavioural characteristics of a Maine Coon. I later discovered that other neighbours had an unaltered male Maine Coon that was let out, and I'm pretty sure this was Mickey's dad. At the age of three, Mickey started spraying in the house. This is when he became an outdoor cat. I remember it well, an elderly neighbour was over for a visit, and Mickey walked up to her and sprayed on her skirt.
And so began a new life for him, mousing on the Experimental Farm behind our house, overnight disappearances, and summertime concerts on the back deck with the female cats. Apparently Mickey didn't notice the neutering. And a new life began for us too. Numerous vet bills, a cyst here, a nasty cut there, oh and there was the time he ate the wool. $648.84. Mickey truly had nine lives, but unfortunately he used them all up in 7 short years. On a rainy summer night, coming home from the farm, he must have been invisible to the driver of the car that hit him. He tried to get home but the fence was in the way. We buried him beside The Cat. I will always miss him, he was such a loving cat.

What a face. When people see my paintings of Emily in my portfolio, they don't believe it until I show them the photo of her. After losing Mickey I knew that I had to have another feline companion. I asked around, I was looking for someone with Mickey's passive personality. A mutual friend put me in touch with Emily's room mate, who was moving to the States and could not take Emily with her. Emily and I interviewed each other and it was decided that we were a good match. She came home with me, from 7 years in an apartment to a house with all kinds of great hiding places. Emily knew how to open doors and would frequently get into cupboards and empty them out. The day she got into my paint cupboard and dumped a can of polyurethane inside it was the day I realized that although my children had outgrown childproof locks my cat had not. Emily was the first cat to vacation with us at the cottage. One very hot August night, we had left the door to the deck open, with just the sliding screen door shut and locked to allow for air circulation. We awoke in the middle of the night, to find the screen door open approximately one cats width and the cottage full of mosquitoes. Emily had discovered that by slightly lifting the door she could disengage the lock. I went out onto the deck to look for her. We had a gate to the steps that had been put there for childproofing purposes and it was closed.
There was no sign of Emily, meaning that she would have had to squeeze her very chubby body through spindles that are very close together. And she had done that, escaped down the steps, going downhill apparently wasn't a problem for her, but getting her belly back up through the spindles was. There she was, in the pouring rain, stuck on the other side of the gate. Lucky for her, the raccoons decided not to visit that night. Unfortunately, Emily was not with us for too many more adventures, her belly hid a liver tumour that was too massive to operate on. Only 10 months after this affectionate cat joined our family, the vet discovered her illness, and although we tried to make her as comfortable as possible it soon became apparent that she too would die in my arms with the assistance of the vet. And she did so with dignity, my 14 year old son came with me, which was good because it gave him some insight into how what we were doing by putting Emily to sleep was a good thing, not just us "killing" her. We buried Emily beside Mickey.

Off I went to the Humane Society, a few weeks later, and there were Emily's eyes looking at me from inside one of the cages. My son had said, "Mom get a young cat this time" and sure there were lots of cute kittens and younger cats, but then....there were those EYES. Bailey's history card told me a lot about her. She was 7 or 8 years old at the time, had been with the same family her entire life, along with a feline companion who had since been adopted separately. The family had moved and brought their two cats to the Humane Society. Bailey had been "Pet of the week" on the local news, and lots of people had come to see her, but I guess her age put them off. So she had been in this cage for 3 weeks, after a lifetime of freedom, and her fur was greasy and full of dandruff. She was pretty stressed out. She came home with me, and within a week had shiny soft fur again. The second week after she joined us, I took a break from painting and laid on the couch. To my amazement, Bailey jumped up on my chest and started kneading her claw less paws in my neck, then curled up and purred herself to sleep. This was when I knew she had truly settled in, and now it has become almost a daily ritual. Bailey has been with us for a year now, and just had her annual check-up at the vet. Okay so she is now on diet food, but otherwise she is healthy and keeps herself well groomed.

The little kitten that stole our hearts...well maybe not Bailey's.
Minky's story.

More Shadow and Hope pictures.

February, 2007

It has been a while since I have added to this page, but an addition to our "menagerie" has inspired me to write about him/her. We do not know the sex yet, and it may be a while because he/she needs to grow a bit before I can determine that. However for now, "his" name is Hannibal, which may change to Hannibelle later in life.

Hannibal is a red eared slider turtle. My 18 year old daughter found him in a pet store at the age of 4 months and begged and pleaded with me to set him up in my art room at the school. My previous experience with turtles as pets had been very negative. As a child, I had a turtle that lived in a round plastic dish with a plastic palm tree in the center (some of you late baby boomers will remember this scenario)  and one day it escaped; I found it dead under a couch a few days later. Later in life, much later, when my now 22 year old son was about 5, my mother-in-law bought him a turtle for his birthday ( I think it was because of the then popular "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles") and the poor little thing sat on his rock, never swam and never ate until he died.

There are laws in Canada about turtles. They can't be imported live from the United States, so I think at one point the eggs were being imported and hatched here. And I think this is why my little brown turtle and my son's little brown turtle died. They were simply too young to be sold as pets.

Hannibal, however is different. He came to the pet store as a four month old that had been bred in Quebec, even though his breed is native to Texas. My research tells me that if you are going to have a pet turtle, the red-eared slider is the most adaptable to that situation, provided that it is given enough room, proper care and handling. They can grow to about the size of a dinner plate (and their accommodation must be adjusted accordingly) and live upwards of 40 years old.

Now, I am not a huge fan of keeping a wild animal as a pet, but Hannibal seems to love us! He is currently in a "pond" type environment that allows him a lot of more space for his size at this point. The water is heated to between 75 and 85 degrees fahrenheit, he has has a sand bottom as opposed to gravel, live plants and a "turtle basking ramp" along with the appropriate light over it to simulate sunlight. He is in my art room at the school for now; the girls love him! But I will not let them touch him due to the possibility of salmonella that young turtles can carry. Once he is about 4 inches across he should be clear of that...if he even has it. I can get a veterinarian to check for me.

When I take Hannibal out of his "pond" he does not tuck himself away into his shell. He is curious about his surroundings and when placed on a flat surface, checks it out carefully. When he is in his pond, and I arrive in the art room he immediately swims to the front of his "pond" and begs for food, which is typical of his breed. But we have to be very careful about what we feed him and to not overfeed him as any problems in diet can cause what is called a pyramid shell, which is not a good thing. So far, Hannibal is doing very well. He has doubled in size since we got him, mostly shell-wise, and we are making sure not to feed him more than he can eat within two minutes which should be about the size of his head. As he gets older we will have to provide live food ( I hate this part) such as feeder goldfish, but I have also discovered that since his food needs to be moving around for him to see it, an air diffuser works well, so we may get away with hamburger or something. We will work on that later.

For the summer, Hannibal will probably come home with us and live the outdoor life on our deck. He has a lid over him with a spot cut out for his light, so no large animals can get him, but he will probably catch a few mosquitoes. We have a thermometer in his "pond" so we can monitor the temperature. A good sign that he is cold is if he hovers near the heater.

April 15th, 2007

I went back to the pet store that my daughter got Hannibal from today and was a bit perturbed to find that they had yet another batch of baby turtles in. I think that I thought when she got him, that once all the turtles were sold, that that would be the end of it. But by buying one of them, we have obviously increased the demand. Whether we bought one or not, we cannot change the fact that they are out there, available for sale, and I hope that everyone else that has bought one has done their research and are caring for their turtles accordingly.

   Hannibal, at the age of 5 months...he is the green one.