animal rescue | Wendy Welch: Books, Yarn, Cats, Opioids

birdie 2

I wasn’t feeling so great, had a kitty cold or something, so I went to get a drink from the puddle. It’s by the road and I’m drinking and WOOSH everything goes dark. I come to and this lady’s got me in her lap and she’s stroking me and crying, “It’s gonna be okay, sweetie, gonna be okay.”

The stroking was nice but the moving, I’d never been INSIDE a car before. The other cats always said to avoid them. But these nice people, they took me to this place full of white light and barking dogs and I thought, Nonono, but it was true. This was that VET CLINIC I’d heard about.

They’re poking and prodding and I’m still not feeling so great, but nothing hurts, the car went over me and I passed out. Gave me a fright. Don’t tell anyone.

And while that vet’s looking, I give a mighty sneeze an’ damn if she don’t start talking about Youth Nation Services. I don’t know what this is but the people what brung me, they start crying harder. And I’m racking my brains for what the other cats back there in the woods said about Youth Nation, and it hits me….

Oh Hell No, honey, not this little black cat. I start meowing and going crazy and one of ‘em from the clinic speaks Cat. Kendra’s her name, and I’m pleading with her and she says, let her take care of me for the weekend and come Monday they can “reassess.” birdie 1

Reassess my ass, kiddos. I’m getting outta here, but Kendra, she puts me in a cage and it’s got a soft bed and all I want to eat, and a private toilet, and, well, I get some shuteye and she’s standing there with some nasty stuff I gotta swallow. Bitter, ick, but she’s nice about it and you know after a day I’m feeling a little better. Kendra learns quickly how I like my food served and where to fluff my pillow so it’s working out.

Come Monday I’m showing ‘em every trick I got, the cute belly roll, the pathetic meow, the “PLEASE DON’T EUTH ME” big green eyes, and it works! The little one says to my new best friend Kendra, “Call Wendy.”

Great. I gotta break in another human? But this chick comes and then I’m in a moving cage, and another car ride, but there’s no mention of Youth Nation, so I figure I got this.

BOY HOWDY do I! You shoulda seen the place we went to: ceilings to the sky, everywhere I looked a cat toy, and there were THREE places to eat and TWO toilets!

So I’m thinking I landed on all four paws when around the corner comes this tiny kitten. Really cute. Cuter than me. We can’t have that, so I go to take care of it, and this Wendy woman acts like I’m an ax murderer. What, this place doesn’t operate on the law of the jungle? Is there a sign anywhere that says, “Please do not take out the competition?” There is not.

But she explains it properly so I leave the little brat alone, and here come two more kittens! One’s got stitches in her neck and she’s real pretty, so I call her Frankenkitty. It’s hard on us black cats. The other one’s black like me, but turns out he’s the baby’s brother, so he’s kinda cautious about my motivations. He explains we’re all here to get dropped; we get a family that looks after us forever and a place to live like this one, and staff to do our bidding.

I cuff him once in thanks and we play a little. He’s a nice kid but he has to get dropped with his sister, so he’s still competition. Frankenkitty bursts into tears if I so much as look at her; she says her name is Andromeda and could I please call her that. As if. COMPETITION puddy tat, that’s what you are.

So now I’m waiting for the right sucker to walk through the door, someone who understands my sensibilities and special needs. I’m in charge. Don’t mind if it’s dogs or cats, don’t mind how many people live in the house, but if you got little kids who are scared of having their knuckles chewed, maybe I’m not the kitty for you. I never break skin, but chewing, it’s like my signature way of saying I love you. Some people use flowers, I’m told. That’s just weird.

Come visit me. I’ll bite your knuckle and see if you taste like forever. Pay no attention to the cute brats under the bed.

Note: I skipped day four in Rapid City to go back later and hook it to some other cultural activities. Today let us tell you about the Badlands and the amazing wild(ish) animals we saw there. You may have to expand some pictures to see what we were seeing; I only had my phone for taking them.

Oh, the animals! Oliver and Barbara were mad keen to see a buffalo, and I am a prairie dog geek, so we took them around the Sage Rim Road (unpaved) of the Badlands, and saw four sets of buffalo. Jack sat in the back and clung to the armrest with white knuckles. My beloved does not care for “unimproved” roads, but he knew how badly the rest of us wanted to see Robert’s Prairie Dog town and the Buffalo Wallow.

We were not disappointed. The first buffalo was far distant, available only with the binoculars, and walking away from us. Still, B&O were happy: they had now seen one. We drove around a corner (note to self: do not let Oliver drive the wildlife loops because he turns into the guy who wants to Get There, even when there is no There to Get to) and nearly careened into a male and two females wandering aimlessly across the grasses.

Buffalo are majestic but when they’re walking, it’s like watching an animal cracker move. They’re such odd shapes as they amble, like a pushme-pullme of Dr. Doolitte fame. It takes a bit of practice to tell which end is front.

Replete with buffalo, we started up again and hadn’t gone a mile before I saw something in the grasses moving the opposite direction. It took a second to realize, but when I yelled “OMIGOSH a COYOTE!” Oliver threw us onto the roadside and was out of the car before the rest of us could get our seatbelts off.

The coyote, a very large male, walked along the side of the road less than a quarter mile from us for a few miles, so we started driving along, getting a bit ahead and watching him coming. So long as we didn’t get into the grass, he didn’t care. He was in fact much more interested in the prairie dogs who were very interested in what he decided to do next. He must not have been hungry, because he didn’t do much more than stare at one in a “do I want salad or protein” sort of way.

He finally ambled off into the morning rain (which is why we were seeing so many animals; the drizzle had cooled everything nicely in a pleasant blue half-daylight.

We figured it didn’t get any better than this until we climbed a peak and saw an enormous deer below. Mule deer it turned out, but I shouted Moose so Oliver would stop. I wasn’t sure “deer” would cut it.

And in reaching the top of the peak to watch the deer watch us, we discovered why the Badlands have so little water. The hard rock hills we’d climbed the day before were now so soft, we gained five pounds in shoe clay and had a nasty moment when we all thought we were sinking. Now I know why they warn through hikers in the Badlands that you’d better know what you’re doing, not just about the water, but about climbing the rocks. They’re not really rocks, but porous clay cliffs waiting for unsuspecting people to sink into them.

But we made it out, cameras full to the brim, went around the corner, and found a herd of long horn sheep resting, including one baby who wanted quite badly to cross the road and meet us. We had to shoo him back as the adults lay there, placidly chewing in the drizzle. It’s hard to get good child care these days, but he finally understood he should stay there.

A coyote in the wild, four herd of buffalo, a second mule deer when we reached Sylvan Lake, and all the prairie dogs in the world–it was a good two days.

I’m just going to string the pictures below here because the Internet is hard to use in the Lodge and it may go out again any moment.