The Arrival of Paulie

(This is from another place where I post.  It's all my work, but it's not new to the internet.)

 I currently live in a mobile home with 7 cats and 4 dogs. Far too many animals, I know, but who would I get rid of? Nah, they are all my kids and I love them.

Now one of these dogs is really neat and pretty cool, but unfortunately, he does not like cats. In fact one of the cats he dislikes so much that he won’t let the cat out of the bedroom. (Poor Jeff has been in the bedroom for about 6 months now.) Anyway, this dog (his name is Murray) chases all the cats and barks at them. Oh, he is awful!

(Murray the cat-hater)

Finally, the top cat (Franklin) and the biggest cat (Adams) decided enough was enough, so they put him in his place with a single swipe each. After that, Murray left them alone, but he still chased all the neighborhood cats and barked at them.

But then someone snuck up to my house two nights ago. Around 1 o’clock in the morning, they put a something over the fence into my yard. Well, Murray went bonkers. He barked and barked at it.

I do not react well to dogs who bark at 1 am.

I got up to investigate, and possibly to spiflicate a dog. (Spiflicate? Don’t ask. It’s a terrible fate!) Lo and behold, what did I find but a kitten, just barely old enough to be away from its mother. It had a hurt hind leg and its eye was closed and swollen. When I picked it up, it was all bones. I wiped away the nasty stuff on the eye and leg and put it on the table where I feed the cats. It dove into the dry cat food, before I could even get a can open. It was starved.
I put down some water and a little milk and opened a can of cat food as well. The kitten ate almost a whole can of cat food! It was so tiny, I don’t know how on earth it ate that much without exploding! Then, it was so tired, that it practically fell over asleep.

(Paulie-after he was cleaned up)

I didn’t have any place to put the kitten where it would be safe from the other animals, so I took it to bed with me. It slept all night on my chest. Murray and the other dogs were also on the bed, as was Adams. We all slept very well.

In the morning, I took the kitten to the vet to get it taken care of. The vet said the eye had something in it, which she removed. She told me the eye would be OK, but if I had waited much longer, the kitten would have been blind in that eye. The swelling on the eye is going down and sometimes he (it turns out the kitten is a boy, so I named the kitten Paulie.) opens the eye a little.
The vet also took a look at the leg and gave me some antibiotics for it. The leg should be fine.
Then I took Paulie home.

Murray was waiting for us at the gate.

I was really tired after all that, so I took a nap. I put the kitten next to me and he napped also. But when I woke up, Paulie was gone!
I got up very quickly to look for Paulie. I found him in the living room, on the couch, sleeping peacefully, curled up next to Murray.   Murray?  The cat-hating Murray?
Yes, Murray was guarding the kitten. Evidently, Murray had picked up Paulie and taken him into the living room, because there is no way Paulie could have climbed up on the sofa – he was too little.
Anyway, Murray has now adopted Paulie. No one goes near Paulie without Murray’s permission. And the Kitten seems to like Murray too. They often play together and once in a great while, they sleep, curled up with each other.

(Murray guarding Paulie)

So that’s my little story. I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it, but the two of them are now best friends.