Cats, Caymans, & CARE with Guest Author Kim Thornton

Adopt-a-Cat Month continues with award-winning pet writer Kim Thornton, whom I have known since I pitched my first freelance magazine article many years ago. Because June is also Caribbean-American Heritage Month, Kim has combined the two celebrations into one interesting post about cat rescue in the Cayman Islands. Welcome, Kim! ~ Sheila

Cats, Caymans, and CARE

by Kim Thornton

At a luncheon a couple of weeks ago for members of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, I was asked whether my pet writing was informative or comedic. Sometimes it’s both, I like to think, but for the most part it falls into the “informative” category. 

For me, that type of writing is a way to help people coexist with animals, communicate with animals, and choose the right animals for their personalities and lifestyles. It also allows me to tell the stories of people who help animals. And I meet those people in unexpected places. 

Kim smooching her husband
on a dive. 

A dive shop on Grand Cayman’s East End, for instance. My husband and I have been diving with Ocean Frontiers since 1996, and we’ve come to know many of the employees over the years. Other than the owners, the person we’ve known the longest is reservations and marketing manager Lesley Agostinelli, who schedules our dives and helps with car rentals and other travel particulars. But it wasn’t until I was roaming the office one day after a dive, idly reading the staff bios, that I discovered Lesley was a fellow animal lover. Even better, she’s one of the founding directors of Cayman Animal Rescue Enthusiasts, or CARE. 

CARE took shape in 2009 when a group of animal lovers who volunteered at the local humane society wanted to do more to help the island’s companion animals. Like most rural areas, East End and other districts on Grand Cayman have many free-roaming dogs and cats. The members of CARE wanted to improve those animals’ lives and build awareness in the community about animal welfare. 

Through grass-roots efforts that included door-to-door campaigning, community dog washes and other community programs such as Meals on Wheels, they’ve worked with the Cayman Islands Humane Society and the Department of Agriculture to help end pet overpopulation and provide information about animal care to ensure that pets become part of the family. The overarching goal is to change community attitudes toward spaying and neutering through education and example. 

Their activities include offering a free spay/neuter service, including transportation, and an active trap/neuter/release program for feral cats. Since 2010, CARE has paid for more than 980 dogs and cats to be altered and will reach their 1000^th surgery some time this month. They organized the transfer of more than 255 puppies to mainland shelters to give them a better chance at adoption and have placed 62 dogs and cats in homes in Grand Cayman. Working with a local woodshop, HMP Northward, CARE has commissioned and placed 45 dog houses for outdoor pets who need shelter from the elements.

 Although no cats are currently in need of homes on the island, CARE plans to take advantage of Adopt-a-Cat month to promote its TNR program and set up more feeding stations for the community cats. (Cayman cats tend to be friendlier than most feral cats, we discovered, when during one visit a couple of them wandered into our timeshare unit from the beach and had us petting them and feeding them within minutes.) 

Animal-loving tourists sometimes help out by visiting CIHS and walking the dogs. It’s refreshing and encouraging to receive support from visitors to the island, Agostinelli says. 

“This really is a great way of helping get the animals exposure and exercise and can often lead to the occasional overseas adoption,” Agostinelli says. “We will occasionally receive calls and emails from concerned visitors regarding the condition of an animal they have seen. Occasionally we have assisted visitors who have rescued a stray dog or cat and decided they want to take them home with them. We are happy to offer support and knowledge when it comes to exporting a pet.” 

When she’s not helping other animals, Agostinelli is spending time with her own dogs, Thumper, Bubbles and Peg. She adopted all three of them after Hurricane Ivan hit the island in 2004. All three were in poor condition, with Thumper testing positive for heartworm disease, Bubbles suffering a fractured hip, and Peg a broken leg. CARE might not have come into being if Agostinelli hadn’t taken them in. 

“Truly, they are the best thing that happened to me,” she says, “because they introduced me to the world of animal rescue.”

Kim Campbell Thornton has been writing about dogs, cats and wildlife for 28 years. She's the author of hundreds of articles and more than 20 books. Her work has appeared in Consumers Digest, on MSNBC.com, and in many pet magazines and newsletters. It has won multiple awards from the Cat Writers Association and the Dog Writers Association of America, as well as a Benjamin Franklin Award from the Independent Book Publishers Association for her most recent book, Careers With Dogs, published in 2010. She lives in Lake Forest, California, with her husband, two dogs--a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a longhaired Chihuahua mix--and an African ringneck parakeet.

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Want to read more cats & writers posts? Check out these posts from earlier this month:

• The Money Bird is on the Wing - Sheila Boneham taks about her Animals in Focus mystery series - where's it's been, where it's going, and - yep! - CATS
• The Reinvented Writer - Amy Shojai talks about reinventing herself in these crazy times for writers - and cats & dogs!
• Writers and Cats - Sheila Boneham talks about the cats in her life, and in her Animals in Focus Mysteries. 
• Kitty Typos and More - Dusty Rainbolt talks about the hazards of writing with cats! Plus an excerpt from her paranormal mystery (yes, with cats!)
• Cats in My Life & Writing - Marilyn Levinson talks about some of the cats who have inspired her adult and young-adult fiction.

Come back Thursday to see what mystery & romance author Lois Winston has to say about the cats in her life and her work. 

Kitty Typos and More from Guest Author Dusty Rainbolt

I'm tickled to welcome cat writer and novelist Dusty Rainbolt today. You MUST click on the links to the historical finds she mentions! We couldn't lift the pictures (we both support copyright!) but, really, you have to see the pictures. >^..^<  Comment on this blog for a chance to win a copy of Dusty Rainbolt’s new paranormal mystery, Death Under the Crescent Moon. Click the kitty >^..^< to watch the ghost video that inspired the book, and read an excerpt below. 
  ~ Sheila

 

 

 

Kitten Typos and Other Hazards of Being a Cat Writer

By day I’m a mild mannered pet journalist—AdoptAShelter.com’s editor-in-chief, the author of cat care and behavior books, as well as the writer of countless articles and columns.  

At night my alter ego emerges: the novelist.  

As an aspiring author I visualized my future similar to the scenes in old black and white movies. I sit before my Olivetti typewriter working late into the night. The rhythmic tapping mingles with the sweet, sustained notes of Mozart streaming from a single monophonic speaker. I sip chilled Dr Pepper™ from a crystal champagne glass. Beside the typewriter, Webster and Roget await my beckon. My dog, an obedient Doberman, rests silently under the desk so as not to interrupt on my concentration. As the night progresses, my novel takes shape. By the time the sun peeks over the horizon, I type, “The End”.  It’s brilliant! I AM A GENIUS! 

Davy Jones was a tripod
foster kitten.

But after decades of working as a professional writer, I have to admit the reality plays out much differently than my youthful fantasy. The loyal canine turns out to be a species-confused crested/terrier-mix (who can discretely let herself outside, but for the all the bully sticks in Texas can’t figure out how to get back inside using that same door.) The thesaurus and the dictionary have migrated to my hard drive, after which an entire litter of rambunctious foster kittens we call the Mongol Horde (not to be confused with a Mongrel Hoard) have seized the dictionary’s hallowed location.  

Those six week-old marauders had not a whit of reverence for their sleeping spot. But since they established their Occupy Reference movement, little Genghis and his brother Kublai took on the role of shorthaired spellcheckers.  

Like an advancing colony of army ants, nothing in their path is safe—not the dog, not our eternally tolerant cats, and least of all my well-researched, painstakingly-composed features. Careening across my keyboard at light speed, the kittens take great pride in inserting paragraphs written in what I can only guess is Klingon. I don’t mind so much the added words, but my life is shortened by years whenever they manage to delete a huge block of text.  

My body also suffers at their paws. A collection of claw-inspired dot and dash Morse code characters stretch up my legs like an illuminated manuscript—possibly also in Klingon. 

Over the last 25 years (that sounds so much better than “quarter of a century”) I’ve rescued, fostered and rehomed over 1000 surviving cats and kittens. Each success, each failure has taught me something I can share in writing, something that can help cats and rescuers across this planet. Bloody legs and deleted passages are a small price to pay for that privilege. 

Sam came to us on the day he was born.

Kublai came to me. He was only three weeks old, and he struggled for each breath. My vet gave him little chance of surviving. But that little warrior knows no surrender. After two months he’s still enduring nebulizer treatments and antibiotics. But when he rearranges the words I’d spent hours perfecting, or climbs my leg with hypodermic claws, I celebrate the near lifeless kitten transforming into a creature capable of causing so much havoc.  

Cat-associated literary catastrophes are not a new phenomenon. Most likely, cats have been inspiring and hindering writers since the pharaohs. While writers’ tools have changed from chisel to ink to keyboard, the outcome hasn’t. Cats still keep sticking their paws in our business.  

While leafing through a 15^th century government archive book from Dubrovnik, Croatia, Emir Filipović, a research assistant at the University of Sarajevo, uncovered evidence of feline tampering. Two pages, dated March 11, 1445, had inky pawprints treading across them. The manuscript is part of an official record of Dubrovnik government activities throughout the Middle Ages called Lettere e commissioni di Levante. Click the cat for a look. >^..^< 

In an interview, Filipović described the possible scenario leading to the feline typo. “While the writer was writing the document a cat probably passed by him and since the paint was near the book…the cat spilled it, dipped his paws in it and passed over the document and thus left its trace in history.” 

Davy Jones hates his ecollar.

In the 15^th century, when it cost a great deal in time and money to hand write even a single page, the scribe simply accepted the blemishes and moved on.  

Another scriptorium kitty committed a more egregious act; in 1420 a Deventer scribe (in what is now the Netherlands) returned to work one morning to find that his medieval moggie had peed inside the book he had left open overnight. The scribe’s translated explanation for the blank portion of the page reads: “Here is nothing missing, but a cat urinated on this during a certain night. Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night in Deventer and because of it many others [other cats] too. And beware well not to leave open books at night where cats can come.” Click the cat for a look. >^..^<

Sage advice. I can honestly say, “Been there, done that.” (BTW, in case you were wondering, the scribes left the cats in scriptoriums to defend the vellum books from mice. It was worth the occasional oops to protect the libraries.)  

So here I am. I’m sitting on my sofa with my laptop resting on my knees. Scratches decorate my legs like streets on a roadmap. My fingers fly as I rush to finish an article for June, Adopt-A-Shelter-Cat Month. I hope if there’s a new cat in your future, you’ll adopt a shelter kitty, maybe even one of my little sweeties. Remember, adopt from an animal shelter and you save a life.  YOU’RE A HERO!  Whether you’re artist, musician, engineer or writer, everyone needs a furry museeeeeeeeasdddddddddddddca etwgaw.

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Excerpt from Death Under the Crescent Moon by Dusty Rainbolt

Below her, a gray fog settled into the valley. The mist slowly grew heavier and denser, descending into the basin’s depths. Slowly, misty tentacles of fog extended, swallowing the town lights. Eventually the fog reached her and rose up through the guardrail as if someone was trying to cover her in a burial shroud. Funny, her old film producers would have killed to duplicate this atmosphere.Norman Baker had promised her a new beginning, a cancer cure.

Eva looked out over the vista wondering, is this the Valley of the Shadow of Death, or is it a sign that I have nothing to fear? The wind from the north picked up and the fog temporarily receded.

She turned her wedding ring, still stubbornly displayed on her left hand. 

Alone...Eva Dupree, the once-famous darling of the silent screen, alone and under attack by a monster that, unlike those in her films, could not be banished by a director yelling “Cut!” She shut herself away from the world—except for her sharp-tongued maid, Rose, and Edgar’s cat, Ivan the Terrible.

Without warning, the hair on her neck lifted and a glacier of goose bumps spread across her arms—a deeper cold than mere weather. This chill sank all the way to her bones. She closed her chenille robe and knotted the tie.

An icy hand brushed Eva’s shoulder. Alarmed, Eva dropped the magazine into her lap and whipped her head around. Only a few feet away stood a young woman. The woman—a girl really, surely no more than sixteen—was wearing a shapeless white dressing gown and stared at Eva. Long, dark hair tumbled about her shoulders. She, too, had been crying.

Eva let out a breath. “Oh honey, you really startled me.”

With all her time in and out of hospitals, Eva had learned they weren’t just lonely places for her alone. That explained why at any time of the day or night one could find patients or even visitors roaming the halls looking for escape or comfort. Even Eva was out on the balcony in search of solace—and perhaps this young patient simply needed to clear her mind of the pharmaceutical fog of painkillers.

There was a learning curve to facing mortality as Eva was beginning to understand.

“I didn’t see you come out here.” Eva loosened her grip on the chair. “I’m sorry. You caught me at a bad moment.”

The teenager didn’t say anything; she just looked back at the older woman with eyes so sad, they broke Eva’s heart. The long silence grew more awkward. Eva finally decided the girl was too heavily medicated to respond—the poor thing probably didn’t even know where she was.

“No harm done.” Eva pointed at a chair next to hers. “You can sit here with me for a while if you like.” She laughed nervously. “I know it sounds crazy, but when I looked up just now and saw you there, I was sure I’d seen a ghost.” Eva’s brittle laugh faded into the wind.

The girl moved closer to the guardrail. She stared down for a moment and then gazed over at Eva. Suddenly her expression changed. She looked around as if she expected someone to storm onto the deck. Suddenly, Eva feared for the girl’s safety.

“Are you all right?” Eva stood up from the lounge chair and took a step toward her.

The girl placed her hands on the railing. She cocked her head, staring at the ground four stories below.

Eva reached out her hand then pulled back, afraid her advances might urge the young patient over the edge, literally. “What are you doing? Sweetie, come away from there.”

This girl shifted her unblinking gaze from the ground to Eva.

“Sweetie, I know how bad you feel. But you’ve come here to get well. Why don’t you sit over here and tell me what’s bothering you?”

The girl pulled herself up and balanced on the rail. She looked like a thin, sad pixie, poised on a toadstool of death. Eva froze, paralyzed by what she was seeing. “No, don’t do it!”

The girl’s eyes met Eva’s for a final moment. She reached out her pale, delicate hand, a sad ethereal invitation, and said in a wispy voice, “Why don’t you jump?” Then she swung her legs over the railing.

Eva lunged toward the rail, stretching for the girl’s hand. At that moment, the girl released her hold. Eva grabbed only a handful of air while the girl plummeted silently toward the earth.

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About the Book: Eva Dupree used to have a fairytale life. Ten years ago she was Victim Vixen of 1920s horror movies and married to a rich handsome movie producer. Today she is living through real horror: her husband has died suddenly, she’s been diagnosed with a terminal disease, and she’s stuck taking care of her late husband’s cat. Can it get any worse? Yes! Seeking a cure at the Baker Hospital and Health Resort in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, she quickly learns that past patients never checked out.

Eva begins to see and hear things she can’t explain. Cure or not, after a male voice threatens, “I want you”, Eva decides to leave. But hospital owner, Norman Baker, won’t let her leave. Will Eva end up like the restless spirits of patients past, trapped forever?

Death Under the Crescent Moon is available in trade paperback from Yard Dog Press for only $14. It’s also available for Kindle and Nook for only $4.99. A bargain! 

Dusty Rainbolt, ACCBC, is the editor-in-chief of www.adoptashelter.com (an online cash rewards mall benefiting animal charities) and vice president of Cat Writers’ Association. Her paranormal mystery Death Under the Crescent Moon was released in early 2013, as was her anthology, The Mystical Cat. She’s the author of Kittens for Dummies, Cat Wrangling Made Easy: Maintaining Peace & Sanity in Your Multicat Home, Ghost Cats: Human Encounters with Feline Spirits, the humorous science fiction novel, All the Marbles, as well as a coauthor of the successful Four Redheads of the Apocalypse series.

 

Writers and Cats

June is Adopt-a-Cat Month, and Caribbean-American Heritage Month, so many Write Here, Write Now blog entries this month will be focused on one or the other - or both! I'm kicking things off with today's piece about some of the mewses in my own life. Leave a comment and you may win a copy of my book The Multiple Cat Family,  winner of the MUSE Award for Best Care & Health Book and an Award of Excellence from the Cat Writers' Association (winner to be drawn at random).  ~ Sheila


There are no ordinary cats. ~ Colette

Like many writers, I have been privileged to share my life with some extraordinary cats. People seem to think of me as a "dog person" and "dog writer," but I've lived with cats most of my life and all three of my books about cats have won awards from the Cat Writers' Association. Frankly, I like all animals, with the possible exception of the mosquito. Because June is Adopt-a-Cat Month,  many of my guests this month will be writing about cats in their lives and cats in their work. Starting with me.

If you've read Drop Dead on Recall, the first book in my Animals in Focus mystery series, you know that Leo, the protagonist's orange tabby, is a major character. In fact, he's a hero. He was even interviewed on Melissa's Mochas, Mysteries, and More last fall! The fictional Leo is based on several of my cats, but particularly my own two orange boys, Malcolm and Leo.

A friend called me early one evening in 1990 to tell me a half-grown kitten had followed her and her dogs home from their walk. She had gone back out and canvased the neighbors, but no one claimed him. She couldn't keep him, so she called me and I went right over. It was love at first sight. Malcolm was a terrific cat - he came when called, retrieved paperballs, ran to the door when the bell rang, and chased and wrestled by 80-pound Lab, Raja.

Leo was also a stray, but had been picked up at an apartment complex and taken to my vet. We were there with one of our dogs and my vet's assistant, who was also his wife, told my husband Roger that she had something to show him in the back. Smart move on her part - we went home with another cat. Leo was a brave, beautiful boy, and the best puppy raiser around!



When Roger and I met, he had two cats, Kitty and Mary. They were not amused when we got married and I moved in with Raja the Lab and Malcolm! Mary mostly stayed out of sight for a while, and Kitty spent a lot of time on top of the fridge until she figured out how easily she could bully Raja! Then one weekend Roger was away and I noticed that Kitty was unable to urinate. When she came home from a couple of days in the hospital for an infection and blockage, she was MY cat. I know that she knew I saved her life, or at least got her to someone who could. I often called her "Nurse Kitty," because if I went to bed with a migraine, Kitty was there instantly. She would lie on my chest and gently touch my cheeks with her paws, and she did make me feel better. She also liked to hang over my shoulder to watch when I cross-stitched, and to "help me" write.

Mary was a sweet, tiny little tortoiseshell who taught many a puppy to be polite to cats but never raised a paw to a person. Mary liked to hang out with me when I worked in my garden, and she could blend into the foliage so well that I often heard her talking to me but couldn't see her at all.

My first cat was George. We had horses at the time, and when we went to pick up a new one, a black-and-white cat hopped right into our cat. The woman who was selling the horse was leaving the farm - her husband had died - and she said we could have "Fifi" if we wanted "her." My mom had a good laugh when we got home and she took a good look at our new family member, and gave him a new name. George was the best mouser around, and a great talker.

 

So come back for more cats and writers this month - you're going to LOVE Dusty Rainbolt's contribution on Thursday! Promise!

 



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