Back in 2021 my father heard meowing in our driveway, he found two brand new cats, Umbilicals still attached levels of new. I found one later after he took the other two to the vet to make sure they were ok. I found one while he was gone. We found some blood nearby so we assumed that the mom was hunted by something so we took them in, at least until we made sure they were cats we could legally domesticate.

They were a lot of work, to keep them warm, fed, clean, and watched. Even had to get them to learn to go to the bathroom on their own. My father fell in love with the three of them and this was surprising since he was never a fan of cats before. We named them Bruiser, Boopersnoot, and Fidget…we’re not that creative with names. About a month later Boopersnoot was showing signs of…passing one night, as sometimes happens to young kittens. He survived but a year later I think it can back on him. Anyways they grew into 3 active, happy, silly, and loving kittens and eventually young cats. They became true blessings in our lives.

A little over a year into their lives we were hit with a horrible realization as Boopersnoot got really sick and really in pain. On a visit to the vet, it was found that he suffered kidney failure. We had no choice but to put him down…it was a painful loss. It took the other two cats weeks to realize he wasn’t coming back, it was agonizing not being able to tell them their loved brother was gone. It affected them hard, especially Bruiser his buddy brother who they played with a lot. Time passed and as tragic and sudden the loss was it was, we eventually learned to live with it.

Years passed and by spring 2025 the other two cats and one other we got “The Love” became outside cats. Came in and out to enjoy our big fenced property. During work I got a frantic call from my mother, Bruiser was killed by our neighbors dog. My Dad found his body on the other side of our fence in our neighbors property. He had to carry his body back as we all broke down crying and wailing in a grief that hit hard and deeper than any pet we’ve ever lossed. It was beyond heartbreaking, he was my Fathers favorite. In our blindness by grief we saw no legal action against our neighbor.

Our last cat, Fidget. Was absolutely devastated. She was caring and loved us but spent a lot of time just laying down in her little bed as she lost both her brothers. It took months for my father to eventually recover mentally, and only showed some sort of improvement during a Thanksgiving get together.

The next day, the same dog mauled our final cat, Fidget, to death in our backyard. It was not clean…the dog got in because we both accidentally left our gates open and he got out and into our property…it was almost too much to handle that I thought my father was gonna bite the bullet. He didn’t and we’re trying to move on in more ways than one now…but our family lost our loving kittens we found from birth…and all of them died before they were 5 years old, two of them because of our neighbors dog.

Only thing I ask of you all, is to learn from what we did wrong.

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