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Sparky

11th May 1992 to 10th January 1999

Sooty

11th May 1992 to 29th August 1999

Sooty & Sparky as kittens (18k)Sparky and Sparky were born on the 11th May 1992.  Sparky was put to sleep on the 10th January 1999, and Sooty on the 29th August 1999.  During their lives they gave a lot of pleasure to a large number of people - Sparky was especially fond of men!  To me she were very special cats, and I am finding writing their life stories comforting.
 
One day in 1992, Anita said 'my cat has just had some kittens - would you like to see them?'  What a question - of course the answer was yes and I took Helen with me.  Anita had been adopted by a black cat that turned out to be pregnant, and had had four kittens.  There were two boys (one black, one black and white) and two girls (one black, one black and white).  Helen and I fell in love and she took the black and white boy (Ollie) and the black girl (Pia).  This was the summer of Linford Christie winning gold at Barcelona!  I took the black boy (Sooty) and the black and white girl, Sparky.
 
Sparky in the sink - 18KOne the way home they were crying as this was all very new to them, but within a few minutes of being let out at home they were chasing each other round the house oblivious to it's newness.  However a quick comb revealed that they were full of fleas so the next day I was at the vets.  One of the vets (a lady) looked at them as I was saying 'they've got fleas and worms' and feeling rather bad and a little embarrassed about it.  She looked at them (the basket was on the counter) and said 'you wouldn't be kittens without fleas and worms'!  I instantly felt much better and settled down to wait my turn.  They had their inoculations and I got a spray tin of Nuvan Top, and roundworm tablets.  The Nuvan Top terrified them, but was unbelievably effective.  I combed dozens of dead and dying fleas out of their coats, and took it round to Helens where we had the same results with Ollie and Pia.  The roundworm tables produced a impressive and rather disgusting result.  Once freed of their parasites Sooty and Sparky went from strength to strength.  Their coats improved, especially as their adult coats came through, and they grew at a rate of knots.
 
As I knew I would be taking them on holiday to my house in Scotland, I started getting them used to travelling in the car from the beginning - they had made a large fuss on the way to the vets before they had any idea what would happen to them there!  So started I taking them on short trips - round the block, to the supermarket - and gradually increased the length.  Eventually I took them to my parents, a drive of about 2 hours.  On the way there they got very factious, but they were great on the way back - possibly something to do with all the playing they had done!  The vet was most amused at how I had got them used to travelling in the car - apparently I had used 'classical aversion therapy' - and I was thinking it was simple common sense!  Here is a photo my mum took of Sparky in her kitchen sink.
 
In the early autumn I took them to Fort William, determined not to let them out.  Of course they eventually gave me the slip and once out started slowly exploring this new and exciting place.  I left the kitchen window out (this was in pre-extension days) and they soon came back in, and for the next few years this was their normal way in and out.  While I was there Sooty disgraced himself, so it was off to the vets for the snip when he got home.  However, I had decided to let Sparky have one litter so left nature to take its course.
 
A horrid day came at the beginning of November.  I came home from a Sailing Club Committee meeting, and Sooty came limping through the cat flap.  His right foreleg was clearly very painful.  He cuddled up that night and threatened Sparky with all sorts of horrid things if she even looked at him.  We were off to the vets first thing the next day, and they kept him in for x-rays.  I was shocked when I rang to ask about him to be told the vet wanted to discuss the injury with me.  I left work a little early and met the vet.  The x-rays showed a Y-fracture which is more common in dogs than cats.  The treatment was pinning and wiring, which was done on the Wednesday.  On Friday I paid the bill and took him home.  At first he was OK, but then the painkillers wore off and he was a most miserable cat.  I invited a friend around for supper (moral support) as Sooty lay on a pillow in front of the gas fire.  The heat from the fire did him a power of good - all of a sudden he started moving around again, and as my friend left he jumped onto the settee back to say goodbye!  Progress was then steady.  He had two further operations, one planned to remove the pin and another about a year later when I realised he had chronic pain.  The wires were removed and he was rapidly a much happier cat.  He never regained full movement of the leg, but it was more than adequate for the rest of his life.
 
One day the next year in early February 1993 I noticed two cats I'd never seen before sat on the back yard wall.  One was black and white with very short hair and a real tom's head the size of a grapefruit.  He turned out to be very approachable and allowed me to pet and comb him whilst he patiently waited.  The other was a long-haired tabby and very flighty.  Usually all I saw of him was his back end as he ran away.
 
One Saturday morning Sparky was sitting on the back door step looking at these two strangers with utter disdain.  She clearly had no intention whatsoever of having anything to do with them.  Little did she know!  That evening I went to bed and was woken by a horrible cry from the front of the house.  I ran to the window just in time to see two black and white cats running up the road.  I thought I knew what had just happened, and the confirmation burst through the cat flap a few moments later, ran up the stairs and started enthusiastically washing herself.  Then she vanished for a few days, to reappear filthy dirty and very hungry.
 
George and IsaacBy mid-March she was clearly pregnant, and in late March she was sat on my lap one day when I felt the kittens move.  This was a magical moment!  As March turned into April she grew and grew, and got more and more uncomfortable.  She went from having two elegant saddlebags to being a cat imitating a balloon.  Eventually on the morning of the 14th April she suddenly developed a corrugated tummy.  I didn't realise what a clear sign this was, and went off to work.  When I got home she seemed fine so I went to my usual Wednesday night out.  I got home just after 9pm, and she was clearly in labour.  I left her to get on with it in the kitchen, and she followed me into the living room and cuddled up beside me on the settee.  I rang Helen and just after she answered the first kitten was born.  Sparky screamed as its head crowned, and leapt of the settee.  The kitten was born in mid-air and landed with a little plop on the carpet.  Sparky touched down a few inches away, and looked at the kitten in total astonishment.  Helen was told to come around, the phone was slammed down and I picked up the kitten.  He was black and just fine.  I dried him off and put him in the box in front of the fire.  Then I moved the chair and unhooked Sparkys claws from the carpet.  I popped her in with the kitten and she fell to washing him.
 
Helen arrived a few minutes after Isaac was born, and we watched as she finished cleaning Isaac and delivered George, who was (and is) black with white paws, chest, lip and whiskers.  Just as we were starting to think that was it, Sammi arrived.  She is immensely pretty with very similar markings to Sparky, and was only a couple of days old when it became clear that she was long-haired, unlike her two brothers.
 
Sammi as KittenSparky was a model mum.  She cleaned and fed the kittens perfectly, and when they were a few days old took them to the attic.  I had been away on a course and arrived home with a nasty cold.  After a real panic because I couldn't find them I went to the attic again and spotted their hiding place, in a fold of blanket.  After a short struggle (I took them down, she took them up, I took them down, she took them up, I gave in!) she kept them there for several weeks until they started to explore the rest of the house.  Sooty was pleased to have me and my bed to himself, though Sparky had become Top Cat once the kittens were born.  At first he ran away from them, but by the time they were down from the attic he started interacting with them and there was a wonderful moment when I saw him lick George's face.  It was like a large adult hand wiping a flannel round a babies face!  George reciprocated - and that was like using a postage stamp.
 
In May I took Sooty, Sparky and the kittens to Scotland.  One day I heard the most awful noise from inside the chalet, and when I went in I found the kittens hiding behind the sofa whilst Sparky was giving the local bully cat as good as he was getting.  My entry broke the spell, and he was gone.  Slowly my cats settled down, and the neighbours (not the cat's owners) found the tale most amusing.  Apparently Kes had got what they all reckoned he deserved!
 
When the kittens were about 8 weeks old I took Sparky to be neutered.  The vet assured me that she wouldn't feed the kittens again, but she had developed selective deafness and after a day being stiff and sore she got back in with the kittens and carried on from where she had left off.
 
Sparky with kittens (14k)Eventually the time came for the kittens to go to their new homes.  Sammi left first and quickly settled in with Helen.  The Isaac went, and suddenly poor George found the shutters down on the milk bar.  Sparky decided that was enough of motherhood and changed from being all love to beating him up every time he tried to cuddle up.  Happily Sooty was on hand.  He and George had started grooming each other some time earlier and they became very close.
 
Now Sparky was no longer occupied by motherhood she started on her second career as the local floozy.  She was already well known to some of my neighbours (she had pinned one of their Jack Russell's up against the kitchen door when it got to close to one of the kittens), and over the rest of her life she started wandering more and more.
 
The first time she vanished for a few days I was distraught, clinging to 'no news is good news'.  On day she waltzed back in pleased as Punch and clearly not distressed in any way.  This became more and more over a habit, until in the summer of 1998 I hardly saw her as she spent her time dallying with some builders near my house.  She charmed the postie in Scotland, getting in his van at times and rolling on the ground in front of him.  I took her to the office and she took one look at all the chaps there and was in her element.  She didn't mind if they were gay or straight, so long as they were men!  Mike shut himself away with her and she helped him with the typing.  She rolled on Mick's feet and he pronounced her a tart!  And along with Sooty and George she had become a vicious little hunter and between them they produced a steady stream of ex-rodents whenever we were in Scotland.  The only blot on all this was when Sooty reasserted himself as top cat - possibly this was why she started roaming more and more.  I received a few phone calls about a 'lost cat with a big fluffy tail'.  Always they were from no more than a minute or two's walk away, and the last such caller must have been astonished as they can have hardly put the phone down when I knocked on the door to collect her.
 
SparkyShe never did anything slowly (apart from sleeping).  When I let her out she would scamper down the path, tail in the air, and turn left toward the rough ground and the builders.  She would sit on the wall outside the front door and cry to be let in, and as soon as the door was open a crack would spring in sideways and ricochet of the internal wall.  Like many cats she was fascinated by high places, and could jump well over four feet onto the wardrobe from the window sill.  She also parked herself on top of a door a few times, not to mention the backs of chairs.  One of these performances caused great merriment at work as the chap whose chair she was perched on was totally unaware of her presence!  She must have been a fan of Eddie Waring, as she clearly believed in getting her retaliation in first.
 
She never accepted my other cats with a good grace and would always argue with them - though she would then often give up the spot she had just defended!  Howard stayed over in the attic room (where she raised the kittens) and she gave him a demonstration of toilet roll killing!  I was in the kitchen preparing a meal one day and suddenly realised I was talking to myself.  I went in the living room one day and he was on his knees in front of the settee (toasting his bottom on the fire!) talking to her.  She was lying on her back being cute, and they were totally entranced with each other.
 
Sooty, on the other hand, was a thoughtful cat who watched life closely.  He took most things in his stride including the other cats who arrived during his life.  At first he was hostile, but then it was like someone told him not to be so silly and to get on with doing the things he wanted to do - like sit on my lap.  He became good friends with Oscar, and then with Billy and Janice, and would happily sleep with any of them.
 
The beginning of the end for Sparky came in late 1995 when she developed a lump on the back of her head.  The vet removed it and it rapidly recurred.  The vet operated again in early 1996, this time leaving her with a massive scar round the back of her head, and the histology came back as a spindle cell sarcoma.  This is a kind of cancer which is unlikely to produce secondaries, but very likely to recur locally.  After this large operation all was well until late summer in 1998.  On one of her rare visits I realised that the tumour had recurred, and took her back to the vet.  This time there was no happy ending.  Very soon after surgery it was clearly growing faster than ever, and at the end of October she started developing a fluid-filled swelling on the growth.  This burst (which seemed to give her relief) but never healed.  Instead an ulcer developed where the skin had broken, and she slowly became anaemic as she was losing a little blood every day.  However, she was happy and alert with an excellent appetite, so I put coverings on the furniture and duvet and removed her collar as it had rubbed off the fur where it was damp.
 
In early December some friends came round for a meal.  She came into the room, went round them all and settled on Lindsey where she gently kneaded her sweater for the rest of the evening.  A week later I went to Scotland taking all the cats.  She went out and about - one day I saw her crouched on a fence post staring intently at something in the grass, and she seemed to be enjoying herself.
 
The end of the end came in early January.  She had had a scab on the growth for a few weeks, and every time it started to itch she had scratched it off.  Before it had always formed a new scab but on the Saturday evening it seemed to be developing into a second ulcer.  On Sunday morning it seemed it might be infected, and when I came home from a walk on Sunday afternoon the infection had progressed.  I rang the vets and took her to be put to sleep.  Some of her ashes have now been scattered in Scotland, which is the nearest place I can think of to cat heaven.  As I become more able to let go I will scatter and bury more of her ashes.
 
Sootys illness followed a similar course, and started at the same time.  His original tumour was under his right ear.  He had a massive operation to try to clear it, and it seemed to be more successful than Sparky's at first.  It also seemed to make him a happier cat.  I can only think that he still had some chronic pain from his broken leg which it removed, possibly through nerve damage, or by the pulling & tugging, or by a bit of both.  Anyway he became a lap cat and developed a loud purr.
 
Sooty in July 1999However he got a recurrence behind his right ear.  The vets removed it again, but it started to grow again and in 1999 (after Sparky had been put to sleep) I confirmed with them that no further treatment was appropriate for it.  I took him to get a bite treated and at that time the tumour was about the size of a hazel nut.  I also took him, along with Oscar and George, for a sitting with Alan Robinson.  I had regretted not having any good photos of Sparky, and was determined to make sure that would not be the case with any other cat.  Sooty was an absolute star and did everything they wanted with no fuss, apart from lie down.  I was delighted with the photos when they came back and had one of Sooty mounted and framed.  His tumour grew through the summer, and he started to loose weight.  By the time I got Billy and Janice (in July) he was very thin, and he started to become weak as well.  At the end of August it was suddenly too long, so Claire drove me to the vets and we said goodbye to him.  They took a print of his foot for me, and I later collected his ashes.
 
After Sparky died I was always expecting three cats where there should have been four.  A cat would ask to go out, and I expected to see Sparky.  Then Billy and Janice arrived, and the house again felt to have enough cats in it.  Oscar vanished a week before Sooty was put to sleep so once again I had three cats.
 
Now I have four (having had five at one point), but I still miss Sooty and Sparky very much.  Sooty was very much a one-off, though Janice was in some ways so like Sparky that I used the wrong name sometimes.  Claire said that Sparky was sitting on Janices shoulder urging her on, and I can believe that!
Last modified on: 7th Jul, 2002