Washing Little Moo

27^th July 2014

Dear Cassi,

I’ve heard the expression every now and again ‘it works as well as washing a cat’.  Well, today I washed a cat and she was okay about getting her fur cleaned. Little Moo has a mouth infection and so has trouble cleaning herself. It came to be that her front legs were both covered in goo, and so she needed a washing.

Now Little Moo was a cat I found at my work and she was so timid on her arrival that feeding her was hard. I didn’t give it much effort at first as she would just run away when she saw me, but then I got a good look at her and noticed the skin hanging loose on her tail. It was at that point that I made up my mind to get food to the poor animal.

It came to pass that one night someone found a kitten on property. They had informed us they were from a cat rescue, and so we gave them pass to remove the animal. I thought this cat was Little Moo and went out to help them. By the time I got there they had the cat but it wasn’t Little Moo as I saw her in the bushes.

On my way back in I showed Little Moo a can of cat food and opened it before leaving it on the ground for her. When I came back in the morning the can had been picked clean. The next day Little Moo came out of the bushes to see me. She wouldn’t make eye contact but rather sat on her hind side looking at the ground, hungry but expecting nothing, and seaming so pathetic.  

From that point on she was at my car every day. That is until my work forbad me from feeding her, and so I ended up taking her home. I’ll tell you that story some other time.

As it came time to bathe Little Moo I was not sure how she would react. She never minds being handled, and she loves to be petted. Still I donned my heavy handling gloves and carried her to the kitchen.

The sound of the running water was more to blame for her fear and she tried to get away but never in that time clawed at me. Her greatest objection came from the soaking and with water I could see the flee sand as the white of her fur came red. She seemed to like the scrubbing which I did with a surgeon’s brush and Dawn dish soap. Then I wrapped her in a towel and she was so calm that even Pickles was willing to pat her head.

Little Moo does not like Pickles and he’s has a healthy respect for her claws. This would be the first time in more than a month of her living with me that the two made contact.

Today was a good day for the little creature. I can only hope that there are more.

Find the love, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal