FROM: Linda Pries

This month I am featuring my casts Smokey and Shadow. As their pictures shows, they are Siamese. Shadow is a 9 yr. old Bluepoint and Smokey is the 5 year Old Sealpoint and they are great buddies.

What you can not see in the picture is that Shadow has only 3 legs. About a year ago a window had broken in my basement and the cats decided that this meant they were to roam freely indoors and out. As a rule I do not believe in letting cats run at large, but it would be awhile before the window could be fixed so I had little choice.

One evening, I was sitting at my computer and I noticed Shadow dragging a hind leg as he went to his cat box. It was late and I could see no blood so I waited until morning and could see that there was not improvement. I immediately took him into my Vet. Fortunately, they are a walk-in clinic. As soon as the Vet felt Shadow’s leg he pronounced it to be shattered. They treated him for shock but weren’t sure if he would make it through the night. The Vet cannot believe that the cat made it home from wherever he was hit, back into the basement and then upstairs by himself and functioned as normal right down to using the cat box. Shadow made it through the night and two days later they removed the leg. He had a bit of trouble adjusting at first, however, now he gests around nearly as well as before. I think he probably used up several of his 9 lives with this stunt.

Shadow has always been extremely affectionate and gentle. Now, he is even more so. He will always be with as I figure that any animal that would make such an attempt to return home after being hit by a car must have great deal of trust in me and who am I to betray that trust?

Smokey also too a short vacation during that time, vanishing for several months. He would stay around the area, as I would occasionally hear him calling and catch a glimpse of him here and there. He stayed in a neighbor’s garage for a while, but he wouldn’t be caught. Then one morning, it was 2:00 a.m., there he was in the kitchen apparently having come in from the basement. Soon after that the windows was fixed. Both of the cats seem very content to just stay in the house.

They are unusually sociable and friendly. I have wondered whether Shadow is real a Siamese as I have heard of a breed called Tonkinese, which he closely resembles. They adore my dogs and I generally say that Shadow doesn’t know whether he’s a dog or a person. However, he’s definitely not a cat.