Mother Mo Cridhe!
Amaranth's Memorial Page

Education on Animal Health Care:

For the first several years of Spook's & My marriage together, we were blessed by the company of Amaranth.  She needed a home, her first human was returning to college and didn't think he could take care of her.  She didn't much like children, and that was not a worry with us, she knew us and was comfortable with us, so we gladly took her in.  (M. preceded her to the Rainbow Bridge about a year later.  So, not only do I miss her, I also miss my best human friend.)-: 
Amaranth was a character of extraordinary proportions, and I have reserved this page to indulge my need to tell tales of her. 

My long time friend, M, whom I mention in "Lord of the Hunt",  incidently, acquired her as a kitten.  On a whim he was reading the pets section of the local Thrifty Nickel paper, and found some one who was selling Second Generation Tonkanese kittens, with or with out the papers.  He'd had a Tonk before, and decided to go see.  Well, he kneeled down and the mother cat picked one of her kittens up and dumped her in his lap.  He had barely gotten home when he called me with the news.
When I would go visit him, Amaranth was pretty much in the middle of things, and frequently sat on me.  This seemed to be a bit of a surprise to M., as she didn't much socialize with too many other people. 
One time I had gone to visit M., and as is my normal way, I greeted her first.  It so happens that I had found a bauble that I knew M. would like, and was wearing it around my kneck.  Amaranth spotted it, and grabbed it, dropped it and grabbed it again,  completely ignoring the other necklace I was wearing.  I laughed and called him over, and he chuckled a little bit.  Then I said, "Oh, by the way, this is yours."  I got a bit of a studdered argument out of him, until he got a look at it.  "Amaranth has good tastes!" he sniffed his acceptance.
When I brought Spook to meet M., there was a short amount of time that Spook engaged politely in the conversation.  Then he saw Amaranth.  Most of the rest of the night, while M. and I were chattering away, we were looking at Spook's butt in the air as he carried on a conversation with Amaranth.  M. offered his confused blessing... "Anyone that likes animals that much can't be all bad."  If Spook only knew the rather baffled looks he was getting from M.!  He'd look at me with large question marks, I'd shrug that's him in our non verbal long time friendship language.
Amaranth went into heat at about the time that M. decided to go back to college, slashed the nylon screen of his patio door and got out.  M. was right behind her, but by the time he caught up with her, she was engaged.  She had a rather sizeable litter about two days after M. went back to school.  He kept her until the kittens were weaned and placed in homes, and about a month after Spook and I were married, M. brought Amaranth to join our family.  She looked around, located where we placed her litter box, explored the rest of the Town house, came to sit on my lap, decided to investigate to comfort level of Spook's lap, and generally took over.
The first couple of weeks were a little rocky, though.  She had to establish what the house rules were in her own fashion.  I just don't accept curtain climbing, confusion of litter pans and house plants, and clawing antique rugs, and ... Oh gads I did a lot of hollering at her those first two weeks!
Eventually, she knew the house rules better than I did, and made a few new ones in the process.

to be continued...

Slyvia's Journey of New Hope
Awareness of Vaccine Associated Sarcoma.

Information from Long Beach Animal Hospital on
FeLV