The Buddy Purrkins Story: Buddy has Surgery

Where am I?  I'm so sleepy.  I hurt!  There is something on my front paws.  I can't lick them and make them feel better.  I try biting at the material on my paws but that doesn't work.  I shake my paws really hard but the wrappings won't come off. I am curled up on something very warm and it makes me so very tired.  I have to go back to sleep now.

Something terrible has happen to me and my front paws.  The last bone of each toe has been amputated!  My front claws and the bone in which the claw is contained has been chopped off!  How can I climb trees and catch mice?  How can I defend myself?

I have pain in my belly by my hind legs and that hurts too but I am too tired to lick it.  I am very very sick.  Maybe I am going to die.

The Buddy Purrkins Story: Buddy Goes Somewhere

This morning my mother told me that I was going somewhere very soon but she didn't tell me it would be today. I was playing, just typical kitten stuff, like reaching up high on the coach and seeing how far I could drag my claws down the soft side.  I even tried to climb up the curtain to see where that dangling string came from but that didn't make my human happy and I was pulled down and spanked. So I decided to take a nap. When I woke up, I was being stuffed into some kind of metal box.  It was small and I was scared. My human picked up the metal box and carried me outside. The sun was warm and bright so I tried to crawl out and play in the sunbeams but I couldn't move very much or get out.  My human put me in the car. The car made a terrible noise so I cried. Then the car moved and I wet myself. The car rolled this way and that way throwing me against the sides of the metal box.  I threw up.  The car finally stopped and I was a wet stinky mess. My human took me into a strange place and sat my metal box on the floor.  Soon after, I was carried into a room with bright lights and something sharp stuck me in my hind leg. I yowled and hit my head on the top of the metal box.

And that was all I remember until I woke up.

The Buddy Purrkins Story: Early Kitten Years

I don't remember much about my early kitten years but I know I was adorable.The first two months of my life I know that I was warm and well-fed and that my brother and sisters slept beside me.  Sometime one of them would walk right on top of me to get closer to our mother.  We learned to get along together, to socialize, and of course, we learned appropriate kitten behavior.  Our mother gave us a soft swat if we misbehaved.  After spending several months sleeping and eating, I was ready to step out into the world and explore.  I was curious to learn about everything.  What is that dangling from the wall?  If I bat it with my paw it swings back and forth.  What is that bright warm spot on the floor? If I sit on it, it disappears. My owner likes to play games too. Sometimes we play hide and seek or we play with my toys.  I love to crawl into an open paper bag or a cardboard box.  The bag crunches and crackles as I move around and I can jump and pounce on the shadows. I don't need my mother or my brothers and sisters to experience these wonders.  I am independent!

I can learn on my own.

And then the dreaded day arrived.

The Buddy Purrkins Story: How I got my Alias

My name is Buddy Purrkins but I'm also known as Mega Mitts because I'm a polydactyl cat. Normal cats have a total of 18 toes, with five toes on each forepaw, and four toes on each hind paw, but I have an two extra toes on each paw.  That makes eight extra toes! True polydactyl is a congenital abnormality, genetically inherited as an autosomal dominant trait of the ZRS gene.  Ernest Hemingway first six-toes cat named Snowball was given to him by a ship's captain.  Sailors considered polydactyl cats good luck and we were especially useful in keeping the ship's rodent population under control because we have extraordinary climbing and hunting abilities. Snowball's fifty descendants live in Hemingway's former home in Key West, Florida.  Hemingway loved his polydactyl cats and today we are sometimes referred to as Hemingway cats.  So you see, I am truly awesome.