Animals Welcome Read online

  OTHER BOOKS BY PEG KEHRET

  Ghost Dog Secrets

  Runaway Twin

  Stolen Children

  Trapped

  Abduction

  Spy Cat

  The Stranger Next Door

  Don’t Tell Anyone

  I’m Not Who You Think I Am

  Searching for Candlestick Park

  Earthquake Terror

  Danger at the Fair

  The Richest Kids in Town

  Night of Fear

  Horror at the Haunted House

  Terror at the Zoo

  Sisters Long Ago

  Cages

  Nightmare Mountain

  Animals

  Welcome

  PEG KEHRET

  Animals

  Welcome

  A Life of Reading, Writing, and Rescue

  DUTTON CHILDREN’S BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  DUTTON CHILDREN’S BOOKS

  A division of Penguin Young Readers Group

  PUBLISHED BY THE PENGUIN GROUP

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. | Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) | Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England | Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) | Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) | Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India | Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson

  New Zealand Ltd) | Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,

  Johannesburg 2196, South Africa | Penguin Books Ltd,

  Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2012 by Peg Kehret

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed

  in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author

  or third-party websites or their content.

  CIP Data is available.

  Published in the United States by Dutton Children’s Books,

  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group

  345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  www.penguin.com/youngreaders

  Designed by Irene Vandervoort

  Printed in USA First Edition

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN: 978-1-101-57494-2

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  For Anne, Kevin, Brett, and Eric Konen,

  who share my love for the cabin and its critters

  and in loving memory of Carl

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  1. Two Tuxedos

  2. I Didn’t Want His Owner to Find Him

  3. The Cats Who Had Been Shot

  4. Sad Farewells

  5. The Pet I’ve Never Petted

  6. Living with Wildlife

  7. My Life Changed Forever

  8. I Bailed Him Out, and Then He Bit Me

  9. Short Stays

  10. The Poacher

  11. Throwaway Cat

  12. Breaking My Own Rule

  13. Many Surprises

  14. I Wonder What’s Next?

  Introduction

  Most of my books include an animal. I’ve written about elephants, bears, llamas, dogs, cats, chimpanzees, a rabbit, a pig, a ’possum, a horse, a pony, and a monkey. I volunteer for animal welfare groups, and part of my royalties go to support a spay/neuter clinic that offers inexpensive surgeries to low-income pet owners.

  I’m always thrilled when I glimpse deer or other wild animals in their natural habitat. My fondness for farm animals, especially pigs, cows, and sheep, is the reason I’m a vegetarian. I’ve also helped rescue and care for dozens of domestic animals.

  I began to observe and learn about forest animals when I moved to my dream house, a log cabin on ten wooded acres adjoining hundreds more acres of forest land in Washington State. The first time my husband, Carl, and I walked this property, we saw deer grazing in the woods. Instead of traffic noise, we heard birdsong. What a great place to write my books, and for Carl to conduct his business of restoring antique musical instruments.

  A view from my back porch

  Over the years, we had lived in more than one city but we both preferred country living. Eighteen years earlier, we had restored an old country farmhouse, only to have the suburbs gradually creep out and surround us. When we could walk from the farmhouse to McDonald’s, we knew it was time to move.

  The land where we built the cabin, with its acres of trees and native wildlife, seemed so far removed from fast-food restaurants, gas stations, and crowded shops that it felt almost as if we were in a different state. Having animals roam the property made me appreciate it even more.

  I’ve always loved animals. When I was a child, we had a family dog—first Skippy, when I was little, and then B.J. In high school, I had an ongoing argument with two of my classmates, twin boys who insisted cats were the best pets, while I argued that dogs were superior. Now I know we were both correct: dogs are wonderful animals and so are cats.

  Carl grew up on a dairy farm. While his family cared for many animals, they had no house pets. Even so, he shared my instinctive tenderness for the critters. Soon after we were married, we adopted a kitten, and from that day on at least one animal always shared our home.

  When we moved to the cabin, we stood at the windows and watched deer, elk, ’possums, and rabbits. We rejoiced to see them and vowed to protect them.

  We studied the best ways to help the wildlife, who so often get chased away when humans enter their territory, and realized that befriending the animals meant keeping their habitat healthy. First we had our land certified as a wildlife sanctuary. Next we enrolled in a state reforestation program where we took classes in how to care for our woods. Pledging to replace downed trees and to be good stewards of the land, we left all of the property except the house site and driveway, which fire regulations required that we keep a certain size, in its natural state.

  Brush piles became shelter for rabbits and other small creatures, and when we fenced the property to keep our dog in, we followed the deer paths to the property lines and built the fences low enough in those places so that even fawns could come and go with ease.

  Carl created a nature trail that winds through the woods. Blacktail deer quickly discovered the nature trail and made it part of their daily travel. I was living in Paradise. I still am.

  Shortly after we moved to the cabin, our oldest granddaughter, Brett, came to spend the day. She was nine at the time. After she left, I found a message scrawled in the dirt under my office window: ANIMALS WELCOME. Apparently, the critters can read, because I’ve had four-legged visitors ever since.

  Since we had watched for deer during her visit, I’m quite sure that Brett intended her message for the forest animals. They came, in abundance, in the years ahead, but so did domestic animals in need of help, a development I had not anticipated.

  This book is about some of those animals—the ones who live in the forest, the rescued ones I brought to the cabin, and those in need who found me on their own, beginning with Buddy, the tuxedo cat who moved to my woods around the same time I did.

  Two Tuxedos

  When Carl and I moved to the cabin, we had two cats
—Pete, a Siamese mix adopted from an animal shelter, and Molly, a tabby whom we rescued in Indiana when I was doing school visits there. We let them go out during the day in nice weather, if they wanted to, but we always called them home when it started to get dark and kept them indoors at night. As an incentive to come when we called, they got their favorite moist food, referred to as kitty-num-num, only at that time.

  We walked daily on the nature trail or around the rest of the property with our cairn terrier, Daisy, who came from the same shelter as Pete, in the lead. Pete and Molly usually followed us, making it quite a parade. We had lived here only a short time when, on one of our evening walks, I glanced over my shoulder to be sure Pete and Molly were still with us, and saw a big tuxedo cat—black with a white chest and white paws—bringing up the rear!

  “We’ve added a cat,” I told Carl.

  He looked back. “I wonder where he came from.”

  Daisy, who loved all creatures of any size or species, looked, too. Then she wagged her tail and continued on our walk.

  To our surprise, Pete and Molly accepted this newcomer as if they already knew him, and we wondered if they had become acquainted when they were outdoors without us.

  The new cat followed us on the entire loop of the trail, then sat on the porch with us to watch the sunset. He even jumped in Carl’s lap. When we went inside, taking Pete and Molly with us, the tuxedo cat peered wistfully through the glass door, watching us.

  I called my closest neighbors, to ask if the cat might belong to them. “Oh, that’s Buddy,” my neighbor said. “He isn’t ours, but he hangs out around here sometimes. We feed him once in a while.”

  Once in a while? Buddy must be a good mouser, because he appeared to be well fed.

  Within a week, Buddy had made it clear that he’d switched his allegiance from the neighbors to us. Each morning when we got up, he was waiting on the porch. If I went outside, he hurried to rub against my legs, and he accompanied us on every walk, even if Pete and Molly chose not to come. More than once, I spotted all three cats sitting together in the sun. At night, Buddy watched forlornly from the porch as Pete and Molly came inside.

  Pete and Molly

  I put food and water on the porch for him, but I still felt sorry for Buddy, left outside every night while his two cat friends came indoors.

  “Three cats wouldn’t be that much more trouble than two,” I said.

  “He already gets along with Pete and Molly,” Carl said.

  We took Buddy to the vet and had him neutered. He got all his vaccinations; he got wormed. When we picked him up that afternoon, we put a collar and an ID tag on him. Then we took him home and carried him inside.

  Buddy

  The trouble began immediately. The cats, who had gotten along splendidly when they were all outdoors together, were suddenly mortal enemies when they occupied the same house. Pete and Molly hissed and growled and acted as if we’d been invaded by aliens. Buddy seemed determined to show them who was boss. Fur flew as Buddy and Pete fought. Molly jumped into the fray, biting and scratching.

  We quickly separated Buddy from the other two, and kept them apart overnight. Then we reintroduced him slowly, the way we would if we had brought home a new cat that they’d never seen before. We put Pete and Molly in the room where Buddy had spent the night, and let Buddy have the rest of the house. After a few hours, we switched. The next day, we let them see each other.

  Finally we let Buddy be in the same room with one cat at a time. Pete went first. Both cats growled, circling each other with their ears flat, as if they expected me to say, “Go!” so the fight could start. Molly wasn’t any better. When it was her turn with Buddy, her fur looked like she’d been plugged in to an electrical outlet. She hissed; Buddy took a swipe at her.

  Nothing helped. The fighting continued, and expanded to fights outdoors as well as in. If we wanted to get any sleep, we had to keep them separated at night. Remembering how well they got along initially, we tried to be patient.

  I discovered a terrible abscess on Pete’s neck, where Buddy had bitten or scratched him. The vet lanced it and sterilized the area. A week later, we rushed Buddy to the vet with a high fever. It turned out he had an abscess, too.

  Molly, who was much smaller than the two male cats, began spending a lot of time hiding under the bed. Daisy got upset, too, whenever a catfight broke out. I had to stay constantly vigilant to try to prevent trouble.

  “This is not working,” Carl said.

  I agreed. We decided that it would be best to find someone who wanted to adopt Buddy.

  Luckily, some retired friends, Ginny and Bob, offered to take him. They were at home most of the time and had no other animals. Their only concern was that they didn’t know how to clip a cat’s toenails, so I promised that Buddy’s adoption included having me come to clip his toenails for the rest of his life.

  Buddy moved in with our friends the next day. We gave them his bed, a scratching post, and his favorite toys. They claimed they got the bargain of the decade, but I knew we were the fortunate ones. Much as I liked Buddy, I felt a huge relief when we went home without him.

  Ginny and Bob adored Buddy, and he thrived as the only animal in the house. As promised, I went to visit every couple of months, taking the toenail clippers with me. We called it Buddy’s Spa Day.

  Buddy became an indoor cat and never once tried to sneak out. Why would he? He had gone from being a needy stray, peering in the window at more fortunate cats, to being a pampered pet himself.

  We never figured out why Pete and Molly were so friendly to Buddy when they were all outdoors, and so aggressive when he came inside. If they were protecting their territory, why hadn’t they attacked Buddy when he first arrived? And why did Buddy change from a mild-mannered cat to a mean fighter after he got what we thought he wanted?

  Later, when I began to write the Pete the Cat books, I dedicated The Stranger Next Door to the friends who adopted Buddy.

  Not long after Buddy’s successful adoption, we flew to Minnesota to attend the funeral of Carl’s stepfather. Carl’s mother had married Herman a few years after Carl’s dad died. Herman had never had a pet. He grew up on a farm, where animals were kept outdoors, and had been a farmer himself until he retired. He was a bachelor until he married Carl’s mother. She had multiple allergies that prevented her from having animals indoors.

  When they visited us, Herman always enjoyed our cats. Once, when we took him and Carl’s mom to visit the animal shelter where we volunteered, Herman saw a gray cat awaiting adoption and was distressed because they couldn’t take it. Years later, he still mentioned that gray cat and hoped it had found a good home.

  After Carl’s mother died, Herman lived alone until a friend offered him a five-year-old cat. Chester was a big black-and-white tuxedo cat, the same as Buddy had been, and Herman doted on that cat for the rest of his life.

  Herman died suddenly, of a heart attack, and when we arrived two days later, we asked the family members who lived nearby what had happened to Chester.

  “I guess he’s still at Herman’s house,” we were told. We hurried to the house, where we found a forlorn Chester, meowing and looking for his friend. I cleaned out his litter box while Carl washed his bowls and gave him fresh water and food. Later that day, the whole family gathered to discuss the distribution of Herman’s household goods. We asked, “Has anyone made arrangements for Chester? Who’s going to take him?”

  “We can take him to the dog pound,” someone said. “They accept cats, too.”

  My eyes met Carl’s, and I could tell he was as shocked as I was by that suggestion.

  “We can’t take Chester to the pound,” I said. “He was Herman’s beloved companion. We need to provide for him, to see that he has a good home.”

  We started asking the relatives who lived in that area if anyone wanted to take Chester. One of Carl’s nephews said Chester could come to his house—but he and his wife had three young children, two big dogs, and two outdoor cats. Ch
ester was used to a quiet indoor life with an elderly man; I was sure he’d be terrified and miserable if he suddenly found himself in the midst of all that commotion.

  Someone else said Chester could be a barn cat on his farm. I nixed that idea, too. I know the offer was well intended and no doubt I sounded way too fussy, but I could not do that to mild old Chester. The barn mice probably would have chased him!

  Chester

  We had arrived the day before the funeral and had plane tickets back home for the day after. We had no time to try to find a proper home for a cat.

  “We’ll have to take him with us,” I said.

  Carl nodded agreement.

  I called our airline and learned that we’d be charged a seventy-five-dollar pet travel fee. Chester had to have a certificate showing he was healthy and had been vaccinated within the last three months, and he had to be in a carrier that fit under the seat. Chester was current on his vaccines, but it had been longer than three months since he got them, so the morning of the funeral, we took him to a veterinarian to be examined and revaccinated. Then we found a pet store and purchased an airline-approved carrier. The next morning, before we left for the airport, we picked up Chester and the three of us headed home.

  The vet had given us a tranquilizer, in case Chester got too nervous about traveling, but we never had to give it to him. He was an angel, not making a sound the whole time. About halfway through the flight, I put the carrier on my lap and unzipped the top so Chester could poke his head out. I thought he’d like to stretch, and it would be good for him. I kept my hands on him, to be sure he didn’t jump out.

  While we were sitting that way, a flight attendant came down the aisle. When she saw Chester, she shrieked as if I were holding a rattlesnake. “Oh, no!” she cried. “Keep that thing away from me!”

  “It’s only a cat,” I said. “He’s very friendly.”

  “It’s horrible!”