by Laura
(Michigan)
Tokyo sporting his new hoodie after his lion hair cut.
I used to work at a questionable pet store while trying to work my way through college. At the pet store, there were many different exotic animals and many breeder animals. Amongst these animals there were several pairs of Munchkin cats.
I fell in love with these un-tamed cats and after working with them daily, cleaning their cages etc. some of them even began to trust me and let me pet them.
One year later, I left home attending the Disney college program for 8 months in Florida!! When I came back home and to the "dirty pet store" a week later one of the Munchkin cats (my favorite one whom I affectionately named "Sphinxy Meww Meww") had birthed a litter of 4 kittens!!
They were all short haired grey blue calico's and one orange fluffy male who I Instantly fell in love with.
I soon found out that they all had fleas really bad. While I was gone, the store had become severely infested with fleas and many litters of kittens (Munchkins, Chausie and Bengal) had died! I was not going to let this happen to these babies!
Every day I very carefully had to de-flea the cage, mother and kittens. A few weeks later, the kittens had grown, and the orange fluffy one looked like it was going to be a regular kitten as some munchkin litters turn out.
By this time, poor Sphinxy Meww Meww had also been fostering 3 Bengal kittens that another cat refused to care for. There were simply too many kittens, too small of a cage and 1 poor mother cat that loved to get attention. The manager gave me the orange fluffy one because it didn't look Munchkin!
The owner of the store insisted on putting a price tag on the kittens of $400! I knew all of the kittens were under weight and sickly looking because of living conditions, so I gave him yet another flea bath and took him immediately to the vet before I even took him home.
He weighed 0.8 of a pound (this was at 12 weeks!), and he even had an upper respiratory infection 🙁 After many sleepless nights of thinking I was going to wake up to a dead kitten, weeks of medicine, excellent nutrition and loving care, I nursed him back to health!!
He is now over 12 lbs and is actually on a diet lol. He is my best friend and always by my side! Even though he has short legs, it doesn't keep him out of mischief or off the kitchen counter...I have yet to figure out just how he does this. =^_^=
He is definitely the best thing that I could have ever gained from working in a place like that. He has truly blessed my life. Tokyo loves to just rip through the house at mock speed ..and vocalizing his opinions for everyone to hear. Especially if there is a door closed to a room.
Terrorizing the yellow lab is also a hobby of his!! I know I would never get a "normal" cat ever again. I will always have a munchkin because he just doesn't act like a cat at all. He's not hissy or moody; he's very social and more like a dog!!
Laura =^_^=
I can’t figure out how to update this, but Tokyo is doing fantastic and even has his own Facebook page wih new photos. He is still on a diet…. =^..^=
Unfortunately a few weeks after I received Tokyo and was nursing him back to health, the pet store owner took all of the breeding munchkin cats and babies. Including sphinxymew new and tokyos sisters to an animal auction in Ohio 🙁 I don’t know what ever happend to them or where they went. I was very sad to see them go and especially to an animal auction of all things. I only pray that they all managed to find loving homes.
Is an animal auction what it sounds like and how common are they?
You updated it fine. Thanks for sharing Laura.