Oh sure, she looks innocent in her pink collar and sleeping on the couch, but watch out for this one -- she's a maniac.  She certainly lives up to her name -- Scrappy and has no fear of anything.

She came into our family by accident.  In October 2007, Lynda went away for the weekend to Cleveland TX with some friends to work on her scrapbooks.  When she arrived, she found a little tabby kitten, rather dishevelled and scraped up and skinny.  Many of the other scrapbookers were similarly charmed by her but when it was time to go, Lynda was the only one who would take her home.  With the speed limit on the road outside the property at 60 mph and the owners not planning to keep her, Lynda wanted to make sure that she found a home.  With no consultation with any of the males of the house, Lynda came home with Scrappy on Sunday afternoon.

You can imagine Smoke and Spot (especially Spot) were none too thrilled with this arrangement. Joe was willing to host Scrappy for long enough to get her infections cleared up and see if she would be accepted by the boys.  There was much hissing and growling at the door to the guest bathroom, where Scrappy was housed (kitty jail) and Joe and Lynda made a mad dash to the pet store for kitten food and a little litter box.  Joe and Lynda brought her to to be seen by Smoke and Spot but they were not at all happy about this interloper.  At night they would fall asleep on the bed with us and in the morning run with their tails happily up to the kitchen for breakfast.  Scrappy would hear all the commotion and start MEOWING at the top of her lungs, just in case we'd forgotten her.  Smoke and Spot usually had, and were very disappointed to be reminded that there was another kitty in the house.  Gradually over the course of the following week, we brought her out to be seen by them and they got to know her smell.

Initially her smell wasn't all that great.  Lynda took her to the vet on Monday morning to get her checked over.  She weighed in at a rather skinny 1.5 lbs and was looking rather scruffy.  The vet looked her over, took a sample of the gunk in her ears and took her for some other tests.  Verdict: the scratch on her ear was caused by her scratching the ear mites in her ears (hense the bad smell).  And it was infected. And she had ringworm. Lynda left armed with a pill (thankfully the technician gave her the first one -- it was a struggle and required additional help and hands), ear drops, antiobiotics and a hefty bill.  Scrappy was also dosed with flea control in case she had any fleas.  She really didn't like the ear mite drops or antibiotics, but once the mites started dying she felt so much better.  It wasn't long before Lynda was further charmed by her.  Even though Lynda asked around if any of her co-workers would like a kitten, she was hoping that Smoke and Spot would accept her.  Who couldn't love this little ragamuffin?

One week later she was back at the vet and weighed in at 2.8 lbs.  We couldn't feed her enough -- she was making up for lost opportunities and the vet said she was probably about 10 weeks old.  We decided on August 9th for her birthday figuring it would be easy to remember 8/9/07.  By this time the boys, though still not thrilled about her were not actively seeking to attack her.  Smoke warmed up to her first.  Joe had done some research and found that the best scenario for introducing a new cat into an existing cat family is for the new cat to be young and of the opposite sex.  As was the case here.  Soon Scrappy was playing with all their toys and stealing their kitty beds.  Joe said, "Isn't that just like a girl."  Lynda said, "Only boys would think that all the toys in the house are theirs."  Soon she was wrestling with Smoke (who has the energy of a ferret on double espressos) and Spot (who has the energy of a cat on valium) was just glad that Smoke has someone to wrestle with.  We were getting a nice balance.
 
 
 

She has healed well from her original ragamuffin state -- she smells lovely after her first bath, he fur is silky and mostly grown in, except for the scar over her left eye and the scar on the back of her left ear -- a reminder of her beginnings.  She's healthy and independent (to the point that we're thinking of renaming her "Scrappy - No!!") and snuggles with her brothers when not attacking them.  Smoke is her special wrestling buddy -- he loved to wrestle Spot, who wasn't too keen.  Scrappy is keen.  She's discovered toys and plays with any toys, mice, balls, and various oddments that we consider garbage (candy wrappers, knotted up plastic bags, etc.) that are perfect for carrying around or batting around.

She's especially fond of tossing things onto the floor to play with that don't belong on the floor: pens, glasses, lip balm pots, this list goes on and on.  The glasses are especially annoying -- especially as she'll look right at you and then reach out with a paw and 'fwing!' your glasses are on the floor.  And as anyone who is quite nearsighted can tell you, it's hard to find one's glasses when they're not available to assist with looking for them!  She uses the same technique when tossing your pen or mouse stylus on the floor.  She's also fond of playing with a piece of cat litter. We use the kind made from recycled newspaper and so it's little tube-like structures of paper that are especially good for batting around.  Just as Spot was fond of the penne noodle toy, so Scrappy likes litter.

One thing that we really like about Scrappy is that she's a very social cuddly cat.  We experienced that with her from the very beginning as she followed people around at the scrapbooking weekend and loved being cuddled.  Now she'll just use either of us as a napping place or cuddling place.  One evening Lynda was holding her in her arms like a baby and Scrappy was purring up a storm.  She was adorable as her head fell back and she fell asleep in Lynda's arms, still purring.  Yep, I think we'll keep her...