Very first photo of "Dot"/Ouija the first day he came to me on December 1, 2012
When my eight year old black cat Pyewacket suddenly passed away in the very early morning hours on April 19, 2010 I was completely devastated as he had no prior health problems to warn me of any obvious health issues. I suspect however, that he may have had first a stroke, then a heart attack and it happened so fast, that there wouldn’t have been time to take him to an emergency vet. I instantly feel into a deep depression and my other cat Kissy, who must have sensed my grief, cuddled up next to me when I finally went to bed; something she had never done before as she had never been a cuddle-bug.
Kissy, who was a tiger-striped cat, was to remain my one and only cat for a good long while. Inwardly, I knew that eventually I wanted to adopt another cat, preferably another black cat, but I just wasn’t ready. Then something strange happened in the summer of 2012; I had a very vivid dream, one that to this day I can still remember, and I’m usually the type that never remembers my dreams.
In my dream, I was in the “momma cat” room with several pet rescuers, where the mother cats and their kittens were kept. The rescuers in that room were busy helping bottle-feed some of the very young kittens, save one. Struggling on the floor was a very young kitten. None of the pet rescuers were paying attention to the kitten, nor was the momma cat around to take care of this kitten either. I went over to that kitten and gently scooped it off the floor and began bottle feeding it: the kitten was a black kitten.
Some months passed and it was now October of 2012. Due to my love of cats and hoping to help in anyway possible, I’m very involved with the on-line animal rescue community via Facebook and do a lot of “crossposting” of the urgent cats needing rescue and adoption from a variety of pet shelters nationwide in the USA. One shelter I became acquainted with due to a Facebook friend named Peter Askin, was the Grayson County Humane Society in Leitchfield, KY. I admired Peter as he was a die-hard fan of the shelter, and would travel all the way from his home in Canada to volunteer his time at the shelter. For many years, the shelter had auctions through their Facebook page to raise money to help the shelter pets. As part of the auction, cats and dogs were listed for sponsorship, in which a person could either sponsor or co-sponsor a dog or cat to help defray veterinary costs that were needed for that particular cat or dog. I’d participated in these auctions, either by bidding on some item that was offered, and yes, as you can guess, I would also co-sponsor one of the cats.
It was during the shelter’s Halloween auction of 2012 that I came across one cat whose shelter name was Dot and I decided to co-sponsor him. About a week or so passed after the auction had ended and I began to think to myself, well why not take it further and outright adopt Dot? One of the many blessings of the the Grayson County Humane Society shelter was that they were willing to transport any pet to a willing adopter who qualified. I then went to their official website page and began filling out the long and lengthy application form to adopt Dot and kept my fingers crossed.
About a week passed by and I got the positive news back to me that I did indeed qualify to adopt him, and now arrangements were being made to transport Dot from Leitchfield, KY all the way up to me in the Queens, New York City area. On Saturday, December 1, 2012 Dot came to my home via one of the transporters named Lindsey. Kissy, who was always a timid cat, especially when other people are around was hiding in the bedroom and hadn’t a clue what was taking place; she sensed another person was in my home and thus why she was hiding, but she certainly had no idea that there was to be the arrival of another cat in the home. Lindsey had Dot in a carrier case and asked me if I was ready to have him come out of the case. I went into my living room and sat on the floor, as I wanted to be one the same level as Dot rather than standing over him. The moment Lindsey opened the case, Dot came trotting over to me as if we were long lost pals.
I suppose you may be wondering just what color Dot was? Yes, perhaps you may have guessed; a black cat but with a white “dot’ on his chest, thus the reason his shelter name was Dot. I was to change his name however, as I just didn’t think it was suitable. What I wanted was another mystical kind of name in keeping with my former black cat Pyewacket’s name. Many people might remember that Pyewacket was the name of the cat in the classic old-time movie, Bell, Book And Candle. For about a week I racked my mind trying to think of a name. It wasn’t until I was drifting off to sleep one night that the name came to me: Ouija.
There is just another thing I do need to mention. To this day, I can’t help thinking that the vivid dream I had in the summer of 2012 was somehow Pyewacket’s spirit telling me something; that it was time, time to adopt another black cat in his honor and memory. There had been plenty of cats I could have adopted prior to that dream but I didn’t. By having that dream, however,I think Pyewacket’s spirit was giving me a nudge to do so, and who knows? Maybe, just maybe, he had picked out “Dot” for me.
Below is a composite photo of Ouija taken over the years.
