Seti – Aka ‘The Bug’
It is with very heavy hearts that we bid our beautiful, fluffy, loving little Seti goodbye.
It was a frantic “MEW!” that caught our attention that Spring morning in 2002. Chad & I were on Grandma Utt’s back porch. “MEW!!!” That’s all it took, Chad was off scrambling through the hedgerow towards the source of the cry. And there, rather stuck, under the shrubbery in the empty lot next door, was a tiny black ball of fur. She purred loudly when Chad picked her up.
We knew where this lost, matted, covered in burs, little one had come from. Her litter had been born under our pine tree around Easter Sunday. Unfortunately, we had no idea where the rest of her family was now. So we took her home. She purred like a freight train and was so loving, we assumed someone had found the nest of kittens and had been handling them. As we later discovered, much to our chagrin, when trying to trap the rest of her litter, that was not the case. It was just her. She was just a loving little bug.
At the time we had two cats and we figured that Ghost, once a momma cat herself, would take to this poor pathetic little baby. Boy were we wrong. She looked at the kitten and I swear rolled her eyes at us before stalking off. Freyr, our boy cat, took one look at the mewling little thing, flipped her over and got to the business of cleaning her up. Apparently we’d found a momma substitute. From then on out, if Seti cried, Freyr came running. And woe be it to whatever upset his little girl.
Under the watchful eye of “momma” Freyr, Seti (and the rest of the litter) grew into happy, well behaved kittens. While we found the others homes, Seti stayed with us and grew into a beautiful, soft, loving, and not so bright, ball of fur.
One weekend Deanna, Rob & Harper the Dog came to visit. Standard protocol was for us to herd our three cats upstairs before Harper arrived as he was a bit too bouncy & enthusiastic for the cats. Harper ran bounding to the back of the house, skidded to a stop and barked, “Arf!” He was looking at a box, from which emitted a deep, fearsome growl. Quicker than any of us could move, Harper decided to investigate with his head. “Arf?” he barked as he pulled back wearing Seti as a hat! She was growling deeply and drumming her paws on his head for all she was worth!
Most days our little Bug-Bug was content to stealthily appear on our laps and get pets. Or sit by the door and smell the great outdoors – she NEVER showed any interest in actually experiencing the outdoors, I suspect her early traumatic experience put her off that! She could easily have taken the Alpha Cat spot in our house because she was longer and bigger than the others, but I don’t think that thought ever crossed her mind. The parade of ferrets through our house never phased her, she would tolerate the ear cleanings and chasing. Seti was simply content living the good life full of love & contentment and plenty of pounce treats.
Godspeed little one. We’ll miss you.
