A tribute to my Friend

Sometime in early 1998 while roaming outside our house in my woods and meadows. My parent’s dog of 14 years and mine/ours for the next 4 had just died a day or so before and both my wife and I and even our female cat were heartbroken. A better dog no one had ever had. The cat would sleep on the dog, they were that close.

It had been my habit to roam trails cut through my forest and meadows with the dog. I decided to take the walk without the dog. I found a little tiny blue eyed kitten with black fur. She was so tiny she easily fit into the breast pocket of my field jacket so I brought my find home to my wife. We fed it and brought her to the vet for her first complete physical and inoculations. The kitten received a clean bill of health so we kept her.

Within a week she had earned her new name. Initially we put her on some blankets in an old Xerox paper box. That lasted maybe two days before she figured out how to jump in and out of it. She would run under a bed or a couch or the microwave stand and re-emerge covered with dust bunnies my wife’s vacuuming had somehow missed. My wife would vacuum again and I would move the couch and we would look for the dust bunnies. The kitten would again go under the couch and come out with more dust bunnies covering her glossy black coat. Honestly we began to suspect she had a small bag of dust bunnies stashed somewhere. By the end of the week she had become Dust Bunny. The name stuck.

We gave her her own kitty litter box and she needed no training. She hopped right in it, did her thing, then promptly buried it in the sand, so I cleaned the box and she repeated the act, and again, and again and maybe the 4th time in 6 minutes she began to purr because this game was fun and now she sits and waits for me to scoop so she can go, and this goes on for like 15 minutes till I tire of it, and my wife is laughing and asking, ‘how much water is in her?’

I have had many cats and she has been one of the most curious and active cats I have ever had. Also one of the most communicative. By the second or third week no part of the house had not been explored by her. From the top of the tall book shelves to the kitchen cabinets Dust Bunny was there. My wife and I were grateful she did not have hands. If she had, no container would have been safe. When I would go out, she would want to come with me and on more than one occasion I just put her inside my field jacket’s breast pocket and she would immediately begin purring and stay happily inside until I came home again. Sometimes, usually when I was talking to the mailman or a neighbor she would peek out to see who it was, then duck down again. I honestly had forgotten she was in my pocket the day I went through the supermarket check out line and started to chat with the cashier, who suddenly let out a shriek at the sight of a little tiny head coming out of my field jacket pocket. Many people hereabouts have met Dust Bunny. Over the years she has often been one of the first cats to come out of hiding and check out whichever new person arrived to visit. She doesn’t need to come over to sniff them although if it is a repeat visitor, she may. Instead she will just sit a prudent distance away and observe.