About pets, love and friendship... and responsability. 

I must confess I'm very excited about this blog. Telling the story of my pets is basically telling the story of my life.
I'll make my best to summarize everything. Or maybe not. 

Chapter One: Yuma, The Forgotten One

When I go back to my first memories, I always picture a large female german shepherd living in the backyard of my house. My first pet, although it wasn't actually mine.
My mother always made sure I understood that animals were sentient beings, capable of feeling pain and love. Even if they didn't comprehend these concepts, they deserved our love and protection. 

But, as I grew up, I could see how she and everyone in the family didn't really believed what they said, including myself.  Eventually, carrying with the responsibility of a large dog was too much, and Yuma was left behind in that small backyard... growing old, getting sick... fed with human left overs, surrounded by her own trash. She wasn't allowed to get out, because she was too hard to control. Years passed before she could saw any green grass, when her soul was finally freed by the hand of a vet because of a vascular disease. Her meaningless remains are still buried in the front yard, with no more than a pencil as tombstone, nailed in the ground by a heart broken 12 years old me.
My regret will never be enough to make up for the fact that I never did anything to help her. If anything, I made her life worse. 

But I hope that what I didn't do for Yuma, I did for the rest. 

Chapter Two: Teodoro, The Loved One. 

A couple of years before Yuma passed away, one rainy afternoon my cousin brought home a little cat in her arms. My grandmother acted like she didn't want it, but we all succumb to the heavenly cuteness of this hellish creatures. 

It was school day, and we needed to leave. I think I was in the first course of basic education.

He was left in my room, windows closed so he didn't escape from our love. I was more than happy.
Every time I tried to leave, he'd cry out loud. I would enter, wondering what would he want. A bowl of milk and a bowl of water was all my mind educated by american cartoons could offer. I went in and out a couple of times before realizing what he needed was company. 

And that was the begging of the most beautiful relationship I've had with an animal, in which I learnt the true meaning of love and friendship. 

I remember waking up at 5am to give him his food if he asked for it. I remember hiding the blankets and sheets from my mother because he peed on them. I remember losing my fear of darkness so I could take him to the bathroom to drink water. I remember the first times I dared to speak up to adults, because they were yelling at him or trying to hurt them... 

If what I felt for him isn't love, then love doesn't exist.

Chapter three: The blond brothers. 

It was normal for us to see cats passing by our home, stealing teodoro's premium food we bought. But these ones really gave a fight to stay. There were brothers apparently, three yellow cats with tiger lines, while Teodoro was white with grey spots. My cousins and I developed some affection for them, and without thinking too much, we disobeyed the human rules and followed our humanity. 

We called them: Mi Niño, Mi Rey and Pompilio. Even though they were not ours officially, we gave them food and allowed to stay in our beds when it rained. 

Unfortunately, this led to a territorial conflict that made my best friend, Teodoro, leave the house.  Aparently, cats had their own rules. And part of having any pet is respecting their nature.

I was coming back from a vacation, and he wasn't there. I was told different things: the blond brothers kicked him out, he left searching for a partner, he left looking for me...

To this day I suspect that the true was the one nobody even suggested. Maybe I needed to feel like it wasn't my fault, maybe I needed someone else to blame. But I suspect he died, and that he was poisoned like it had happened before in the neighborhood.  He was the first family memeber whose death I had experienced, and those were my very firts grief tears.

Chapter four: Otto, The Devil. 

Meanwhile we struggled to maintain peace between King Teodoro and the invaders, another creature came to our lives. 

The old lady who lived alone next door called the bell of our house one night. She requested our help with a noise that came from her backyard. She was very religious, and at first she thought it could be the devil himself. We went to her backyard and heard the noise. It seemed like a very scared cat that was probably trapped between the bushes. It was dark, so we searched around, moving some branches and wires here and there, until a skinny black cat came out of no where and escaped before we could give a better look.
It's funy that I never look for a pet. They always just appear somewhere in the house and say "you take care of me now, congatulations". Sometimes I feel like they are sent by God whenever a dark time is ahead. And after Teodoro went buying cigarettes and Yuma returned home, some dark days arrived. So dark, God had to send the devil himself... but we named him Otto.

Chapter five: Cleopatra's Reign

"Cleopatra, your new queen"

We still had the issue of the blondies, but they didn't last longer after Cleopatra made her entrance in the house, since then called "Cleopatra's personal slaves house". Much like the queen she is, we found her sleeping under the shadow of the bushes, a young female cat with orange and black mix as fur and a twisted tale, surely from an epic fight against a shark or something. I went running to my grandmother and begged her to keep her. I wasn't even living there at the time. Years later my grandmom confessed that she only agreed to keep Cleopatra because she hadn't seen me that happy in a very long time.
So there I was, my eyes glowing full of hope with another living thing I could give love to and receive orders from.
She was instantly recognized as a natural killer. Not a "hunter", because once the victim died and she couldn't have any more fun with it, she threw it away and Otto devoured it. When I went to pick her up from the vet, I came back so, so proud... they told us they needed five of them to keep her under control... and some of them didn't live to tell. She knew how to open doors and she understood her own name... she didn't care, but she understood. She was smart enough to not eat stranger's food, and that's how she survived the following cat assassinations that occurred the next months, that took the life of Otto.

Chapter Six: Federica, The Surviver. 
I think I was in 8th grade when I received the new that he had been poisoned. I'd like to say I was

"Federica, The surviver"

lucky I wasnt there and see his agony, but that wouldn't be true. Even my grandmother said that whoever did it, was not human as far as she understands it. I still bame the old lady... finishing down the devil who peed on her plants. I repulse her, just in case.
Later, I heard from an aunt that she thinks she saw Mi Niño and Mi Rey dead too. I cannot describe the feeling of impotence I felt and still feel. By the time, I already pictured myself as the future best veterinarian in the galaxy. A little taste of it came when my mother secretely came home with another cat in distress, like three years ago.
That one was a case. She was found in a suitcase along two dead brothers under the heat of sun, struggling to get out with not much strenght left. She couldn't open her eyes because of ocular secretions. Worms in her stomach, bugs in the little fur she had left ... We kept her hidden until we got rid of those things, but the tub was an issue. The medicines were more expensive that the others. We tried, but we needed to buy in a very strict schedule and we were always late.
At the end, we used sea water.IF YOU EVER HAVE A PROBLEM WITH TUB IN A DOG OR CAT, BATH THEM IN SEA WATER FOR TWO WEEKS. 
It is miraculous. And that's how she bacame one of the most glamorouse, elegant and beautiful black cat you could see. She likes smocked ham sleeping dangerously close to the heater in winter.

               
And to this day, she and Cleopatra are my lifelong roommates, and I could not be more grateful for them. I also had two dogs more, some fishes and some birds, but Cleopatra just told me nobody cared so I'm going to sleep.