This Tortie Tuesday, I would like to write about a very special Tortie in my life; my Auntie Mattie. She lives with my Mommy's mom (my Grandma)so that makes her my auntie! I'm very proud to have Auntie Mattie in my family because she is definitely full of tortietude and a wonderful example of how special Torties are.
Grandma adopted two 2 year old cats in 2003; Mattie, a tortoiseshell and Sally, a calico.
Mattie was rescued by the shelter in winter 2003 and very pregnant. She was totally matted all over her body, which is where they got her name. 2 days after she was rescued, house mother Vicki came down in the morning to see that Mattie had ripped out all the matted fur on her belly to enable her babies to feed, and she had already given birth to 3 kittens. 3 more followed but 1 didn't make it. The next day, another cat that was rescued and brought to Vicki, also very pregnant, gave birth to 6 kittens, but did not survive giving birth. Mattie, without even a moments hesitation, took on the other 6 kittens as well as her own. She gave them all equal time and treated all 11 as her babies.
Mattie is a hunter by choice. When Grandma got her, she regularly escaped and was very hard to catch, but usually had a bird in her mouth when she was found. Shortly after she moved in with Grandma, she had to have 9 teeth removed because of damage from malnutrition and living on her own, but still was a super mouse, shrew, chipmunk and bat destroyer in the house Grandma lived in. She once caught a deer parasite from the mice she regularly ate and nearly died, but fought back to her current perfect health. Grandma lived in a rural house near Ottawa that seemed to have an entrance for mice and rodents, so to protect Mattie from getting sick again from the mice, she had to do a better job at catching them herself. Sally was totally inept and uninterested in hunting and actually screamed when confronted by rodents. Mattie would hear her sister's screams and arrive on the scene in a split second to catch the offending rodent. Even with 4 teeth on top and none on the bottom, she made fast work of them all. Mattie caught a chipmunk once and led poor Grandma on a wild cat chase with the poor lil' chippy dangling and spraying blood everywhere up the stairs onto 2 light carpets in 2 rooms and finally back to the living room where Mattie lay under a glass table with one paw over the dead chipmunk and ,looking up through the glass, meowed very loudly and proudly, with blood all over her face. Grandma was horrified but Mattie was so proud of herself that Grandma had to congratulate her.
Grandma has since moved to an apartment where she doesn't have the mouse problem that she did in that big old house, but Mattie still finds a way to hunt by catching flies and spiders.
She has since had to have the rest of her teeth removed, but she still eats her dry food somehow (even though Grandma offers her wet food, of course)! Poor Mattie had a terrible start in life but now that she lives with Grandma, she is thriving and very happy.
I am very proud of my wonderful Auntie Mattie and I hope that one day my Mom will let me get some hunting lessons from her! I'm not holding my breath, though. Mommy has a weak stomach when it comes to those sort of things...
Mattie has a fascination for computers so I'm hoping that I can convince her to write some Tortie Tuesday lessons in the future. I know I could learn a lot from my auntie!
Delilah
xoxo
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