I never really wanted a cat, but I needed a cat because I have a barn and if you don’t then mice decide that your barn is their place. Don’t misunderstand, I love my slashing tornado of death, but I don’t understand her. Dogs, I understand Dogs, they aren’t as complicated and are always happy, cats are complicated as hell and never seem content.
We’ve had several cats, Cassady was a beauty, a little calico with 3 paws, one was missing due to some accident in her little past. She was tiny, about 4 pounds and super sweet. Cassady just wanted attention so she would wait on a fence post every morning and would hop on my shoulder and sit while I walked out to the horse overhangs and poured grain into feed bins. She was a very affectionate kitty. One day while my home was being renovated Cassady ate her usual breakfast but did not appear at dinner. That same day my neighbor was heard screaming at her pack of dogs to “let it go” “don’t kill it” “drop it” according to workers she was fairly freaked out and screaming at the top of her lungs. I can’t say it was my cat but when I asked if she had seen her, she was extremely nervous and had to suddenly go somewhere. Both she and her husband avoided conversation for a good 6 months. Cassady was also inquisitive and liked to climb into vehicles so she could have hitched a ride and we have coyotes so there are many scenarios that could have been. I never saw my sweet girl again and still wish to know what happened.
No. 2 came from the lying chicken lady in Troy. I saw a sign for fee kittens and called a number. This woman said the kittens were 6 weeks old and were caged and needed homes. I said OK, bring me a boy. She met me outside a local store, handed me a taped-up box and left. Inside was a girl that upon vet check ended up being about 6-8 months old and assumed never let out of the cage due to the way she walked. I still see that lying chicken lady in the store deli where she works the chicken fryer behind the counter and she still walks and hides in the back every time our eyes meet.
And one sunny day our 4-month-old puppy ran like the devil and scooted under the electric fence letting out a good yelp as he slid to freedom. He disappeared into the wood line and returned several hours later. Two days before there was an unfortunate frog incident where he brought in a frog in his gigantic dog mouth and spit it one the floor which resulted in a frog chase for a good hour to get it and toss it back outside while he happily watched from his living room bed. So, when he sat on the couch with his cheeks bulging, I screamed NOT ANOTHER FROG!!!!! So, he stood up, turned around and spit a tiny kitten onto the couch.
He rescued her but they never became friends, his duty was over the moment we picked her up. This tiny girl started out sweet and affectionate but progressed to bitchdom. She chases him, he chases her, she stops, screams, slaps, and slashes. Game over.
When our pup was 5 months old, he was chasing his cat when he accidentally wrapped a lead line around his ankle and sprang forward to give chase breaking his tib & fib and causing permanent lifelong pain and handicap and draining 5 grand out of our bank account. He like me walks with a limp on his left, he like me was reassembled with metal and screws. There are 2 times in their life where there was peace and friendship, and one was during his healing. He was laying out in the sunshine napping on good pain meds when Badin snuck up, checked out his injury and bandages and snuggled up to him in comfort, this lasted 5 minutes, he liked it until he opened one eye and saw CAT. The second was another sunny day when he was 8, again laying in the sunshine napping and she walked up, sniffed, and did that cat kneading thing on his back. He was enjoying the tiny massage and I think he believed it was me up until he opened his eyes and saw me sitting across from him, looked back and saw CAT then it was game on.
Badin is ruthless, she stalks, hunts, kills just about anything, you never know what body or body part you will find where. Early one morning I went into the tack room to feed ponies and deposited into my feed scoop was the bottom half of a squirrel completely hollowed out. We were afraid she had taken the little head and stuck it on a tiny stake in front of the shop as a warning. On several occasions she has deposited her kill’s heart and organs on our tractor seat, she places mouse and vole bodies on the back steps, and lays snakes at the door of the shop. Hundreds of rabbits, birds, snakes, lizards, grasshoppers, mice, voles and who knows what have died by her tiny paws and BIG hunting skills over the past 10 years and I have cleaned up her nasty messes.
This little vixen thinks the bird netting overtop the chicken coop is her personal hammock, on sunny days she lays there and enjoys the screams from the chickens. Other days you can find her laying in the barn rafters, legs swinging down, or on top of trucks or buildings like a queen surveying her land. Ignore her and she will pounce down, scream like a banshee, rush to you and slap the shit out of you. Never fall for the purring here’s my belly rub it deal; it always ends in your bloodshed.
I rescued a white homing pigeon once that simply walked into the shop and dropped at my husband’s feet asking for help. It had been shot and was injured. I kept Leslie in a cage in the barn during recovery and was worried that Badin would make her a small meal. After she healed, I let her go but she decided to stay and roosted in the barn. Early mornings I would open the barn door to find Leslie and Badin sitting together waiting for me looking like they had just ended their morning chat ready to go out, it was weird. Badin knows that if she hunts what is mine, I will hunt her, so she knows respect.
This little cat can go from purring and friendly to slashing death in under a second. She demands food, rejects food, throws her bowl, slaps her heating pad, knocks over things at random, poops where she pleases and often sits in a window in the dark night screaming into the house for fun. I once let her in and she screamed to get out. She enjoys torturing people and animals. I’ve seen her with her paw and arm up to the shoulder in a hole trying to snag a vole, jumping from the rooftop to catch a bird, running from a coyote, hurling herself from rafters to catch a snake but give her snow and she becomes a chicken. I’ve also watched her capture a mouse and spend a good hour throwing it around until she becomes bored and rips it apart.
Badin is the reason I limp. Every evening I groomed my Arabian as he ate, yes, I know stall wise it wasn’t, but we did it for 9 years with no probs. One evening I am brushing my pony, he is happily eating grain when he catches movement out of the corner of his eye and turns quickly, smacking his head on his hay rack. The movement, the slamming of his head and her scream all combined to enact that flight instinct that all horses are born with, and he reared up in defense slamming down his 1400lbs onto my left foot. I screamed and he realized he was hurting me and froze. It would have been better had he not frozen on top of my crushed foot, but things happen. The movement that began his panic was Badin hauling ass after a 3-inch field mouse who was running for his life, he had chosen to rush into my pony’s stall, and she was on his butt like wildfire. She tore that little mouse up for being in her territory and my horse annihilated my foot, so I now set off metal detectors. Badin kept her distance for months after because she knew I was unhappy about crawling to a phone screaming in pain while she did her victory screams and threw her kill around the stall.
She also has a soft side. My old Appaloosa was her friend, she slept in the stall with him for 9 years and often during cold weather slept on him. Mornings she would sit on a fence post near his feed bin and during the day they were always side by side in conversation. Other times she would scream, rush across the field for no reason and slap the shit out of his pasterns causing him to chase her. Several times he shoved her butt off the post into the 65-gallon water bin and trotted off laughing. She was beside Buck as I held his head in my lap while he died. Buck’s death was sudden and unexpected, we found him on the ground at the side of the barn breathing heavy, foaming, mouth opening and closing and panicked, so Badin and I did our best to calm him, and we made sure he knew he wasn’t alone. Badin supervised his burial and said her final goodbye just before we lowered him 20 ft into the ground. She refused to enter the barn for 6 months and has yet to go back into his stall.
Badin is the perfect bitch, pretty, soft, strong, sweet, mean, aggressive and protective all wrapped up with a tail. I love her but I don’t understand her. I am also fairly certain that if I should miss a feeding or piss her off too much she will turn into that slashing tornado of death, and I will be her next victim so I’m not going there.
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