Blackie was the 1st stray cat to show up on our deck. It took me a year to tame him. The Vet said it was a miracle.

Blackie was a much loved family pet for many years and has now been laid to rest.

     In the late fall of Oct 2003 I noticed a cat hanging around our deck.

He was a mostly black with some white patches, a tuxedo cat.  I started feeding him. This cat was scared of its own shadow and us, but he came for food.

     Three years passed and the cat was still a stranger. There was no getting close to him. Bill built him a deck house and we sent away to the USA for a heated mattress. When the cat laid on the mattress the mattress would heat up to a cats temperature of 103F. Winter was coming  and I tempted him to come into the porch by leaving the door wide open.....talk about a good air exchanger. I still couldn't get within 10 feet of this cat. He did wander in the porch but he ate and scampered out.

     In Jan of 2007 he became lethargic.

He wasn't eating, he was sick. I said to Bill I can't stand it, you will have to shoot him. I don't want him to suffer. He said, call the Vet. The Vet said if you can get him in here I can look at him. Now we have this cat we can't pick up or get near so Bill cut a piece of plywood and nailed it to the entry door of his deck house. This just tells you how sick he was as he didn't move. The deck house with cat inside went off to the Vet. I am getting ahead of my story, so I will add this now.   

      I should say the previous winter Ange, named him Frankie and that previous winter he also went missing for 3 weeks. I gave up and thought something must have happened to him...for 2 weeks I put food out but he never showed up, I gave up and stopped putting food out. At the end of the 3rd week there he was, sitting on the deck in a blizzard like.  

     Now back to a very sick Frankie.

     Once we got Frankie and the deck house to the Vet, Bill took the door off the deck house and Frankie went wild in the examining room. She threw a canvas bag over him and gave him a quieting needle, I needed one too but she didn't give me one. lol

     He had crystals in his urine. He got a good checkup, his ears cleaned, a patch of oil slick cut off his back, etc...she doctored him..and then I asked if he is well enough to be neutered..she said he was. I stroked is head when he was laying on the table, he seemed to be comforted.

     We brought him home sealed up in his deck house and he spent the night in his deck house in the garage where is was warm but not cold. The next morning I am to give him pills..lol lol..here is a cat I can't touch or pick up. We let him out of the deck house in the kitchen and he went to his dish of food of which I had put the pill in and he ate about one mouth full and then he wanted out. He was thrashing at the door.  He wasn't supposed to go out.......it was very cold. How do you keep a scared stray cat in the house when it is bouncing off the door and windows. We let him out hoping he would take up residence in his warm deck house. lol Like he was ever going to go back inside that house. He slept under a nearby cottage for 2 days at minus 17C. No food and no pill. On the 3rd day he wandered over for food...of which I now put out in the kitchen with 2 doors wide open to the outside weather. He did eat a bit ...a couple of times he laid by the wood stove as long as I was about 10 feet away and the doors were open, well, it is winter and it is cold..so I had to close the doors and he went thrashing at the door to go out. He ate very little. He wasn't getting his pills.

     At the end of day 5 he came inside  the kitchen again and  ate, I closed the kitchen door as it was freezing inside. He went to the door and started to howl. I decided to pat the top of his head before I let him out.  I thought he was trying to bite me but he wanted me to pat him again and again.   It was instant love!!!!!!! He never left our laps for the next 3 days. He couldn't get enough of us. Instantly he became an inside cat. He never went back in his deck house, he preferred the lazy boy chair by the pacific energy wood stove.

     Getting him to travel in the car was another problem but finally he tolerated traveling. He traveled 16,000 klms with us this past summer.

     What a cat!!! Frankie is a lover and everyone loves Frankie.

In December 2015 Frankie was diagnosed with jaw bone cancer. The Doctor gave him a couple of months. Our beloved Frankie was laid to rest in the middle of February 2016. Such a wonderful cat and such fond memories we have  of him. He purred on my lap everyday including the day he went to heaven. His jaw was getting bigger and his left eye was swollen. It was his time. If only we humans could share the same compassion and be laid to rest when the time comes rather than suffer..