Shadow

Today, I am thinking about Shadow. Shadow, I miss you. I love you. I wish it hadn't ended so hard, that you didn't have to leave us. That day it rained, it was cold, and my tears rained down my cheeks. Shadow...

Shadow was a kitten, black, the same age as my kittens. Their brother. He had yellow-green eyes, and was fairly small.

Oh, Shadow, why?

FIP, a disease that kills 95% of cats that get it-it's like liquid in the lungs-spread like wildfire through the shelter. It came with one cat, and then spread. The way to tell if a cat has it is drool, snot, inability to drink/eat, etcetera.

This disease killed this cat. It killed others, too, but I remember Shadow most of all. The night he died, I visited him after school. Nobody had been in on that day. I saw the snot on his nose, wiped it off, and force fed him. He was my baby.

I cried when I held him that day. I knew, in my heart, I had come too late.

"Shadow, please don't die," I said, sobbing the whole time.

Shadow never listened. The next morning, Nikki told me he was dead.

Baby, I'll miss you forever.

Topical

I have a lot to say about rescuing animals. A lot a lot.

My hope is that I'll be able to support myself using my writing by my eighteenth birthday. I want to do a number of things to support myself, I'm hoping to publish a book and win some competitions.

But right now, I'm curious about blogging. That's part of why I started this blog; to share my experiences and possibly check out some new opportunities that relate to those experiences.

Cats aren't the only living thing I've worked for. I've signed petitions for the Polar bears, written up little articles, and done school projects in the realm of environmentalism. To me, the environment is possibly the most important cause anyone can have. And all the living things in it count.

So I'll post in here about all sorts of animals. Just most of it will be about cats, because, guess what, I've done the most work for them and with them. I love cats, and I like writing about them.

I'm hoping that by keeping the blogging topic broader than just cats I'll find myself some opportunities that I wouldn't otherwise. But even if I don't, it's still what I love to do; it's still writing.

Moving In

Two years ago, when I moved into the neighbourhood where I now live, there could be nothing worse. I remember the time as a time of upheaval; I abandoned the life that me and my family had held onto for eleven years for something new, something different. I hated the neighbourhood. The school was awful, the kids bratty and the teachers inept. Oh well.

I fought several long, difficult battles. Some I lost and others I won. One of the ones I won ended up with me staying at a fairly decent school, and returning for grade eight. One I lost I had fought with my dad-his illness killed him.

So I can only imagine the difficulties that Kim and the cats faced. They moved into a place not even a block away from where I lived. My friends mentioned it to me when we were walking to school the next day.

We went to their window to see the kitties a little while later. In the window I saw the cat I really wanted-a black, fluffy, three month old kitten that could fit with ease in one hand. Little did I know that he came with a brother attached.

The next day I was a volunteer. Personally, I think the best time we ever had at that shelter was the first few days; nobody fought. The cats were happiest.

The shelter was always dirty, for numerous reasons. One was that the previous tennants had been ungrateful jerks who left the place filthy, so that even after two steam cleans of the carpet it was still almost black. Seventy-four were cats of varying sizes.

But I still claim those days to be the best ones we had. No fighting, no arguing, and most of all, we were just there to help out the kitties.

I remember both the moves for the cats. Most distinctly, I remember when my two babies moved in with me, at four months old. They were a literal disaster area as far as I was concerned. It took me a few weeks to convince my mom and grandfather we should get the kitties, and they gave us the instantaneous unpleasant surprise: turns out, mom's allergic. (One of the kitties loves her for this)

I'll always be grateful that the shelter moved in and let my kittens move in, too.
~Dianna

Hello.

Simple enough, I'm just introducing myself here. My name is Dianna and I'm a thirteen year old writer. I live in Canada and have been writing for five years now, to varying degrees of seriousness. Writing has been my dream for those five years and continues to be my dream to this day.

I'm a three-time participant and two-time winner of NaNoWriMo, and I plan on winning again this year. My stories are usually fantasy although I dabble in horror and science fiction now and again. My protagonists are female usually and most of my secondary characters are, too, as I have a hard time writing from a male POV.

I write a lot, fiction and nonfiction. I have a personal blog elsewhere, and this blog is the one that I'm going to accuse of being 'professional', although nobody could really call it that. Maybe semi-pro?

Anyway. The reason this is called Life and Rescue is that here I'll be blogging about my experiences at a cat shelter/rescue. I'll be posting about 1/10 of the stuff I actually write. If anyone wants to contact me at any time for other information or articles, go ahead. Only a certain portion is posted because I want to send the rest to various magazines.

Once I'm done with my cat rescue topics, I'll move on to other things.

I have an ezine/writer's community at avidgamers.com/belair and a self published poetry book on lulu.com I'll post the exact link to next time.

Good night.