Tengu The Bestest Fucking Thing in my Life

Tenny-tomo. Words cannot describe the love I have for you. You are literally my soul child. I would take a bullet for you, literally. Unlike John Wick, I would not let the bad guys kill you. I would do anything to keep you in my life. If I look at you too long, I cry.

I turned on the lights and found her like this "Turn off the lights"

Let me tell you how it all began...

One day I was hanging out inside and I took a glance out our window to see how my chickens were doing (they loved to cross the road to the neighbors' yard) and I see this little cat nose to beak with one of my chickens. I freaked out, ran outside did emergency predator procedure 1 (chase everyone into the coop and lock it) and scared away the cat. When I came back from locking up the berbs, I looked around for this cat. (I still love animals, regardless of meeting the chickens or not) She hadn't made it far, just under my car. I hurried inside to get my bag of small training treats for dogs (for good grooming doggos) and came back out and tossed her a few to lure her out. Fortunately, the bait worked and I brought her inside. 

After a bath, a blow dry, and a can of chicken, Devin was in love. 

She was kneady pawing his arms

"What should we name her?"
"Tengu."
"Tengu? Holy crap that's a good name."
"I know!"

Look at how scrawny and sad she looks

I am allergic to cats and dogs. Cats way worse than dogs. So in order for Devin to keep it we made a deal. He took care of the litter boxes and I would give her regular baths and take allergy meds daily. But only IF she passed with a clean bill of health from the vet. Deal. I scheduled an appt for the next day, and we told Todd the story, and he was against it all the way up until he met her. Then it was love at first sight.

Passing out after her first day of her new life

Little did we know, this would be a daily viewing party

That night we locked her in our spare room with water, food and a nice spot to nap. Before we went to sleep I went in to check on her, and I couldn't find her! I looked and looked and eventually found her inside a cleaning bucket that we use for the fireplace ashes. She had all 4 paws up on the inner walls of the bucket. Scared she got stuck, I lifted her out and she hissed at me. She was pottying! Turns out she was desperate to go potty, and found the best place she could think of to do it. We felt so bad that we had forgotten a basic necessity! I filled a box with sandy dirt for that night and cleaned her up. We were so sorry/ proud that she tried to be considerate of the room.

This was the big swing in her direction that we needed this absolutely perfect creature. If all goes right, she was staying for good.

The next day we took her to the vet, she only had a normal case of ear mites (which all wild cats get) and that she looked like she had a litter of kittens at some point. She was 7 months old, and only weighed 4 lbs. She had a LITTER OF KITTENS AS A KITTEN!  What a horrible thing to happening to a baby!

Pulling up to the vet! 

We scheduled her a spaying for the next day, and took our bean on a shopping spree! She was no longer going to be a sad, hungry hobo, she was our daughter and we loved her unconditionally. Toys, treats, food, beds, towers, the works! Our baby deserved to have a wonderful second life! 

The day of surgery comes and we take her to get snipped.  We get our first dose of dress up as we put her in her onesie post-surgery. 

cats in onesies are the cutest

She loves her new sisters

Our sleepy bean

Everything was perfect, and then an unexpected turn of events happened. As I was bringing the trash in, my neighbor approached me and asked if we had seen a mother cat in the neighborhood because she just found a litter of kittens in the bushes. I couldn't believe they Tengu's as they were so young, but Tengu was starting to fill her milk pouches as we were feeding her and giving her the nourishment she so desperately needed. We begrudgingly took them in and immediately Tengu came running down the stairs when she heard the mews. She couldn't jump into the box with all the stitches she just got in the day before, so I lifted her up, out of her onesie and into the box.

Immediately they latched on and we knew we were stuck with them. This was a big ole' pile of problems. Tengu was a terrible mom. She didn't want to sit and nurse them (she was a kitten, she wanted to go play) and she would move them all the time. She accidentally slept on one and smothered it, so we were down to 4. They were constantly reopening her stitches, so they kept on getting infected, so she had to be put on antibiotics. The runt couldn't handle the tainted milk and ended up also passing. We were down to 3. Her stitches opened big enough that we had to take her in to get re stitched up a 2nd time. At this point we were desperate for help, we weren't experienced enough with cats to know what to do, and Tengu had no instincts for motherhood. Then one day, a miracle happened. We found a cat rescuer who needed kittens to be raised alongside a cat she had that only had 1 kitten. (Kittens need siblings to be socialized) We immediately took her up on that offer and as Tengu had to go in for her 3rd restitching, we took the remaining 3 kittens to the rescuer.  We got Tengu back, and it's like she forgot about them instantly. She looked for them for about 5 minutes, gave up, and was ready to be an only child. She never looked for them again. 

We've had Tengu since July 2016, and she has been the best thing we have EVER done. We can't imagine life without her. We don't want to imagine life without her.

Tenny is our favorite child by far, she has literally never done anything naughty or wrong, and has set a high bar for the cats that come after her. Even bath time is pretty tame. Nail clipping is a breeze, and I only get sweared at by her a few times when I do them!

Bath time makes me laugh time 

Please spare some change for the poor

We catch ourselves tearing up we look at her too long. We think about how happy she has made our lives and we can't/don't want to imagine life without her. She is my reason for living. She comforts me when I am sick or injured, she makes sure to get her morning "pet-ties" every morning, she brings us her mice in the middle of the night and cries until we throw them for her, and she loves to chase her toys around the house.

Tenny hesitant to approach the party so someone can throw her mouse

Let me elaborate on our morning routine. This sweet girl knows the sound of my alarm means that I'm waking up. So each morning she will get on the bed from where ever/ or whatever she was doing and make sure I get climbed on and get headbutties and lots of purring. If she doesn't hear the alarm, all I have to do is call her name and she comes running. We do that for a few minutes, (which is the best way to wake up, in my opinion) and then she hops down and guides me to the potty, where she rubs up against my feet as I do my morning pee. When I'm done, she demands to watch the toilet flush and the routine is over. I have nothing to do with how this became the standard morning, but I know that if my day doesn't start with her, it's never as good of a day as it could have been.

Morning mom! Morning beeb!

She picks lettuce as the ingredient to steal out our our Taco Bell, and prefers to bat her treats around the house before eating them. She drinks "people tea"- tub water that your still soaking in, and wants to watch the toilet flush after you've used it. She loves her mommy the most, but daddy and Uncle Todd are pretty good seconds.

We never stopped dressing her up

Tengu's birthday is October 25th, 2015. She's going to be 4 this year. She's growing up too fast. Now I know how parents of human babies feel. Time is flying by too fast and we need her to live forever, so start funding eternal pethood.

New jammies

All in all, we are so glad that we made the choice to keep this bundle of joy in our lives. We are continuously amazed at the love and attention she gives us. Every day is great when you have a Tenny-tomo in your life. Thank you sweet bean for being just the thing we need to be a complete family. We love you with all our hearts.

Tenny's favorite sleeping pose