Kittens Help Dog Stay Young

Kathy Higgins says the kittens saved Boofie.

Late last summer, it became clear the loyal dog had lost her zip.

Age was part of it. (The family got her as a pup from the Spokane Humane Society in 1989.) And then there was the fact Boofie had never totally recovered from being shot by an erratic neighbor several years ago.

“When we’d try to get her into the garage at night, she’d just lie there and whine,” said Higgins, who lives in a semirural area north of the Spokane Valley. “She couldn’t get up. So we had to carry her.”

Higgins and husband, Pat, had pretty much decided Boofie would have to be put to sleep.

Then something remarkable happened.

An untamed cat gave birth to a litter of kittens not far from the house. An unlikely bonding followed.

The young felines took a keen interest in the furry old pooch, who resembles an English sheepdog. Boofie didn’t discourage them.

“They would venture closer and closer to the porch and to Boofie’s food,” said Higgins. “She seemed willing to allow them to eat without growling. It didn’t take long for us to see they thought she was the mother. And she, in turn, was treating them like her own babies.

“They would nuzzle into her fur and lick her. She would put her mouth gently around their necks.”

Pat Higgins named the cats Domino, Tuxedo, Got-Milk and Gray-Z.

Boofie’s zest for life returned. She became more active.

She’d never had a litter of her own. But those watching her sniff the young cats knew she had one now.

The animals slept together.

Months passed. The new year arrived. The surrogate mom and her charges continued behaving like a model family.

But the cats had started to grow up. And responsible person that she is, Kathy Higgins knew they would have to be neutered.

So with patience and guile, the couple wrangled them into a carrier. Off to the vet’s they went.

Boofie waited and, from all appearances, worried.

After dark, outside the Higgins home, there was the sound of the truck pulling up and the tailgate being lowered. Then meows.

“Boofie heard them and came running,” said Kathy Higgins. “You should have seen her running around the truck with her tail wagging.”

Though the cats were still in the carrier, there was nose-touching through the bars of the cage.

That night, as usual, Boofie and her kittens slept together.

Reunited and it felt so good.

* There’s still time to enter Furry Talk’s Inland Northwest Cutest Pets 2000 Photo Contest. The deadline is 5 p.m., April 28.

Mail your snapshot along with a self-addressed stamped envelope or e-mail it to pault@spokesman.com.

Thanks to those who have entered already.