Her name was Little Miss Bitsy Bones.

We had to help little Bitsy over the rainbow bridge on Saturday. She was about 12 years old. We found out earlier this year that she had cancer and the prognosis was not good. We had a biopsy done and she was full of breast cancer. We first met Bitsy when she was still a kitten. My wife and I were coming out of dog park in Coral Springs that is very close to the eastern side of the Everglades. She must have been dumped off at a near by feral cat colony and had been chased off. She was emaciated when she came running up out of the bushes. She had this rapid fire little "meow-meow-meow!" and I must have had a "Babel-fish" stuck in my ear. What I heard was, "you better take me home and feed me or I'm gonna die, and I don't want to die". We loaded our 3 big dogs up in the minivan and I went over to pick her up. She hated being picked up, but it was the price of admission. We took her home and set her up on our back porch. We already had 4 other cats as well and needed to quarantine her until she got to the vet. Our plan was to fatten her up and find her a home pronto. A lady my wife worked with wanted to try taking her on, but it didn't work out. Bitsy had life long health issues. She gulped down water and could destroy a litter box in a day or so. She also would sometimes eat so fast that we would end up getting a visit from the "puke-fairy". Less than a year later we moved up to Boston, and Bitsy and the whole gang came with us. None of our cats liked being in Boston. The dogs loved it, but the cats stayed inside. They didn't like the cold. Bitsy would sleep on the radiators and I would leave an old stereo on for her with the volume turned off. She was a "heat-seeking cat-cicle" up there. After almost 2 years in Boston we moved back to South Florida. We rented a house that had stood empty for a few years. This is where Bitsy had her proudest moment. It was a small house, but I was on the other side of it when I heard this fierce little wild cat growl. It almost sounded like there was a cougar in our den. None of our cats had ever made a sound like that, so I made a beeline for the den. When I entered the room Bitsy was sitting on the arm of the couch with her head held high. She was beaming. I still didn't understand what had happened but I walked over and gave her some skritches and told her she was a good girl. That's when I saw it. Behind the couch there were two freshly killed rats. I gave her more pets and went and cleaned up the mess. After our landlord put that house up for sale we found a new place a couple of blocks away. We were feeding the cats on the back porch when one night a very large raccoon came up and started eating Bitsy's left overs. Bitsy jumped out of her chair and went over and popped that raccoon right in the forehead. The raccoon ignored her and kept eating, but Bitsy had no fear. She took no prisoners (except us). Even Cujo the Pirate Kitty stepped aside when she came in. We'll miss here dearly. She's survived by Monty, Jethro and Celina. All the rest of our critters aged out and crossed over before her.

Yes, sometimes Bitsy Bones would play with the dog bones too!