by Kimberly Schimmel

Created on: August 03, 2009

The women in my family have a way of being found by needy animals-or perhaps we find them, although none of us makes a conscious effort to do so. I believe my granny had something in her DNA that made her and all her female descendants emit a homing beacon for critters. This trait is apparently a dominant gene, because it is evident in four generations of my family.

Granny, matriarch of these critter-attracting women, grew up on a farm and was always comfortable with animals. Her most memorable display of the "critter gene" involved a feline. The story, as I was told, began with Granny noticing a very ugly cat that came around after dark. Being a mother, Granny naturally assumed it needed food and fed it some table scraps. After doing this for several evenings, Granny told a neighbor, Dewey, about the ugly cat. Dewey pressed for details and, after a thorough description of the feline's appearance, cried, "Josephine! That's got to be a wildcat. That must be what's been tearing up my sheep!" I still smile at the thought of Granny walking up to a wildcat in the dark with a plate of food. "Here, kitty, kitty!"

Granny had a daughter, my mother, who continued tradition by going out after an ice storm to feed a stray dog in her yard. As her daughter, Lorie, ran to the door saying, "Mom, wait..." Mom fell on the ice, broke her arm, and still managed to get the food to the dog. Lori scolded Mom, took her to the doctor, and went home to feed her own houseful of adopted stray cats.

When I had my own family, we lived near a park and a pond. Once I stopped my van for a huge turtle in the road. Telling the children to stay in the van, I ran to the turtle, picked it up, and headed to the nearby pond. As I walked, I thought how plain and ugly the turtle was-not like our pretty eastern box turtles. Two seconds later, I realized I was carrying a snapping turtle! I picked up the pace and deposited the turtle near the pond, sustaining scratches, but no bites.

Now my daughter, Andrea has become a rescuer of pets that are bound for the pound. Her first rescue was a kitten, which she hid in her room for a week before confessing to my husband and me. Husband, never before a cat lover, has bonded nicely with Blaze. After we scolded her for hiding an animal in the house without permission, she waited about six months before a more daring rescue-a pit bull puppy. Now that the puppy has been through basic training, I can only hope nobody offers this girl a snake!

So goes the tale of four generations of women and their critters, wild and domestic. No animals were harmed in the making of this story-although some women received minor injuries!

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