Floyd and His Kittens
Afew winters ago, my dog, Floyd, found a tiny, sickly kitten with her paws in a milk pail in our dairy barn. She’d curl up in a hutch and keep warm with a calf. She wouldn’t let me touch her at first but would rub against Floyd and let him lick her face as a mama cat would.
A friend had given Floyd to us a few months earlier; he was the runt of the litter and the last puppy left. He has such a nurturing personality and ended up being so perfect for me. Eventually, I was able to befriend his kitten. We needed a good mouser, so I named her Mousetrap. She made herself right at home, traipsing across the computer keyboard in the barn office and sending the computer into fits. We learned to stand the keyboard on its edge at night. Problem solved.
Mousetrap loved snuggling up with Floyd while I milked the cows. She follows him everywhere. Floyd loved having a little buddy, and Mousetrap grew from a scrawny, sickly kitten into a beautiful tortoiseshell cat who did indeed turn out to be a great hunter.
The next year, I found Floyd looking delighted as he gazed under a broken
floorboard, and I discovered Mousetrap was a mama. Floyd didn’t want to budge—he wanted to lie by the hole all day. He was there to greet the kittens as they began emerging from their birthplace, lovingly licking them head to toe as he had their mother.
As they grew up, canine and felines shared bowls of warm milk and food. Floyd even let Mousetrap share a steak bone or scoop of ice cream. The kittens saw Floyd as a second mother and followed him around the farm just like Mousetrap, and when the mama left them on their own for a bit, they had the world’s best babysitter.
The kittens are all grown up now. It’s always a sight to see Floyd trot by with several cats keeping step alongside him. When one of the cats catches a mouse, Floyd gets in on the excitement, too, sometimes snatching it from right under their noses for a good game of “catch me if you can.” When I let Floyd out every morning, at least three cats lying in the yard jump up to trot after him. At night, they all crowd the back door and try to come inside with him.
Last summer, our farm welcomed another litter of kittens, and of course Floyd fell in love with them, too. I had to bring a few into the house for some extra care, and Floyd was happy to let them live in his crate. He was a wonderful surrogate mom, letting them snuggle and never complaining when they ate from his bowl or climbed all over him. Several of the folks who adopted the kittens were thrilled that their new pet was already more than comfortable around dogs.
Witnessing the sweet relationship that Floyd shares with these cats has truly been a heartwarming experience for everyone on the farm. They’ve brought love, laughs, and so many smiles into our lives. This is joy we never would have known had that first tiny kitten not found her way into our calf hutches and met the gentle farm dog who accepted her as family.