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My hero, Max

Featured Pets of the Month Support the Culpeper County Animal Shelter and Culpeper Felines & Friends. For CFF, contact 540-717-0770 or CFFRescue@hotmail.com. For the Animal Shelter, contact (540) 547-4477 or visit 10144 James Monroe Hwy, Culpeper

Culpeper County Animal Shelter

Rover Rover is a 12 year old male Jack Russell/Pug mix.

Archie Archie is a 4 year old neutered male Pit/hound mix. He is fine with other dogs and is fine with our office cat.

Buster Brown Buster Brown is a 4 year old neutered male Pitbull mix, seems to be house trained and fine with other dogs.

Sunkist Sunkist is a 2 year old spayed female, litter box trained.

Culpeper Felines and Friends

Suki Suki is a wonderful low maintenance girl!

Helen Keller

Culpeper Times • November 1-7, 2018

Local News

ot long after I settled in with my Widow, Max came to my screen door to get acquainted. He heard I was being groomed as an “inside cat” and wanted to offer his sympathy. He knew the chipmunks would torment me. They would parade back and forth on my front step, close by my screen door, and taunt me with the chipmunk song, “Nah-nah-nah, can’t catch me. I’m a chipmunk and I am free.” Sure enough. They did what he said and I was totally frustrated. Max advised me to keep my cool. Life was short and chipmunks were a dime a dozen. To help me adjust to all of this, Max entertained me with stories. He told me about Oliver, the high-tech cat who lived two doors down. He told me about the wild turkeys that flew in and out of yards as if they personally owned them – and the woodchucks who ate everything in sight. The skunks he knew by name. But his most hair-raising story was about a mountain lion seen walking our street in the moonlight. A retired police officer, four doors down, reported the sighting and who could doubt the word of a law officer trained in accurate reporting? Maybe Max was pulling my tail on the mountain lion. I can’t be sure. I can only say his stories slowly made me more content to be an “inside cat.” Mixed in with Max’s stories were his flirtatious remarks. He said things that made me blush. But he also became a trusted friend as he listened to my rants about the uppity chipmunks. There was one

CALLY TALES Cally

in particular, Mr. Chips, who really needled me. In fact, he made me so mad I got my dander up. Then one morning I went to the door and found the Uppity Mr. Chips at the foot of the steps, dead as a doornail, stiff as a starched shirt, a perfectly laid out corpse. I knew who had “done him in” and I was ready to follow Max to the moon. But we lost Max. It happened so suddenly. One day he was here; the next, he was gone. Well, not in the forever sense, but in the neighborhood. Oliver, his friend two door down, told me Max’s humans sold their house and moved out. He said there were skid marks in the driveway about the size of Max’s paws. Oliver thinks he was taken by force. But who knows? He might have been bribed. He didn’t like to miss a meal. I guess we’ll never know unless Max reappears and gives us the true story. To pass the time without Max’s visits, I resort to the standard Tail Chase as outlined in the Cat Manual. That is, I pretend not to look at my tail, while looking at it over my shoulder. When the time seems right, I pounce on it and seem to mean business. Sometimes I give it a nip, as if it belonged to someone else. Always I end up letting the poor thing loose. I do my best Tail Chase in the doorway to the bathroom. That’s a personal preference. It’s not in the Manual. Recently, however, I remembered Max’s stories about the turkeys who flew over backyard fences and decided I would try a modified version in my living room. I will call it leaping, and I’ll tell you how it is working out in my next article. Cally Tales is its entirety is available at Reigning Cats and Dogs on Davis Street in Culpeper.

Helen Keller is a sweet and loving cat.

RappCats raffle tickets available The area’s most advanced veterinary facility featuring digital x-rays, board-certified surgeon, in-house diagnostic lab and more! Office hours: Mon.-Fri. 7am-7pm Sat. 8:30am-1pm Doctor’s Hours: By appointment please

18157 Lee Highway Amissville, VA

(540) 428 -1000

www.ClevengersCorner.com

Cause for Paws Raffle Tickets are now on sale on RappCats’ website at www.rappcats.org . Purchase your chance to win a fabulous dinner for two at The Inn at Little Washington and a one-night stay at the lovely Gay Street Inn. Your ticket purchase will fund low-cost spay and neuter services for Rappahannock County’s needy cats and kittens. Purchase one ticket for $10 — ive tickets for $40. If you purchase five tickets — you will cover half the cost of spaying one kitty. Please purchase your raffle tickets and help us fight overpopulation of feral and abandoned cats and kittens.

Help us prevent babies from having babies! The drawing will be held on Sunday, November 4, 2018. Only 500 tickets will be sold. You do not need to be present to win. RappCats is private, non-profit organization that rescues, cares for, and finds loving homes for abandoned, abused, neglected, injured, and homeless cats and kittens throughout Rappahannock County. We are very grateful to our sponsors — The Inn at Little Washington, Gay Street Inn, and Gary & Michelle Schwartz — who made this raffle possible. Please call 540.987.6050 if you have any questions.