About Puck
Puck’s Story: Puck is our sweetest boy, despite the fact that of the three cats, he had the hardest start in life. As the story was told to us, once there was a litter of kittens a neighbor would watch play in the backyard next door. When the kittens were only a few weeks old, something terrible happened and one of them lost part of their hind leg. The neighbor waited for the owner to do the right thing and take the kitten to a vet, but after a couple of days it was clear that no one was going to help the kitten with the missing foot. One afternoon the neighbor peeked over the fence to see the little black kitten laying on its side, languishing and getting sicker and weaker by the moment. So the neighbor did the right thing and catnapped the kitten, and brought baby Puck to the vet!
Puck was seen just in time by the wonderful folks at Washington’s no-kill cat shelter, Purrfect Pals. Thanks to their Tipper Fund, a fund for special procedures and emergency operations for cats and kittens in need, the vets at Purrfect Pals were able to save Puck’s life. The wound, which they believe was caused by a predator, had become so infected that the rest of Puck’s leg had to be amputated to the hip socket. He came close to dying, and needed weeks of antibiotics before he was well again. The folks at Purrfect Pals work miracles every day, and Puck is one of them.
By the time Puck came to live with us, he was a spry and lively 12 week old kitten, just getting used to life on three legs. His other limbs were strong, and he was soon climbing all the furniture and giving Elvis chase all over the house. He was like any other kitten, except rather than walking he hopped like a rabbit from place to place (a trait he still has, which is often what gives away his missing leg to unaware visitors).
Puck’s personality: Puck is a shy, sweet, mellow little cat. It takes time to earn his trust, but once it is earned, it’s never forgotten. While Elvis and Lupin will race around our ankles as we open a can of cat food, Puck is patient enough (and wise enough) to sit by his bowl. The highlight of his day seems to be watching birds from a window after breakfast. He knows his way around a nap, and he loves to lean against the back of the couch like a person.
Food is the center of Puck’s Universe, with ham being the sun, the moon, and the stars. Ryan (my husband, “the man”) and I bake a ham on Christmas not so much for ourselves, but for how excited Puck gets during the day while it’s roasting. Cheddar and corn are close seconds, but really… Puck will eat pretty much anything. We have to watch him carefully. He has trained our infant son to feed him from the high chair, and he is only too happy to run off with a chicken leg if we leave a plate unattended.
A typical day for Puck: After breakfast, Puck settles into a windowsill and watches the birds. He’ll sit for a good hour or so taking in all of the feathered activity in the backyard. While he is typically a sweetheart, Puck takes his bird watching time very seriously, and if Lupin tries to join him, Puck will hiss and try to persuade him to leave. Later he joins Elvis for an afternoon nap, before retiring to the back of the armchair for yet another nap.
Likes: Ham, cheddar, Thanksgiving, fabrics, hardwood floors, lounging
Dislikes: Loud/shrill noises, sharing a perch, being disturbed during bird watching time
We’re not certain how Puck’s leg was originally injured, no one really knows. A bird of prey was suggested, and our only clue seems to confirm that. Once while watching “Lord of the Rings” one of the Ringwraith’s dragons flew across the large screen with a terrible scream, and Puck streaked from the living room all the way to the bathroom to hide in the litter box. That is the only time he has ever shown fear or the psychological effects of what he suffered those first few weeks of his life. I do know that without his neighbor doing the right thing, we wouldn’t have Puck in our lives, and BREAKING CAT NEWS would be missing its sweetest, most emotional little reporter. I’ve never had a chance to thank them, but I hope that if they read this they know how very much they are appreciated in our home. And possibly in yours, if you enjoy this comic.
Relaxing on the back of the couch.
Baby Puck
Watching the trees outside.
“Ladies.”
Enjoying the feel of a freshly vacuumed carpet.
Bird watching
Handsome boy
Pucky and our kitchen clock.
whoever said black cats were bad luck was way off! They make great pets, so sweet and loving! Unfortunately they are the the ones that are usually not adopted but I’d take a bunch more if I could!
wait do you think that’s why Puck’s original owner neglected him? Because he was a black cat? I hope he was charged with animal abuse.
We never got the legal details of what happened to his original owner, but I wholeheartedly agree, I hope they were charged with animal abuse. I never heard that was the reason, but we were told that him being a black cat would have made it harder to adopt him out with the missing leg. Our vet arranged his adoption for us. We had lost a very sweet kitten named Beatrix to a terminal illness (FIP). Our vet was so sympathetic and kind, and told us that when we were ready to adopt again, she would help us. When the time came and we called her, “The Man” requested that the cat be special needs, so that if we had to lose Beatrix, at least we could open our home to a cat in need. Our vet, delighted, replied that she had just the cat for us to meet. She had been assisting in Puck’s recovery. We met him and fell in love, and it was then that we were told black cats have a harder time being adopted in the US.
I’ve been working on a special strip about shelter cats recently, actually, (to be a stand alone extra strip, outside of the usual Monday/Thursday strips) and it goes into that a little!
Black cats are the best. Your neighbor is awesome!
So you fed him with “people’s food”? Wouldn’t it have bad consequences for health?
our “Bets” is a black cat and she is simply beautiful and very affectionate and I wouldn’t swap her for anything. Nothing has the value of a black cat !
I never realized until your “Shelter Cats” comic that Puck had three legs. He’s such a sweetie
We’ve got a “Puck” too. Our black and white short-hair, Baby, was a TNR young adult camping on our back porch. One morning we found she’d probably been sleeping on a car engine block and lost her left rear leg when the car was started. The vet said she’d crawled back to the only safe place she knew. She’s health and happy now – nine years later. She now has a found red kitten, Tuffy, to mentor on the ways of those impossible humans.
Georgia,
With 3 legs is Mr. Puck really the best climber (who does not compete )? 🙂
Yes, he is! He does not climb the most often (that’s Lupin for sure) however, he climbs the furthest and the highest out of our trio. The Man collects arcade cabinets and he has even found his way to the top of them!
Awww, sweet pucky. He is my favorite caat in the whole comic, because of his rough past and sweet personality. I love him so much
You are one of the brightest lights in my life. I have always been a crazy cat lady, not so much in numbers but in passion. I an big on spay and neuter. Right now we have 3 rescue Bengal cats. Their owner had to go on chemotherapy so we took his cats. They have cat races all hours of the day and night, leaping tall cabinets with a single bound. Some people do not like Bengals because there is a bit of the wild left in them. There’s a bit of the wild in me, too. We are a spectacle in the neighbor hood. The children are amazed to see a cat on a leash. I use a walker to get around and the kitties love to sit on the seat with their feet on the back rest surveying their domain. Of course all they see is their domain. Keep up your good work, with shelter and disabled cats especially. I’ve been disabled most of my life, have had a few tripod cats, one of my cats lived to the age of 22. You have a pure spirit and it comes through in your work.. thank you, Paige
Paige, this made me so happy to read, thank you for your warm, friendly words! Bengals are lovely, three of them on leashes must be a sight to see! You are awesome to take in rescues. I hope so much our boys see 22! And may your bengals, too!
Pucky reminds us of our beloved Briscoe Darlin’, God rest his sweet soul. Briscoe had a rough start, probably tossed out at the abandoned farm where he telecommunicated with me. He was a starving, but sweet & trusting tiny kitten who fattened up quick at our cat bar (always lot of cats). He had a near-death experience (likely with a car engine) where he was not only badly injured, but missing over a month. He recovered spectacularly. It seems those hard-luck kitties are the most even-tempered. We call it Zenkittieness. Pucky is high in Zen. We bet he’s in meditation much of the time. He has peacemaker qualities, as he learned with the Robber Mice that Christmas. Try the lower sodium ham. Our kitties don’t know the difference!
It’s interesting how well cats do with only three legs. Every three-legged cat I’ve seen or heard of had no trouble running, climbing, jumping, and doing all the other cat stuff. My vets agree that the fourth leg is pretty much a spare (but cats missing two or more legs are seriously disabled).
Our black cat, Melvin, had a tough start, too. We saw an all-black kitten begging for food scraps outside a Dairy Queen in Raymondville, Texas. He was skinny, flea-ridden, and had one eye swollen almost shut due to an infection. We asked around, and everyone said he had no owner and had been hanging around Dairy Queen for weeks. So we left contact information in case anyone came looking for him, and took him to the nearest vet (two counties away, as it turned out). He recovered quickly from his ailments, and turned out to be a gentle, affectionate, friendly cat. At first, we called him Raymond (after Raymondville), but we gradually realized his name is Melvin. If you met him, you’d see that he just looks and acts like a Melvin.
Anyway, I don’t understand why people wouldn’t want a black cat. Melvin is a great cat, and the other black cats I’ve known are also good pets. There’s one thing I’ve heard, which is that people don’t like black animals because they don’t photograph well, and these days everybody puts their pet pictures and videos on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and all the others. I don’t know if this is true, or more of an urban legend. It’s true that it’s harder to get good photos of black animals (or dark-skinned people, for that matter) because they don’t reflect much light. But that seems a shallow reason to reject a pet. There’s also an old superstition that black cats bring bad luck (curiously, in some countries they are thought to bring good luck). But how many people believe such things nowadays?
Please,Please post a video of Puck Walking!
Black cats are the best. I’ve had 3, and all were sugar in a fur coat. My latest–rest his soul–didn’t know a stranger, only friends who hadn’t rubbed his tummy yet. Keep up the great work. I read your strip before the rest of the paper. Looking forward to a mug or something, and hope the Tommy pins come back (or I find the right page again).
Thank you, Jan!
We have a big black lump named Ptolemy who was attacked by a bird of prey when he was a kitten. It got a claw into his shoulder and a claw into his brother’s back but couldn’t take off with two squirming kittens. (Probably he had intended to get both claws into one.) Their sister hissed and scratched, and it was too much trouble, so the hawk let them go. Ptolemy has the scar under his fur to this day, and is still terrified of hawks and big birds even though he now weighs 16 pounds and is heavier than they are!
Also not bad luck. Black cats are the sweetest!
I adore all your boys, but Puck has a special place in my heart by virtue of his loving nature. Huge props to you and Ryan for all you do, but certainly for the decision to have your second cat be a special-needs baby. Someone dropped off 3 black kittens at the barn next to the farmhouse I rent; stunning how many people do that, telling themselves that they’ll be fine b/c it’s a barn, right? And they’ll find mice? Grr…Anyway, I made sure to feed them as I do the other barn cats. One day one of them came sashaying–oh, yes, I said “sashaying”!–over to the house; the next day, his brother followed and then finally their sister. Clearly, they knew a good thing. I named them Puck, Hap N. Stance, and Indy. Puck would routinely charge into the catmint in the garden and then stumble out, well and truly stoned. (BTW, I choose to read your Puck as gay, bc it makes me happy: calling Burt handsome; swooning for Lord Battingly; and always, ALWAYS, opting for the fabulous fashions, even when locked in a trunk.)
My sister is one of the biggest fans behind the “Puck and Burt should be together” fan romance casting, and she will be delighted to hear someone else agrees! Your cats sound fantastic, I’m so glad they found a safe home with you!