Sammi

Sammi was my favorite barn cat at the barn where I board my horse. She was very special - I loved her as if she was my own, and had never felt this way towards any barn cat before. I think I first saw her at the barn in February 2009. She was suddenly taken from us on November 7, 2009. She was found dead on the trail by one of the boarders/workers - curled up in a ball as if she was just sleeping. We have reason to believe that she had eaten a rat that had ingested poison. I cried for 2 days after hearing the news, and one of the other girls told me that she cried for a week. Sammi was well loved, and we miss her dearly!

Unfortunately, I only have a few photos of her. None of them are anything spectacular - she was hard for me to photograph, since she'd always come right over to me as soon as I knelt down to take a picture! Here are the first photos I took of her, on March 15, 2009:

Here are the last photos I took of her, on October 5, 2009 after she'd had her second litter of kittens:

The first time I saw Sammi, I was walking back to my car to leave the barn & she was following me. The barn manager called after her, "Sammi, you can't go with her! You silly girl." Then she said to me, "Be careful, or she will jump right in your car."

Every time Sammi saw me when I went to the barn, she always came running over to see me, meowing. She always had a story to tell me!

Sammi didn't like to be picked up & cuddled, but she absolutely loved to be petted!

Sammi was always walking right into our sheds like she owned the place, making herself comfortable. (I was told that she was always ransacking one of the girls' sheds! *LOL*)

Sammi was an excellent mouser, and was constantly catching mice & rats. This isn't a fond memory, but one day she came running over to me & plopped a rat down at my feet - it was still alive. (It wasn't a few minutes later, when she ran off with the poor thing to kill it.)