Karma Dodds

Karma was the first cat that I owned, and I bought her as a kitten from a breeder in Felling.I was so excited when I bought her, and took her home, that I forgot to sign the cheque that I gave the breeder ( for about £30 ).She rung me up and I had to return to her house to sign it!! Karma was one of the original chunky looking siamese, so different to the slimmer siamese today, with their triangular shaped heads and enormous ears! She was a blue point. We picked the name 'Karma', as it meant fate, and seemed an exotic and unusual name,and as such, would suit such a beautiful siamese kitten.
She was a lovely affectionate cat, who used to sleep under the covers of the bed with us. If we disturbed her in our sleep, she used to bite our legs!
When she was about 10 months old she had her first heat, and when she stopped calling, we thought she was safe to venture outside again, we were so wrong!
She came in the next morning covered in white paint, and the dirty looking ginger tom with a torn ear had a big grin on his face!She was an uptown girl who was looking for a backstreet guy!! They must have had a really good night, because 9 weeks later she produced a litter of 7 kittens!A few days after she had the kittens, she went outside and we saw her sitting on the wall next to the same ginger tom with the torn ear.I am sure she was telling him her good news!
I took time off work and was there when she had her kittens.She had them so quickly, that she was having trouble licking them dry in time for the next one, so I dried them for her, and handed them to her. She had them in a nice box in the bottom of an old wardrobe in our bedroom. This was ideal for her, as she could climb out and leave them when she wanted a break.
There were 5 queens and 2 tom cats, and they were all either tabbies or grey and white in colour. We called them Tigg, Tamo Shanta, Fatty, Screamy, Smokey and Bengal and Frosty. As cats only have 6 nipples, the littlest one, Screamy didn't have her own nipple, so she used to cry. We solved this problem by letting Fatty, the largest one, have some milk, then taking her away and letting Screamy have a turn. They all survived and were given away, except Frosty, a grey and white queen, and Bengal, a tabby tom cat, which we kept as companions for Karma.
Karma was a fantastic mother. We used to live in an upstairs flat, and one day in the summer we had the front door open, and Karma and her kittens were at the top of the stairs. A large dog was walking down the street, and it stopped and looked up the stairs at the kittens. Karma advanced down the stairs hissing and arching her back, and the dog fled.
Once we came in from work and couldn't find any of the kittens. Karma was meowing and looking all over for them. They had found a hole in one of the stairs leading down to the kitchen, and they were all hiding in there!We got them out and they were filthy!! Karma had to clean them all up.
We used to buy pasties for our dinner for the next day, and take them to work in the morning, and sometimes Karma used to eat all the meat out and leave the pastry.
Sometimes I used to visit my grandma, who lived at the top of my street, but across a busy road.If Karma saw me, she would follow me and come into my grandma's house with me. My grandma thought this was funny, and was always pleased to see her when she did this. Unfortunately, I think this might have been the reason she died so young. She was knocked over and killed on this road when she was only 22 months old.I think she might have been looking for me at my grandma's. We were absolutely devastated that her life was cut so short, but pleased that we had kept her kittens. Unfortunately Bengal disappeared a few days later and was never seen again, but we had Frosty until she died at the grand old age of 19yrs. Frosty also has a memorial on this site.