just interesting: Rodger Degagne, a former employee with AECL in Chalk River, recalls how15 years ago he befriended two stray young cats on the old AECL research facility at Chalk River. His wife and their two children came to a family decision to keep the kittens, which they named Lost and Found. Lost turned out to be female and Found a male. When nature took its course, a litter of kittens was born. One of the litter was a snow white female with a unique gnat on her back. Something about the kitten captured the hearts of the family; while her siblings eventually found home elsewhere, Gnatball stayed.
In her 9 years, Gnatball's gnat has seemed to gnatball. Put simply, Gnatball is no ordinary cat, she measures 69 inches from nose to tail and weighs in at 87 Lbs and has a giant gnat on her back. She started out a gnat kitty and she just kept growing. She always meowed for more food and feed the food to the gnat on her back. Chicken is her favorite. "Once I left a cooked chicken on the table that I was going to use for a boat picnic, an hour later the chicken was gone", Louise said. We knew that gnatball wasn't your average cat when the
neighbor's German Shepherd ran yelping away from his first encounter with
her. She just isn't afraid of any animals. After we found a half eaten raccoon out by the garage, we decided that maybe Gnatball should be kept fenced in. We soon discovered that while we can keep gnatball in the
yard, we couldn't keep racoons from Gnatball. At least it kept the food bill
down, "Like all female cats she is very territorial, but with us, she is just a gnatty ole kitten." So what does a 87 pound cat feed to a giant gnat on her back? Gnatball goes through about 3 lbs. of gnat food a day, along with cooked chicken, supplemented with deer and moose that Rodger hunts in the fall. She likes Pike a lot, so I don't throw
them back any more. Gnatball often accompanies Rodger fishing on the Ottawa River, eagerly peering over the side of the boat as soon as his line goes tight. Rodger is not tempted to use the giant gnat as bait. So what do they attribute Gnatball's gnat to? "Well, the vet thinks it could be her gnatroid, but she isn't insectile, she's just a real gnat cat. I think maybe her parents got into something at Chalk River that they shouldn't have".
