Sentimental Journey: Ducky

In case the cat didn’t make it obvious enough, I am a person who likes rescuing things.

In mid-August 2014, on Blab, fellow hobbyist Amanda Reed shared an eBay link to the dirtiest FAM I’ve ever seen:

 

She was so gross that people didn’t know what she was - a supremely yellowed and/or scorched alabaster? A partially stripped bay or heavily damaged appaloosa? 

Well, she pinged my rescue nerve, so I made an offer significantly lower than the BIN price and to my surprise, the seller accepted. I received her a few days later and broke out my trusty bottle of old Lestoil. I made a thread about her on Blab called “One Ugly Duckling” to track her progress. Most of the photos here are from that thread.

As soon as I started working on her, it became clear that all the brown goo was grease splatter. The seller acquired the model as-is in Nashville, but nothing else was known about her. I wonder if she was just hanging around in a diner somewhere as part of the decor. Here's what her back looked like after the first round of Lestoil and some industrious scrubbing:

After half a bottle of Lestoil, a bunch of toothpaste, and lots time in a sunny window, she looks pretty darn good. She lost some paint from her mane/tail in the process, but I’m really pleased with how she came out. Apologies for the relatively shitty pics; my camera setup back then wasn't the best.

 

I named her Ducky.

Here are both sides of her, from start to finish.

 

(Bottom photo taken today with a much better camera)

(Bottom photo taken today with a much better camera)

Quite the transformation.

 

Here's a pic of our little rescue man from this morning, also, for tax. He's about the cutest thing ever.

 

New Additions: April 2026

How is it almost May already?

I was again fairly well-behaved in April, adding only three models to the collection. (I think. I may have forgotten something. I do that a lot.) Here they are, in the order received.

 

[Cat update following the models; I will neither know nor be offended if you skip straight there. 😉]

 

 

#CF615G, Toby, was a run of 250 models produced by Copperfox in 2017. I like Copperfoxes a lot, especially this sculpt, but for whatever reason, a Toby never landed on my shelves. There was one in the Copperfox sale on Valentine’s Day, but I forgot to check the sale until they were thirty or so minutes in, and I missed him.

A few days later, my friend Macie posted about her National Show Horse conga on her blog (if you don’t already follow it, I highly recommend it!) and in the first picture of that post, Toby was visible on the top shelf. I jokingly messaged her that I was grabbing him and running off with him, and she said, “I actually could probably be persuaded to part with him.”

I didn’t end up having to do much persuading. 

She threw more pictures of his glossy goodness into our Messenger thread and said she still had his box and COA, and it was pretty much a done deal. She then reached out to a mutual friend of ours, who helped us set a price for him that both of us were happy with.

 

 

I haven’t participated in Breyer’s Collector Club Appreciation (CCA) Sale since … 2021? It’s been awhile. I knew I was doomed to participate this year the second I saw the glossy blue Big Lex as one of the four models you could receive. I ordered a bunch of pony pouches (because the last thing I need is more models) and the CCA model, and hoped for the best.

Luck was not on my side. I’m not a cream dilute fan in general, and I could already tell from the response to the sale that Cloud was going to be the least popular (and the least likely to be able to trade for a Big Lex), so of course that’s who I got. He’s been sitting on the dining room table for a couple weeks now, but the more I look at him, the more I like him. The chalky basecoat helps a lot. He might end up staying.

 

 

Unlike last year, when I signed up for both the Stablemates Club and the Premier Club, I didn’t choose to sign up for any of the optional clubs this year. I just went for my usual, the Deluxe Collector Club - because seriously, who doesn’t want that bay mini PAM?

So of course they had to release my favorite G1 sculpt, the Quarter Horse Stallion, as part of this year’s Stablemates Club, #B-CS-10578 Westley. Luckily Macie intervened again - she would end up with an extra and asked if I wanted him at cost. Damned right I did! She even had him shipped direct to me from Breyer.

That’s the end of the model acquisitions. Now to hijack the blog again for a cat update; the number of comments I got on the last one seems to indicate to me that yinz don’t really mind the subject matter detour.

 

Our little rescue guy is doing pretty well. He went to the vet yesterday and was terrified, but still a sweet, gentle soul. He didn’t growl or hiss or anything; just tried to become one with the back wall of his crate. He got really stressed when they tried to get bloodwork from him; they quickly deemed it not worth it. I’ll bring him back next week with some good old gabapentin on board to help keep him calm. I wanted some answers about his FIV/FeLV status and some reassurance that his overall systems were healthy, but we’ll have to wait a few more days. As much as I want to know exactly what we’re dealing with, I’m 100% okay with doing things on the little guy’s timeline.

The vet thinks his skin wounds were from scratching rather than cat bites - she didn’t see any evidence of puncture wounds or abscesses. That was reassuring. We didn’t find any live fleas on him last night and he didn’t itch at all while we were with him, so hopefully that means we’re getting on top of the problem. My boyfriend washed all his blankets and gave the room a thorough vacuum while I had the little guy at the vet. To my absolute shock, his fecal came back negative for everything. We’re going to give him the dewormer anyway, though, since I know he probably ate some fleas. Tapeworms are a hard nope.

Everything else about him looks good so far. His digestive system is a little wonky from the food change, but that should take care of itself soon enough. (I’m also going to see if I can get him to eat Felice’s favorite thing ever - canned pumpkin.) 

 

The vet thinks he’s a year or two old, which fits with the timeline from the colony caretaker. 

 

He continues to make progress in getting comfortable with us and his space. On Monday night, he gave himself a fairly thorough bath while we were sitting near him in the room. Last night, he gave himself a full bath while sitting on my lap. (And I mean a full bath ... raised leg and all.) He has shown trust with us from the very beginning, but to have him comfortable enough in his space to groom on my lap, rather than curling up to make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible, was awesome.

He’s a pretty great little guy. Name is still TBD, but the list is getting smaller.

 

One final picture. You know that feeling you get on the back of your neck when you're being watched? I had that this morning after I sat down at my work desk. Turned around and this is what I saw.

 

Bonus Post: Not Technically a New Addition - Yet

I find myself with another bonus post for April, where all of my other designated topics have been covered and I need to think outside the box for something to talk about. When I planned out the month, I fully intended to do another “Chris’s Choice” type of post, where I ask my boyfriend to go into the horse room and pick something at random for me to talk about. 

However, I’m going to hijack my own blog instead. There are no model horses in this post. There are no non-living collectible objects of any kind in this post.

There’s just this guy.

 

 

This past Thursday, my friend Kelly W and her husband Jon were enjoying a vacation in Kentucky for the Rolex event, staying at an AirBNB in Lexington. Kelly sent pictures of this adorable little cat to our group chat and said, “I can keep this, right?” Immediately followed by a picture of him in her lap.

 

Obviously we all said, “Well, yeah. The Cat Distribution System has chosen you.”

It wasn’t that simple, though, or there wouldn’t be a story here.

After making contact with a local individual, Kelly and Jon found out this little guy had been around for about a year, living with a feral colony near the AirBNB, and was the lowest in the pecking order, constantly getting beat up and bullied by the other cats in the colony. The colony caretaker said he kept hoping someone would take the little guy home because he was so sweet and obviously not doing well as an outdoor cat. 

 

 

Kelly and Jon saw the little guy sleeping on/under cars for safety (!) - it was his best chance of avoiding the other cats. When he showed up in the mornings to join Kelly for her coffee, he had fresh new wounds on him every time.

We couldn’t conceive of leaving him in that situation, but he was an outdoor cat probably chalk-full of parasites, fleas, and potentially communicable diseases. Everyone in our immediate circle had cats and no space to isolate a stray with unknown medical issues - except me and Chris.

To do their due diligence, Kelly and Jon called a lot of rescues in the Lexington area, but many were closed and the rest were kill shelters that couldn’t guarantee his safety. That wasn’t an option for any of us. So I told Chris about the little guy - just his situation, not asking if we could take him, not thinking for a second that Chris would agree - but Chris said, “Aww. Tell them to bring him here.” And he meant it.

So Kelly and Jon, being the amazing people they are, went out and bought a carrier and some supplies, fed the little guy canned food and treats, gave him some toys to play with, and let him sit in their laps for protection and affection whenever they were around. 

 

On Sunday morning, after a brief but mighty struggle and a lot of backtalk, the little guy was safely installed in his crate. He rode on Kelly’s lap the whole way back to Pittsburgh, mostly sleeping, but occasionally purring, making air biscuits, and reaching out with his little piggies. He got to us around 2:30 Sunday afternoon.

 

 

Let me sum up my impressions of him after just over 24 hours with us.

This guy is little. He's an intact tom, but he weighs all of 7.5 pounds. He's slightly underfed, but not grossly so; he's just small in stature, which I'm sure is part of why he was bullied so much. 

 

This is a cat whose fight-or-flight has been on, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the past year. Everything startles him. He is terrified of the sliding glass door that leads into the sunroom. He hides for the first 2-3 minutes we’re in the room with him. Any unexpected sound or fast movement has him ducking and looking for somewhere to hide.

This is a cat who has probably only ever felt safe around humans. I’d bet a substantial amount of money that the only time he knew he got to eat all he wanted or be truly protected from the other cats was when he was near a human. When he’s been scared and we’re in the room with him, he crawls right to me or Chris and makes himself as small as possible in our laps. When I say he bolts food - he stands there and inhales every scrap, tense as a bow string, like he’s just waiting to be pounced on or chased off and he has to eat all he can, as fast as he can, because he doesn't know when he'll be able to get more.

It’s heartbreaking to see, honestly.

 

 

This is a cat whose every day has been a nightmare for him, but he is the sweetest, most gentle, most affectionate little soul that ever was. I wasn’t sure how he’d react when Jon and Kelly left, but within 30 seconds, he was curled up in Chris’s lap. He doesn’t know us at all but he immediately trusted us. He has made exactly one sound of protest in the past 24 hours - a tiny little growl when he saw Chris inside the house through the sliding glass door and Chris made an unexpected sound as he was getting some stuff together. That’s it. One tiny growl. Then he was right back to crawling into my lap and purring. He head-butts whatever part of us he can reach. He stretches and shows you his belly (and it’s not a trap). He let Kelly hold him while I put flea meds on him, and he’s let Chris pick him up, and he put his little feet into my hands. He fell asleep so hard in my lap last night that he left a little puddle of drool on my jeans.

I don’t know what the future is going to hold for this little guy. I’m still pretty raw after everything we went through with Felice in the past couple years, and I’ve struggled a lot since his arrival with whether or not I’m ready to commit to another cat. I don’t know what medical issues he has (though he has a vet appointment tomorrow, so we’ll find out) or if we are ready for or capable of dealing with those issues. I don’t know if we’d even be able to get him adopted if he does have a lot of issues that we aren’t ready to deal with. I am taking everything one day at a time.

For now, he’s safe; no one has been mean to him in almost 36 hours; the fleas he harbors are dying; he can eat and drink all he wants; he has soft places to sleep instead of pavement and car hoods; tomorrow he’ll get his wounds cleaned and cared for, and his vaccinations and anti-parasitics and whatever else he needs, and we’ll have his bloodwork done and he’ll be tested for FeLV and FIV; he’ll get his intact “trouble puffs” removed as soon as he’s healthy enough; and he’s regularly getting attention and affection from us. No matter where he ends up, we'll do our absolute best to make sure he wants for nothing, ever again.

That’s good enough for today.

His name is TBD; we have a short list, but we need to get to know him a little better first.

In the meantime, enjoy more picture spam.