Resident Cats
I thought you might enjoy seeing my cats. I wish I could get them to line up for a group photo, but they won’t stand for that. Two of them are inside cats, and one is an inside/outside cat depending on the weather and her mood.
Charming
Anyway, here they are. The first is Charming. She’s a calico, and we’ve had her since she was a kitten. My daughter found her in Columbia for us. She has grown into a big cat, but a sweeter, more loving cat, you could never hope to find.
When she was a kitten she used to lie under the lamp on my sewing machine because it was warm. I could hardly sew. I was always having to stop to move the kitten. She’s outgrown that now, and she prefers to snooze in the top of the cat tree or the basket. She loves catnip. I often spread a newspaper out and sprinkle catnip on it for the cats, and she has taught the others to love it too. Her favorite toy is a much-loved Little Caesar’s stuffed toy. As she’s gotten older, she’s become more easily frightened. If it thunders, Charming runs to get under our bed. If we use the toaster, she skedaddles for the back part of the house. Once or twice the smoke alarm sounded when someone used the toaster, and she’s sure it will happen again.
Lucky
This is our other house cat, Lucky. He was a mistreated Siamese that our vet wanted to place. He’d been attacked by dogs when he was a kitten and kicked by someone. We weren’t sure that he would even live when we got him. He’d been cooped up in an incubator while they treated him, and when I got him home, he went crazy. At last, he was free to run and play! He’s been doing that ever since.
He would be top kitty if he could, but he respects Charming, and he won’t try too hard to unseat her from her throne. He contents himself with running full steam down the length of the house and jumping Charming as he goes. If he harrasses her enough, she’ll chase him. That’s the best part of the day if he can get her to play. He lives to tussle with my husband, and he enjoys sleeping under a lamp on my computer desk. He loves to be petted, and he likes to lie on his back in your arms. (I think he’s imagining how it would be to run pell-mell across those beams up there.) Finally, he won’t admit it, but he snores.
Peaches
This is our third cat, Peaches, a tabby, although her stripes are so light they disappear on her body. She came to us full grown, sweet from the start and obviously familiar with people. However, she was out on her own, and nobody appeared to be caring for her. She adopted us, and getting her to reform to inside life has proved difficult. We’ve nursed her through many illnesses. Since I usually have to poke pills and medicine down her throat, she favors my husband.
We would like for her to stay inside, as she has had several scrapes with other cats outside. Then too, there was the time she ate a bit of Pampas Grass, and we thought we were going to lose her. I wish everyone would understand that Pampas Grass is very bad for animals outside. They eat it, and it has hook-like spines on the reverse of the leaves that digs into an animal’s throat and tongue and won’t let them regurgitate it. They can’t eat, then, and animals have died from it. This got into her nasal passage, and it was very difficult to remove. We had to take her some distance to another vet who had tools small enough to remove it. It’s deadly to pets, and everyone should avoid planting that ornamental.
She’s a good cat. She loves hunting mice in the field behind our house, and she often brings us her trophies and leaves them lying on the back door mat She’s learning that the cats in the house are not interested in fighting her, and she’s more comfortable now inside than she used to be. We often have her in the house during the day, especially when the weather is inclement. She always spends the night inside.
We enjoy every one of them, but we don’t want more. We’re outnumbered as it is!
Entire Content (c) 2005 by Glynda Black. All Rights Reserved.