Dee Dee Gets Brushed

In a few days I'll post the pics of my torn up arms. Dee Dee is a poster cat for frequent handling and why not all kitties are good for beginners. She's actually a sweetheart most of the time and quite shy. But today when I picked her up I found out where all the hair balls were coming from - she was shedding like crazy!

I put her on the table and started with the pin brush. She was NOT happy. She finally squirmed around enough to bite. Eventually, her nose stopped hurting - biting is not allowed and never tolerated. A few more strokes and she squirmed free. Just as well, she'd nailed an arm by then.

My cat is not a genius. She fled to her favorite window. I followed. Mild hilarity ensued but she ended up with her scruff in my hand again. This time I decided to clip her claws first. (Okay, so I'm not a genius either...) She decided to vacate her bladder on my leg. Other than the quick clothing change, claw clipping was uneventful (I do not define 'screeching like a banshee' as an event, obviously).

Back to the table. Several more piles of cat fur the size of small pickle jars,a great deal more squirming, and Dee Dee mastered a new trick - she can scratch something on her back now. Mind you, she has to become a kitty contortionist to do it but...

A brief break while the human cleaned up the rest of the bladder contents and a lovely gift from her colon. More fur piles, screeching, squirming, new welts on arms and at long last we had completed brushing. At least for today - near as I can tell, despite pulling off a pile of fur the size of a large cat, I didn't make a dent. Dee Dee is like her daddy - you could brush Aspy all day, pull off a ton of fur and he'd look like you hadn't touched him. I wish she were more like her daddy - Aspy didn't do the kitty rodeo thing no matter what you were torturing him with (although he considered jumping out of the tub perfectly fair game if I was dumb enough to let go).

I'm gonna go put cream on my arms and go back to bed (home sick today - I had a bad reaction to a medication. Can't drive and evidently shouldn't brush cats, either). Tonight, I'm gonna look up 'chainmail' online...

I may rethink recommending hairless breeds for first time owners...

Sanity Optional

Evidently an option I never took.

Call me a softie - or just stupid - but most likely purely insane. The reason? I got a new kitten last night.

No, I didn't intend to. The neighborhood cats - which are not mine - all congregrate in my yard: A) because it's a cheap means of scrap disposal and B) because my dog Scooter will run off (or try to) the other, much more dangerous dogs. Anyway, it's kitten season (not indoors 'cause reproduction is not permitted and a number of operations have insured compliance) and there have been as many as eight little ones roaming about at their mommies' heels.

Yesterday, one of the little ones was on my porch. I recognized it as the gregarious, first into anything, one. But he wasn't feeling up to getting into anything. One eye was glued shut with mucus and the other was close to it. His little nose was full of gunk. He is obviously ill...

At the moment he's laying on a towel over a heating pad on my desk. He was too sick to even fight when I picked him up - although he did protest the whole bathing process (when they are that small there's only one way to get the fleas off - dipping in either alcohol (preferred) or white vinegar and bathing the heck out of them). He's not much interested in food - and hasn't been happy bout the whole 'milk replacer in syringe going into kitten' thing, either.  Fourth of July week-end isn't a great time for kitty illness - I'm still debating calling the vet since he's doing pretty well at the moment.

I'm calling him Midnight. Partially because he's solid black and mostly because he reminds me of a cat my sister had years ago - a white cat she named Midnight which had a tendency to beat the heck out of the neighborhood dogs. I was never sure if he was fearless or brainless but he tore up more than a few dogs dumb enough to get too close. My little Midnight has that same cocky strut - at least when he isn't sick.

I'm guessing him to be around four to five weeks despite his tiny size. He did defecate without prompting last night but we're gonna go do icky things in the bathroom, just in case. And we wonder why cats question human sanity...

Happy Fourth of July, Y'all!!!!

Pike's Peake

He's less than a year old - not that you can tell by looking at him now. I took him in two days after Chesapeake died which is one of the rare times I've adopted a kitten to help ease the loss of a cat. Not something I'd normally recommend but in truth the only reason I hadn't already taken him in was that I didn't want Chesapeake exposed to any new cats while she was so ill.

Needless to say, he's named in Chesapeake's honor. He does remind me of her in a few ways. He's gregarious with people yet calm around them, much as she was. But the similarities are few. He's a clown when he wants to be. He and Blackie tear around the house like little maniacs. Rambunctious doesn't quite cover it.

Pike has huge paws and they have a ton of fur between the pads. The result is he has to have that fur clipped more often than his claws. Otherwise, as soon as he hits the vinyl flooring at full tilt he goes sliding out of control and slams into whatever is in the way. Jumping is equally hazardous as he has little to no traction to stop with. It's hysterical to watch but the picking up whatever he slammed into gets old fast.

He's calm and rarely temperamental. Even then, he growls his displeasure and swings his tail irritably but nothing more. Despite being twice Blackie's size, Pike never takes advantage. He's into fun, not fighting.

He's the first to introduce himself to anything new but is never aggressive. I've yet to see him drive any other cat away from the food dish even when he has the advantage and wants it. But he's no pushover. Blackie has pushed past his limits a couple times and Pike has proven that he can fight if he needs to - he just rarely sees the need.

Today he decided I needed his attention - in the middle of my nap. He likes to lick my forehead and invariably forgets that I have long hair. Try sleeping while holding your hair so your cat can lick you. He doesn't usually sleep with me - the bed's too small - but today he was determined. He managed to sleep on me once he decided I'd been sufficiently licked.

At the moment he's curled up on the foot of the bed. We'll see how long that lasts...

Sheba

I can't now recall if she is from Chesapeake's second or third litter. She's a solid black long hair with a definite Persian look about her although she's clearly not a Persian. Her father, Miracle, was once called 'magnificent' by his groomer. Sheba is more dainty and feminine. She's also as shy as they come.

Once I catch her, she's a sweetheart. She never gives me any real trouble while being groomed. But the second she's on the ground again, she's gone. 'Not a lap kitty' just doesn't cover it.

She's small, especially in comparison to her father. She looks about twice her actually size - can we say 'puffball '? She spends most of her time with her sister Velcro. They are several litters apart but absolutely identical. I can only tell them apart by attitude. They may look a like but their personalities are night and day different.

If I recall correctly (one day, I'm gonna find my record book again!) she is 16 this year. She wasn't all that active as a youngster so you really couldn't tell from her behavior that she's so old. Of course, her favorite activities are sleeping, eating and running from me, so it's not like she gives you a lot to go on.

She was one of the very few of Chesapeake's kittens that never took to being trained. She cannot be tempted with treats - although she will take them if they are left where she can get them. Where her brothers and sisters all learned to beg and wait until called, she merely watched from the safety of her carrier. No amount of coaxing could convince her to take anything from a human hand.

But she is a sweetheart when I do manage to hold her. But she will always be happiest watching from some safe perch.

My Girl Chesapeake

She came into my life late one evening as I was coming home from the second (I think) Batman movie. I'd just gotten the key in the door when something mewed at me. I looked around and there in the flower box was this little gray fuzz ball, looking expectantly at me. She just sat there as I picked her up as if I'd been picking her up her whole life. I looked for a mother cat but didn't see any other cats at all. A kitten that small won't usually stray far from home but I'd never seen her or any litter mates before. I'm standing out there in the middle of the night trying to think who's kitten she might be and she's curled up in my hand going to sleep. I might not have known, but she knew she'd found her human.

Laying on the couch looking at her the only name that came to mind was Chesapeake. Mind you, I've never been to Chesapeake and would have a hard time finding it on a map. Okay, I read the pony book years earlier - what schoolgirl didn't - but that was the only thing I knew about Chesapeake the bay. Chesapeake the cat was looking at me waiting patiently. When I asked, she didn't object, so Chesapeake became her name.

Spooch (I did NOT name that cat!) had no objection and the other two followed her lead so Chesapeake joined the ranks without so much as a hiss. I'm actually not sure if Spooch knew how to hiss. Chesapeake most certainly did but I can't recall her having ever used it on Spooch.

She couldn't live with me at first. I'd been on break from college. But she never seemed to mind. She was smart, easily trained and easy going. She learned to ride on my shoulder but never cared for it. it wasn't but a few months before I dropped out of school, supposedly temporarily, having been burned out - and had my heart shattered. Chesapeake found my tears bewildering but she lent her tiny shoulder when I needed a good cry. It helped.

That Halloween a friend threw a pirate themed party. with my friend's permission, Chesapeake made a short appearance as a parrot. I'd made her a silly little costume and she rode around on my shoulder. But there were a lot of people in a small house which was a bit much for her and I took her home. She never panicked, but she wasn't having a good time. I suppose I shouldn't wonder that she thought I was nuts.

I moved to a nearby house. Peake got out. Kittens resulted. Aspiration came first. His brother Miracle just got lucky that I came home when I did - his big head got stuck. Peake proved to be the best queen I have ever seen. The only three litters she lost were born sick. A few years later she adopted her daughter Gabrielle's litter. Gabby couldn't get the whole 'mom' thing and Peake had lost her own litter a week before. Shove babies in with Peake - problem solved.

Mind you, minimum wage job and an invalid parent do not make for optimum spay and neuter conditions. Only after Momma died and I'd moved again did I finally have the funds to start having the gang fixed. Things were already out of control - a long sob story I'll relate some other time - and Peake's incredible ability as a queen wasn't helping. But just before I could have had her spayed she produced her last litter, all of which died. Her other daughter Naomi had a litter she couldn't handle so once again, shove kittens in with Peake, problem solved.

More than I'd guessed. Within a few days Naomi was sharing the nest with Peake and the kittens went to either one. Naomi was spayed once she weaned, but honestly, she'd done so well she might have been a good queen herself after that.

A few years later I had a gastric bypass. It wasn't until much later that I realized how badly it affected me. But at the time, it was bad enough. I went into a major clinical depression. I couldn't take care of myself and did a lousy job taking care of them. They all had cause to hate me, but none ever did. Most especially Peake never did. She looked at me like I was a lunatic a lot - which I was - but took the whole thing in stride.

Eventually, I started to recover from the depression but now despite the weight loss I found that I rarely felt good. I took the stupid vitamins, did what I was supposed to do and never made the connection. Things improved, but they were never the same.

Five years later, I moved again. New house that only Peake seemed not to mind. Everyone else freaked and took months to settle down. Pest and Aspy both had health problems and took a lot of my time so I didn't notice right at first when Peake started to lose weight. By the time I did, she looked terrible. Taking her to the vet, I was pretty sure this was it. After all, she was a venerable 18 year old. The vet wasn't encouraging. He thought she was having liver trouble. He gave her something to 'pep her up' so that I could hopefully get her to eat again. I took her home not expecting to have her much longer.

Peake never was one to settle for the expected. I took her back a couple days later a new cat. She was scarfing down four to five jars of baby food a day. Took several weeks to coax her back onto cat food, she liked it so much. Then onto a special diet so that her bowels behaved themselves. She hated that stuff, but she ate it.

Through all that, the medicines I crammed down her throat, the trips to the vet to get sharp things poked into her, all the human craziness, she never ran from me. I'm cramming paste down her mouth at one point daily. Any sane cat would have moved under the couch permanently - but not her. She was more than willing to put up a fight. It was in fact the only time in her entire life I had to use a towel on her, but once it was over, she'd curl up beside me as if nothing had happened.

She did well until last summer. She started having trouble with her hind leg. She no longer climbed into the kitchen window where I'd see her as I pulled into the driveway. By October she no longer slept with me but insisted on sleeping on my desk. It became more and more difficult to coax her to eat. She even turned up her nose at cheese. She had always come running when I opened the fridge in hopes of getting cheese but now it held no interest. She had to be spoon fed.

The morning of October 26, 2011, I woke up to find her in distress, but amazingly, she rallied. After a while, she came and laid on her keel beside me, like a normal cat. I petted her a long while. I got up and turned away for only an instant, and she was gone. That quickly, she passed out of my life, just as quietly and dignified as she had come in. She was 21 years old. She made it to her 21st birthday, said good bye and went home.

I still can't write about it without crying. I firmly believe I'll see her again someday - and she'll be wanting cheese. But I miss her terribly now. She was the only cat I had cremated and her remains sit in her spot on my desk. Her picture is looking at me - her at her feed bowl with that 'come on, human- there's gotta be something better than this' look on her face. Most often, I laugh when I remember her antics - she could do so many things that you had to laugh at and yet she was always the dignified little lady.

And the grand dame of the entire crew that followed her. Without her, I wouldn't know a fraction of what I do about cats and I wouldn't be writing this. I also wouldn't understand faith so well. She made a difference in my life and indirectly in the lives of those I've helped. Not to shabby for a little dark gray tabby, huh?