I thought I’d throw out a quick update on the orange kitty we rescued last winter. Last we spoke, he was busily settling into the house, and being a lover not a fighter he was mainly placating all the house cats that didn’t reciprocate his ever loving attentions.  He is the cuddliest cat by nature, and he is now allowing me to pet him, as long as he doesn’t see my hand approach him directly.  He also hisses at the front door if it’s open, and runs away to hide probably hoping that he never has anything to do with the great outdoors ever again.

With Alfie, he ended up making peace and now they are happy to run away from scary noises together.

With Tweak, he has a mutual pact of non-aggression. He tries to be all loving, but she looks at him sideways and walks away.

But it was my big white deaf boy that was the main object of his affections.  He LOVES the big white furball, and follows him around the house worshipfully. And despite the fact that they’re both male, he tries to get frisky with him. And he tries to hold him down and clean him, and groom him, and cuddle up next to him. It’s hilarious and entertaining by turns.  And now I have a big gay orange cat, and poor confused Cheney who has no idea what he’s done to deserve this.

PS – He also has a supremely useful trait. When Cheney locks himself in the bathroom to have a yell (see story), Pumpkin runs to the rescue. Upon hearing his plaintive cries, he headbutts the door and lets Cheney out. It’s very sweet to watch, and incredibly helpful as well.

“I’m gonna hug him, and squeeze him, and call him George…”

This winter we rescued and inherited a feral kitty, with the help of a local rescue group that has a Trap-Neuter-Release program. They trapped, neutered and were about to release, as he was deemed to be too feral and hostile to be sheltered. This may sound cruel, but it’s not. Many feral cats do not take well to shelter life, take forever to socialize, and are difficult to adopt out, making their stay at shelters much longer than most, and stressful to boot.  Feral cats outdoors often form colonies, often assisted by volunteer caretakers, that allow them to live out their natural lives without the trauma of forced ‘rehabilitation’. 

However, we were in the thick of a brutally cold winter, and as far as we could tell Kitty had no colony and his life on the streets was no picnic. I don’t know how many times we watched him limp to the front door into his heated box suspending his injured or frostbitten paw, or show up with an eye swollen with a gash, or watch him try to gulp down food before it froze. (In the end we worked out a system where he’d get his meals in small chunks).  He was cautious, colorful and notoriously hard to trap. Until we did, and took his terrified self over to the vet.

Upon hearing he’d be back on the streets, we promptly asked that he be returned to us, and set him up in the guest room in our basement. For about three days we didn’t see hair nor hide of him. He stuffed himself flat under the pillow on the bed, and you’d never ever know there was a cat there.  Eventually he emerged and stayed on the windowsill of the room, hissing furiously when we brought him food and water.  But we had an unusually busy winter – father was rescued out of Libya, brother had an unfortunate appendectomy, grandmother passed away, exams had to be written, new jobs found, etc. etc. and we didn’t have a lot of energy to dedicate to Kitty.

So we pretty much left him to his own devices. After about a month or so in isolation in the room, I began leaving his door open for a few minutes each night so our curious and hostile resident cats could meet him.  Our ‘special’ champion and patron saint of weirdoes was the friendliest, his sister cautious from a distance, and Alfie surprised us all by hating him on sight. The reason I was surprised is because she too is a feral, one that took a couple of years to get socialized, and I thought she’d have some sympathy and understanding for his plight.  Evidently she did not, and took to chasing him back to his room if he ever ventured a paw outside it.

Eventually the door was left open longer and longer, Pumpkin went exploring further and further, and finally he wormed his way into the household with virtually no help from us. His early explorations were fraught with peril – he’d slink out one paw at a time, ears flattened, ready to bolt back to his room at the first sign of trouble, squealing with fear and often being chased back by Alfie, who’d whistle like an angry teakettle. But Pumpkin was nothing if not persistent, and Alfie must have gotten tired of playing ‘vigilant guardian’, because now he prowls the house freely, often naps on furniture, eats pretty close to everyone, and lets us walk within two feet of him provided we are not looking at him.

This picture was taken last week, when for the first time he walked into our bedroom while I was reading in bed, and plopped down for a spell.  I betcha it won’t be long until we’re kicking him off the bed at bedtime. And that’s my story of how we pretty much ignored all socialization advice and let the cats do their own thing. And how I’m becoming a crazy cat lady one rescue at a time.

P.S. As to why we called him Pumpkin – once upon a time this winter, we were leaving our house and got onto a busy highway which is two blocks away. We live right on the edge of town, and this highway while close to our house, is still pretty rural looking. As soon as we turned the corner, we saw a curl of orange on the side of the ditch and immediately assumed the worst – that Kitty had met a car. This is not improbable, as I’ve seen him almost get smoked by buses and cars more than once while navigating the icy neighborhood streets.  We circled back for a closer look, but the curled shape looked too familiar against the white snow. We practically had to get out of the car to see it for what it was – a rotting, squished pumpkin.

All pets have personalities that are as unique as that of their owners. In our case, the male cats’ personality can be best described as ’asshole’.  He is stubborn, obnoxious, needy, ungraceful and stomps around the house wreaking havoc and catastrophe.  He’s lucky he’s really really cute when he sleeps, otherwise he’d be throttled.

His quirks are legion, from locking himself in the bathroom then screaming his indignation on top of his lungs, to choking himself on the rim of a garbage can, to the most annoying of all – the nocturnal burst of energy.  Every night between three and five AM he stomps into our bedroom and proceeds to ensure SOMEBODY wakes up and pays attention to him. 

Like Simon’s Cat, he begins with a few plaintive meows. Since we ignore those like the champion sleepers we are, he escalates to jumping on the bedside table, knocking off the stray books, hair ties, water glass with his crash landing, and mournfully meows some more.  He is deaf, and cannot modulate his voice, so his meows generally have the same tonality as a cow. 

If by then someone hasn’t woken up to a) kick him out and shut the door b) lock him up in the bathroom c) attempt catricide, he escalates by doing something incredibly obnoxious, like finding a plastic bag to rummage through, or his new favorite game of launching himself into our wooden blinds, headfirst, to great rattling.

We have kind of tried everything over the years – a visit to the vet ruled out medical problems,  water spray is just a fun game, locking him up pre-emptively ensures he yells himself hoarse all night. Keeping the bedroom door locked gets us a serenade under the door, as well as indignant scratching of the two girl cats, who see no reason to be punished for his behavior.  We generally resort to blearily waking up, tossing his furiously snorting butt out, and going back to bed with the precision of a racing pit crew member.

Lately James has been working a lot less due to a back injury. Since he is nocturnal at heart, like me, his schedule quickly shifts to staying up quite late, and sleeping in.  This means I get a hope of uninterrupted slumber, since him staying up means that *I* get my beauty rest. 

However he does it, is fair game – food, toys, whatever it takes. Despite his best efforts, Cheney often wakes me up still by hollering in his nasal whine on top of his lungs.  The other night was no different - cat yelled, I blearily stomped him into the bathroom and locked the door.

Catching the kitty that lived on my porch through -30 C (-22F)  temperatures has kind of consumed my spare time for the last few weeks. Well, that, and my birthday on Monday, and the midterm that I wrote, and the holidays of course.

But kitty took precedence. Even though he came and went a bit sporadically, he was usually on the porch waiting for his meal when I came home from work.  After watching him shiver and huddle on the yoga mat, we got smart and bought an outdoor heating pad which we enclosed in a lovely big box with styrofoam inside, and draped with a blanket to keep snow off.  Then we got a second heating pad as a side wall, and kitty moved in pretty permanently. We probably would have gotten a third and fourth heating pad as well, but finally, finally, kitty deigned to walk into the cat trap that was thoughtfully placed there by our perennial favorite cat rescue group – The MEOW Foundation.

Food didn’t do it, either. He was too leery of the trap to be enticed by food, and circled it carefully, electing to go hungry rather than chance being eaten by crocodiles or whatever his kitty imagination came up with.  Plus it doesn’t help that food freezes in about two minutes in these temperatures, offering very little in the way of temptation in a short while.  It was a healthy sprinkle of catnip that lured him in, a substance that proved irresistible. Kitty went in, the trap went slam! and a mournful meow later, we had a very apprehensive prisoner.

Of course this happened at about eleven last night, and of course the vet where we dropped him off was clear across the city, and of course I’m exhausted today, but also quite elated that kitty will spend his first warm night inside, in… forever? The vet will neuter him, and fix up any cuts and injuries, de-worm him and vaccinate him, and he will go to the MEOW Foundation to recuperate. There they will determine whether he’s fully feral, or just shy, and will decide whether his future lies in being adopted or not.

At the very least he’s warm, fed and getting used to people, and while his empty box sits on my porch I sleep better at night not worrying whether he’ll get hit by a car today, get eaten by a coyote, or where in the world his latest injury came from.

The weather also brought a homeless kitty to our doorstep. Whenever I see a cat outside near our house, I immediately rush out with a bowl of food. I can’t help it, it’s like a Pavlovian reflex. Often the cat is collared and belongs to one of the neighbors.  In that case he has a snack and moves on. Occasionally it’s a stray, that pounces on the food like it’s going out of style and sometimes we even manage to get him over to the local vet which passes him on to the Humane Society.

This fluffy orange cat appeared sporadically through the summer, and has never let me approach him. Now that the weather is crap, he waits for me to come home every day and devours a whole can of wet food, and a handful of dry food besides.  He won’t get near the food if I’m outside though, he’ll just sit ten feet away and look at me reproachfully  as if to say ‘dude, my meal is getting cold’.  I’m not sure when he begins his vigil, but the snow is usually melted under him by the time I come home from work. After a meal he cleans himself, waits twenty minutes or so, and wanders off.

Now that the weather is so cold I’m quite worried about him, so tomorrow will be operation trap the cat. We’ll leave food on the porch in a cat trap and see if he bites. With any luck we’ll come home to a scared orange cat in a cage.  Then our plan is the usual – foster him and let some shelter adopt him out. He may just be glad to be out of the cold.

Here is an awful photo of my cat watchin him eat through the window. He is just a dark shadow bent over his bowl of food. What really ticks me off is that he’s definitely not feral. He seems quite cautious around me, but I’ve seen him approach local kids in  the summer, and he’s somewhat socialized.  Which means he likely had a home once.  

Do you help any critters survive the harsh winters?

He always goes in first:

And tries to figure out where the spray is coming from:

And tries to catch water bubbles and droplets:

And tries to drink some water off his paw:

And finally gets wet enough to get sick of the whole enterprize.

Happy Thanksgiving and Long Weekend!!!

I’m back from sunny Cuba, and unlike my last trip it was a rather mediocre vacation, mainly due to the family choice of hotels. Travel tip – if you’re going to Varadero don’t stay at the tip of the peninsula. The marshy and boggy land spawns mosquitoes like Manitoba’s forests do, and no amount of spraying they do can diminish their staggering numbers. Also the beaches suck.  But days were still sunny and beautiful, we saw our friends and got the customary sunburn so of course it wasn’t all bad.  

While I was gone Iceland exploded in a truly cool and expensive eruption and I wanted to share a link to the coolest photos of the volcano I’ve seen to date. Here. Nothing drives home the power of nature better than events like this and it’s impossible to see the photos without appreciating just how powerful the planet is and how insignificant we are.

The garden is feeling neglected, so my to do list this week includes deeply watering my trees since we are in a drought and they could use a long soak, repotting my tomatoes into tall containers – likely pop and milk jugs one more time before they go outside, and planting peas. Since we’ve had such a warm spring I could’ve done this already, but I procrastinated so in they go now, along with lettuce. Since we’re still a month away from last frost I should still be good for time. This year I’m planting an heirloom variety that happens to be a bush pea since they climbed too well last year and were flattened by the winds into a messy jungle. I also need to rake the grass somewhere in there… busy time spring is.

P-p-p-peas

I also need to sort out a solution to hardening off my tomato seedlings. It was a pain in the butt when I only had nine plants, but this year I’ve got triple that amount and hauling them up and down the stairs is a dangerous and time consuming proposition. I’m contemplating rigging up some sort of permanent like shelter a week or so before they go outside. Anyone have any solutions to this problem? This seems like the most PITA part of the whole seed starting process.  If my interest in growing food continues (and I have a feeling it will), I may simply have to get a greenhouse and save myself the headache.

My cats rule and I love all three of them in very different ways, but the depths of my white deaf boy’s weird behavior know no bounds. He’s recently learned a new trick – locking himself in the bathroom and hollering on top of his lungs to be let out. His process is as follows: he goes into the bathroom and sniffs around for a few minutes. Then he backs into the bathroom door butt first until it closes. Then he turns around and starts yelling at it indignantly. If we’re not careful and leave a wedge of some sort he’ll spend the whole day locked up in there alternating between screaming and sleeping until we get home and let him out. He’s so special it hurts.

Anyhow it’ll be a busy week and I’m thrilled that summer feels around the corner.

Whatchoo want?

I know I’m horrifically behind on posting, and I even have nifty things to post about but it’s been a heck of a busy week again! Between playing with and feeding up my foundling – who has now found a forever home and will be leaving us soon, (so so bittersweet to let him go!) – and hopping along at work, and shoveling snow to the horror of my unused back muscles, I’ve simply been terribly busy. And writing a decent post takes a decent amount of time. I guess I’m not the world’s fastest typer, maybe I should look into that dictaphone software.

That's the life

Nightstand nap

Comfy nap

Fat comfort

Anytime anyplace

Our neighbors’ cat got lost a few days ago. She must have got out in the morning as they left for work, and they spent two days doing what owners frantically do when their pets go missing, namely print flyers, talk to their neighbors and the neighborhood kids and spend hours walking around with cat food. She was an older cat who’s never been outside, and they were understandably upset and worried.

As professional cat owners we contributed a donation of a cat trap, moral support, cat food on our front porch and several walks around the neighborhood late at night, when the traffic dies down, and the night is still. So last Saturday night found us walking around the neighborhood around eleven thirty at night trying to spot one shy cat.  One shy cat was nowhere to be seen, but we did spot a very young cat sitting curled up on the steps of a townhouse.

We stopped to say hello, and the friendly kitten approached, gurgling something in cat and arching his back. He was very skinny, and allowed himself to be picked up without resistance, purring all the while. Offering to return him home, I knocked on the townhouse steps where the lights were still on, and asked the family who answered whether the kitten is theirs. 

“Oh no, no” came the answer.

“Well have you seen him around?” I asked,  “perhaps he’s your neighbors’ cat or anyone’s from around here?”

“No, no, he’s been around for a couple of days, but he doesn’t have a home” came the reply. “Perhaps you can take him?”

“Thanks, I sure can” I said. The kitten was not wearing a collar, had no tattoo, and was skin and bones.

The kitten was still sitting contentedly on my shoulder during this conversation, so we traced our steps home, got in the truck and drove to the wonderful 24 hr vet at the local plaza. The receptionist checked him for a microchip – none, tattoos – none, and said he can spend the night there, and be sent to the SPCA in the morning. She also mentioned that it looks like he has worms, his ears are dirty, his tail may have been damaged and he may be a barn cat, which would make him the friendliest barn cat I’ve ever seen.  Feeling like our good deed is done for the night we drove home.

A week later the vet phoned.

“The kitten you brought in is still here, any chance you want to take him?”

“Sure!” was my reflexive reply. No, we don’t need another cat, but over time we have fostered and adopted cats through a wonderful local shelter – The MEOW Foundation, and I was hoping they could place him for adoption on their website if we foster him at our house. Like many no-kill shelters they are perpetually running at above capacity, and they hardly ever have room at their facility. Fortunately they agreed, and the kitten arrived at our house that same night. He’s been cleaned and de-wormed and was looking wonderful. The vet staff named him Stretch which fits him wonderfully as he has a very long and lean torso.

Soon he’ll be neutered and micro-chipped and be ready to go to his permanent home. His incredibly sweet and affectionate nature will likely get him placed very quickly, but in the meantime he’s enjoying his place in the sun.

Oh and the neighbors’ cat? Was found under a deck of the house directly behind them. Luckily the cat didn’t make it far, and was spotted by a caring soul. Which is a great happy ending.

He soon had a very appreciative audience.

They held an executive conference.

And Cheney was nominated for the honors of capture. Much bellowing and yelling ensued, while Alfie cheered him on from the sidelines, making that amazing hunting noise cats make.   Unfortunately for him, the pet proof screen we put in last year foiled the master plan. Them pet proof screens are amazing. They’ve destroyed several regular ones over the years mainly by hanging off them like Christmas ornaments off a tree.

Tweaks just watched impassively. She’s been down that road already.

And the birdie – didn’t even react. Just went about his chipper business. Cool customer that birdie.

P.S. The screens are available here. The service is awesome – they just come to your house with a truck and the screen fabric and install it on the spot. Well worth not having to replace screens every month.