Post a Pic of Your Cat

Jacca5660 · Post by **Jacca5660** » Nov Mon 23, 2009 2:16 pm

Cats behave much better then kids. Louise is a little doll.

mindflipper · Post by **mindflipper** » Nov Mon 23, 2009 2:32 pm

BTW: MmeLeota, as Nikki has a home nowadays, she's not as thin as used to be. She started putting on weight once she got into foster home in the cat adoption agency.

Mousekedude, my cat will walk up to me while I'm sleeping in the bed, poke me repeatedly with one of her front paws, and then meow. Once I wake up, she will either crawl on top of my chest or nuzzle in between my arm and body, and will kneed my shirt at the underarm while I scratch her on the back of the head. And oddly enough, she does it BEFORE the alarm goes off (within 10 minutes). I know she can tell time on my digital alarm clock. In fact, one time I woke up in the middle of night to discover her with a guilty look as she was trying to figure out how to turn off the alarm clock (one of her many sneaky attempts to stop me from going to work)...

MmeLeota · Post by **MmeLeota** » Nov Mon 23, 2009 4:02 pm

Thanks for the kind words mindflipper!

They sure are just like kids! They fight like kids, they whine like kids...they just don't ask to borrow money or the car

My mom refers to them as her grand-cats.

Gena used to sleep on top of me every night. She would lick my hand/arm til I fell asleep...so soothing. None of my current kitties give kisses. We usually have at least 1 on the bed with us at night. Thelma likes getting her "nightly rub" and Ella likes to lay at our feet.

I don't like to wear nightgowns, but on occasion I will...that is until Louise decided nightgowns are a bed. One chilly night a year or 2 ago I woke up in the middle of the night not able to move. I discovered that Louise had not only gotten under the covers, but she had gone up inside my nightgown and was sleeping there next to my back. (A word about Louise...she is about 16 pounds and dead weight when she sleeps. I have never seen a cat sleep so heavy.)

And on a side note, I'll have to try posting the pics using your method Mousekedude. Then I won't have to worry about links. Thanks!

Mousekedude · Post by **Mousekedude** » Nov Mon 23, 2009 5:21 pm

MmeLeota, your Louise sounds like my Audrey. She is HEAVY!

MmeLeota · Post by **MmeLeota** » Nov Mon 23, 2009 5:33 pm

There have been so many times when she is right on top of me at night and I have to lift up the blanket to make her "roll down the hill" so she would move (and still be sleeping!). It's the funniest thing! Kids!!!

What's Audrey like?

Thanks for the comment Jacca! I missed a couple of posts before my last entry.

I'm glad Nikki has a good home mindflipper. There's something about finding a good home and a weight gain lol

Mousekedude · Post by **Mousekedude** » Nov Tue 24, 2009 9:07 am

MmeLeota wrote:What's Audrey like?

She's neurotic!
To be fair, she is very, very affectionate and wants to be near us all the time. We can't sit on the couch without her jumping up there and nuzzling up next to us. If she could, she would sit there literally all day getting petted.

She has some weird quirks though. She meows a LOT! She is constantly sitting in the middle of a room and just yowling like she is lost or something. We have to tell her to shut up or she won't stop. At night we have to put her on the bed and pet her for a while to get her settled in for the night, because if we don't she will sit on the floor and yowl in the middle of the night. And once she is on the bed, if she gets up for any reason in the middle of the night, she will forget where we are and forget how to get back up on the bed, so she will start yowling again until we get up and coax her back up on the bed.
Also, she is constantly afraid. It's weird. We have lived in our house for almost 8 years, yet she is still afraid to walk into various rooms. She will stop at the doorway and look around, then walk in v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.... while she darts her head back and forth looking around as though she thinks something is going to jump her.

But, she is a beautiful cat, and very affectionate, and we love her despite her weirdness.

MmeLeota · Post by **MmeLeota** » Nov Tue 24, 2009 2:58 pm

All three of mine are 'fraidy cats...none want to go outside and all are afraid of people. They all are afraid of their shadows. Ella is the most neurotic though. She is the strange one...it's funny since we literally found her in (around) the dumpster so we call her the "special" one. lol

But she seems to think we live on a racetrack and will dart from room to room and down the hall and back for no reason. I think one of the other 2 is hiding somewhere with a stopwatch timing her passes...

We've had her for 4 years and if one of us passes by her when she's eating, she still thinks she has to get a mouthful of food and go hide to eat it.

Free entertainment is what I call it!

Louise is our most affectionate one. Thelma will only be affectionate if she's in the mood. Ella...well forget it. We know when she's hungry or if we're late coming home. If she wants something we're ok...otherwise we're her crazy roommates.

mindflipper · Post by **mindflipper** » Nov Wed 25, 2009 12:32 pm

MmeLeota, I can understand the 'fraidy cat syndrome; my cat is an odd 'fraidy cat - she's afraid of people she has never met. She will run and hide. However, people walking their dogs - no. The dogs - no. In fact, just the other night, when we were out front for her nightly sniff-fest, a person walked by with his dog, and the dog jumped on me to get some petting and affection. My cat saw this, strolled over, narrowed her eyes, and gave the dog the nastiest look I've seen. The dog, upon seeing my cat, backed off. It was a shock as the dog is three times her size!

Some more pics:

I covered rescued cat #2 (Bandit) and rescued cat #4 (Nikki) - well, here's the one in between. Rescued cat #3 - White, named that because he's solid white - was not a success story. White came as part of the package with my cat. At the time, there were three of them: white, black, and gray. Gray became my cat, and a neighbor on the other street adopted black. That left White. White was too scared to be approached, so I could never get close to him (as opposed to my cat, who just walked right up to me one cold night). My cat is extremely fond of White - her BF - and is the only cat she has loved and tolerated these past 4 years. So when I started to feed her outside, she would save half of her food for him to eat. Eventually, I started to feed him separately (but she would lick his food so he would think she saved it for him).

At one point, White became sick, and I was forced to use an animal trap to get him. I took him to the vet, and the poor fellow was covered in over 80 ticks sucking the blood out of him. They removed all the ticks, had him fixed, gave him a 3 year rabies shot, and I brought him home. White never adjusted to a home life, when let loose he went wild crazy, and when caged he wouldn't eat. Sadly, I had to eventually release him because he was too feral now. That was 3 years ago.

However, I still have White. It took some weeks for him to forgive me, but he did come back and we are still feeding him. As you can see, I feed him very well. He runs when he sees me, so I use telephoto lens to take photos of him. And since he's like a ghost - only shows up when it turns dark - I can never really get a good photo of him. But when anyone sees him, they would hardly believe a beautiful, plump white cat like that is feral. And luckily, if he ever does get picked up, the microchip in him will save him from any bad fate and bring him back to me.

And still, my cat and this chap are still the romantic lovebirds. My vet says cats like to change partners all the time - that hasn't been the case with these two.

Mousekedude · Post by **Mousekedude** » Nov Thu 26, 2009 9:52 am

That is such a touching story, Mindflipper. Sounds like White is really enjoying living the vida loca, though.

Ready for a sad story?
Here is Emma:

We found Emma as a starving little kitten lost in the woods when we were camping. We asked all the locals in the area if anyone knew who she belonged to, and no one did, so we concluded she had been abandoned. Since we already had two cats, we gave her to my wife's mom, who instantly fell in love with her.

Emma was a very sweet, trusting kitty, and very affectionate. Then one day she got attacked by a dog and almost died. She changed after that. She became very skittish, and no longer wanted to be held. Well, everyone still loved her and took good care of her, and everything was fine for a while. But sinister forces were at work.

The neighbors down the block from my in-laws had a bad habit of letting their dogs run loose in the neighborhood at night. One night they cornered Emma in the yard and killed her. My father-in-law found her the next day. We were all devastated. The police claim there's nothing they can do about. Isn't that disgusting?

R.I.P, Emma. We miss you.

mindflipper · Post by **mindflipper** » Nov Thu 26, 2009 11:23 am

Sorry about Emma, for she is beauty! It is truely sad what happened to Emma; however, White's story may have not been a success, but is not truely the sadest of the cats I have come across in the past few years. Given the holiday, I will save that for some other time. But White's life does have its problems: I have problems with raccoons and possums at night, so my little girl has a curfew but there's nothing I can do for White. We have to feed White as quickly as we can when he shows up every night, and guard him, so he can eat his food without interruption from wildlife. Once he's done, the bowls come in. We will not feed the possums and raccoons. I hope where-ever he stays at night, its safe from them.

mindflipper · Post by **mindflipper** » Nov Thu 26, 2009 9:48 pm

Since it's Thanksgiving - how about a happier cat tale? One day, when parking my car in my employer's basement parking lot, I could swear I heard a cat. That was impossible, as the entrance has a door that opens and closes to let cars in and out. No way there could be a cat..

...but I was wrong as I discovered the next day. I saw a cat dart between two cars on the lowest level. It somehow got in, and couldn't get out, so the poor cat decided to hide in some junk kept under the ramp that leads to the lowest level. Oddly enough, he was not feral and was very friendly, and quite glad to get some food:

I talked to a co-worker, who has sucessfully fosterd many cats that have been adopted, about my discovery. She went down and found the cat, and put in her car (without having a carrier!), and took him home that afternoon. I was surprised to hear that the fellow behaved perfectly well, given he was not in carrier. He cleaned up real well, and went out for adoptions at Petco:

Turns out the cat that I discovered - which was given the name Brewster - was a natural performer, and worked his charms on anyone who passed by him that day. He even hammed it up for his photo session as you can see above. And like my little Bushie, Brewster got adopted in two weeks due to his "people skills". Brewster became my "rescued cat #5". I'm pretty sure if cats had a Thanksgiving Day holiday, he would celebrate by giving thanks he got a new family.

And so many others would like to be able to do the same. So if any of you out there on the forum would ever consider it, then maybe you would consider going to your local PetSmart or PetCo on Saturday and check out what cats are available for adoption in your area....

...give a cat something to be thankful for....

Mousekedude · Post by **Mousekedude** » Nov Mon 30, 2009 10:43 am

Brewster is just toooooo cuuuuuuuute!!!!!
Amazing pictures, too, by the way. Hard to get a cat to sit still long enough for a good picture when they're awake and alert like that.

mindflipper · Post by **mindflipper** » Nov Mon 30, 2009 11:17 am

I gather from lady who took the pictures, he hammed it up during his photo session (all the cats get photos to be listed on an internet website). He was very well behaved for photos. My cat's the same way. She will actually pose for photos - I joke one of her previous nine lives must have been a supermodel.

boilerbabe · Post by **boilerbabe** » Nov Mon 30, 2009 11:24 am

All of you have such cute kittys. I'm not a cat lover b/c I'm severly allergic to them! But, DH and I are animal lovers. We donate to animal shelters etc...and I think it's wonderful when people adopt pets and save them!!!

I've loved horses ever since I can remember, I took lessons, I even rode rode for Purdue for a year. I was a jumper! I miss riding alot. Anyway....I'm going off topic, but the horse I used to ride, his name was "Dummy" short for "He's No Dummy", he LOVED pictures! When you would bring a camera out, his ears would perk up and you'd swear the horse was smiling!!! It was the sweetest thing! I wish I had my scanner hooked up, I would post the pic.

Sorry for going off topic!

Jacca5660 · Post by **Jacca5660** » Nov Mon 30, 2009 11:54 am

We had a tragedy on Thanksgiving day. Our dog Rex died of Bloat. I had never heard of it before, but it's this second biggest killer of large dogs after cancer. He is and will be missed!