We have three cats in our house. You should probably skip this post if you are allergic to cats.
Our cats have all been trained to come when you whistle. All we have to do is stand on the front porch at night and whistle, and they come running. If they feel like it. For some reason, they feel like it more in winter than in summer.
Monkey the Alpha Cat
The first is Marble, or as Janet calls him, Monkey. Don’t ask. He is the alpha cat, not only of the house, but of the neighbourhood. He is moody, and struts around the neighbourhood like he owns the joint. Which apparently he does. He comes in at night and sleeps between Janet and me, always at our head. He has been doing this for ten years. Regular as clockwork. If we are both in bed, he cries plaintively waiting to be invited into the bed. This is really irritating. Either one of us taps the bed where he sleeps, and he jumps in. If Janet taps the bed, he jumps in from her side; if I tap the bed, he comes around and jumps in bed from my side. He is a very peculiar boy.
He has been sleeping between us for ten years, and for ten years, he will not hesitate to attack my hand when I move it out from under the covers. I swear to God, this happens at least once a week. He is very defensive of his place. I rested my hand on him the other day, as a sign of affection. He waited a couple of minutes to see if I had lost my senses or something. Then used all four paws to push my hand away. It was quite funny. Ornery, yet affectionate. He loves me these days because I go to bed early.
He also seems to take great pleasure from attacking my hands if I even hint at moving them out from under the covers. Nothing wakes you faster than four cat claws digging into your hand at three in the morning.
She Busbee - El Rotunda
The second is Busbee, so named because she used to buzz around the house when we first rescued her from the Humane Society. She now has a second name: El Rotunda. You can guess why. A furball that can no longer buzz around anything. The extent of her exercise is to climb o top of the chair to sleep. Oh yeah, also getting off the couch to make her way to the food bowl. She goes outside, only to ask to come back in. Dumb cat.
But she is lovable. Loves anyone who is willing to spend whatever amount of time to pat her. She is ticklish. Whoever deigns to pat her has to keep this in mind. She will attack your hand if you tickle her. But she is El Rotunda, which affects the speed of her movements. She lies on me to get patted and is terribly offended if I don’t spend at least half the day patting her.
Rumpus aka BooBoo Long Paws
Finally there is the dastardly BooBoo Long Paws, or Rumpus. See, two names. BooBoo has a habit of waking us up at around 5 in the morning. He just cries until someone gets up and plays with him, or lets him out, or feeds him. We oblige by locking him in the basement. That seems to quieten him down for a couple of days.
BooBoo got stuck in a tree a week before my operation. I had to climb the tree to bring him down. His back seemed paralyzed. He could not move his back paws. We had to take him to Veterinary Emergency. He regained connection to his back paws within about three hours. We took him home and had to put him in a cage for a few weeks. He was then stuck in the house for a couple of weeks. He has not forgiven us for the imprisonment. His character also changed from being really lovable, to being a bit wary.
He is a smart cat in so many ways, and dumb in so many others. He knows his name, and knows to come when we whistle. He does not respond to his name, though every once in a while, there is a glimmer of recognition. He will not come to you when called, pointedly ignoring you when summoned, and yet is very demanding when he wants attention.
BigHead Angelic
No mention of our cats would be complete without a discussion of BigHead.
The most gentle and adorable cat ever. Gentle to the core. He adopted us when we moved in. He kept coming to our house to eat and run. He did not come over the first winter, returning in the spring having lost a ton of weight. We found out he had been abandoned (through no fault of their own) by his owners. We took him to our vet who charged us a nominal amount to fix him and make sure he was OK. Turns out he was FIV positive (the HIV version for cats). The FIV finally kicked in to full blown something and we had to put him down about a year ago. He weighed between 15 and 17lbs at his prime. (Between 6.8 and 7.7Kg). Not an ounce of fat on him. He was just BIG. Hence the name. We miss him terribly.
Upi now know about our cats. Our friend Judy Elder user to call our house cat heaven. We spoil them terribly and lose too many hours of sleep over them.
