Whistle for Nick, He'll Come Running

With his luxuriously long coat, Nick is easily the most beautiful cat in our colony. Because of his coat, big size and personality traits, we believe him to be part Maine Coon. His big paws look like someone couldn’t fit all the stuffing inside, with tufts of wayward fur splaying out from between his toes. Patched tabby coloring and blue sparkled green eyes enhance his playful, happy-go-lucky personality; and pristine, white, fluffed “pants” make him look like he is dressed in pantaloons for swashbuckling fun.

His exceptionally full and billowing tail acts like a giant feather, and when it is standing erect in a sweet natured greeting, it resembles plumage from a wide brimmed hat. I see him as d'Artagnan from “The Three Musketeers” as he leaps from floor to couch to top of the cat tree and around down through the hole, down again onto the floor, dashing by you at a speed that is faster than you can read this. He loves to jump up onto the top of the tree in one motion and slam it against the wall with a bang. It teeters back and forth while he stands on the top in triumph, flourishing his tail. Don’t blink, because he’ll spring off it before the thing has had a chance to stop rocking.

Nick was one of four cats DP had before I moved in with her. Nick, the name he came with, was chosen from a cat-only shelter in Salisbury, Massachusetts. He was still under a year old and lounging sprawled out on the floor, while the bigger cats walked around him. When he got up and walked over to one of the bowls of food, another cat hissed at him. Barely missing a step, he took the hint and sought out another bowl, unfazed. My partner knew this guy would get along well with her other cats and especially her three dogs. Because he is so good natured, he is usually the first cat we introduce to new kittens. If Nick gives the new kitten a tongue bath, the little one is well on his way to being part of the family.

Nick is exceptionally clean and takes his grooming seriously. We never have to brush him, although we do on occasion just because he loves it. Luckily, the top layer of his coat (his guard hairs) is silky and less likely to tangle. His cleanliness goes beyond his grooming though, as he is the one who is most likely to show me where there is a pile of throw-up. He’ll spend a fair amount of time scraping imaginary dirt, in a losing effort to cover it over. His only nickname is “Nick from Housekeeping,” or “Housekeeping” for short. He dislikes the smell of coffee and regards our cups of morning java equal to throw up.

He is quite social and will be one of the few cats who’ll come out to meet visitors and asked to be petted. His beauty and charm easily captures everyone. Nick maybe socially bold, but he does not like the vacuum cleaner. Inevitably, he runs ahead of me, trapping himself in the last room of the house. I usually stand aside and reassuringly shoo him out the door before I enter with the monster machine.

The most quirky thing about Nick would have to be that he loves to be spanked. It’s not exactly what you’re thinking, but close. If you’ve ever seen the YouTube video of a cat standing on a cat tree being, for lack of a better word, “pummeled” by a person with two foam paddles…you know what I mean. If you haven’t seen it, go to YouTube and search for “Drumming on the cat.” It’s kind of freaky, but we were glad to learn that other cats enjoy this. Nick will stand in place, kneading his paws, as you slap his big meaty thighs. If you stop, he turns and meows at you for more or comes around to stick his head under your hand for a pat or a bite. He even likes to have his tail tugged in loving, but rugged affection…his love bites can be a bit harsh in return.

A big muscular guy at six years old, Nick is the most athletic of our cats, always up for playing group games. His favorite toy is the laser light and he’ll jump up the wall after the red dot, well beyond the light switch, to oblige us by turning on or off the hallway lights along his way. He also barely hesitates to leap the highest after the flying feather wand, and can clear a jump over every baby gate we have without touching it, equestrian style. Another favorite toy for him is a plastic milk ring. Nick will batter the little ring between his paws, skittering sideways and chirping with joy across the kitchen floor. If no milk rings are handy, he’ll scamper across the floor battering an imaginary toy just for pleasure of it. Nick has a hissy fit (and I mean that literally) if anyone teases him, so of course they do. Sometimes he just wants to play by himself, but some youngster has go see what he is doing and maybe hone in on his toy. He stomps off with a hiss.

He is usually the only cat, who freaks out when a neighbor’s outdoor cat comes by to visit. He runs from window to window breathing like a dragon. The other kitties might watch the visitor for a bit, but Nick takes exception to the intrusion. This brings up his only fault, occasional “inappropriate urination,” more commonly known as peeing outside the litter box. Diligence on our part has helped to alleviate that issue for the most part.

He is a member of the Moo Club – a group of our kitties who line up on the kitchen counter every evening to receive a spot of milk. It’s a nightly ritual in which Nick always participates. Most times he can also be counted on for cheese giveaways handed out when I make dinner.

You can often find Nick sleeping on the edge of tight places, limbs hanging over precariously balanced. If he rolls and falls, he simple lands with grace, on all fours, shakes off and goes onto his next adventure. I think Nick’s most endearing quality is that he comes when you whistle for him. No matter what he is doing, even if he is sound asleep, he will get up with a sleepy meow, and come loping down the hall and onto your lap ready to purr and be petted. Nick has enjoyed meeting you, we hope you've enjoyed meeting him. -Lisa Co9T

Introducing Moseley

Moseley is our fourteen-year-old shorthaired tuxedo cat. He is not so much talkative, as a complainer. “When am I going to eat? Will you let me out? I need you to pet me,” are all verbal commands he gives us. I’ve often thought he must have some Siamese in him and he is just as “communicative” with the other cats. “Stay the hell away from me! If you come near me…I’ll, I’ll run the other way! I have a perfect right to be here!” All these phrases are squeaks, peeps, hisses, spits, growls and full out meows. His nickname is Peeper because his every move comes with a peep or squeak…that and he pees outside box. He has some other nicknames too, but I won’t share them here.

Moseley is our problem child. He is now the oldest and did not transition well into a multi-cat household when I brought him into our new blended family. I had two cats originally, but my orange and white boy, Bustopher passed away in February 2008 when he was fourteen. Bustopher was my first kitty after a long drought without.

Moseley came to me through my stepdaughter, who moved back home a year or so after I’d gotten Bustopher as a kitten. Two years later, my stepdaughter moved out, taking with her a toddler and a fiancé, but leaving her cat. Moseley and Bustopher got along okay as long as Bustopher did everything Moseley told him to do. Moseley guarded the water bowls and never missed an opportunity to pee on something Bustopher had slept on or played with. My partner at the time did not like cats (Moseley wasn’t helping any) and wanted a lot of rules to keep the cats away from most of the house. In his effort to explore, dominate and assert his right to be here, Moseley broke every one of the rules on a constant basis, subsequently imposing his ever more restricted world onto poor innocent Bustopher.

When I moved Bustopher and Moseley into my new situation, there were already four adult male cats in this feline “Yours, Mine and Ours” (the “Ours” would come later) and suddenly big man on campus Moseley, sank to the bottom of the totem pole. I learned all about what a pariah cat is – shunned and picked on. Moseley also has a condition that causes him to walk oddly and have poor coordination. So what should be a smooth two foot leap from floor to chair, ends up as a couple of false starts and a clinging to the edge while scrambling up the side (squawking all the way). It’s gotten worse with age. You can see the expression in the other cats’ eyes when Moseley saunters by drunkenly. “Man, you are a freak!” They might even swat him in the butt as he passes if he doesn’t pick up his pace. He just yells at them as he runs.

We feel badly for him and the best we can do is keep him sequestered while he lives out his life. He has an entire bedroom for himself. It has a window with an active birdfeeder stuck on it. His door was replaced with a screen door so he can see and smell what’s going on and be part of the household, while being safe. Vinyl flooring was installed to alleviate our pee cleaning duties. He has two litter boxes, one hooded, one open and he uses both as well as the throw rug two feet away. He is the only cat in our colony who is on a veterinarian prescribed diet of canned food for his urinary tract issues. We mix it with water to make a gravy meal three times a day because he needs extra water. We also give him some crunchies just for variety.

He is allowed out of his room (and outside in the cat enclosure) on supervised occasions several times a week…we found that every day was just too much for his anxiety and caused him to pee a little more often. On his excursions into the rest of the house, he sometimes wears pee protection. We tried various sizes and types of diapers (for humans and doggies), but they were too big and he had even more trouble walking, so DP created a pad lined thong that fits around his thighs and over his tail covering his hoo-hoo. He has a black one that matches him and also a stylish pink one, when we want to show it off.
He no longer cleans himself so we brush him regularly and bath him about once a month. Every morning we give him a little blue pill for anti-anxiety, and at thirty bucks a month, we pump “happy thoughts pheromones” into the air of his room. When everything is humming and our schedule is routine, he does not pee outside the box at all. When anything is off just slightly…well, we keep a roll of paper towels and an eco friendly spray cleaner in his room for those days. Truth be told, Moseley is not our favorite cat, but we are committed to giving him a decent life for however long he insists on living.

DP and I make jokes about us being retired old ladies in fifteen or twenty years, still having to stop what we are doing at noon to feed and clean up after Moseley.

He's not a bad sort really, if he were the only cat, he'd be someone's constant companion as he craves a lot of attention. I hope you've enjoyed meeting Moseley. Thanks for stopping by! Lisa Co9T

Wicked Warm Welcome!

WOOOWWW! What a wonderful and heartwarming welcome from the Cat Blogosphere! Of course, right after I posted my introductory blog, I started having computer issues so I couldn’t respond as quickly as I wanted to. I’ve also been trying to figure out how to respond directly to specific comments, but I gathered there isn’t a way to do that other than making my own comment under my blog. I did want to respond to some comments and thought I’d just blog about it. Although I protest, it was suggested that I might be “a bit crazy” as far as my cat lady status goes and I’m thinking that may be true, but also why I feel so comfortable around all of you! :D

It was great to learn about all of your respective cat families with some folks having “lots more cats” than me…I hope to spend more time learning and adding to my list of blogs to follow. It should be mentioned that we also have three dogs so all in all we have a dozen furry friends. Stanze is our female German Shepherd and we have two Jack Russell Terriers - Cooper is our male and Buzz is our female. In short, the shepherd loves the cats, the terriers (in terrier fashion) barely tolerate them.

I was asked about our ginger kitty with a tail. We have two kitties who were born without tails, but neither are official tailless breeds and both had litter mates with tails, more on them, of course, within their own blog entry. I will warn you that each kitty’s introductory blog may be kind of long, but that my regular blog entries will hopefully be shorter. I do tend to go on about them!
I’ll be coming off my porch up here in Maine and leaving my chocolate covered “Blueberries” behind to tell you about our kitties in chronological order starting with the oldest. Until then…Thanks for stopping by! Co9T