The pitter patter of tiny feet...

I have noticed a lot of the folks here have critters instead of kids; here's what we have:

* One dog (black lab)
* Three cats (mean, hissing/spitting tabby; super cool black cat; very mellow Siam)
* One Russian Tortoise
* One red eared slider
* One white rabbit
* 13 chikens

And not one of 'em will wreck my car, steal our stuff or kill us un our sleep~

We've got:

1 crazy but sweet Chihuahua
1 big 15 yr old mix breed (who has offically lost his mind to CD)
5 cats (a fun black one, a huge gray mackerel stripe, a seal mitted Ragdoll, a tortie/tiger coat feral rescue, and a blue/tan tortie persian mix.

Pets rule.

I have 2 Bichon Frise

I didn`t pick pets over children, I just chose to have pets and I chose to not have children, the two things aren`t related. But if they were, dogs/pets v children ? no contest

I don't see pets as replacements for children because I do not feel like I'm missing out with no children in my home. My pets are my pets.

18 year old crabby tabby
10 year old sweet love junkey gray and white cat
2 gold fish
1 betta
1 tank of assorted fish
and
10 orchids, which require almost as much care as the fish.

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me

Whoa - ask and you shall receive!


32 cats

Here are their names:

Arnie
Barack*
Casey
Clumpy*
Cupid*
Fluffy (Fi)
Frankie
Friday*
Gillian
Gorby
Jason
Jesse
Kenya*
Lilya (Poofy)
Melvin (Pita)
Meowie*
Messy
Oscar
Penny
Petunia
Pyewacket
Rascal
Sphynx (our daughter)
Tablet
Trisha
Uncle

And the 6 "kittens" (9 months old): Pearl, Jumper, Charcoal, Snowflake, Xerox, Seven
(There were 7 kittens, but "L'il Poofy" was adopted; the last 4 are semi-feral; they are all black, btw. Also black are with *).

Yes! I do have their names written down, & I keep a notebook for when I do things to them. They are all rescued, spayed, and neutered. There are pics at myspace.com/cats_not_kids.

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"I have learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is easy and fun as hell"

:eatu

I'm sorry, I have to ask...
Is Barack a black cat?
My cousins have a black cat named Tuvak, and a friend with a black cat named Shaft. I think it's hilarious.

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me

Indeed. So is Kenya. And Xerox. You must have replied before finishing the list 'cause all the ones with asterisks are black. I was editing that post while you were writing yours!

Oh, also, "Snowflake" is black with a white spot on his belly. Meowie also has white on his belly.

I have also been in the recent habit of calling Pearl "D-Babby".

I was planning a future blog entry to be a list of the cats and what they are all like. I haven't written in it for a while, so I suppose it's time...

Sheeit, and this is like the 5th time I'm editing this - I also have my grandparents' cat Figa at my place while their house has no heat (they are staying at my aunt's place, well, actually she is; he had a car accident and is in a rehab hospital, but I digress...).

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"I have learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is easy and fun as hell"

:eatu

Here goes...

2 cats
2 Chihuahuas
4 Jack Russell Terriers
2 Turtles

There's also the infestation of spiders that we can't seem to completely get rid of.

I have two fluffy little bundles of evil feline cuteness: Mina (12, chubby long-haired brown tabby) and Lucy (11, tiny RagDoll-like with a bubblegum-pink nose).

I wish I could have more - but, even though I know Lucy wouldn't mind (she's the friendly one), Mina would be a total bitch about it (she's the one who embarrasses me at the vet's with her growling and hissing).

Hilarious - love it!

Our black cat is named Beelzekitty... she's a sort-of rescue in that our vet found her at the gas station, took her to the office - and it happened that we were there the next day (with one of our other cats) and ended up taking her home.

She's a fine Beast - easily the most engaging/personable cat I have ever met!

I find the distinctive personalities and personal quirks of cats fascinating and an endless source of delight. I don’t keep one these days, but years ago my landlord, who lived upstairs, was given a kitten by some local kids who needed to get rid of it, and begged him to take it. It was an ordinary grey and white tabby and he was, to me, the most personable, distinguished, and intelligent cat I’d ever had the pleasure of knowing. Once the cat had matured he took to visiting me downstairs regularly, and eventually decided, fully on his own authority, that he would thereafter be the subject of joint custody. As it turned out he had, naturally and instinctually somehow because he had never received any training of any sort, impeccable manners and never (well, almost never) clawed any furniture or left any nasty business on my floor. I soon established a supply of high-quality cat food for him, and he frequently came yowling at my back door for a visit, a meal, to spend the night, or just to chill out a while. I felt I had to take some responsibility for him because my landlord, being something of an idiot and a bit primitive, didn’t always look after him properly, so it fell to me to take him for any necessary vet visits. I was happy to do it, especially since the only litterbox was maintained by the landlord and not me......HAH!!! On one occasion when the cat had received some sort of injury to one of his front paws in a fight the previous night, of which there were absolutely no visible symptoms yet, he came over to my place and jumped onto my lap (which was certainly rare enough), and began pointedly thrusting his paw at me. He KNEW that I was the one to bring this particular problem to, and not the idiot landlord. And sure enough, it turned out that he had an infection in his paw from being bitten the night before. Smart as a whip, that little guy was.

Years later he succumbed to feline leukemia, a result no doubt of his being allowed by my landlord to stay out all night and fight with other critters. It was his downfall for sure, but damn if he didn’t have a hell of a good time doing it while he could. He never had a proper name, and didn’t really need one. In true feline fashion he answered to no name and was essentially his own cat, though he allowed others to love him. A week or so before he became deathly ill he would sit outside in the classic sphinx pose and serenely gaze at something in the distance, as if he saw eternity approaching. I cried like a baby when he left us, and still can just thinking about it. If there's a heaven for cats, he's there, and if there's a heaven for people, I'll meet up with him again some day.

I've read a lot about cat coat colors and coat patterns and how each color/coat pattern is often indicative of a certain personality type.

With each of our cats, I find this theory to hold true. ESPECIALLY with our black cat.

Has anyone else noticed?

Oh, bal-de-vis. What a beautiful story.

KidFreeLuvnLife Wrote:
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> I've read a lot about cat coat colors and coat
> patterns and how each color/coat pattern is often
> indicative of a certain personality type.
>
> With each of our cats, I find this theory to hold
> true. ESPECIALLY with our black cat.
>
> Has anyone else noticed?

I've found that black-and-white short-hair girls are a grouchy breed. The kind where it is mostly black with white feet and a white chin. Our daughter, Sphynx, is like that (she is most disgusting in other ways but we like her), and I have known many others with this disposition.

"But there are exceptions to whatever I say, so don't count those, ok?"



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"I have learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is easy and fun as hell"

:eatu

My husband and I have three hamsters, two boys and a one girl, all short-haired Syrians. Our boys are Mirepoix, who is tan, and Champignon, who is brown. Our girl is Brie, and she is cream-colored.

"Mirepoix" is a really good name for a cat. You don't mind if I use it, I hope, since I tend to run out of good ones when I need them. I have to store them up in advance because I prefer to pick ones that suit the individual. Sometimes we pick a temporary name for the vet and change it later. Had to do that with two of the kittens.

We thought that "Barack" was named "Pedro", but that was not the case after all (there is another cat who is the real Pedro), and he seems to like his new name.

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"I have learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is easy and fun as hell"

:eatu

Our vet - and others we know who are into cats - also find that black cats seem to be especially personable, as well as "chatty" (lots of vocalizations, etc.). Ours sure fits the description to a T.

We've also heard that female tortoiseshell tabbys are bitchy - and that, too, has been our experience!

eric Wrote:
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> Our vet - and others we know who are into cats -
> also find that black cats seem to be especially
> personable, as well as "chatty" (lots of
> vocalizations, etc.). Ours sure fits the
> description to a T.


Your vet needs to have a talk with my black babies. Even the friendly ones (two of them) don't have much to say. Friday (my baby brother) does do a lot of vocalizing though, and Meowie was named because of that. And Kenya says things to me, so I guess it probably is true.

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"I have learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is easy and fun as hell"

:eatu

Hubby and I are down to one kitty now - our male "tuxedo" kitty named Foo-Foo. He is A NUT!

Some of you will recall that last year, my female calico kitty named Pooka, passed on at the age of 12. We had her for about 6 years or so and we've had Foo-Foo for almost 4 years now.

I have a kitten that the BF's neighbor helped us catch. I have mentioned her on the board before. She is about seven or eight months old with a missing back left foot. She is a Maine coon cat, different shades of grey with white paws and chin and some ivory hair on her stomach. She has one copper eye and one yellowish-green eye. Her name is Morgan Grey.

eric Wrote:
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> Our vet - and others we know who are into cats -
> also find that black cats seem to be especially
> personable, as well as "chatty" (lots of
> vocalizations, etc.). Ours sure fits the
> description to a T.
>

Although they may not look it (at least at first), many short-haired black cats are part Siamese. My Abby (in loving memory) was, and so was a neighbor black cat named Simon. Both were big talkers, and Abby had a kink in her tail (which is also a Siamese trait).

My present furry roommate is Lisa, a Maine Coon mix, who doesn't talk much.

Keep working more hours, CF people! Millions of breeders depend on us.

My Mina is extremely vocal - gawd, the lungs on that one! She could wake the dead, I swear. My baby Lucy, on the other hand, barely has a voice - she sounds like a tiny little mouse whenever she tries to "say" something.

I've got 2 like that also. Our black cat is the talker and the feral rescue is the peeper.

McCormick, our gray and white cat who grew up in a liquor store, is a peeper too...it's so cute!

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me

We want 2 cats and a dog when we move somewhere where they allow pets...I envy you guys yours. So far I've managed 2 fish tanks, planted, and inhabited by several species of tetra, suckermouth catfish ( the really disgusting ones that glue themselves to the glass and you can see down its palpitating throat, they're cool and gross at the same time), banjoes and angelfish. The angelfish recognise me and come up to the front when I open the lid at feeding time...