Let's Talk About Cats
Jan. 30th, 2011 05:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
potato_headThis experience shared in tonight's FFAC over at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ontdcreepy got me thinking about the cats we've had.
We've had some weird-ass cats. Well, in mostly awesome ways. We've also never been without cats in the time we've lived in this house (our cats when we lived in Texas were pretty normal, but I don't remember them very well...)
When we moved into this house the first cat we got was my cat, Isaboo (american shorthair, tabby). She was a rescue, because mom wanted a declawed cat but I refused to have one declawed. Despite her lack of claws, she turned out to be an expert mouser. She rid our house entirely of mice. The only problem is that she generally wouldn't kill them, instead opting to drop them in mom and dad's bed while they were still very alive...but the most interesting thing about her is she could find things. I mean, I would ask her to find something, and she would bring me to it. Not even particularly interesting things, or things that were mine, or things that were lost...the first time it happened, I was trying to find a highlighter, and asked mom if she knew where one was; Isaboo ran into the dining room and meowed, and when I went in there she was sitting next to a bunch of pens, including a highlighter. After that, if I needed something and couldn't find it, I'd ask her if she knew where one was, and she could find one if it was left out somewhere. She was also the cat who rescued me from the tree, btw.
We still had Isaboo when Paige got her cat, Tybalt (tuxedo cat) (I named him 8D). Also a rescue, but we got him as a kitten. He was tons and tons of muscle, and would use all of it to CLING TO YOU IN TERROR if anything...moved. If he was startled, scared, excited, hungry, he would find somebody to give a big, muscly, claw-filled hug of pain. He spent a lot of time in Paige's bed, hiding from the apparently very scary world. Also, he failed at things like jumping and not walking into walls; we don't know if it was a mental problem or a vision problem. He was also kind of cross-eyed, so probably vision. One time, though, he did something really weird. I had come home to the house empty (as usual - at that time I got home before Paige and Derek did, and mom was working). He was sitting on the kitchen table; that alone was weird, because usually he wouldn't jump that high - if he tried, he would generally misjudge the jump and hurt himself. The lights in the kitchen were off, but it was sunny, so I didn't turn them on when I walked in; I said hi to him, and he gave me a weird look...for a moment, I could have sworn his face looked almost human; then he jumped at the wall beside me, hitting the light switch and turning it on. D: IDK what happened there. He was the cat that died.
After Tybalt died, Derek wanted a cat. So we got another rescue, again a kitten; Coach (raggamuffin, orange tabby). Coach essentially became my cat because Derek didn't really want to have a cat, he just wanted a kitten. Coach, as many raggamuffins do, had breathing problems, and he would wheeze through his nose all the time. He was also very fat, and rarely jumped, but unlike Tybalt he learned that if he stood and stared forlornly at whatever he wanted to be on top of, somebody would do the heavy lifting for him. Every night he would come sit in my doorway and wheeze at me for awhile before, apparently, deciding I was satisfactorily asleep and leaving to do something else. If I was up late he would stay in the doorway and wheeze at me for awhile, then walk into the middle of the room and wheeze some more, until I decided to go to bed; then he would leave. The weirdest thing he would do, though, is...apparently teleport. He rarely asked to go in or out, but would be found on unexpected sides of the door; despite being the definitely most sedentary and easily-missed of our cats, he never got accidentally shut in a room. One time in particular, I was walking into the bathroom, and he tried to follow me (...he liked to chaperone my bathroom visits). I nudged him back into the hall with my foot and shut the door...when I turned around, he was sitting on the other side of the toilet, looking incredibly pleased with himself. o-o;
Isaboo developed a tumor and died while Coach was still a kitten, BTW. We also got the dog when Coach was about three years old. They got along well :P (that is the dog fetching him, btw, not eating him...we taught him not to retrieve the cats, but he still tries to retrieve wild live animals, like the time he brought us a live baby bird, and a, uh, dead woodchuck, which we think he tried to bring alive but it bit him so he killed it...and he got sprayed once trying to retrieve a skunk).
Finally, Paige's current cat, Nikka (another american short hair, tabby). She showed up at our back door one night; Coach was looking out the glass into the dark, so we turned on the light and saw what we thought was Jake (Coach's catfriend from across the street) skulking out there...but then she came closer and we saw her better. Paige immediately opened the door for her and Nikka just walked in :P Coach wasn't very sure of her then, and he never really got used to her. They got along, though.
Nikka seems like a normal enough cat so far. She spends a lot of time outside, though, walking just inside the woods, and she never lets Paige go into the woods alone; she's followed me in several times, as well. She also hates everybody except Paige, who she evidently loves.
Coach died last Christmas, apparently of asthma. And when I say he died last Christmas...it was Christmas Eve, while we were all sleeping. :C Nikka is our only cat now. I would prefer to have at least one more.
P.S. Currently debating whether or not to challenge Nikka for the blanket, which she's claimed as her bed for tonight apparently D:
ontdcreepy got me thinking about the cats we've had.We've had some weird-ass cats. Well, in mostly awesome ways. We've also never been without cats in the time we've lived in this house (our cats when we lived in Texas were pretty normal, but I don't remember them very well...)
When we moved into this house the first cat we got was my cat, Isaboo (american shorthair, tabby). She was a rescue, because mom wanted a declawed cat but I refused to have one declawed. Despite her lack of claws, she turned out to be an expert mouser. She rid our house entirely of mice. The only problem is that she generally wouldn't kill them, instead opting to drop them in mom and dad's bed while they were still very alive...but the most interesting thing about her is she could find things. I mean, I would ask her to find something, and she would bring me to it. Not even particularly interesting things, or things that were mine, or things that were lost...the first time it happened, I was trying to find a highlighter, and asked mom if she knew where one was; Isaboo ran into the dining room and meowed, and when I went in there she was sitting next to a bunch of pens, including a highlighter. After that, if I needed something and couldn't find it, I'd ask her if she knew where one was, and she could find one if it was left out somewhere. She was also the cat who rescued me from the tree, btw.
We still had Isaboo when Paige got her cat, Tybalt (tuxedo cat) (I named him 8D). Also a rescue, but we got him as a kitten. He was tons and tons of muscle, and would use all of it to CLING TO YOU IN TERROR if anything...moved. If he was startled, scared, excited, hungry, he would find somebody to give a big, muscly, claw-filled hug of pain. He spent a lot of time in Paige's bed, hiding from the apparently very scary world. Also, he failed at things like jumping and not walking into walls; we don't know if it was a mental problem or a vision problem. He was also kind of cross-eyed, so probably vision. One time, though, he did something really weird. I had come home to the house empty (as usual - at that time I got home before Paige and Derek did, and mom was working). He was sitting on the kitchen table; that alone was weird, because usually he wouldn't jump that high - if he tried, he would generally misjudge the jump and hurt himself. The lights in the kitchen were off, but it was sunny, so I didn't turn them on when I walked in; I said hi to him, and he gave me a weird look...for a moment, I could have sworn his face looked almost human; then he jumped at the wall beside me, hitting the light switch and turning it on. D: IDK what happened there. He was the cat that died.
After Tybalt died, Derek wanted a cat. So we got another rescue, again a kitten; Coach (raggamuffin, orange tabby). Coach essentially became my cat because Derek didn't really want to have a cat, he just wanted a kitten. Coach, as many raggamuffins do, had breathing problems, and he would wheeze through his nose all the time. He was also very fat, and rarely jumped, but unlike Tybalt he learned that if he stood and stared forlornly at whatever he wanted to be on top of, somebody would do the heavy lifting for him. Every night he would come sit in my doorway and wheeze at me for awhile before, apparently, deciding I was satisfactorily asleep and leaving to do something else. If I was up late he would stay in the doorway and wheeze at me for awhile, then walk into the middle of the room and wheeze some more, until I decided to go to bed; then he would leave. The weirdest thing he would do, though, is...apparently teleport. He rarely asked to go in or out, but would be found on unexpected sides of the door; despite being the definitely most sedentary and easily-missed of our cats, he never got accidentally shut in a room. One time in particular, I was walking into the bathroom, and he tried to follow me (...he liked to chaperone my bathroom visits). I nudged him back into the hall with my foot and shut the door...when I turned around, he was sitting on the other side of the toilet, looking incredibly pleased with himself. o-o;
Isaboo developed a tumor and died while Coach was still a kitten, BTW. We also got the dog when Coach was about three years old. They got along well :P (that is the dog fetching him, btw, not eating him...we taught him not to retrieve the cats, but he still tries to retrieve wild live animals, like the time he brought us a live baby bird, and a, uh, dead woodchuck, which we think he tried to bring alive but it bit him so he killed it...and he got sprayed once trying to retrieve a skunk).
Finally, Paige's current cat, Nikka (another american short hair, tabby). She showed up at our back door one night; Coach was looking out the glass into the dark, so we turned on the light and saw what we thought was Jake (Coach's catfriend from across the street) skulking out there...but then she came closer and we saw her better. Paige immediately opened the door for her and Nikka just walked in :P Coach wasn't very sure of her then, and he never really got used to her. They got along, though.
Nikka seems like a normal enough cat so far. She spends a lot of time outside, though, walking just inside the woods, and she never lets Paige go into the woods alone; she's followed me in several times, as well. She also hates everybody except Paige, who she evidently loves.
Coach died last Christmas, apparently of asthma. And when I say he died last Christmas...it was Christmas Eve, while we were all sleeping. :C Nikka is our only cat now. I would prefer to have at least one more.
P.S. Currently debating whether or not to challenge Nikka for the blanket, which she's claimed as her bed for tonight apparently D:
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Date: 2011-01-30 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-30 05:08 pm (UTC)Until we trained him out of it, he would try to pick up Coach by the scruff of the neck and carry him back into the house whenever he found him outside...