Oh, Christmas Tree

So, last night, I finally got my tree set up in my house.  It's not decorated yet, because I wanted a day to let the branches settle.

I am very lucky that Sunny is really great about the tree.  I usually weight the base down, just in case.  A couple of full paint cans do the trick quite nicely.

In self defense, I do have a rule that must be followed when the tree is decorated...no breakable ornaments on the bottom foot of the tree.  I have plenty of no-shatter, paper, wood and other durable material ornaments that form the bottom ring on the tree.  He will occasionally investigate...

I think I've caught him batting at an ornament once or twice in the years that I've had him.  They're just not that interesting.  You see for Sunny, it's all about the tree skirt.

He LOVES the soft, fluffy skirt for lounging after defeating the dreaded catnip filled mouse

Mostly, though, it's all about the nap.  Curled up under the twinkling, sheltering branches is his favorite place to be at this time of the year, and really what better gift could be found under the tree than this...?

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

A friend helped her kitty over the rainbow bridge last week.  I'd never met Das Whamph as she called him, but I heard so many stories and saw lots of photos.  He was absolutely beautiful and so incredibly loved.  I was shocked when her husband told me how old Whamph was, because he never had that elder-kitty look.

Having been through it once, my heart ached for my friend.  My plans for being super-productive that day were scrapped and instead, I spent a lazy day with Sunny, giving him lots of attention and love.

Sunny gives me so much, just being himself.  Being the only human in the house would be lonely if it weren't for that sweet furry face running to greet me when I get home.  Last night, since I stopped to take the garbage to the curb on my way in, he appeared in the window looking for me.  He knows the sound of my car pulling up and wondered what was taking so long.

I walk in the room when he's sleeping on the couch and he rolls over and shows me his tummy.  My heart skips a beat that an animal, who I'm pretty sure was abused at one point, trusts me enough to be so vulnerable.  He has even started letting me pet that fuzzy tum more and more, which I love.  Soft fuzzy tummies were meant to be pet!

This morning we were playing when I first woke up.  He dove at my hand under the covers.  In spite of the fact that cat play is motivated by the prey drive, none of his claws were extended.  He knew it was me and he didn't want to cause injury.  In the years since I first adopted him, the number of scratches has reduced dramatically.  He used to pounce with claws out, but now he is careful to make sure he doesn't hurt me.

He makes me laugh...a lot.  I love watching the kitty crazies that send him careening around the house, literally launching himself off of walls and furniture (let me tell you, the bank off of the living room wall to do the 180 at the landing of the stairs is really impressive!).  The way he plays with catnip and gets totally stoned absolutely reminds me of some friends from college and beyond (who shall remain nameless).  I laugh through the conversations we have when he wants something,  They come complete with the lip I get when I tell him "no."  I swear he has a meow that he uses after he gets the "I told you, NO!" that makes me hear "whatever" in snide teenager voice every time.

More and more, he has become overtly affectionate.  It used to be that head-butts and rub downs were rare occurrences.  Now, they are just about the daily greeting when I come downstairs in the morning. He has even started letting me hold him for longer periods of time.

I couldn't imagine my life without him and I will do all within my power to make sure that I don't have to for a VERY long time.

So, in memory of the beautiful and beloved Kimbah Timbalaya Whampherbuttamus, let's all take a few minutes to give some extra scritches, love and affection to our own sweet beasties for all that they bring into our lives.

Invasion of the kitty snatchers?

So, last week was my annual trip to a campground in Western Pennsylvania, where for a week, I immerse myself in an attempt at recreating medieval and renaissance life.  It's something of a working vacation, because I'm constantly busy, but it is a time filled with friends, family, music and camaraderie.  I love it!

Sunny does not.

I am not sure if Sunny was abandoned, or ran away because of abuse.  So, either he gets anxious because he knows what it's like to be abandoned, or he is terrified of losing the human who loves him and getting stuck with one who treats him badly.  Either way, he has some major separation anxiety issues.

I have a couple of friends who will take care of him if I am away.  Both of them adore him and don't just stop in long enough to scoop the box and fill the bowl.  They stay and spend time with him.  They give him treats and his favorite kitty crack (also known as his vitamin).  While it's not the same as having me there every night, he does get plenty of affection while I'm away.

You couldn't tell that from the homecoming I received.

It started with the upset meows when I walked in the door.

"Where have you been?"

"How could you leave me?"

"I had to sleep all ALONE!"

"I was only getting treats every OTHER day!!"

There was a running stream of commentary as I pet him while trying to make a bee-line for the bathroom, because my last stop had included a large diet soda for the caffeine to push me through the last hour and a half of what turned into a 7.5 hour drive thanks to an overturned truck in a construction zone.  He came upstairs with me, of course, because all cat owners know that going to the bathroom alone is inconceivable.

Afterwards, I went to my room and crashed on the bed.  That was when Sunny did something truly remarkable.  Instead of going straight for the treat bag and swatting at it to get my attention, he did several passes of a full-body rub to express his delight at having his human home.  Now, you have to understand, Sunny is not the most demonstrative of kitties and prefers his affection at just short of arm's length, where I am supposed to worship him with scritches along his cheeks, head and back of the neck.  He reciprocates verbally with a roar of a purr.  The reality of my stand-offish boy purring with delight while rubbing his head and cheeks over every bit of me he could reach was more than a surprise.

I did give him some treats and he continued to purr and rub up against me.  He came back downstairs with me and while I caught up on emails and such, he actually jumped up on the couch for more head-butts and licks on my arm.  I was stunned.  Who was this strange feline who looked so much like my boy?  It was obviously the invasion of the kitty snatchers while I was away.

He eventually calmed down and I brought out his gift (yes, the first thing I purchased from the dozens of merchants there was for Sunny).  It was a grey felt rat, with a black cord tail, filled with catnip.  Sunny approved.

It's days later and he still wants to be in the same room with me when I'm in the house (it hasn't helped that I'm working 10-11 hour days).  He's sleeping on my bed through the night and generally being extremely affectionate (for Sunny that is).  I'm hoping that at least a part of it will last for a very long time.  Kitty snatchers or no, I'm enjoying having an almost cuddly Sunny.

Sunny the Cat and the "Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day"

When last we left our intrepid feline...

Oh, wait, that's the beginning of another story.

Take two.

It hasn't been a happy day in the land of Sunnydom.  The day started well enough.  The human mom's alarm went off and immediately there were treats and scritches and a fresh bowl of water.  All of that was good.  This is the way the day is supposed to start.  Even better, human mom didn't hop right out of bed to disappear for a while and come back all hot and sweaty.  Instead, she spent a few extra minutes with me, just petting me and talking to me.

Going downstairs there were the two soft, chewy treats that I get every morning.  I sometimes wonder why there are only ever two, but they taste yummy, so I don't argue.  After that, things just went wrong.  Human mom had just finished making her breakfast, but before she could eat it, there was one of those terrifying creatures at the door...an adult male human.  The best place to be when one of those arrives is at the back of human mom's closet.  There are lots of soft things that hang all the way to the floor and the only one who knows the hiding place is human mom.

The man was up and down the stairs, into the room where human mom gets the water from upstairs and where she has the weird, wet litterbox.  Then, there were lots of weird loud noises.  Human mom was up and down the stairs a few times, and the scary man came up too.  After a little while, it finally got quiet.  I waited, just to be certain and then came downstairs.

There was stuff on the floor in the room with the big, flat, off the floor bed (with the four padded hiding places underneath) that mom doesn't like me to lie on.  I'm not sure why.  If you cover something with fabric, isn't that where I'm supposed to lie down?  She sometimes sits on my hiding places and puts her food on the bed to eat or uses the machine that she controls with her feet that eats up fabric. Everything else seemed okay, so I had a couple of bites of food and went down to use the litterbox

While I was downstairs, I heard it.  Another one of the big scary MEN was in the house.  I was trapped.  What was I to do?  I waited and waited.  I heard the thumpy footsteps go out the front door and decided to make a break for it.  Human mom was on the couch as I bolted through the room.  There were more loud noises.  It felt like the floor was shaking.  Eventually, I couldn't hear the scary man anymore, but there was still a noise.  When I went down to investigate, the room with the big bed was all strange.  There were things hanging from the ceiling and something making lots of noise by the entry to the room with my food.

I decided it wasn't worth the risk.  Human mom gave me treats and I went up to nap some more.  I came back down again.  I was hungry.  I didn't know what to do.  The noises from behind the stuff hanging from the ceiling were pretty loud.  Human mom went in and put a chair down right next to it.  She's REALLY brave.  She stayed between it and me so I could ease my way into the room with my food and water.  It didn't do anything or try to hurt me.  I ate a little bit, but went back upstairs.  I realized I was still hungry, so I went back downstairs.  I decided if human mom could be brave, so could I.  Besides, it didn't do anything to me when I went past it the first time.

I still don't like it, and I really do hate it when there are MEN in the house.  Between the men and the big noises and the scary things in the room with the big bed, it really has been a "terrible, horrible, no go, very bad day."

*****************************

Human mom here:  So if you don't understand what Sunny was trying to tell you.  I had plumbers in to fix a leak in my bathroom that went into my dining room.  They opened up the ceiling and found a relatively small amount of mold.  So, the plumber left and the mold remediation guy came.  There are now blowers and dehumidifiers drying everything out until Monday.  Tuesday the plumbers come back and replace the pipes from my tub.  The insurance adjuster will also come out, because while I still have to pay the insane plumbing bill, the insurance will cover the mold remediation and ceiling repair.  Sunny is not pleased with the blowers.  Quite frankly, neither am I, since they pump out heat and I can all but hear the electric meter buzz as the numbers whiz by, but we'll muddle through.

Harvard Here we Come

So, I've always known that Sunny was smart.  It's one of the things I love about him.  He's a big cat with a big personality powered by a big brain (for a cat that is).  Every once in a while he does things that really show me just how smart he is.  Sometimes, that realization is a little scary.

Things have been a bit crazy in the past few weeks.  There was Holy Week (I'm a professional church musician) and I started working again as a contractor for an old boss who can make things a bit stressful, while I'm still looking and interviewing for a permanent job.  On top of that, I started getting out the door early to meet a friend to go walking before I work.  Nothing I can't handle, but it takes a bit to settle into the busy routine again, so I've been a bit tired.

Well, last night, I realized that I hadn't scooped Sunny's box in a while.  I'm usually really on top of it and keep it nice and clean.  I think my brain registered going down into the basement to get laundry as "I've been in the basement, the box is scooped."  It's the only reason I go down there on a regular basis.  Feeling horribly guilty, I grabbed the fresh bag of litter and a garbage bag and headed downstairs.

Now, I expected a mess.  I knew the box would be really full, but I also know that Sunny is really great about keeping everything in the box and there was no smell coming upstairs.  Now you have to understand that the litter I use (Arm & Hammer Essentials--GREAT stuff!!), comes in a stiff plastic bag.  I tear off the entire top of the bag and it sits on the floor near the box, wide open.

Well, Sunny kept to his fastidious nature and only peed in the box.  That gets absorbed into the litter, so it's fine.  Poop, on the other hand is to be buried and when most of the litter is a big clump, what's a kitty to do?

Well, if you're Sunny, you figure it out.  You go into the bag of litter, spill some out, poop on that and then pull more litter out to bury it.  No joke.  There was poop on the floor next to the bag with litter both underneath and on top as if it had been buried in the box as usual.  He only did it once, so I got there in time to avoid it getting out of hand, which was a relief.  However, it is mildly alarming to realize that I have a cat with better problem solving skills than some co-workers I've had.  I mean, seriously, how many animals come up with solutions like this?  One of my friends is convinced he's really a human being trapped in a cat's body, a la Bewitched.  I'm not sure she's wrong.

He got extra treats last night, both as an apology and a thank you.  Of course, not two minutes after I came upstairs from the cleanup, who comes down from the second floor and heads to the basement?  Yup.  He had been listening for the signs that I had taken care of things for him, so he knew things were all fresh.  I went right back down after he came up to scoop things up.  A kitty that smart deserves a clean box.

Tales of a Mighty Mouser--Part Two

So in my original post about Sunny's exterminator position, Tales of a Mighty Mouser, I mentioned that there was another incident which merited its own post.  I decided to stop being a tease and share.

Now, just to warn you, this is not one for the faint of heart.  It is a testament to the great love I bear my sweet furry beast that he was ever allowed back into my room after this particular incident.

Now, when there's a mouse around, there are usually some early warning signs.  Sunny will hear things, or smell things and I will notice him going on the prowl.  He'll investigate corners and check behind doors.  I've learned to recognize the warning signs that something has found it's way in, and is soon to find its way out the hard way.

This time, there were no such warnings.  It was mid-July.  It was the first time that I was going to be the person solely responsible for my company's presence at our biggest national conference.  This was our target group of customers and I was one of two who represented the advance team, arriving early to start the setup, only to be joined by the rest of the crew later.

To say that I was wound up, would be an understatement.  I had been working late to get things together and that meant that all of my personal packing was happening last minute.  Now, Sunny is not a fan of my suitcase.  I've done enough business travel that he knows what it means and is less than thrilled when he sees it out and open.  I had been running around like crazy to get everything done.  I was pretty sure I was finished and was going to crash, praying I could shut my brain off long enough to sleep.

I crawled into bed exhausted and wired.  Within moments, Sunny was there.  I made short shrift of his evening ritual of scritches and treats, trying to get to sleep as quickly as possible.  Once that was done, Sunny did something very unusual.  He started digging at the covers and sniffing.  Now, you have to understand, I am not one for making beds and with the July heat, the covers were bunched up in the middle of the bed where I had shoved them in order to keep cool.

I pushed Sunny away and told him to stop being a nudge, because I needed to sleep.  He came back and did it again.  I pushed him away again.  Again he came back.  I gave up.  I rolled over, presenting him with my back, did my best to ignore him and eventually managed to fall asleep.

Big mistake.

I got up the next day and uncharacteristically jumped out of bed right away to get going.  Since I was going to be away for a few days, I decided to make the bed.

You do know where this is going right?

As I shook out the covers, to my intense horror, I discovered the reason for Sunny's odd behavior of the previous evening.  A tiny furry body fell out from the rumpled comforter and sheets.  I cannot tell you how badly I shuddered with the pure skeeve of having spent the night, blissfully slumbering with a dead mouse in my bed.  It was a very good thing that there was no food in my system.

The bed got stripped and the offending corpse tossed out into the bushes.  I was still twitching when I got to the office to meet my co-worker and collect a few things before my flight.  I called my brother, whose squeamish tendencies can, usually, only be brought out by needles being stuck into him summed it up brilliantly...EEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!

Yeah.  That about covers it.

Enter Candyland

As the internet has so aptly shown us, cats are cute.  A video with kitten antics can send the most hardened personality into a diabetic coma from the sweetness.  It is for cats a tool, defense mechanism and weapon.

When you have a cat as intelligent as Sunny, this can be a dangerous thing.  He is very good at using his cute to get what he wants.

One of his most potent weapons is the tummy fur.  Now, for anyone who understands animals, this is one of the most emotionally powerful things a cat can do.  For Sunny, this is especially true.  For almost any animal, their belly is their most vulnerable body part.  To expose their belly is an expression of extreme trust.  When you've adopted an animal who was abused, trust is incredibly precious.  A little piece of my heart melts every time he does this.  It doesn't hurt that it's just so soft and fuzzy and he looks ridiculously precious when he does it.



Of course, with Sunny, it is a trap.  He will show you his tummy, but it is not to be touched.  Unless he is half asleep and in a REALLY mellow mood, touching the tum will get your hand grabbed in a very sharp set of teeth.  He doesn't bite down with me, but he does express his displeasure at this transgression.  The revealing of the tummy is an invitation to scritch him behind his ears, or on his chin and cheeks.  The tummy itself is verbotten.

He's developed some other uses for the cuteness.  The primary use of the kitty superpower is to get his paws on treats.  Sunny is a treat-powered feline.  Treats are to be acquired as frequently as possible.  Treats are the first thing he wants in the morning when I wake up.  It doesn't matter where he's been sleeping, when the alarm goes off, he's in the bed, looking for treats.  Sometimes, he just waits for me, so I open my eyes to this...



"Are you up?  I've been waiting.  You've been asleep for so long and I've been waiting that WHOLE time for treats."  At least he is nice enough to not actually wake me himself and opening your eyes to that level of cute accompanied by a happy purr is not a bad way to start the day.

His other cute habit is when I'm not paying attention and he wants something.  This is from a few days ago.  I was working on the computer and he wanted to get my attention.  "Hey, hey there.  Stop tapping at the machine and give me treats."

I know I'm especially susceptible, but I find this to be unbearably cute as well, especially since he will often walk over and rub his head up against me once he has my attention.  Part of it is that he never used to do things like this.  It's just another sign of the bond between us.

Aside from using his super-powers for treats, there are the completely unintentional, casual cute moments:  putting his paws over his face to sleep, stretching with that little purring meow when he wakes or poking his head out from the covers after he's been sleeping under them.

A day with Sunny is a day filled with an overload of toothache-inducingly-sweet cuteness...and I'm happy to live in this candy land.

Medic!!!

When I first bought my house, my sister-in-law gave me a supremely practical gift, especially given that I was going to be doing renovation work on my own--a fully stocked first aid kit and a large bottle of hydrogen peroxide for cleaning out the cuts and scrapes I was likely to earn along the way.  When it came to the renovation work though, it didn't need to be pulled out very often.  I'm actually quite adept with both hand and power tools.  However, that bottle of peroxide has come seriously in handy, since I got Sunny.

I'll start by saying that I just don't believe in de-clawing.  Look at your hands.  Imagine amputating every finger at the knuckle at the tip just behind your nails.  That's what de-clawing does to a cat.  I just could never do that to an animal I love and I am absolutely willing to live with the consequences of that decision.

The most frequent use of the peroxide bottle is when I do need to trim his claws.  While Sunny will purr as I clean his ears or sit stoically still while I get the goopies out of the corner of his eyes, he does NOT like to have his claws trimmed.  He will generally let me get one or two done before he decides he's had enough and takes a swipe at me.  If I'm lucky, I remember to do it in the middle of the day when he's just woken up from a nap.  Then he's usually kind of groggy so I can get a whole paw in one shot and sometimes even a claw or two on another.  Still, it frequently ends with me heading to the bathroom to wash with antibacterial soap and flushing with peroxide.

Sometimes things happen that are complete accidents.  Having him in my arms when some loud sound from outside startles him has led to ruined shirts and scratches in places that make it look like I should have been having a lot more fun than I did.  The best (hmmm, not sure of that word choice) was part of one of his mousing adventures.  He had caught one in the dining room and we were engaging in the ritual of me, oh so sweetly, saying, "Good boy!!  Now put it down so I can get rid of it and there will be lots of treats."  He knows the T-word and he actually obeyed.  I was reaching with tissues to grab it.  Unfortunately for me, it was still quite alive and kicking...and it moved.  We were both grabbing for it at the same time and his paw was above my hand.  I managed to grab the mouse's tail, but yowza I had a serious scratch on the back of my hand.  Mousie got tossed out into the bushes to die in nature and I came back in to tend my wound.

I couldn't really be upset with Sunny.  He gave me this pitiful look when it happened.  It was kind of an "I'm really sorry, but it MOVED!" look.  What could I do?  How do you yell at an animal for responding to its most basic primal instinct?  He still got his treats and licked my hand in apology.  I'm not sure that soap and peroxide were even necessary given how much that one bled.  The band-aids came out and the antibacterial goop was applied.  Since it was my right hand, there were some serious twinges before it started healing since I am right handed.  Mousing is his job though, so I really couldn't complain.

So, I have faint red lines on the backs of my hands, and always will.  Who cares?  It's a small price to pay for the purrs and the head butts and the ridiculous cuteness that is my boy.

I will need a new bottle of peroxide soon though.

Let's play

It's said that the ancient Egyptians worshiped cats as deities, and cats have never forgotten.

Sunny, definitely falls into this category.  He is a kitty with dignity and poise.  He knows his own beauty and has a very regal air about him.  Just in case you don't believe me, here's a picture of himself lounging on a silk pillow on my couch.

Do you have any doubt that this is a creature who believes he was placed upon this earth to be worshiped?

Given that this is Sunny's natural state, there is nothing funnier than when all of that is forgotten and goes by the wayside for play.  Sunny can be one of the most playful cats ever.  It's not just the hunt instinct, which is of course the trigger for it.  He likes to be silly.  He knows that whatever toy he or I have picked out is not actually an animal to be killed, but he doesn't care.  It doesn't take much, either.  A piece of yarn tied to the end of a stick is one of his favorite things to chase.  He will run at it, sometimes, not even bothering to try to catch it, just bouncing himself off of whatever furniture is closest to scrabble as he hits the hardwood and bolt into the other room, or up the stairs.  He will run at something and jump around in its general vicinity without actually trying to grab it.  He's just having fun and I've given him a handy excuse to drop his dignity like a hot potato.

His look changes a bit when he's playing.

Goodbye dignity, hello crazy eyes.  This is Sunny, having wrapped himself in a piece of string, which he valiantly conquered.  Yes, when it comes to playtime, he is a complete goofball.

One of Sunny's favorite toys is a gift from my niece.  She and some friends braided up some polar fleece and he will happily leap and jump to get a hold of it, as you can see here (just ignore the laundry being sorted!)

The one dangerous part of that toy is when we both misjudge...me on timing and him on where the toy ends and my hand begins.  Let's just say that my hand is a little worse for the wear at the moment.

Play is great exercise for cats, so I've tried to make sure I do it every day with Sunny.  The biggest problem is that while he's getting healthier, he's also gaining energy, so he wants to play more.  That's fine for the moment while I'm home, but it could prove interesting once I have a job again.

In the meantime, I'm just going to enjoy those moments when my deity deigns to come down to earth.

Only 40 winks!?

So, as cat owners know, sleep is a very important part of a cat's life.  They are the kings of the napping world.

Sunny, of course, is not exception to this rule and who can blame him?  Besides, let's face it.  There are few things cuter than a sleeping cat.  If you browse through Flikr, there is actually a group called "My Sleeping Cat" which is completely dedicated to photographs of somnolent felines.  You can get cavities just browsing through the pictures.

What has always amused me is the positions which cats find conducive to slumber.  Now, there are some that you see, which are perfectly normal.

Here, his majesty stretches out on my bed, blissfully slumbering amidst the soft comforter and sheets, dreaming of catching mice and being rewarded with treats.  He looks so comfy and sweet.  There are soft warm things and this is a perfectly comfortable position.  I get it.  This makes me want to curl up in the bed with him.

Then there's this:

In what world is this a comfortable sleeping position?  I mean, seriously.  A contortionist would look at this and cringe at the thought of the sore muscles and aching joints that would result from spending any length of time like this and yet Sunny is sleeping away, blissfully unaware of the sympathetic aches and pains he is transferring to his astonished caretaker.

He does have two other sleeping habits which I find adorable.  The first is that, like his owner, he snores.  I don't know what it is about those sweet little snorts that makes me smile, but there it is.  I'm a sucker who finds the sound of her snoring cat utterly enchanting.  The other one is when he plays Undercover Kitty.

If you look closely, next to the pillow and against the back of the couch, there is a tail sticking out from beneath the fuzzies.  Undercover Kitty strikes again.  As I sit here typing, I have a huge grin on my face, because Undercover Kitty is currently snoring to beat the band under that purple throw next to me on the couch. He seems to have a bit of a cold, so it's really loud. It just makes me giggle.  

One of the sweet things about Sunny is that he likes company when he naps.  I had a couple of back to back business trips to Dallas with my old job.  On the weekend in between, I also had a commitment for Saturday.  I came home to a very upset baby.  My friend who was going to stop in on him had a week of life smacking her in the head, and her ex-husband had pulled one of his really nasty tricks, so she totally forgot (much to her horror, since she's such a huge animal lover!) to stop in.  There was not much food left in his bowl when I got home and he was SO happy to see me.  Cats don't like to see ANY of the bottom of the bowl, so only a quarter of a cup of food left is pure terror!

I decided that rather than drive up and spend Friday with my friends as originally planned, I would spend the night at home with my lonely boy.  I was up and out early the next morning, not returning until late at night.  Then, I got up Sunday and went straight to sing at church.  When I got home Sunday afternoon, I went upstairs to go to the bathroom.  Sunny had been sleeping on my bed and immediately rolled onto his back to get some attention.  His well applied use of ridiculous cuteness had the desired effect.  I went to the bathroom quickly, then joined him on the bed for some scritches and kitty time.  After a minute or two, I decided that napping with him was just what I needed as well, so I stretched out next to him.  All was right in both of our worlds and nothing could be sweeter than drifting off together for a nice nap.  An hour or so later I awoke.  We both got up and went downstairs.  He happily crunched away at his food in his full bowl (bliss!) while I fixed myself an early dinner.  Cooking complete, I sat down to enjoy my meal as Sunny gave himself a good grooming.

I put the dishes in the sink and sat down on the couch with my laptop to catch up on emails and Facebook posts.  Sunny had gone down to use his own facilities, then came running up the basement stairs, through the living room and straight for the next set of stairs.  He sat down on the landing and looked at me.  His running pulled my attention from the screen to see him sitting there staring.

"What?" I asked him.  He looked up the stairs, then looked back at me.  A moment later he looked up the stairs again and then back at me.  I smiled.  "I'm sorry baby.  I need to finish off these emails and can't go take another nap with you."

He blinked at me, took a big breath and let it out with a "humph."  Then, he turned and ran up the stairs to my bed.

Obviously the silly human did not have her priorities straight.

Naps should always come first!

Training Days

So, in bringing a new cat into my home, I knew that there could be a learning curve.  Where would he be allowed/not allowed?  What behaviors would be acceptable/unacceptable?  There's always a bit of training that needs to happen.

Right.

We're talking about a cat here.  These are not creatures known for their desire to please their owners.  As the magnet on my refrigerator says, "A dog comes when called.  A cat takes a message and gets back to you later."

Surprisingly, Sunny is actually pretty good about those types of things.  He stays off the dining room table...as long as I don't leave a chair conveniently out to give him an easy up.  My couch has taken a bit of a beating, but it got much better when I go him more scratching posts/hangings.  He does like to drink from the kitchen sink, especially right now as I wait for my order with the replacement pump for his fountain to arrive.  We have established a rule with that.  He's allowed in the sink, but counter surfing is out.  I'm usually home when he does this and if he goes sniffing at the counter, all I do is ask him, "what's the rule?"  He usually looks at me and blows a breath out through his nose (sounding for all the world like a human "hmph") then either goes back to drinking from the sink, or jumps down.

He also likes to go out onto the front porch, which is enclosed.  The mail slot is the perfect height for him to put his front paws and prop himself up to look out through the jalousie windows of the front door.  He'll use the scratcher hanging on the front door, then get down, turn, sit and look at me.  Sometimes he'll even meow to get my attention.  That's his way of asking to go out.  Thankfully, he's good about coming in when I need him to.  He seems to always want to go out on the porch shortly before I need to leave the house, so that part of the equation is essential.  I just can't bring myself to leave the door into my living room open where everyone can see through the glass on the porch to the inside when I'm not there.  Call me crazy, I know.

When he wants to go up into the attic, he's even more direct.  There's a specific meow for "please open this" which is usually accompanied by scratching a bit at that door.  I don't worry about him for that one.  The only time I don't like having that door open is in the winter, because it's not heated, so it gets quite chilly.  Sunny doesn't like the cold, so he never stays up there for long.

So, have you noticed who's been trained here?  Granted, I have been able to insure that there are no egregious behaviors on his part...but there never really were any.  On the other hand, he has trained his human to respond to both vocal commands and silent gestures.

Yeah, there's a learning curve all right, and Sunny made darn sure that I got right on it!

The doctor is in

Shortly after I brought Sunny home, I wanted to take him in to be checked out by my vet.  It was one of their techs who had suggested P.A.T.C.H. (Pet Adoption Through Caring Hands) when I stopped in to ask about pets they had up for adoption.  The cats they had there were all special needs and after what I had gone through at the end of Nala's life, she thought I would be much happier with a healthy cat.

So, I made an appointment for Sunny's first checkup.  The thing you need to understand is that Nala was so ridiculously easygoing, and loved car rides so much, that vet visits were a breeze.  I would put on her harness and leash and carry her out to the car.  I would set her on the passenger seat where she would promptly plop down in a comfortable sprawl.  We would make the 1/4 mile drive to my vet's office, the wonderful Pompton Lakes Animal Hospital, I would scoop her up and we would walk in.  She would calmly lounge in my arms among other cats, the yipping puppies and the huge, curious dogs.  Nothing fazed her.

I was not so sanguine about Sunny's response to such a situation.  I bought him a carrier.  It's a soft-sided one that can even be strapped into the seat belts.  One side unzips to fold down completely, while the other only unzips partially.  It also opens from the top and has one zipper on the long side that is just big enough to get a hand through to pet him--that one's important.

So, the morning of his appointment arrived.  Now, something that most cat owners know, unless they have one of the mushball mutants like my Nala was, is that cats hate being put into carriers.  Trying to put a cat into a carrier is akin to stuffing an octopus into a box half the creature's size with one hand tied behind your back.  Seriously, if you don't own a cat, I dare you to try it.  I thought I was being smart.  The carrier had been out and open so he had a chance to get used to it and I wouldn't have to do anything with it that day.  I scooped Sunny up and scritched him to make it look like I was just being affectionate (yes, deception is a necessary component to this process) and casually walked towards the carrier.  All of that was good.

There was one tactical error.

The carrier was in my dining room...which opens directly into the kitchen, the living room and contains the door to the basement.  This was not a good plan.  Suddenly as I walked towards the carrier, for no discernible reasons, in an instant Sunny's FCA triggered.  That would be the "feline containment alert."  He knew to the core of his little kitty being that this was NOT GOOD and the fight and flight (with cats, there is no OR in that bit of primal programming) mechanism engaged.  The flight part was literal as he launched himself out of my arms, leaving behind the signature thin red lines of the feline defense system.  I tried to calmly follow him and soothe him back into my arms, but once that FCA triggered, there was little hope.  He eventually retreated to his first hiding place in my house, beneath the shelves under the stairs in the basement.

Sigh.

So, I decided instead of calling to just go over to the office, since it is so close.  I walked in the door and the office manager looked up.  Quickly noting my empty hands, she asked with a smile, "didn't you forget something?"  Yeah, yeah, everyone's a comedian.  I told her I had come in to re-schedule because of my tactical error.  She laughed and told me not to worry.  I was not the first person to have something similar happen.  We rescheduled for a few days later.

This time, tactics were different.  The carrier got moved to my bedroom, so the door could be closed behind me to prevent escape.  I entered and closed the door.  Sunny looked at me warily, but I moved swiftly.  He was scooped up and plunked butt-first into the upended carrier as quickly as I could.  Paws pushed out of the seams as I flipped the end back up and started zipping, but were quickly confined behind the nylon mesh.  Success!!

Of course, once he was in the carrier, he expressed his distress.  Now Sunny has his own little language.  There are different meows to express different emotions, wants and needs.  The two that are guaranteed to reach straight into my chest and rip out my heart in tiny little bits are his freaked out meow and his distressed meow.  They both kill me.  Let's just say that for my sake, it's a very good thing the ride to the vet's office is so short or I would wind up in an ICU.

As we sat in the waiting room, the distressed meows continued.  I kept talking to him soothingly, as did the crazy cat-lady receptionist (God bless her, she has 25 or so cats, most of whom are special care needs).  As I sat there, however, I reached a decision.  I would risk coming out with nothing but a bloody stump and use that zipper just big enough to get a hand through.

That did the trick.  He settled in the carrier and while the meows still happened, they were less frequent and less intense.  Whew!

They showed me into an exam room and I put his carrier on the table and opened it.  He came out warily, sniffing at the strange smells.  I kept petting him, trying to keep him calm.

Now my vet is a wonderful guy.  He told me when I first brought in Nala that he would always remember my pet's name, but apologized that he would probably forget mine.  I told him that was fine, since my pet was the one who was his patient.  He was wonderful to me and to Nala all through her final illness, as were all of his staff.  (When the staff is in tears when you have to put your pet down, you know just how much they care.)  He is also, however, that figure of terror in Sunny's world...a human male.  As near as I can tell, the person who originally abused Sunny was a man because male voices scare him...and doc has a big loud one.  He's a bluff, genial man, with a big voice.  While he has a wonderful all-animal practice, his specialty is big dogs and you can tell why.

Doc walked in with a friendly greeting on his lips and Sunny did something I've never seen him do.

He froze.

In all of my visions of how this vet visit would go, that had never figured into the picture.  I was imagining elbow length leather gauntlets, hissing, howling and mad chases around the small examining room.  None of that eventuated.  Sunny held perfectly still through his examination as Doc listened to his heart and lungs, checked his teeth and gave him the update for his shots.  Jim, the tech came in with the scale and weighed him, petting him and telling him what a big handsome boy he was; not a peep, not a scratch, not a bite, not a howl or growl issued from Sunny.  I was stunned.  Exam finished, I presented the carrier again and unlike the two previous times, he went in not just willingly, but gratefully.  I zipped him up, carried him out to pay for the visit, then back out to the car.  Of course, once the zipper had closed, he felt safe enough to vocalize his distress again and again, I was grateful for the very short trip.

We arrived back at the house and I immediately put the carrier down and opened it.  With one last call of distress, Sunny shot out like a streak.  Once he got to the living room, he shook himself out and settled down for a good grooming, pausing only to accept a consoling stroke or two which he greeted with a purr.  Bath complete, he hopped up onto the couch and curled up for a nap.

Going to the doctor is exhausting.

What the heart knows

There are differing opinions about animals and emotions.  Many people say that they have no real emotions and don't respond to them.  I'm in the opposite camp.  I think they do have emotions and are quite sensitive to human emotions.  Maybe it's the smells produced by our bodies' physical response.  Whatever it is, they know strong emotion.

In my first story, I spoke of my previous cat, Nala.  She had belonged to a friend who gave her up to me to spare her new husband's allergies.  That friend is as much a sister to me as anything else and her husband was very much like a brother in law.  I was actually renting a room from her parents when they married.  It was quite convenient given that I was making her wedding dress.  I could call her and ask her to come upstairs whenever I needed a fitting.  I also got to see them often and see how much they were in love.  When I bought my house, Nala and I moved out together.

So, why I am I telling you this as part of Sunny's story?

It was a few months after I had adopted Sunny that my friend's husband became ill.  It all started with a cold.  He was wonderful about taking care of other people, but not very good about taking care of himself.  The cold became bronchitis and eventually pneumonia.  He wound up in the hospital when on top of the pneumonia, he contracted H1N1.  Things went from bad to worse.  He was transferred from a local hospital to a regional medical center.

One evening I called my friend to check in and see how he was doing.  She answered the phone crying.  He was gone.  She asked me to meet her at her parents'.  I dropped everything and went straight there.  I spent the evening calling friends, letting them know what had happened and working with her on all of the practicalities immediately following the death of a loved one.  Mostly, I was just being there for her, offering her my strength.

It wasn't until I started the drive home that it hit me.  He was my friend too and the grief hit me hard.  I arrived home exhausted and hurting.  I wanted someone to be there for me, the way I had been for her.  I went upstairs to find Sunny curled up on my bed.

Now, thanks to his time in the wild and his time in his cage at the shelter, Sunny doesn't like to be confined.  He lets me hold him on sufferance and there is very definitely a time limit to it.  He looked up at me, but stayed where he was.  I laid down on the bed, put my head on him and cried.  There is nothing worse in my book than crying alone.  The warm softness of his fur and his quiet purr were comfort and balm to my aching heart.  I don't know how long I lay there crying.  Eventually though, I needed to breathe which meant blowing my nose and drying my eyes.

I sat up and reached for the tissues.  Sunny promptly got up and left the room.  I thought rather wryly that I had hit the tolerance point for him offering comfort.  It had been nice while it lasted, but I couldn't expect my boy to change his tabby stripes.  I managed to clear my nose and dry my eyes and had just taken a deep breath.

As I sat there, I heard the telltale sound of running paws coming up the stairs.  I looked up just as he jumped up onto the bed.  There he sat, with a little toy mouse in his mouth.  He leaned over to put it in front of me and sat up with a quiet meow.

The tears came anew and I scooped him up for a momentary cuddle and scritch.  He protested after a moment or two, but I didn't care.  He had given me what I needed in that moment and offered comfort in the only way he knew.

Don't ever try to tell me animals don't have emotions!

Tales of a Mighty Mouser

So, once Sunny claimed his place in my bed and my house, our bond was established.  It was pretty humbling how quickly he trusted me.  There are still holdovers from before our time.  He freezes if he's anywhere near my moving feet, which tells me he used to be kicked.  He also heads for the hills if I pull out the broom or Swiffer, which tells me that he used to get hit with one.  Those are two things that break my heart any time they happen.

Anyway, it was the first Saturday in May that I brought him home to my old house.  My place is about 100 years old and a bit drafty.  I also happen to live in a town that is on the verge of a huge rural area.  Are you getting ideas here?

So, at about 4:30 in the morning on the Monday after Mother's Day I was rather suddenly awakened with SCRABBLE, SCRABBLE, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!!  This was a bit of a surprising wake-up to say the least.  There being only one possible source for the the sound, I asked, "Sunny, what are you doing?"  The response I got was a low growl.  THAT certainly got my attention.

I sat up and turned on the light.  There he sat, next the bed, oh so proudly holding the mouse in his mouth, with the tail hanging out.  I think my brain literally froze for a moment.  Thankfully, it came back online quickly and I realized that he was bringing me a gift and having a mouser in my old house was a very good thing, so I managed not to freak (pretty good for 4:30 am!).  Instead, in the nicest voice possible, I told him what a good boy he was and asked him to put it down so I could get rid of it.  It took a bit of coaxing, but I did get him to put it down so I could grab it by the tail through a wad of toilet paper, take it downstairs and toss it out into the bushes.  I brought him several treats and gave him lots of pets and scritches and again told him what a wonderful boy he was.

When I went to crawl back into bed, I noticed something.  There were several tiny red dots on my white comforter.  That was when I came to the realization that he had actually brought the mouse to me on the bed and the noise I heard was him catching it again when it tried to get away.  (Ewww...not the last time he's done that, but that's a story that deserves it's own entry.)  I managed to clean up the mouse blood and Sunny returned to the bed, oh so proud of what he had done.

As Mother's Day presents go, it was definitely unique.

As I sit here typing, he is stretched out on the floor on his back, daintily pulling his front claws through his teeth to clean them.  He needs to make sure they are prepared to protect me from any rodent invaders.  I think he'd be willing to take on an ROUS for me.

That's my boy.

The Rescue Story

So, I decided to do something a bit new.  Being home and unemployed, my one companion is a beautiful 14 pound American short hair named Sunny.  He's been keeping me sane.  I decided in the world of internet fame, that he is just as deserving as any other feline, so he should have his own blog too.

Sunny is a shelter adoptee.  I had been forced to put down my previous cat, Nala, a few months before.  I couldn't stand the quiet anymore.  Nala had belonged to a friend.  When the friend married and her husband was allergic, I volunteered to take her on.  I had two years with a sweet, mouthy girl who was insanely affectionate.  

When I went to the shelter, I told them I was looking for an adult female.  I walked around a corner and this beautiful white and orange tabby stood up and stuck his nose between the bars.  As I pet him he purred like crazy, nearly falling over in his efforts to get my attention.  He looked at me with his big yellow eyes and I could hear him in my head asking, "Are you the one?  Will you be the one who gets me out of this prison, please?"  That was it.  I was a goner.

I found out later that Sunny had spent two years at that shelter.  He had appeared in a pack of feral cats and a woman who tracked the pack caught him and brought him to a vet to be altered.  He was altered and his ear was clipped.  Dealing with him in recovery though, the vet realized he wasn't feral and told the woman that he wouldn't survive in the wild.  She brought him to Pet Adoption Through Caring Hands (PATCH) in Pompton Lakes, NJ.  It's a wonderful, cat-only, no-kill shelter.  Unfortunately his time with the feral pack had taught him to be highly aggressive with other cats.  He could not be let out unsupervised and spent a great deal of time in his cage.  In short, he was miserable.  As wonderful as the volunteers are, he was terribly unhappy.

I brought him home and set him loose in my basement with a litter box and food.  I left him alone most of the day, checking on him occasionally.  He found a place under a set of storage shelves to hide, but whenever I came down, he would come out, looking for attention.  The next morning, I came down from my bedroom to find him under an end-table in my living room.  That night, when I was stretched out on my bed I heard a meow.  I called out to let him know where I was.  He came running up the stairs to find me.  He explored the second floor, meowing every few moments to check where I was.  He came back into my room and looked at me questioningly.  I patted the bed next me.  He jumped up, curled up and never looked back.  My bed is his safe place, where he comes begging for treats and affection.  

He's not the cuddle beast Nala was.  He is the Lord of the Manor who deigns to share his home with me (never mind that I pay the mortgage).  He is smart and knows how to get what he wants from me.  He can be silly and funny; arrogant and imperious; or lazy and languid.  

In short, he's a cat.  What makes him special is that he's mine.