Archive for the ‘Cat’ Category
I had a beautiful calico cat once, or I should say a beautiful calico at one time had me, as a servant. Cats are never really owned. If they do not like where they are, they move on to a new place and start a new life.
I got her and my big black and white cat, Barney (who I have mentioned before) at the same time. After I picked out Barney I started looking for a female companion cat for him. When she saw that the black and white was out of the cage, she came to the front to present herself. She did not want to stay there behind bars. I saw that she was female and about a year old where Barney was 6 months, so I thought this would be a good match.
When I got them home, I was not so sure I had made the right decision. Callie spent the first three days hiding on a shelf in my closet. I finally forced her out and closed the door. She then proceeded to torment Barney, who was just a large overgrown kitten. It got so bad that I started thinking about taking one of them back, but which one? Barney was so cute and adorable, loved everyone and I really wanted to keep him. But Callie was female and older, two strikes against her for readoption and I was afraid she would be put down. What to do?
At night Barney would take up residence on my bed and start kneading and sucking, slobbering all over the blanket. I was getting tired of going to bed with a wet blanket. So one night I picked up a towel and Barney and headed to the living room. I set the towel down and Barney on top of it and petted him and talked. I told him that this was his momma and he could knead and suck it all he wanted. He finally got the hint and started on the towel. Callie finally came out of the bedroom to see what was going on. When she saw Barney sucking on the towel, she came over and started licking on him. At that point I realized that it would be ok and they would get along.
(The following story was written by my husband, Paul McKinley as it happened to him before I entered the picture.)
Years ago I got two kittens who were almost litter-mates – they were out of 3 litters born within a few days to related queens (momma-cats). One of them was a darker brown tiger with white patches (or is it white with dark brown tiger-stripe patches?), who had a funny patch on his nose that reminded me of Groucho Marx’s fake moustache. Did you ever notice that Groucho Marx’s moustache was painted on? You could tell because it would reflect the set lighting. So naturally, I named him Groucho. The other kitten was the runt of the litter, a pitiful little waif with mostly light-gray tiger stripes and a few white patches. What with the other kitten being named Groucho, this one reminded me of Harpo Marx, so I named him Harpo.
Harpo was a funny little guy. He seemed to have a bit of cerebral palsy. You’ve seen cats “lock on target” when they focus on something to pounce. The more Harpo would focus on something, the more his head would shake from side to side. I also remember one Thanksgiving when Harpo was maybe 6 or 8 weeks old, we’d put the turkey carcass out for the cats to eat their fill of scraps. Harpo gorged so much of that turkey that his little body was shaped like a large orange with toothpick legs and little fuzzy string tail sticking out, and you could almost feel from his expressive face the agony over having eaten too much.
The cat scratching post was a homemade one I’d found that someone had thrown out. It was two 2×4’s nailed together and covered with carpet. It was just long enough to jam tight between the floor and the ceiling. Knowing that cats like high perches, I added a “t” shelf to the post about 6 feet off the floor – just big enough for a cat to sit or lie on either side. Later on I added a string hanging from the end of one of the shelves, with a small piece of wood tied to the bottom so that it would hang a foot or so off the floor. Harpo and Groucho would bat the wood around and it was hysterical to watch.
One day I was watching TV, sitting where furniture blocked my view of the bottom of the scratching post. Harpo had been on one of the shelves, but decided to climb down. Now you know that cats don’t climb down head first just the same as you don’t go down a ladder head first – they “back” down. And Harpo, being naturally a good-natured cat, always had his tail straight “up” – to him, which meant while he was sidling down the scratching post his tail was sticking out horizontally — and sweeping from side to side as he shifted his weight from one back paw to the other. Apparently he chose the side of the post to sidle down where the string was hanging, so as he sidled down the post his tail was swiping the string with each sweep. This wasn’t a problem until he neared the bottom of the post where there were only 4 or 5 inches of string left. At that point his tail striking the string was enough to make the wooden weight sling around and wrap the string several times around his tail, effectively tying a knot around his tail and holding his hindquarter up where his back feet couldn’t quite touch the ground. I was focused on the TV and not paying attention to what Harpo was doing, so I didn’t notice this happening, until…
I remember over the course of 15 to 20 seconds hearing Harpo crying, starting with a “hello, what’s this?” to “#*@&&#$!” to a frightened “It’s got me!” to a frantic “AAAAAAGHHHH”! I looked around to see what was the fuss, and saw Harpo, hanging limp with his forequarters laying on the floor and his hindquarters up in the air hung by his tail, with a terrified but resigned look on his face.
Naturally I jumped up and released him. I also removed the string from the scratching post — I didn’t want the same thing to happen to his other end. I still laugh at the range of emotion displayed in his cries when he discovered he’d been caught! Harpo was such a funny cat!
A number of years ago, I was lactose intolerant and was using soymilk on my cereal. However, I really wanted to drink milk with my cookies, that being one of the simple pleasures in life. I just was not sure about drinking the soymilk. It was fine with the cereal camouflaging the taste and texture, but to actually drink it?
I decided to give it the cat test. We had 7 cats living with us at the time (that is what happens when you have a cat door so anyone can move in). One of the cats, Hobbs, was young and all stomach. If Hobbs were around the food bowl, none of the others would have a chance. This is a cat that if you left a large loaf of bread on the counter over night, in the morning it would be ripped open and half of the loaf would be eaten. So for this experiment I made sure that Hobbs was outside. The other six cats got curious and followed me to the kitchen. I poured some of the soymilk into a bowl and put it on the ground. The other cats came up to it, sniffed, and then looked up at me. I could imagine them asking, “What are you trying to do? Poison us?” About that time, Hobbs got wind that something was in the kitchen. He came tearing through the cat door, around the corner and into the kitchen. He did not stop to ask the other cats why they were not drinking the milk. He plunked he head down and started lapping it up. About the 5th lap, it hit him. His head shot up and he started spitting, trying to get the taste out of his mouth.
It took him 2 weeks before he would forgive me. The whole incident scared one of the other cats, Barney, so bad that he never trusted me with an offer of milk again. And needless to say, I never tried the soymilk with my cookies.
I am devoting Wednesdays to stories of animals and in my case most of them will be cat stories as cats have been a staple in my life for a number of years. I love dogs, had a great one when I was growing up, but cats are easier to keep. You can leave them with plenty of food and water and litter and go off for the weekend. A dog would eat all the food, knock over the water bowl and cry because their pack has left and all that within the first 2 hours of you leaving.
The hard part is deciding what story to tell first. Well here goes.
I had a very large black and white cat named Barney. This cat was an 18 pounder in his own right. He was not fat, just big. Barney loved people. He was a dog in cat clothing. He had to go greet all that came to the door.
At one point we were living at the back of 68 acres we had purchased. In the process of subdividing this property we were having a road put in. One day one of the workers came to the house to use our phone. This phone was located on a desk right next to the four-foot tall cat scratch post. As the worker sat down to make his call, Barney came in to see who was here. As this contractor was talking, Barney jumped to the top of the cat scratch post right in this man’s face. There was a loud scream. I could just imagine the person on the other end asking, “what’s wrong, what happened”. Then this worker haltingly said “They have a cat as big as a bobcat”. Barney was unperturbed with the screaming man and followed him to the door when he left.
Sunny is a yellow longhaired tabby and his name is short for “Sunny Disposition”, “Sunny Outlook”, “Sunshine”. That pretty well explains him. However like the cat in the previous post, Sunny is a long-haired whose brain protein went to make fur instead.
I have seen this cat stalking birds at the bird bath many times however he only runs up to the bird bath after the birds have flown away. I really don’t think that he realizes the bird is no longer there. Or maybe he is like Garfield and is only chasing the birds to let us know he is on the ball and doing his job but like Garfield with the mice, they are really his friends and he doesn’t want to harm them. No, he is not smart enough to think that through. We have a cat door and shoved this cat through it many times but he still did not get it. It took him 6 months before he figured it out.
Sunny may be dingy but unlike the cat in the previous post as he is not a scaredy-cat. He is too dumb to be scared. His incapacity to be afraid has actually served him well. When one of our other cats decides to make him the object of her attack and she springs on him, Sunny either doesn’t notice and she has to embarrassingly turn and slink away or he just looks at her like “what, what’s going on”. Whenever she stalks one of our other cats, either a fight (usually in the form of a hissy fit) ensues or the other cat takes off and the chase is on ending in a mild catfight. (Why can’t they just get along)?
Maybe we could learn from this. In the previous post we saw that fear dumbs us down, keeps us from learning. While in this post we see that lack of fear (even in those considered unintelligent) can be a saving grace.
We as humans can accomplish so much more when we get past the fear. It is the fear of failure, the fear of success, the fear of being different or even the fear of being the same and being lost in the crowd that keeps us from greatness. Each of us has the potential for great accomplishments, some of us in a more low-keyed, behind the scene way than others. Meridian Tapping is a great way to get past the fear. It has helped me tremendously. I am not the same person I was 3 years ago or even 1 year ago. It can help you too.
In my experience, longhaired cats are ditzy. I am sure there are exceptions and you may comment about some, but the only ones I have known that were not ditzy were purebred Persians. I am not saying long haired cats are not loveable or sweat natured or fun to be around. I am saying the ones I have owned or known have not been real sharp. My husband explains it as all the protein that should have gone to make brains went to make fur instead.
We had a gray longhaired cat, Daneel, that was real dingy. As you walked across the room, he would run right under your feet. His fear of being stepped on was causing him to be stepped on.
While we owned him we moved to the country, right into the territory of another cat that was the spitting image of Daneel. This cat was wild and fought like a wild cat while Daneel was a scaredy-cat. I always knew when the wild cat was outside as Daneel would tear through the house and hide under the bed.
We had another cat at the same time, Barney, who was very intelligent and could not stand Daneel. Barney would pick on him. Daneel was an easy fight for Barney. However, Barney could not see real well and his sense of smell was off due to a car accident years ago. When we moved to this new property, Barney never saw the wild cat and Daneel at the same time and would constantly pick on the wild cat like he would Daneal, but this wild cat would not take any lip and promptly tore into him.
After having to take Barney to the vet for the 3rd time to be patched up we decided it was time to relocate the wild thing. We caught him in a live animal trap and took him to some property I owned 100 miles away. We left him there with a large bag of cat food and large pan of water so he could get by for a day or two till he found the ponds and the rats. After wild-thing’s removal, Barney and Daneel became the best of buddies. It was like Barney had new respect for Daneel. That wildcat was like Daneel’s alter ego (or so Barney thought) and the two combined in Barney’s mind to create one cat that Barney could respect.
Daneel had one short coming that would still upset Barney. When Daneel was being petted, he would get ecstatic, squirm and drool. Barney would get disgusted and come over and give Daneel a swat as if to say, “Get a hold of yourself”.
I my eyes, Daneel’s one major shortcoming that made him appear so dumb was his fear. I have trained cats before (don’t let anyone tell you they can not be trained) but in working with Daneel, he was too afraid to be able to pay attention.
I apply this to humans a lot. Fear is so detrimental; it keeps us from learning, from trying, from doing something different. If we did not have fear we could do so much more with our lives. Just like Daneel, fear keeps us from living our lives to the fullest.
I have used Meridian Tapping to help me overcome a lot of fear in my life. Give it a try for yourself. www.naturallyresilient.com