The cat thread

[Henrik]

I suppose it is now my turn to make an attempt at describing my monster!

A number of you members have already heard a bit about Micado, or Mica as she is called normally. Actually, she is called a lot of other names, the most common being douille, although it would be a bit difficult to explain that one! Nevertheless, I am the slave of this tortoise shell European cat, that you will find some pictures of on the photo album.

She comes from the same litter as Niki, but she doesn’t look or act at all like her! In fact, she doesn’t act much like a cat! As soon as I enter our house, she is “stuck” to me. She follows me around everywhere in the house, and when I got to bed, so does she…on me! Actually she will lay on my head and lick my earlobe until I turn the lights out. Then in the morning, she usually stays in bed for a bit after I get up, but by the time I get out of the shower, she’ll be scratching on the bathroom door asking me to let her in. That’s where we begin to have our regular morning conversation! We’ll talk about a number of things as I shave, but mostly it is about how hungry she is, and how much she wants me to hurry up and feed her!

In the evenings, as I sit in front of my screen, posting on Shamu, or chat with one of you Shamuists, she will lay on my lap, or sometimes on my hands even as I type! Now some of you know how dangerous it can be to have Mica in your lap as you check some links posted on Shamu (right Pabs?).

She can be the sweetest and cutest cat there is (just look at one of the photos on the album!), and as she sleeps with our soft toy animal collection, it is hard to tell her apart. She even has her very own teddy bear, that she will take in her paws and sleep! But, give her a chicken drum-stick and she becomes a wild beast! The change is amazing! She will growl at you, and it is impossible to take the bone from her. Needless to say, we avoid giving her chicken drum-sticks!

Oh, and she never misses a chance to tell Greg99 that I belong to HER and not Greg99! I can only imagine the type of arguments the two hold in my absence….LOL!

[RacerX]

Henrik,

That's too funny...I'll have to go check out the pics!

LOL,
Rx

[da_silva]

Hehe,

You guys are making me hungry!

[dani]

well i have never had many animals since i move around alot, a few fish, but they died and a cat which i had breifly for a week called Darwin. When I was 6 or 7 years old my parents finally gave into my constant nagging "mum can we have a dog? mum can we have a dog?" and decided to get me a cat. so we went down to the RSPCA in search of a matureish cat to give a home to, when we were in the cat room they were everywhere, meowing about and I didn't know which one i wanted, all of a sudden i felt a tug on my jumper, this marmalade coloured cat had attatched itself to me!lol! we liked him instantly and took him home with us. He was a great cat and followed me around everywhere. Sadly Darwin was afraid of rejection, he would vomit everywhere because he was so scared to be sent back. I wanted to keep him forever, but unfortunately a few days after we got him I came down sick, I was allergic and so were my parents. It's funny I was allergic to him because since then i've never been allergic to any animals. Anyways we had to take him back, it was so horrible because he knew exactlly what was happening and he was crying all the way to the RSPCA. When we got there I thought I would never see him again. I was wrong. A few months later I was at school when a bunch of girls were screaming and aweeing "tiger tiger, come here tiger" when i went to go see what all the fuss was about i saw my Darwin standing int he field. Apparently he had been adopted by a rich family that lived on the hill. He wouldn't answer any of the other girls but when I called "darwin" he came running up to me and lept into my arms like he did during the breif time we had him. he would try to claw any of the other girls who tried to pet him!lol! o I left knowing he was happy and well looked after.
Since then I haven't had any pets, but i quite like our neighbours cat, andrew, he's so lazy and if i were a cat i swear i'd probably be him. He takes his time on everything and he really sympathises with me. Especially if i'm coming home in the pouring rain!LOL!

[King_Aj05]

Yes, we are a cat family, but now that the twins are here the cats have had to take a back seat!

We have Itchy...yes he scratches alot.

Snitzel...yes he eats alot...

and Looney...yes a total phsycopath! LOL

and yes, people who name there cats like this must have "issues"...LOL

Aj
The King of cats...

[Henrik]

Just in case you are lazy (and also because I just figured out how to paste the pics!), here's Micado:

[pabs]

Before I start talking about Donatella, I have a story that I'd like to share here.

Over the weekend Paola and I drove up to Oklahoma City to visit my sister. On saturday night, as we pulled into the hotel parking lot, we saw a couple with this tiny kitty so we decided to go check it out. It turns out they'd found it just lying there on the pavement and they almost ran it over with their car. They were feeding it some milk and bananas. Seeing that they could not keep the kitty, we decided to adopt it. The cat stayed with us overnight at the hotel. In fact, I pretty much stayed up the entire night nursing her and making sure she was ok.

The next morning we drove back to Austin with the kitty and named her Bombón. All throughout this time, the cat did not want to eat much, and we could tell that he was injured. For one, her left back leg seemed to be broken and there was some bleeding coming from the anus. When we arrived at home, she took some milk from me and cried all night so I decided to stay up with her. So yesterday after taking Paola to school I decided to go check on her. She didn't look very well so I fed her again and took her to the vet. The guy took a look at her and told me that her body temp was low but blood sugar and red cells were fine. However, there were some internal injuries and he didn't know if Bombón would last the night.

I picked up Paola in the afternoon, had lunch, and went to pick up Bombón. The doctor was very straightforward with us. He'd gotten the body temp up, but he didn't know what the extent of the injuries were and he wasn't so sure the kitty would last more than a few days. Also, in the case that she did start eating and getting better, the treatment for her would be very expensive. His recommendation was to put her down.

We decided to take her to an animal shelter to see if they could do something, or maybe find someone to adopt her. Also, if they thought she was suffering, then they would put her down. We dropped her off and called about an hour later. She'd been put down at 6:20 pm. (about 10 minutes after we dropped her off)

I have to say...we spent less than 48 hours with her but we got very attached. I guess that sort of thing happens when you stay up 2 nights in a row with a 3-week old kitty that you are taking care of. Paola and I both cried. I guess it was the best thing to do since she was suffering that much, but still...
I guess at least we got to name her and take care of her. We even took some pictures that I'm hoping to develop soon.

Anyways, wherever you are, Bombón we miss you...

[da_silva]

These days that sort of compassion does not exist, I applaud you and your GF for your actions.



"Mini Me, we don't gnaw on our Kitty"

[Henrik]

Oh Pabs!

I am so sorry to hear how it ended!

I know very well how attached you get to a three week old kitten, and I really feel for you two. I only wish I could have been there to help out some more.

Take care my friend!

[greg99]

Pabs - how can I tell you how much I feel for you.

Before we got our current cats, we had another two - Lari and Balki, we had to take them when they were 3 weeks old. Lari was very sick, I took care of his running eye, I fed him with a tiny bottle every hour for a whole week and he was getting vitamin shots every day - I got to catch an hour's sleep here and there when I could (I was off work that week). His body temp was low as well so he basically lived in my hand the whole time. I would not give up on the poor creature but after a week he made a big sigh, looked at me with his valid eye begged me to let him go.

That was 11 years ago and I still think about him from time to time. Maybe Bombón has found him as a friend in Cat's Paradise.

[OT]

Likewise pabs - I feel for you. For those that care about them - an animal in distress is in itself, a distressing situation. At least with humans, you can attempt to reason - animals, you can only attempt to comfort.

[pabs]

Thanks for your messages guys...they really meant a lot to Paola and myself.

And I am sure Bombón and Lari are having a blast in Cat's heaven greg

Now we are thinking about adopting a kitty. That won't happen for a few weeks though. One of the things we've learned is that most kitties at animal shelters get put down because people just aren't adopting enough, so we figured we'd do our share and adopt one.

Again, thanks everyone.

[OT]

....that's what we did for our little dog pabs - we went to the pound and saved him from death row.....

we now have the most faithful little friend....

[greg99]

Pabs, I don't mean to stir the pot here but something struck me today.

YOU started the Cat Thread and THEN Bombón happened. There is always a reason for everything: you were meant to meet her, she had a message for you. Now you're going to adopt a cat. Her message was heard.

Thank you.

[da_silva]

Hey OT,

Is your dog called pabs? LOL.