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06 August 2020

Yes my life IS cats now. So a few months ago I started catching sight of a scruffy looking cat but it was very skittish of people and cats. I would only see it maybe twice or three times a month until about three weeks ago. [More:]

It started hanging around at night and making weird yowls like it was in heat, and, it was starving. Just bones and unkempt hair. I got it to eat and it went at it hard eating just disturbing amounts of food for a couple of weeks.

I named her Possum because in the dark coming across the yard one night I saw her and thought she was a possum. She is dark with a pink nose and a triangle of white on her face.

I arranged to have her fixed and chipped this Tuesday and trapped her last Thursday. We kept her in a room we have adapted for quarantining cats. She continued to eat a lot and started to groom.

She turned out to be he. Not sure what the noises were about when he showed up but it wasn't estrus. Maybe that is just what a starving cat does when it gets hungry enough. He is a very small cat but he has at least doubled in weight since his arrival. I thought he was maybe seven or eight months old but the vet said eighteen to twenty.

I can't believe he still has a tail. Right at the base there is a 90 degree bend and then another and the vertebrae are busted up. It was broken badly and not properly healed but it causes him no pain and the tail works like a tail.

Possum was clearly not a feral so I could not put him back out there. I was looking to adopt him out but he comes and sits pressed against my leg and wants never ending face scratching.

My wife tonight said "look at him. He trusts you completely and nothing else. We can't send him off to someone new it would be traumatic." So I guess we now have three indoor cats. I'll keep him in the room for another week or so as Caspar and Nora Lou Who get used to him.

When I die they can just lay me out on a pile of litter and all the cats can bury me.
Oh, how wonderful for Possum to have such loving people as y'all are, for a new home.

I greatly appreciate your updates about the kitties, and your lives.

You write so engagingly that I gain a nice little window into your catworld.

.....buried by litter is not a bad way, in the end....
posted by mightshould 06 August | 06:43
Yes, I love your cat updates, and I wish I could have more cats but Rudi is ... challenging.
posted by Senyar 06 August | 11:59
LOL about your interment plan.

Sometimes there are cats that really choose you. Possum found his human.

I was wondering, when did your connection with cats start? Was it for your whole life, or something you've grown into?
posted by Miko 06 August | 22:20
Bagheera from The Jungle Book movie is the first cat I remember being aware of and then I really wanted a cat. After some research I really wanted a Siamese cat. I lucked into one when someone was going into hospital or long term care or something. She was a seal point and she was killed by a car after a year. Then someone else had to give up a blue point and I had her a long time.

Since then all the cats in my life have found me out. As my wife, backed up by my friends, says, lost cats, lonely women, and delusional folks can sense me from a mile away and flock to me. (she doesn't mind the first but the second can be bothersome)

Senyar, how is Rudi? I mean other than challenging.
posted by arse_hat 06 August | 23:26
Rudi is happy and healthy, and is a very handsome boy. He spends much of his day outdoors, and I see him disappearing over the fences into other people's gardens. He likes to catch mice and voles and sometimes I'm able to rescue them before he kills them (he tends to let them go and then gets very excited letting me know there's somebody else in the house) but sometimes I'm not successful and they meet their end. So, typical cat behaviour.

But he really dislikes other cats, although his behaviour with them is sometimes ambiguous.

For example, a neighbour has a sweet boy cat, about 2 years old and named Blue, who really, really wants to be Rudi's friend. Blue will sit on the end of the fence in the far corner of my garden. If Rudi sees him, Rudi will roll onto his back and show his belly - a classic sign of submission and that he's no threat. But as soon as Blue makes a move as if he's going to come down into the garden, Rudi jumps up, onto the fence and then either Blue runs away or they have one of those weird, slow, yowling standoffs until Blue inevitably turns tail. Here is Blue regretting his decision to try to face off with Rudi.

Another neighbour's cat, a beautiful fluffy friendly tabby scares the bejasus out of Rudi and he comes flying in through the catflap, all agitated, if that cat appears in the garden.

And with me too, he'll let me stroke him, using a Zoom Groom or a dander brush, and he flattens himself out on the rug to get maximum benefit from it. He'll also let me massage his head a little, sometimes with my fingertips but more often with a hairbrush - one of those with stiff plastic bristles that have little bobbles on the end. I think it must feel like one of those head massage things. He gets into a kind of trance, but then suddenly realises he's allowed himself to be vulnerable and in a nanosecond it's teeth, claws, bites and scratches for me.

He's only ever cuddled up to me on the sofa once, and then just for a few minutes.

He really is the strangest cat. You know how cats like to tuck their paws in when they settle down? He folds his in half by his sides, like chicken wings. Often he'll also lie with his paws folded like that and with his neck stretched out. It looks so uncomfortable, but he can lie like that for hours, sometimes on the stone of the patio.

He's definitely a weirdo.
posted by Senyar 07 August | 09:54
Ok that Rudi sleep posture is really unusual. He looks good and so does Blue. Rudi, stop be a jerk.

I used to use a dander brush on Whitey Ford and he loved it but I had to hide it because he would find it and rub so hard he would cut himself.

Possum came out and wondered the upstairs for about 20 minutes before going back to his own room. Can't say I blame him with hulking Caspar sitting there making low rumbling sounds the whole time.
posted by arse_hat 07 August | 16:20
That is the funnies cat position I've ever seen!

I'll never get over the way all cats are just completely unique. No two alike, all different behaviors.
posted by Miko 08 August | 13:51
A Postcard to My Old House, MeCha - I still love you || I quoted the Tragically Hip in an interview survey today.

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