The Crew - Jack

 

Jack is my first foster failure.  I started fostering in 2002, and he was in the third litter I had.  He came with three other kittens, and shortly afterwords one of them became very ill and needed to be put to sleep.  It was the first loss I had fostering, and it hurt.  I spent a lot of time with that group of kittens as a result.

Jack was a pretty unremarkable kitten. He came with the name Houdini, which fit him nicely because he was quite a little escape artist, but it wasn't an easy name to call a cat.  Jack has the ability to look like several different animals depending on his mood, and we picked Jack because he looked a bit like a jackal one day. He was a little fluffier then most short haired kittens, but wasn't quite long haired.  He was also quite gangly, and he almost seemed to be put together from several different kittens.  But he needed me.  He used to nurse on my ear and snuggle up tight.  I wasn't overly amused at the actual being nursed on, but his need out won my discomfort.  When the time came for the litter to go back and be put up for adoption I cried.  I had sworn to my husband when I started fostering that I wouldn't keep any of them (ha ha ha) but he was so special and unique, and I loved him for him - certainly not for his looks!!  I finally could not deal with it, and ran down to the shelter and scooped him up.

I was unemployed at the time, so I took Jack with me everywhere.  I fit him with a harness and leash, and we went to get ice cream, to visit friends and family, and many trips to the pet store - simply because I knew he would be welcomed there.  He basked in the attention and loved going out.  He would run to the door when ever someone would start getting ready to go out.  After a few months I found a job and he had to stay home.  He lost his love of going out, but he has not yet lost his love of being the center of attention.  When ever we have company he has to be right there.

He grew into his gangly looks.  He's now a very long sleek boy with medium length blue hair. He does have quite a bit of a belly hang though which waddles when he walks fast or runs, but it does not detract from his beauty.  He has a gorgeous mane as well which has a small white dot in the middle of it which developed after he became an adult.  Unfortunately he does NOT photograph well at all.  I think it is because you can't see him in three dimension and that is a pure shame.

Jack has had several medical issues, including a lump removed from his back when he was young.  He wasn't even a year old, and the vet was concerned that it might be a VAS because of it's location (near the scruff where the shelter vaccinates) but we were very fortunate it was a just a cyst. A couple of years ago he developed another cyst on his back leg, but we've chosen to ignore it until he needs to be sedated for something else. We also had the great FIP situation over the holidays of 2002.  As a result of some bad advice and true lack of knowledge I went through several months with a huge black cloud over our heads (but more of that with Muffin and Eli's profile) and in the end it turned out that Jack tested positive for FeLV.  I had him tested eight weeks later and he was still positive.  I started giving him Vitamin C, and when I had him tested a year later he came up negative.  I should probably have him tested again just to be sure, but I haven't.  THEN Jack started having urinary problems.  Eli had already gone through them, so I knew what I was looking at, but I still didn't get to him in time.  He blocked.  After going through the surgery and several round of "prescription" foods, he blocked again.  At this time I was facing problems with Em and her diabetes, so I was open to learning anything that would help, and I learned that diet is incredibly important in maintaining the right PH balance in a cat, and that the "premium" dry food he had been on was keeping him so dehydrated that the crystals were able to form a blockage.  I started making my own raw food, and while he ate it he didn't have any more problems.  Well making cat food for six cats was a stretch, but when the household got larger, I started buying it.  When we started buying Oma's Pride, it caused problems.  I didn't really notice until Jack got into quite a bit of dry one day and then ended up peeing in the bathtub.  I tried to work with the issues Oma's caused, but when just about all of the cats became ill on their food and they simply did not care, I then went to Bravo Raw.  Jack's issues pretty much cleared up, including his cruddy ears.  The only other issue with Jack so far is that he actually sprayed.  We had a foster cat who was not leaving, and this upset Jack.  I had seen him making spraying movements before, but he had never sprayed.  Fortunately he did it right in front of me, so I was able to make arrangements to get the foster re-situated, and I was able to work with Jack to ease his fears that other cats might be joining the household.  According to Jack, eight is enough!!!  A few medical things that are on the side of good, Jack has great teeth.  Even at 8 years (OMG he's eight??!?!) of age his teeth are still sparkling white.  He also had a strong heart murmur as a kit and young adult, but that closed up and is no longer around.

Jack is EXTREMELY food motivated.  He has never wanted for anything in his life, but you would have thought he spent many a moon starved and alone.  I jokingly call him and Muffin my garbage disposal and my dishwasher.  He also has this incredibly high pitched meow when he wants you to give him something... very much like nails on a chalk board. I don't doubt for a second if I could work with him alone, I could easily train him to do tricks.  He loves food and loves praise, but it is very hard with other cats distracting both of us.

He is also the Beta to Ollie's Alpha.  Ollie often feels the need to put Jack in his place, which is kind of interesting to watch because I do not see Jack competing for Ollie's status but my affection - which for the most part Ollie doesn't want.

Jack has outgrown his *need* for me, and stopped nursing on me a little after six months.  For the next six months he would nuzzle my ear, and give it a little lick from time to time, just to make sure he still could.  For the most part now that he is a "big boy" he acts very independent, but at night he is still curled up by my right side.  He loves it when I rub his chest and chin because he gets to sit up all regal like and accept praise.  My husband is able to give him full contact rub downs which include messing his fur all up so he looks like just came in from a hurricane.  Why it is OK for him to do that and not me I have no idea.  His fur is very fine, almost like a rabbit, and I think as a result of that Frontline does not work on him.  Fortunately Advantage does.

I love Jack very much.  I often whisper in his ear that he is my favorite.  I don't quite know about that anymore, but he is definitely the kitty of my soul.

The Crew - Ollie

I thought it would be nice if I did posts for the kitties.  I did pages for them years ago, but they are kind of out of date, so....

Ollie:

 

 Ollie came to us as the product of a mating between his mother and his brother.  My husband's coworker thought they had "Maine Coons" and were breeding them.  This was when I was very new in the world of cats, and I believed what I was told.  They were apparently unaware of certain biological facts, and one of Ollie's Mom's previous litters hung around a little too long and became sexually mature.  As a result, Ollie and his litter mates.  Since they couldn't sell this litter, they offered one to DH.  He, always wanting a "coon" said yes.  He was born around mother's day 1999.  I agreed to a new kitten on the condition that we could return him if Emerald had problems with him.  Em had been an only kitty for a while, and because of her reaction to neighborhood kitties, I was certain it was never going to work out.

But Em had lived with rabbits and rodents, and learned to leave anything in a cage alone.  So we adapted the rabbit cage we had to house a kitten.  We gave him bedding, litter and food and gave him some snuggles before safely ensconcing him in the cage.  Em lumbered in, took one look at the little cat thing in the cage thing and let out a very threatening hiss.  She was confused, because she knew it was a cat, but it was in a cage.  We simply told her no, and when she stopped hissing, we praised her for not hissing.  She walked closer, hissed some more, but got another "NO" and then more praise for ignoring the cage - which is how we taught her to leave rodents alone.  After a couple more dirty looks she left the room.  Over the course of the day, we praised her for ignoring the kitten, and she continued to ignore him.  We thought it might be safe to bring him out.  Well she started hissing again, but a stern NO let her know that we were expecting her to accept this new thing.  Ollie tried his best to win her over, which of course was all the wrong things for him to be doing, including jumping on her back and trying to wrestle with her.  We returned him to the cage, and praised her, and the next time he came out, he stayed out for good.

He is quite unique in his coloring.   You can't see it in this photo, but he has a little milk dribble from his mouth to the bib on his chest.  And if that weren't endearing enough, he's always got one white whisker on the top of his head.  Sometimes it is on the left, sometimes on the right. but only ever one.  As you may have been able to tell due to the quotes around Maine Coon, that Ol is not a coon. He is simply a "regular old long haired cat".  But he is his own uncle :)

Ollie was a happy little kitten.  He was so happy to interact with anyone who visited and played happily with us or Em or himself.  We had him neutered after puberty which was the accepted practice at the vet we were using.  But with puberty came his attitude adjustment.  Not to say every cat who goes through puberty is going to end up like Ollie, but this is his story.  He went from a happy child to a grumpy teen.  His play was no longer happy go lucky, but intense and when things didn't go his way he would grumble and sulk.  He never comes out to visit company, and for years no one knew we had a second cat.

But we loved his quirks, and he quickly gained the nick name "Mr. Grumpy Pants"  He hated being groomed, and would often swear like a sailor when I would try to remove the mats from his mane (he only ever matted under his ears)   One time after a particularly trying grooming session, he was beyond inconsolable.   I tried to calm him, but the second he got a chance, he lashed out.  It was the worst experience of both of our lives.  He was able to hit me square on the face, one paw on each of my cheeks.  Fortunately he had just had his claws clipped, but even still I had four red tracks on each side of my face.  That has been the only time I have ever lost my cool with a cat, and I hate to admit I hit him.  I was able to get a hold of him (and myself) and i locked him in the bathroom while my pulse returned to normal.   I was unsure of what to do.  I wanted him to learn that this was not an appropriate way to get what he wanted, but I wasn't sure how to convey that.  I came up with a very unique solution which actually worked.  I dug out the rabbit cage again, and put it in the middle of the kitchen.  He had all he needed, food, litter etc, but he was isolated from us and the other cats.  Cats HATE being ignored, and will modify their behavior to not let it happen again.  He stayed in there for one day, and the change in him was very noticeable.  After that he came to me and acknowledged that I was alpha, and he never again lashed out at me.  However I do need to be very careful that there are no other kitties between me and his escape when I groom him. 

When Em was alive, she was the Alpha cat by default.  But she was much like the Queen of England, a figurehead only.  When she passed, Ollie laid down the gauntlet and proclaimed he was head kitty.  He occasionally bats other cats on the head just for being too near him and not deferring to him.  He eats alone on the plate first, and he sleeps where he wants.  Oddly he likes to sleep between my hubby and myself up by the pillows but not on them.

He has had a few medical problems over the years.  Once when we were about to go on one of the rare vacations we take, he became severely constipated.  He was vomiting all over the place, and needed to be treated by the vet.  Fortunately he recovered in time, and I had a pet sitter I very much trusted.  I also have had to have two growths removed from the same place near his back left leg.  I did not have them biopsied, but I am pretty sure he had Vaccine Associated Sarcoma (aka VAS) due to the location and the regrowth almost one year to the date of the initial removal.

Ollie came to me when I was new to cat care.  He was the third cat I have owned, and I was still unaware that not everything preached as gospel in cat care was true.  It didn't even occur to me to consider differently.  He ate mostly dry food with some canned.  Not being one of my foster kittens, he ate pretty much the same thing most of his life, so he does have a little bit of a problem when trying new foods.  Fortunately since I have learned of the GI upset cats can face when eating the same foods over and over, I have been able to vary his diet so the impact of food changes are lessened.

now that he's older, I lovingly call him my grumpy old man.  He spends his days on top of the fridge watching the other kitties or in the sunroom basking.  I hope he's around for years to come, but I am very carefully watching his side for a possible regrowth of the tumor we've removed.  I hope I never have to decide to have that removed again, because both surgeries were hard on him, but the second was much more so then the first.  He was very slow to recover, and very PISSED OFF that he couldn't continue on with his life as he wanted.  He is not one for change, and I fear that he is one of those cats that are going to be better off facing death on his own terms instead of allowing me to fight tooth and nail for him.  But I will let that decision be his when the time has come - which hopefully will not be for another 10 years :)

Animal Communicator?

Ok, so I am not an official animal communicator, cause I have no idea what they are thinking at any moment in time - but I can generally figure out what they are about to do by their body posture - but I am starting to believe I have the ability to TELL the cats what to do..

now for the most part my kitties are much like other kitties, they don't listen.  They take a message and get back to you sort of thing.  Often if you want them off something they are on, you have to walk up to them and threaten physical removal in order for them to care.

but recently I have started asking my cats to to get down, or come here, or leave their sibling alone... and it worked!!

I am sure it has a LOT to do with my tone.  If I tell them to get down in a sing songy happy voice, they just bask in the praise they think they are getting.. but there is that no nonsense tone I have that means *I have absolutely had it with whatever you are doing and the next time I speak you are NOT going to like it*.  You know the one, when you say, no, get down, no, go away, leave my food alone, no, NO, GEEZE  COME ON!!, no, down, sit down.. and THEN you get the tone, so you could pretty much tell them to fly to the moon and they'd slink down and sit somewhere close and watch you.  Maybe I've come to be able to use that tone the first time, but I got Kit to lay down on the first command the other day when she was so excited over seeing DH that she was about to step in his dinner for the fifth time.  I got Fleurp to get off the counter, twice.  I got Ollie and Muffin to drop their little scuffle (those are interesting.  Muffin is 1.5 times the size of Ollie, but Ollie is older and meaner.  They've never actually fought, but they have been having quite a few vocal scuffles lately)

I also haven't been able to do anything in my house with out an entourage.  DH thinks it is quite funny when I walk down the hall with at least four cats following me around.  Last night when I got home from work, I had six, and they were all squeeking and whining wanting my attention.  I was in the kitchen trying to talk to DH and I almost couldn't hear myself from all the hubub.  I told them to be quiet a few times, but not in "the tone" finally I had it, and told them to leave us alone! and surprisingly a moment later there wasn't a kitty in the kitchen (they were all on the far side of the island which I refer to as the dining area of our great room kitchen/living room/dining room room) no crying, no noise of any kind.  I almost went giddy with my power.  If I could get Jack to not cry for treats, could I take over the world??

I then went down to exercise, and my entourage came with me.  Fleurp has taken to sleeping in a blanket that is on the floor in the basement where I work out.  She comes down with me and takes a cat nap while I work out.  I have not worked out alone since... well since I can remember :).  But last night I had Skippy running around playing with a ping pong ball and trying to goat Fleurp into playing.  Muffin was there too, doing her best to distract me with her beautiful belly.  She so loves to flaunt that thing at me when I'm busy knowing I have a very hard time resisting it. Life according to Muff is that NOTHING is more important then paying attention to Muff - unless she's busy. 

We do have a little bit of a situation though.  Twee has ended up with a few scabs on her head, so someone is not playing fair.  She had a tiny one at the base of her ear on the back side last week, and on Sunday I found a rather large scrape/scab under her chin.  I see her playing with Skippy and Muffin (ok so Muffin doesn't play she tells her to go away with some rather aggressive tones but I can't see her getting physical) and I've never seen anyone trying to hurt her.  Not quite sure what is going on.  She's lost several patches of fur on her head previous, but with no scabbing, no irritation of any type.  Just a small round patch of fur missing (maybe the size of a pea) and smooth white skin peeking through.  *shrug*  I'll have to keep an eye on it and see what comes of it.

sharing the kitten fever

I might just have to camp out at the shelter once Boots goes home

r u awake?

I think my cats are on ICHC