Cats Can Be...Interesting

I've had cats ever since I was living on my own.  I grew up with dogs and have nothing against them really, but cats are more...well my type of pet.

Dogs are like toddlers, they need your attention constantly. They love their people their lives revolve around their people and for their people, lives can revolve around the dogs.  There's nothing wrong with that.  More power to anyone who has a dog in their life.  But its not for me.

See if dogs are like toddlers, then cats are more like teenagers.  They require supervision, but if you're not home constantly they'll get by without you.  But like teenagers they do still need their parents.  Case in point, every cat I've ever had. 

They all have different personalities, but they all have one thing in common.  I'm Mommy and Mommy had better give attention when they demand it.  Daddy is very important too.  In fact to some of the little girl cats Daddy is more important than Mommy. 

But not every cat runs up to the door when I come home, (I've had a few that will) like every dog I've ever met does.  They're content to give me space and as long as I feed them that space is pretty comfortable.  If they don't get fed when they're demanding food they can also be pretty bratty.  See, I told you. Teenagers.

We tend to adopt (get found by) cats who are past the one year mark.  Personalities are pretty established and we have an idea of how they'll fit in (or not) with the other cats.  By the way, cats are not pack animals. Humans want them to get along but cats are really not thrilled by the inclusion of other felines to the family.  So there's always a hierarchy a new cat has to fit into and that's not easy on anyone, including the cats.

So two or three weeks ago when my husband's ex found a kitten on the side of the roach and my husband couldn't resist the kitten when he saw her, we ended up with a kitten for the first time since I was in my twenties.  My husband hasn't ever dealt with a kitten.  She's four months old.  And she's a little crazy...like run around the house for the fun of it crazy.  But she's very sweet-natured and plays with Helo who while getting older still likes to act like a loon himself.

We're calling her Tali.  Which is, for any Mass Effect fans out there, short for Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.  That means if we get a male cat anytime hereafter we'll have to call him Garrus or Reegar.  If you don't play Mass Effect don't worry about trying to understand the reference. I've mentioned before that the husband and I are kinda geeks.  Since the names of our cats range from homages to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica and Sin City no one should be surprised a video game has also snuck in there.

But she's a tiny little thing who likes to kill any roach that dares encroach upon the house and has already figured out that when the pantry door opens she's very likely to get food.  She's smart, and sweet and our plan for only having three cats went out the window when the husband fell in love with her.  I think it'll be worth it in the end.  She's getting Helo moving again and God knows he needs the exercise.  She's maybe a third his size but they chase each other all over when he's in the mood to play.  So that's a good thing. 

And now... a few pictures. 

I like this climbing tree and my big brother can keep an eye on me and the yard

What is that big thing? Is that the dollhouse my sissy keeps saying is hers?

My brother likes to sit like this...I can stretch out like him.

So that's the newest addition to the family.  Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.  Undoubtedly she'll be getting in all sorts of trouble and the dollhouse will need to be closely guarded.  Wish me luck.

On the dollhouse front Linda got all my plexiglas cut for me and I'm working on finishing the case. I hope to have more of an update next week.

Dogs, Cats, & Children...

In case you didn't know, I live in Texas.  I grew up outside of Chicago in Illinois.  I think most of the people who read this blog are my friends or family so I might be stating this unnecessarily but...just in case someone has wandered over who doesn't know me personally... There you are. Informed.

I read something today that reminded me of how lucky I was growing up, surrounded my mostly responsible adults in a nice neighborhood.  If you'd like to read it as well, here's the link:  http://www.doranna.net/wordplay/index.php/2012/07/30/the-beagle-the-border-collie-and-the-idiot/

Moving to the South was culture shock in a lot of ways.  We have 'country' areas in Illinois but I only knew one family (My cousins via my mom's brother) who lived outside of a town.  Animals were not encouraged to run around loose where I grew up.  I never heard of people being attacked by a dog when I was a kid, at least not that I can recall.  But then if a dog was loose, it had usually escaped its backyard.  There was a Great Dane named (I think) Eeyore (?) from three blocks away who used to escape regularly, jump our four foot chain link fence and visit with our collie.  Luckily he had kids in his own family and we knew them, we'd call, the family would come get him and it was good bye until he came visiting again.

Eeyore was a great dog, friendly and good with kids who happened to be an escape artist.  He was well behaved with that one exception and we were perfectly safe.  We were really lucky.  Our dog Liz, was a large collie and very well trained thanks to my mother.  Mom has had dogs all her life and is excellent at making them obey.  She has a newer dog now, a cute little thing named Ginny, who she is constantly correcting because Ginny needs it.

Having a dog is a lot like having a small child. You have to watch it a lot, give it attention, make it behave itself. Instill in it the proper manners that will make it a productive member of its society.  This is the responsibility of its owners, just as a child's manners are the responsibility of its parents.  This is true for every pet that is capable of understanding commands, including cats. (Yes, mine understand no, and stop and their names.) And just like kids, dogs need rules.  Just like kids, dogs need to be taught.

I have three cats now. Spike lost his battle with cancer a week before I posted pictures of the dollhouse out of its box.  All of my cats started out as outdoor cats because we adopted them either off the street or from someone who let them be outdoors.  My cats are all indoor cats now and will stay that way for some very good reasons.  The first place I lived in TX was Orange which is way south and features things like alligators and cottonmouths.  My husband lost a cat to snakebite when he was down there.  Since then he won't have outdoor cats.  Our neighborhood now features many neighbors with dogs.  We love having the neighborhood cats visit our backyard because we don't have a dog, and its a safe place for them to hang out.  But we don't let our cats outside.  There's a good reason for that.

My husband knows a woman from work who had a cat and a dog. The cat was older and set in its ways and enjoyed time outside.  The dog was a Cardigan Corgi (I think, I know it was a type of Corgi) also older, and typically stayed in his fenced in yard.  When I say fenced I mean a wooden privacy fence, not something of chain link that allows for eye contact and perceived aggression to spiral out of control.  Though in retrospect chain link might have been better.

You see, the neighbors of this woman also have a dog. A large, untrained, unsocialized animal whose breed I have deliberately not asked.  This dog is aggressive.  This dog is not friendly.  And a few months after this nice woman's cat disappeared after it went for its outdoor time, the neighbor's dog, pushed and gnawed it's way through the wooden fence, got into her yard, and attacked her small dog.  The damage done was, the only word I can come up with is horrific.  Ultimately her dog died of its injuries at the vet's office.

The police were called.  And this nice woman who in less than six months had lost both of her pets, had to deal with the legalities of pressing charges along with her grief.  I won't go into the details of what happened legal-wise.  But the results were disappointing.

You see, the neighbor still has his dog.  It has not been put down for the safety of the neighborhood.  The aggressive unfriendly dog, who attacked and killed another dog after breaking through a fence to do it, still lives next door to this nice woman where she has to hear it barking and see it.  But that's not the most disturbing thing.

You see dogs are aggressive for reasons, sometimes its in their breeding and when they're properly trained by responsible owners they can be curbed and controlled. Big dogs and little dogs all have issues.  Socializing and training them is key to making sure they aren't a danger to anyone.  Aggressive dogs often see prey behavior in smaller creatures.  The happy prancing little dog with his tail wagging, the child in a stroller clapping its hands and staring, the person taking a walk who looks too long in an aggressive dog's direction, they're all demonstrating behavior that tells the aggressive dog that they are prey.  Dogs that become aggressive or attack need training to correct their behavior.

Now we come to the most disturbing aspect of this whole situation.  The neighbor with the aggressive dog, the neighbor who gets to keep his dog, has a small child.  A small child who isn't much bigger than a Corgi.  A small child who won't even know if she's behaving in a manner that makes her prey.

Chilling thought isn't it?

Meet the Children

Hello everybody,

I thought since my dollhouse is still in its boxes and will be until I can determine how to build it without having it simultaneously destroyed by my cats, that I would introduce you to the reasons for the delay.  And oh yes was that a run on sentence! 

Yes, my children, the only grandchildren my parents are going to get from me, the felines.  They're all cats that were abandoned or found on the street.  And I'm sorry, but I don't get that.  One of my biggest pet peeves is people who abandon their pets or don't take care of them.  Pets are work. Pets are expensive.  Think of pets as children.  Would you dump your child in the street when it got to the annoying stage? (Okay, so yeah there are some people who would, but...my point stands.)  Don't get a pet if you can't afford to get it all of its shots.  Don't get a pet if you're not going to be around. Don't get a pet for Easter or Christmas and then dump it when you're bored.  Don't... arghh...

I take it back. I'm not sorry.

Okay, stepping down and backing away from the soapbox now.  Sorry about that, touchy subject.

So anyway, here are my children:

Our oldest is Spike, named for the vampire on Buffy.  He's fat and old, (He was born in 1998 we think) and he's a sweetheart who's just a little senile.  But he loves his people and he loves his brother and sisters and he's never mean to anybody.  Spike will walk up to repair people and want to be petted.  The furnace guy recognizes him.  (That says something about Spike or the furnace and I don't want to think about it anymore.) He doesn't meow much, never has, but when he does he has something important to say.  We say he's the strong silent type.

Pictured here lounging with his sunflower toy.

Our next cat is Drusilla (also named for a vampire on Buffy).  Dru is a little skittish.  She doesn't like people or other cats except Spike and she doesn't want to come out of her one room.  Dru seems to think she's Emily Dickinson.  She has a chirpy little meow and loves her window shelf which lets her see out and watch the birds and squirrels next to the house.  Words cannot express just how nervous this cat is.  She tends to hide and sleep in the closet a lot and I have a suitcase with her fur nearly embedded in the fabric because of this.

One of her favorite ways to sit and watch her daddy at the computer

Our third cat is Helo.  Named for the Helios (meaning sun) and the character from Battlestar Galactica, Helo thinks he has a passport to whatever room in the house he wants to see.  He has no sense of boundaries.  Where ever he wants to be, there he is.  He's a big cat, getting a little chubby but also is just very long.  He's very friendly to his humans, loves us, and loves his brother.  He would like to love his sisters but they really really do not like him.  Maybe if he respected boundaries they might like him better but since he doesn't we'll never know.  He also has a chirpy meow which can turn whiny like a crying toddler if you don't give him what he wants, be it food, attention or baby talk back at him.

He's obviously not camera shy. He'll walk right up to me when I've got the camera out.

Our last cat is Miho.  Miho is named for a character in the Frank Miller novels of Sin City(deadly little Miho).  She's also our first Siamese and really lives up to the hype.  Oddly enough, she isn't terribly vocal, more like Spike, she only talks when she has something important to say.  But she's a very smart cat who's figured out how to open doors and drawers (I have lost hair scrungies to her because of this) and she is very possesive of her people.  She really doesn't care for any of the other cats except Spike and him she only tolerates because he's nice.  She's a gorgeous traditional Siamese Seal Point.  Her favorite thing is to climb the cat trees or sit on the chair with her daddy.  Or on the bed with him. Or sometimes on the bed with me.  She wants to be in laps always.

Miho explores the new cat shelf and enjoys a view of 'her' kingdom

Well there they are, our current family and the reason I need to build a case for the dollhouse before I can build the dollhouse.