Crushing Tucker's Head

I have described the game Tungsten and I play. Now I will write about something Tucker and I do. I call it ‘Crushing Tucker’s Head’.

Tucker will periodically come up to me and rubbed his tubby body against my leg. Sometimes he’s saying ‘I like you.’ Other times, he’s saying, ‘I like you; play with me.’ On those occasions, I will chase him into the sitting room, where he will throw himself full-length on the rug, stretch and squeal as I grab his head. Then I pretend to crush that big melon. (Actually, I just rub his furry noodle, and he pretends I’m crushing it.) He squeals and reaches up to grab my hand, so he can drag it down to bite it. He has the proportions of a human infant, however; his stubby little forelegs are short, and have trouble seizing my hand. Once in a while he is able to pull it away and successfully nip it. This surprises both of us, and he pauses, worried that he’s done something wrong. (Tucker is about as violent as a Quaker.) I usually answer that query by doubling my efforts to crush that softball-sized noggin, and we’re off again.

Kola's Chance

The Lethbridge PAW Society, the rescue-group of which I am part, received an inquiry about Kola a couple of weeks ago. I am fostering that floofy mancat in the hopes that someone will choose him to live with forever, and this call was the sort of thing we wait for. However, the woman interested in Kola lives in Seattle, in the United States. That’s not a bad thing, but it does involve distance.

I am wary of any long-distance adoption now, following the unfortunate and abortive adoption of Cammie, earlier this year. The trouble with distances and adoptions is that if something goes wrong and the person wants to return the cat, that person may not consider the distance to travel worth the trouble; the cat may be handed off to someone else or put in a shelter. If faced with a returned cat, the PAW Society will do anything to make certain the cat comes back to it, rather than go elsewhere.

Even with these dangers, a long-distance adoption isn’t always a problem. Many of the rescuers whose blogs I read have had happy experiences, giving homeless cats wonderful families who live far away. Indeed, the PAW Society has, as it was pointed out to me, had cats adopted by people who then moved to distant locations. And certainly, Kola is one cat who has almost nothing that could initiate misgivings in a new adopter. His hygiene is excellent, he is not a fussy eater, he is friendly and playful, and has no trouble with other cats.

So what was my concern?

The person interested in Kola was very specific about what she wanted in a cat. Again, this is rarely a problem. Everyone who has adopted a cat has had certain qualities they would like to find in a new pet, though many of us are willing to forego most of them, especially when we find what an appealing little beast we’ve ended up with. There is nothing wrong with wanting particular qualities in a cat. After all, a person will be, hopefully, living with that cat for the rest of its life.

But the specificity of this person’s requests, combined with the distance, gave me some anxiety. I worried that if a person were exacting in what she wanted in a cat, she would be exacting in its fulfillment of her expectations. While a cat - or dog or person, or car or home - may check off all the boxes on a list, the situation may evolve differently in person. And when Kola was in person in Seattle, he would be hundreds of miles from everyone he knew.

The rescue-group shared my concerns yet, like me, they wanted the Floof King to have his chance. If his destiny lie half-way around the world, then he should go half-way around the world. But the worries remained, thanks to the memory of Cammie’s unhappy sojourn in Regina. As it turned out, Kola did not have one of the qualities that his prospective new person wanted. He is not a lap-cat; not yet, anyway. He is friendly and hurries over to urge me to pet him. He enjoys attention and seeks it out. He lies beside me to receive it. But he is not a lap-cat. He may be some day, perhaps soon. When he first came to stay with me, he didn’t like lying next to me. And with a different person, he may be on a lap immediately. Who can say? But the woman in Seattle wanted that characteristic right away.

What if Kola were a lap-cat yet, when he arrived at his new home, he would have nothing to do with laps? Cats are like that. Would he have been unwanted as quickly as the woman unwanted him when she heard by telephone that he didn’t care for laps?

So Kola remains with me in foster-care for the time being. But he is a very adoptable cat, and even long-distance homes are not out of the question with this furry boy. All he needs is someone who realises that the cat they get may surprise them with qualities that will make them laugh and smile, grind their teeth, keep them up at night, boast to their friends, shake their heads… In other words, all the things one gets from a member of one’s family.

Wherever

Most cats like warmth, which I find strange, considering that their body temperature is on average higher than ours and they are covered in fur, sometimes thick fur. Yet they enjoy lying in the sun on a hot summer’s day (which doesn’t preclude them later trying to find shade or a spot of cool floor on which to relax) and they like heating pads.

I have two beds in which heating pads have been inserted, and, in the parlour, several folded towels under which a third pad has been placed, for the comfort of my foster-cat, Kola, who spends much of his time in the parlour. But Cammie, who has not discovered or for some reason dislikes the heated beds in the sitting room, has found the heated towels to her liking.

Every week, before movie-night on Saturdays, I vacuum the couch in the parlour. I take the heated towels off, and set them aside. This last weekend, Cammie came in while I was cleaning and, evidently seeking a little warmth on a chilly night, looked for the heated towels. I had placed them on a round side-table. The fact that they were not in their usual spot did not deter the Siamese Princess. She knows nothing of electricity; to her, the towels are warm because they are the towels - wherever they may be.

The towels were displaced only briefly, and soon, Cammie was back on the towels, which were back on the couch. This simply goes to show that when a cat wants something, she will find it, wherever.

Strange Bowl-fellows

A month ago, I published pictures of Renn and Tucker eating almost together from the hard-food bowls, an unusual event. A week ago, I was able to record this occurrence, even more unusual. The cats’ dinner is usually about three-thirty on my days off, and an hour later when I work; their snack-time is approximately three hours subsequent, and the hard-food bowls are made available once more about nine or nine-thirty at night. That means the beasts receive only a ration of soft-food (though it is as much as they want) in five or six hours. This plan to encourage more soft-food consumption is working; the cats are ravenous come snack-time, and there is a happy and somewhat disgusting sound of six animals eating when I put down the stinky goodness on the floor. (Well, it’s in dishes, which go on the floor; the beasts themselves often toss it about the linoleum.) Nonetheless, they are hungry when the hard-food is presented once more.

How hungry? Enough for Josie and Cammie to eat this close. Cammie dislikes Josie. I believe this stems from a fight many months ago which may have pitted my Chubs against the Siamese Princess. Despite her lean and athletic form, and her claws which grow too sharp too fast, Cammie was easily worsted. The damage was not serious, and has not been repeated, thankfully. But the animosity on the victim’s side has lasted. Josie dislikes Cammie, too, I am afraid, though not to the extent felt by the other for her. They trade non-connecting blows from time to time, and Josie passes much too close now and then to Cammie for the latter’s comfort.

And yet, hunger can make cats do astonishing things. The images you see below are like a lion and a gazelle coming to drink from the same water-hole at dusk; a truce forms spontaneously, as they realise that they both need water to survive. Here, however, you have two lionesses: the older, heftier veteran, already a champion of one battle, and the leaner, younger comparative newcomer, wary and watchful, who puts on a fearsome show, but is really not a fighter.

Night falls in the jungle, and the scenes of would-be battle are covered with the sounds of eating. But notice how they keep an eye on each other, even as they chew…

At Sea

Most cats love to sit in boxes. I understand that, for some reason, they like enclosed spaces. (I understand the fact, not the reason.) Even a shallow-sided box, a lid or a shell of cardboard will attract them. They will come over to the box, step inside and lie down. This brings them comfort, perhaps even delight. But sometimes, they look a little odd, even silly, doing it.

I’m sorry to declare that my foster-cat, Kola, the king of floof, falls into the latter category. I put down a box from which tins of cat-food had been removed, and he immediately came over and got in. I certainly don’t object to this; if it makes Kola feel good, then more power to him. But he looked like a Tribble stuffed into a matchbox.

But, true to his feline nature, he cared nothing for what I thought, and continued to bob about in his little craft for an hour. For more than sixty minutes, I had to walk around and over this dismasted schooner adrift in linoleum doldrums. I think it was only dinner-time that caused him to abandon his cardboard vessel.

Sometimes, a person and his cat understand each other well. Sometimes, they are in tune, their wavelengths perfectly matched, like an expert ham-radio operator listening to his favourite foreign station. Then the beast sees a box, and all comprehension is lost.

Tungsten's Game

My oldest cat, Tungsten, has never played much. She used play at string-toys with me, and would zoom through the nylon tunnel when I walked beside it. I’m not sure whether it is age or apathy that is slowing her down these days. It may simply be disdain for my other cats foolish enough to leap and spin and chase things. But there is one activity that the orange one still likes. It’s one that I share with her alone.

When I come home from work, I go to my bedroom to change clothes. Tungsten always follows me. The other beasts will wander about, knowing that it’s dinner-time. Josie and Tucker may pursue each other. Their top-cat, however, comes into the bedroom and gets up on the bed. I spread my arms and shout her name.

Years ago, I would seize her and almost flip her over on the bed, then she’d wrestle and try to nip my hand. Now, she’s too old for such gymnastics. She will sometimes stoop, as if about to roll, but she doesn’t. In fact, she looks like she’s cowering and in fear of receiving blows from my hand. But she’s really just preparing. Periodically, she does flop onto her side - her current version of a tumble. These days, I grab her and gently ease her over. But then, she likes it a little rougher. I rub her fuzzy head until my hand is a blur, massage the sides of her face as though I were trying to use her fur to start a campfire, and finally, rub her boney sides with my fingers, while she claws at the bedspread, trying to stay in place. It looks as if she’s undergoing some painful torture, but when I stop, her little motor is rumbling.

This is often repeated several times. If I think we’re done, I will look at Tungsten. She may stoop, ready to fall over. That means she’s not finished. So we repeat the process. Then at last, I gather her up and take her to the bathroom for a drink of water, and I can feel her skinny frame vibrating.

This is our routine, something we’ve always done, in one form or another. Once in a while, a spark of youth fires through her, and we will wrestle, my hand against her whole tiny body. But mostly, she’s passive and simply enjoys the sensations, the interaction between us. I think it makes her feel good. I know it does me.

The Thanks I Get

A short time ago, I put the storm windows on my house, in preparation for the coming cold months. I wrote about it on this blog and joked that the thanks I received for working hard in the blustery chill was to be ignored by six cats all ensconced in warmth and comfort.

But in reality, this is why I do much of what I do. Pets should not have to worry about being cold or hungry. As with children, if our pets don’t take warmth and contentment for granted, then we, as their protectors, are doing something wrong. Adults have to worry, about themselves and about those under their care. The price we pay for independence (or as much as society allows us) and responsibility is consciousness of the disaster that waits to overwhelm us if we do not constantly strive to stave it off.

It’s true that I would have to work at a job even if I didn’t have cats. My own survival would depend on it. But much of what I manage to snatch from under the daily grind goes to the cats. I come home and they start demanding food almost immediately. I scoop their poop from litter-boxes in a manner that, in terms of human waste management, went out of style a century ago. I play with them and give them their medicines and arrange my time around their needs. And then, when I am done my chores and they are satisfied, they fall asleep in soft beds.

A week ago we had our first snowstorm of the season. This was the scene outside.

And these were the scenes inside. This was the thanks I got for all my efforts: the storm windows, the feedings, cleaning bums, waking up at two o’clock in the morning to run drinking-water, carting thirty pound bags of litter home on my bicycle and spending my savings on their health.

And I could not be thanked better.