A Tale of Two Kitties
This is a very long post, so I won’t be annoyed if you choose to just skip the text and look at the pictures! Below are the backgrounds and descriptions of my two cats, rehomed since December 1st, from their owners who have since returned to New Zealand.
BACKGROUND
I’ve always wanted cats. Ever since I was a little girl I wanted a cat and not a dog. But my mother has a terrible allergy to fur of all kinds - she starts to wheeze whenever my sister returns from her horse riding lesson because she brings back traces of horse fur. Most dogs will bring her out in a rash if she doesn’t wash her hands after touching them. She used to have all sorts of animals in her house as a child - particularly cats - and she was perfectly fine until she developed an allergy at around the age of 15. But now we’ve found the perfect pair of cats to which she has no reaction to - and they’re not hairless!
Last summer for a whole month I fed two cats belonging to some friends of my parents while they were away. Mr. B, (a girl - but her male owner always called her boy and it stuck; we now call her Bee) was an utter gourmand but so frightfully timid that I could rarely get within 5 feet of her before she ran away from me. Kitty Milk (the name is a little strange, we’ve shortened it to Kitty) on the other hand, was a total charmer. Despite the fact that they were fed only once a day she was always far more eager to be petted than to eat. In fact, I’d have difficulty shooing her off my lap and out of the house whenever it was time for me to leave.
One downside to my feeding those cats was that the owners who were renting were not supposed to have any pets, and the landlord was planning on doing some work to the house while they were away. So every time I went to feed them I lived in fear of the landlord coming in and discovering me with an open tin of cat food and two hungry cats pacing the floor. Fortunately I was never caught, although I had a few scares, but it meant my hiding the food and washing up after me every single day. The cats’ house was perhaps 2 miles away, and so I had no trouble walking there. Except that I live on a very steep hill, and the journey back from feeding the cats was always exhausting. I roped my mum in several times to drive me there, and she formed an attachment to the cats. In fact, she never had a single allergic reaction to them.
On Friday the 4th of January the owners travelled back to New Zealand for good. I was almost in tears when they left; we’ll certainly miss them. And they’ll certainly miss their cats. Fortunately they’ve found a new home with my family! If we hadn’t taken them in they would’ve been left outside to fend for themselves, and would’ve been waiting for their owners to come back, and probably would’ve died within a couple of months seeing as they’ve been domesticated. It was absolutely lashing rain on that Friday, so thank God we did take them in because they would’ve been in a terrible way.
The pair of cats are adopted strays. I have no idea why anybody would want to abandon them, because they are both lovely cats.
BEE
Bee has a stiff left back leg, which is evidence of an accident - probably a hit from a car. In any case she’s used up at least 2 of her 9 lives. One day she came up to her former owner, who had only ever glimpsed her, but never been close to her, in a terrible state. She was pleading to him for help. She had boils all over her backside, which apparently happens to cats if they’ve been injured in a particular spot. She was taken in and apparently just ate for days until she was well enough to be taken to the vet.
On another occasion they think that she was bitten by a rat. She had disappeared for a week, they feared that she was dead. When she returned she had become incredibly thin and had a nasty cut under her neck.
Fortunately these problems seem to have healed. Unfortunately for the last 10 or so weeks she’s had a cold and now we’ve discovered a nasty ear infection. She’s now on antibiotics (which she doesn’t mind because we feed the medicine to her in bits of salmon, which she adores!) Fingers crossed she should get better.
She’s incredibly timid around strangers - she cried for several hours when she was first brought to our house and it took her a week before she could muster up the guts to come on ours laps. Now, she is the perfect lap cat - every time I come down in the morning, or whenever she wakes up she leaps unto my lap and isn’t satisfied until she gets a good 20 minutes’ petting all over (particularly on her belly). She’s not very playful at all, and mostly prefers to sleep. And she has a very healthy appetite, so provided that she’s fed and petted she’s a very contented kitty cat. She’s not an expert at using the litter tray - she always manages to keep her business inside it but chances are that in her feeble attempts to bury it she’ll end up knocking the grit from the tray all over the floor! But that, and the fact that she has a tendency to claw my legs a lot when she’s on my lap (I know that it means that she’s enjoying herself, but she’s pretty much ruined part of a pair of my jeans!) are her only faults.
Bee is very easy to photograph because she’s nearly always sitting down, eating or sleeping. She looks even more beautiful on film because the flash makes her coat look very glossy!
KITTY
Kitty is an especially gorgeous creature. She was patiently coaxed into domesticity with food and kindness. If she isn’t a pure bred cat, she’s at least the direct descendent of one. The owners thought she was a Maine Coon, and somebody else suggest that she might be a Norwegian Forest Cat, but because she doesn’t have these tufts of hair on the very point of her ears (which are not large) I’ve concluded that she’s a Siberian cat. Apparently Siberian cats are hypo-allergenic i.e., most people who are allergic to cats are not allergic to Siberian cats, so that would explain why my mother has no reaction to her. The owners think that Bee might be her offspring, and that makes sense, because they both have the same length fur, are friendly towards humans and my mother isn’t allergic to Bee either.
There aren’t more photographs of Kitty because I love her more than Bee (I love them both!) but because she’s far more active, and because pictures rarely seem to do her justice - she’s even more beautiful in real life!
Kitty is incredibly intelligent. She knows exactly how to tell you what she wants. She has a different meow for certain things -for wanting to go out, for wanting to play. She’ll always attract our attention when she’s out of food but never vocally. She’s the mistress of the litter tray - she’ll always carefully cover everything so that you’ll hardly know that she’s been there. And of course she’s incredibly affectionate. She’s the type of cat that almost anybody can pet. She loves people so much that she has to sleep with them, so she’s taken to sleeping with my sister in her bed (note the purple duvet cover in the pictures). And it’s not the comfort of the bed that draws her to my sister’s room, because whenever my sister is not sleeping in our house kitty refuses to sleep in her bedroom.
She’s incredibly lean and doesn’t eat much, but that doesn’t stop her from being ferocious if she wants to be. On her first venture outside our house within a minute she was chased by another cat. Kitty immediately turned on it, gave it a swipe, and howled to scare it off. Apparently, she was the queen of her old neighbourhood with only the largest of tom cats being able to go near her. Of course you’d never know by her indoor behaviour that she was so vicious to other cats, because, while she is very playful she plays in the daintiest way I’ve ever seen. She likes strings and dangling things (so sometimes we have to watch out with jewellery and certain items of clothing). She also has toy mice which are life sized so she enjoys kicking them around. She’d never before used a scratching post, but we tied a mouse to it so that she would start to play with it and has now worked out what the pole is actually for. As a result, every time that she eats she’ll go to the scratching pole next to her food bowl and will have good stretch and claw. We were told that she doesn’t like toy balls, but she discovered a miniature Christmas tree bauble that I missed when tidying up and it has since become her new favourite toy.
Kitty is very active and a pleasure to photograph playing!
FRIENDLY RIVALRY
The owners have done an amazing job training them. Apparently Kitty used to bite and scratch but you wouldn’t know it now because she’s been trained to be such a gentle cat. They pair don’t get on very well with each other. Bee doesn’t seem to mind Kitty, but Kitty only tolerates Bee. Bee is restricted to the kitchen/dining area, while Kitty pretty much rules the rest of the house. Bee doesn’t seem to mind, though. But after seeing how Kitty defended our garden from a rival cat, then by comparison she’s very nice to Bee! I’m so happy that I have cats! We couldn’t have been luckier in terms of the fact that they are loving creatures, and don’t fit the negative stereotype of a nasty, scratching cat, who only sticks around for the free food.
Kitty is the Queen of the House. Unless Kitty is feeling kind Bee has to wait for food. Usually, though, Bee is the only one there when the food is served so queuing is rare.
By the way, apple4b, the good news is that I’ve found a programme that can get back my photographs of Paris. The bad news is that the programme costs $80! I can see the pictures as thumbnails but I have to buy the programme to get them ; (
As proof here’s a picture of you - I know that I said that I wouldn’t post pictures of you publicly, but it’s so tiny that the only thing recognisable about you is the coat!
BACKGROUND
I’ve always wanted cats. Ever since I was a little girl I wanted a cat and not a dog. But my mother has a terrible allergy to fur of all kinds - she starts to wheeze whenever my sister returns from her horse riding lesson because she brings back traces of horse fur. Most dogs will bring her out in a rash if she doesn’t wash her hands after touching them. She used to have all sorts of animals in her house as a child - particularly cats - and she was perfectly fine until she developed an allergy at around the age of 15. But now we’ve found the perfect pair of cats to which she has no reaction to - and they’re not hairless!
Last summer for a whole month I fed two cats belonging to some friends of my parents while they were away. Mr. B, (a girl - but her male owner always called her boy and it stuck; we now call her Bee) was an utter gourmand but so frightfully timid that I could rarely get within 5 feet of her before she ran away from me. Kitty Milk (the name is a little strange, we’ve shortened it to Kitty) on the other hand, was a total charmer. Despite the fact that they were fed only once a day she was always far more eager to be petted than to eat. In fact, I’d have difficulty shooing her off my lap and out of the house whenever it was time for me to leave.
One downside to my feeding those cats was that the owners who were renting were not supposed to have any pets, and the landlord was planning on doing some work to the house while they were away. So every time I went to feed them I lived in fear of the landlord coming in and discovering me with an open tin of cat food and two hungry cats pacing the floor. Fortunately I was never caught, although I had a few scares, but it meant my hiding the food and washing up after me every single day. The cats’ house was perhaps 2 miles away, and so I had no trouble walking there. Except that I live on a very steep hill, and the journey back from feeding the cats was always exhausting. I roped my mum in several times to drive me there, and she formed an attachment to the cats. In fact, she never had a single allergic reaction to them.
On Friday the 4th of January the owners travelled back to New Zealand for good. I was almost in tears when they left; we’ll certainly miss them. And they’ll certainly miss their cats. Fortunately they’ve found a new home with my family! If we hadn’t taken them in they would’ve been left outside to fend for themselves, and would’ve been waiting for their owners to come back, and probably would’ve died within a couple of months seeing as they’ve been domesticated. It was absolutely lashing rain on that Friday, so thank God we did take them in because they would’ve been in a terrible way.
The pair of cats are adopted strays. I have no idea why anybody would want to abandon them, because they are both lovely cats.
BEE
Bee has a stiff left back leg, which is evidence of an accident - probably a hit from a car. In any case she’s used up at least 2 of her 9 lives. One day she came up to her former owner, who had only ever glimpsed her, but never been close to her, in a terrible state. She was pleading to him for help. She had boils all over her backside, which apparently happens to cats if they’ve been injured in a particular spot. She was taken in and apparently just ate for days until she was well enough to be taken to the vet.
On another occasion they think that she was bitten by a rat. She had disappeared for a week, they feared that she was dead. When she returned she had become incredibly thin and had a nasty cut under her neck.
Fortunately these problems seem to have healed. Unfortunately for the last 10 or so weeks she’s had a cold and now we’ve discovered a nasty ear infection. She’s now on antibiotics (which she doesn’t mind because we feed the medicine to her in bits of salmon, which she adores!) Fingers crossed she should get better.
She’s incredibly timid around strangers - she cried for several hours when she was first brought to our house and it took her a week before she could muster up the guts to come on ours laps. Now, she is the perfect lap cat - every time I come down in the morning, or whenever she wakes up she leaps unto my lap and isn’t satisfied until she gets a good 20 minutes’ petting all over (particularly on her belly). She’s not very playful at all, and mostly prefers to sleep. And she has a very healthy appetite, so provided that she’s fed and petted she’s a very contented kitty cat. She’s not an expert at using the litter tray - she always manages to keep her business inside it but chances are that in her feeble attempts to bury it she’ll end up knocking the grit from the tray all over the floor! But that, and the fact that she has a tendency to claw my legs a lot when she’s on my lap (I know that it means that she’s enjoying herself, but she’s pretty much ruined part of a pair of my jeans!) are her only faults.
Bee is very easy to photograph because she’s nearly always sitting down, eating or sleeping. She looks even more beautiful on film because the flash makes her coat look very glossy!
KITTY
Kitty is an especially gorgeous creature. She was patiently coaxed into domesticity with food and kindness. If she isn’t a pure bred cat, she’s at least the direct descendent of one. The owners thought she was a Maine Coon, and somebody else suggest that she might be a Norwegian Forest Cat, but because she doesn’t have these tufts of hair on the very point of her ears (which are not large) I’ve concluded that she’s a Siberian cat. Apparently Siberian cats are hypo-allergenic i.e., most people who are allergic to cats are not allergic to Siberian cats, so that would explain why my mother has no reaction to her. The owners think that Bee might be her offspring, and that makes sense, because they both have the same length fur, are friendly towards humans and my mother isn’t allergic to Bee either.
There aren’t more photographs of Kitty because I love her more than Bee (I love them both!) but because she’s far more active, and because pictures rarely seem to do her justice - she’s even more beautiful in real life!
Kitty is incredibly intelligent. She knows exactly how to tell you what she wants. She has a different meow for certain things -for wanting to go out, for wanting to play. She’ll always attract our attention when she’s out of food but never vocally. She’s the mistress of the litter tray - she’ll always carefully cover everything so that you’ll hardly know that she’s been there. And of course she’s incredibly affectionate. She’s the type of cat that almost anybody can pet. She loves people so much that she has to sleep with them, so she’s taken to sleeping with my sister in her bed (note the purple duvet cover in the pictures). And it’s not the comfort of the bed that draws her to my sister’s room, because whenever my sister is not sleeping in our house kitty refuses to sleep in her bedroom.
She’s incredibly lean and doesn’t eat much, but that doesn’t stop her from being ferocious if she wants to be. On her first venture outside our house within a minute she was chased by another cat. Kitty immediately turned on it, gave it a swipe, and howled to scare it off. Apparently, she was the queen of her old neighbourhood with only the largest of tom cats being able to go near her. Of course you’d never know by her indoor behaviour that she was so vicious to other cats, because, while she is very playful she plays in the daintiest way I’ve ever seen. She likes strings and dangling things (so sometimes we have to watch out with jewellery and certain items of clothing). She also has toy mice which are life sized so she enjoys kicking them around. She’d never before used a scratching post, but we tied a mouse to it so that she would start to play with it and has now worked out what the pole is actually for. As a result, every time that she eats she’ll go to the scratching pole next to her food bowl and will have good stretch and claw. We were told that she doesn’t like toy balls, but she discovered a miniature Christmas tree bauble that I missed when tidying up and it has since become her new favourite toy.
Kitty is very active and a pleasure to photograph playing!
FRIENDLY RIVALRY
The owners have done an amazing job training them. Apparently Kitty used to bite and scratch but you wouldn’t know it now because she’s been trained to be such a gentle cat. They pair don’t get on very well with each other. Bee doesn’t seem to mind Kitty, but Kitty only tolerates Bee. Bee is restricted to the kitchen/dining area, while Kitty pretty much rules the rest of the house. Bee doesn’t seem to mind, though. But after seeing how Kitty defended our garden from a rival cat, then by comparison she’s very nice to Bee! I’m so happy that I have cats! We couldn’t have been luckier in terms of the fact that they are loving creatures, and don’t fit the negative stereotype of a nasty, scratching cat, who only sticks around for the free food.
Kitty is the Queen of the House. Unless Kitty is feeling kind Bee has to wait for food. Usually, though, Bee is the only one there when the food is served so queuing is rare.
By the way, apple4b, the good news is that I’ve found a programme that can get back my photographs of Paris. The bad news is that the programme costs $80! I can see the pictures as thumbnails but I have to buy the programme to get them ; (
As proof here’s a picture of you - I know that I said that I wouldn’t post pictures of you publicly, but it’s so tiny that the only thing recognisable about you is the coat!