On Cats

[Reorte]

5 hours ago, big jim said:

My wife has lots of bast figures strategically placed around the house and none if the cats will go anywhere near them!

 

Sounds like that could be a more effective furniture-saver than a strategically placed scratching post.

[franciswilliamwebb]

9 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

 

 

 

You're supposed to take the food out of the box first! 

[Gopher]

Our other two cats.  Barney on the left Kassie on the right.  Both Selkirk Rex, a very laid back and friendly breed of cat.  

 

I left my dirty jeans on the landing when I went to have a shower.  Came out to find this.  My guess would be that Barney went down the one leg and Kassie thought "what a good idea".   

[eastglosmog]

This is my first cat, Sally, dumped by the roadside in a local village aged about 8 weeks, lived to be about 18, she was a first rate mouser:

 

When she died, I acquired Misty and Honey from the Blue Cross.

This is Misty (9), sitting on top of Sally's grave, no bother about statues of Bast, probably receiving vibes from Sally's ghost telling hm what a sucker for cats I am.  Ate 3/4 of the cat food and never seemed to get any fatter:

 

Honey (3) doing much the same:

 

After Honey died (10 years ago now), I bought two MaineCoon kittens from a work colleague who's wife bred them - they just happened to have kittens when I was in a state of catlessness.

This is Badger, who grew to over 8kg of bone and muscle and a terror to local mice and rats.  Sadly he died of cancer 5 years ago:

 

 

Tilly is now my only cat.  Now over 10, she has retired from the mousing and ratting business after a very active career.  She is currently flomped on the floor due to the heat.  This is her in her younger days:

Tilly has been known to wreck the Cheltenham express by lying on the tracks.  Don't know what the GWR would have done about that!

Edited April 13, 2022 by eastglosmog
Restore photos

[Gareth 73]

Here is our gorgeous but cantankerous old lady Lulu. She's a rescue cat who's 18/19ish I've had her for 15 years, and in last 2 years after never bringing us presents has turned into an accomplished mouser much to the horror of my partner. As to the trains shes not bothered by them unless using the sound when she just get up and walks off in disgust.

[kevinlms]

7 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Although I am a big dog lover (“Fie, get thee behind me, Satan!” I hear you cry), I also enjoy cats and cats put up with me.

Many years ago I was doing some theatre with a good friend of mine who is a cat owner (two rescue cats) My friend was acting as my assistant director and the play was set in Ancient Egypt. So, to say thank you to her for her work, after the show I bought her a life sized replica statue of Bast - the Egyptian Cat goddess.

To make a long story short, my friend later told me that she placed the cat-sized cat statue on top of one of her large hi-fi speakers. Of her two rescue cats, one completely avoided the statue; the second - after about half an hour of deliberation, - jumps on to the speaker and tries to out stare the statue! After about five minutes of ineffectual glaring, the real cat unsheathed her claws and gave the statue an almighty whack across the muzzle. Upon the absence of any kind of reaction from the statue, my friend said that her rescue cat gave a sort of a feline shrug, jumped off the speaker and completely and studiously ignored the statute from then on.

Finally, may I say “well done“ to Big Jim and Andy for opening their hearts and homes to so many cats.

I firmly believe that we have a moral duty of care to those animals that we have domesticated, especially the dog and the cat - without whom it is unlikely that man, as a species, would’ve done as well as it has done.

Thought you were going to tell us, that the cat ended up knocking the statue off and smashing it to pieces!

[big jim]

@eastglosmog those Maine’s are beautiful!

 

sadly ours, Mike, who died also had cancer and cat flu but he got over them only to die of a heart attack 5 years down the line, he was bought by his previous owner as a status symbol but he never bothered to get him vaccinated or microchipped and basically abused him, even his name was very derogatory based on his breed name (he was called, let’s say, N-word to be safe) 

 

as soon as we had him to rehabilitate he became the alpha male of the house within days, we didn’t have any male cats of our own so he took the crown, Lola just let him get on with it, after a while when we had fosters come and stay we would see him go into the room they were in and investigate and start chirping at them in that unique Maine c00n way, which seemed to put the other cat at ease, only one other cat tried to fight him for dominance and that ended with mike simply pinning his head down to the floor with his massive paw while chirping at him loudly! 
 

we first noticed something was up when he jumped off the bed and came a cropper, his legs went from underneath him and he started panting, straight to the vet who had said he had multiple heart attacks that day, we could have got some pills to keep him with us but he wouldn’t have had any form of life so we very reluctantly decided to let him go, we all really miss him but look at it as he got an extra year of quality life with us that he wouldn’t have got had he stayed with his previous owner, he will never be replaceable especially when it came to caring for the fosters that come and go, although we have noticed that even at a few months old hank is displaying some of his traits with them

 

after he died we commissioned an artist to do a pencil drawing of him which we gave to Dominic for Christmas (2 weeks after he died) as you can see it was an emotional moment when he opened it up

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Allegheny1600]

Hi Jim,

That was a very touching story, bless you and your family for taking these wonderful characters on and giving them the love they so deserve.

It's really good to see that your son, Dominic is also clearly a caring human too, may he and you all, enjoy the love of many wonderful animals yet to come.

Something in my eye, again!

John.

[didcot]

1 minute ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Hi Jim,

That was a very touching story, bless you and your family for taking these wonderful characters on and giving them the love they so deserve.

It's really good to see that your son, Dominic is also clearly a caring human too, may he and you all, enjoy the love of many wonderful animals yet to come.

Something in my eye, again!

John.

Same here.

Its hard to lose our fluffy friends. Non of ours have ever died of natural causes and seeing them deteriorate is awful. Its strange that several of ours became ill overnight and required a overnight visit to the vets to be put to sleep. But that's all part of owning animals. Its not a 9 to 5 job and you have to do right by them regardless. We used to bury ours under the apple tree and would joke that the apples should be furry. Leaving them was the hardest thing to do when we moved.

[didcot]

Winter our mini Maincoon is struggling with the heat. 

[Allegheny1600]

Here is a pic of our three in happier times;

 

Peanut is obviously the Friesian looking fella, Alexis is the Silver Bengal and my darling Amber is her sister, the tabby version, very playful.

Sadly, Alexis is on her last legs but comfortable, she has liver & kidney failure but a renal diet seems to be helping. She's made it to 17½ though. We lost Amber about a year ago due to a tumour in her throat, had to say goodbye to a fair few animals over the years but that was the worst.

[big jim]

16 minutes ago, Allegheny1600 said:

 

It's really good to see that your son, Dominic is also clearly a caring human too, may he and you all, enjoy the love of many wonderful animals yet to come.

well he is off to college to train to be a craft butcher so I suppose we can enjoy some of his other animals soon! 
 

 

 

[didcot]

One soggy Marble. Heavens have opened with thunder and lightning. All five cats in and a bit perplexed. 

[didcot]

Pepper has decided she is in charge of the  tv remote tonight. 

['CHARD]

Where do I start?  Okay, with 'Mr Soo,' who was in old age when captured in this shot four years ago.  Born one of triplets in 2004, I half-jokingly gave him the pedigree name Phantasmagoria Monkey-Puzzle, but better known as Sid.  He was a blue tabby point Siamese and the runt of the litter, making up for this with an extreme case of Napoleon syndrome, and ruling the roost, which at one time comprised his siblings, mum and two Maine .

[08221]

Introducing Coffee and Cocoa - brother and sister who are rescue cats and were found abandoned as kittens a few days old in a shed behind the Symphony Hall in Brum.

 

I've had them since they were found - they have got me through two significant crisis in my life and have honestly kept me going at times.

 

Cocoa has never grown up and still suckles my jumpers!!

 

Miss Coffee

 

 

Cocoa being his usual active self...

 

 

Edited August 12, 2020 by 08221
Spilling

[New Haven Neil]

First there was Lucky - 16 pounds of ginger trouble, we had him from a young adult (rescue), he lived to 17 and had just about calmed down by then.  A 'character' for sure, he was a lot of fun.

 

Then Elsa, who died as a kitten due to in breeding issues, first and last pedigree we would have, British blue-cream.

 

Next back to rescue cats, was Billet - she came from a steelworks!  'My' cat, she would sit on my lap and watch the trains, and never tried to catch or damage them.  Anything else though, was fair game.  She was tiny, a runt, but a lovely cat.  She lived to 14.

 

 

Next rescue cat was Buell, a Russian Blue. A totally soft, well behaved affectionate cat, devoted to sleeping!  No idea how old she really was as a rescue, we suspect she was about 20 when she died of heart failure.

 

 

 

 

 

[eastglosmog]

7 hours ago, big jim said:

@eastglosmog those Maine’s are beautiful!

 

....................

Yes they are and don't they know it!  Even at the vets, Tilly plays to the gallery, she has managed to gather 4 vet nurses and one vet cooing over her when she had to have a bandage changed.  She is also very well behaved and never scratches so is popular on that count as well.  Don't think the local dogs (who are under her paw) would believe how charming she can be.

Big Jim, I remember you posting about Mike when you got him and later about his sad death and how devastated your son and you all were.  Very sad.

Badgers cancer came on very quickly, He suddenly became very lethargic so I rushed him to the vets.  Although he was operated on (desperation rather than any real hope) he died 3 days later.  He had had his annual check up only the month before and nothing was found.

[57xx]

19 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

As a major cat lover myself, I thank you all for the gorgeous pictures in this thread - I may have something in my eyes!

I always consider myself bi-petual(!) but cats will always come first for me.

Here's Peanut, our rescue from Greece;

 

 

The 80's just called, they'd like their shoulder pads back!

[J. S. Bach]

Wingnut, a rescue cat about six years old at the time (she is now a little over ten) picked up on the way home from a train show:

 

 

Soaking up MY! heat:

 

 

Laser eyes:

 

 

Sometime after Tyger died (at that point I thought "NO more pets") I had gone to the Columbia, SC train show and stopped at the Fairfield County shelter just to look. They had posted a few cats on their site that had great descriptions; "Eh, what the hay, I like looking at cats".  Although the three cats were nice and friendly, I just was "looking". On the way out of the porch (the shelter is an open plan, the cats have cages but most are free to roam indoors), I happened to look up at the top of a cat tree and saw this Tuxedo cat, she was brought into the main room and I decided to adopt her. I know that I said "No more pets", so why did I bring my cat carrier with me????  Certainly not to bring home my possible train purchases! She is a great cat, purrfectly litter box trained; in fact, that was the first thing she checked out after being let out of the carrier.

 

CATS ARE THE GREATEST!

 

 

 

 

Edited February 25 by J. S. Bach
To add her age and a comment (or more).

[BrushVeteran]

This is a topic that brings tears to my eyes as I think cats are very much under-rated companions. I have lived with cats in our family for virtually all of my life and have owned cats myself since 1978 almost continuously. Prior to January this year I had been without a cat for about four months as we had said goodbye to our previous cat, Pepper, who had succumbed to the usual thyroid problems and was losing his self control. My wife and I took the decision and, as she is not an ardent cat lover, I decided to try and live without cats surrounding me. Over Christmas and the New Year of this year I was bombarded by television adverts for RSPCA, PDSA and Cats Protection and I started covertly looking into our local adaption centres. I was looking for two kittens who would give hopefully a long relationship but it seemed others had the same idea and I started to get a bit despondent. I then received a call from our local Cats Protection adoption centre to say that they had mother and son, would I like to come and view. In the car like a shot my wife and I were offered the pair and after a home visit we have Sooty , a black 5 year old female who was found heavily pregnant roaming the streets of Bicester, and her son Sweep, who is now just a year old. He has a lot of Siamese in him and a tail like a sweeps brush but is as soft as they come, albeit a bit timid. They had to go as a pair as Sweep kept howling for his mother according to his previous owner of two days, and then took him back! Sooty has had a harder life I believe being a constant stray and probably mother to quite a few litters. They still look out for each other although Sooty's temperament is such that she hisses at him quite a lot especially meal times but he is such a softy he just walks away.

It makes me feel quite proud to share my cat photos with so many like minded members on this forum. I may put up some images of my previous cat family as and when..............but thanks Didcot for starting this thread.

[J. S. Bach]

Such a preponderance of BLACK cats in this thread!

[BrushVeteran]

12 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Such a preponderance of BLACK cats in this thread!

Should bring us all some good lock then!

 

[Metr0Land]

22 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Such a preponderance of BLACK cats in this thread!

 

Black Cats Matter!

[didcot]

28 minutes ago, BrushVeteran said:

It makes me feel quite proud to share my cat photos with so many like minded members on this forum. I may put up some images of my previous cat family as and when..............but thanks Didcot for starting this 

Thank you, I've been meaning to start it for a while. We wouldn't be without our cats. They have helped me greatly. Our youngest Sam loves his cats and regularly gives up most of his bed to Marble and Cookie.