This catblogging thing looks like so much fun, I think I’ll give it a whirl. If my co-workers went to court and got an injunction against my telling any more cat stories, that’s purely coincidental.

I have been a cat person apparently since birth or shortly thereafter, and I’ve often wondered what caused it. One theory is that it had to do with the large quantities of cat hair I apparently ingested at an early age. According to my mother, it went like this:

1. Baby sucks on fingers.
2. Cat walks by.
3. Baby removes fingers from mouth and pets cat.
4. Baby returns newly fuzzy fingers to mouth.
5. Repeat as desired.

This is the beginning of what will one day be Chris’ catblog (hence the as-yet provisional name).

[Originally posted to blogoSFERICS]

We timed Lucy’s heartworm treatment so she could get her second round before we left on our Fairbanks trip, and have her follow-up test done after we got back. She got a clean bill of health on that, and although she seems a little out of shape from getting so little exercise (I can relate) we are working her up to a greater activity level.

The day before we left for Fairbanks, Lucy exhibited signs that she is, indeed, not yet spayed. While we were gone she managed to get out of the yard once, but so far it doesn’t look like she’s in a puppy way. She’s supposed to go in again in December for another round of vaccination booster shots, and we think we’ll arrange to have her spayed then, if she still appears not to be expecting. That appointment still needs to be made…

Chris also wants to get her into an obedience class fairly soon. Improving her response to commands is on my list of Things I Would Like Very Much™. She understands “Sit” reasonably well, but “Stay” still eludes her.

She’s getting along better with our smaller cat, Suzie Q, and Chris reports that Lucy and Taz, the big, cantankerous (neutered) tomcat, have managed to sniff noses without Taz doing his usual growling or hissing. So maybe they’re getting used to her. She has gone out of her way to be inoffensive to both cats, except during the very brief time when we were feeding Lucy in the house—she gets jealous of her food dish if a cat even goes near it. (Heck, she gets jealous of her food if she hears a fly buzzing near it.)

One thing has given clear indication that she used to be an indoor dog (aside from her almost <pun> spotless </pun> record): when she hears the doorbell, she runs to the door. One time she was here with me and the computer made a ‘ding’ sound. Lucy jumped to her feet and raced downstairs.

[Originally posted to blogoSFERICS]

Dustbury inspired the following, which was originally a comment left there:

I had to drop off our dog at the vet this morning. One of the outermost bands from Ivan was passing through the neighborhood when I opened the garage door. Lucy, who normally loves to go anywhere as long as she can show off her stylish harness and leash, took one look at the downpour and said, “On second thought, I think I’d rather stay in and eat bonbons.”

Unfortunately for her, we’d already paid ahead of time for this vet visit, so if she’s getting bonbons today it’s not at home. But I didn’t even have to say anything when I opened the door to the truck. I half expect the next time I need to take her anywhere in bad weather she’ll open the door herself.

I was going to post on this anyway, and that comment was too good to rewrite.

Anyway, today Lucy’s getting the next (we hope, last) bit of heartworm treatment—this time to kill off the immature worms that might have survived, or hatched since, her first treatment four weeks ago. For some time after we brought her home from the first treatments, she was tired and uncomfortable, but she bounced back very quickly and has been her usual frisky self for most of the time since. In fact, I thought it would be worth the risk yesterday to let her out into the yard for a romp, which she enjoyed very much though. We’ll probably have to keep her confined until she’s pronounced completely cured (hopefully October 4), but after that…

That girl needs exercise, and obviously enjoys it.

[Originally posted to blogoSFERICS]

My wife agrees with your take, which is why Lucy is overnighting at the vet right now, having gotten the first part of her first treatment (to kill the adult heartworms) today. Second part tomorrow, and she comes home tomorrow afternoon. Then she goes back for second treatment (to kill the baby heartworms) in four weeks.

[Originally posted to blogoSFERICS]

Lucy’s got her shots and a rabies tag, as well as a flea-and-tick treatment that should actually work, unlike the retail treatment Chris bought and we applied shortly after we first got her. We received reassurance about some of the things we’d noticed about her—a dewclaw that was growing the wrong way, a couple of bare patches on her chest that the vet called “hot spots,” and so on.

She did not, however, begin a heartwork preventative, having tested positive for those potentially deadly parasites. The vet is sure we caught the infestation early enough that we don’t even need to be in a massive hurry to get her treated (though we will start the treatment as soon as feasible). The treatment will take a grand total of about six weeks, during which we need to keep her confined and her activity level down. And it makes sense that we keep her activity level down until we can get her started on the treatment. So no more of those running-hellbent-for-leather romps I discovered she likes. And maybe after the ‘worms are all gone and we can resume those romps, she’ll take longer to decide she’s had enough anyway.

The vet also couldn’t find any sure indication that she’s been spayed, and he thinks she may have had a litter of puppies once upon a time. Oh, and although I had thought she could be four to six years old, the vet says more like 2½. So it isn’t just that she’s an unusually cheerful middle-aged dog who tires easily because she’s getting old, she’s a cheerful young dog who tires easily because she’s not altogether well. But she will be. And I thought it was hard keeping up with her now.

Anyway, after the heartworm treatment we’ll get her spayed, and then we think we might go ahead and have her implanted with an ID chip.

[Originally posted to blogoSFERICS]

Well, we’ve picked up another stray, and this one appears to really be a stray. In the photos she looks a lot better than she did when she followed one of my wife’s co-workers (see comment) home a few days ago—she’s been bathed and exercised since. The red collar she’s wearing is all there is, no tag, no tattoos, no distinguishing characteristics.

I’m estimating her age at four or five years; she has no gray at the muzzle yet but her collar, though loose about her neck, has been on its current setting quite some time. We figure she’s been wandering loose for some time but she was quite happy to hang around at my wife’s co-worker’s house before we came and picked her up. Part of that, though, may be because we were having something of a heat wave until yesterday, and we’ve noticed she really doesn’t like to be out in the heat.

She’s got some very minor problem behaviors, the nature of which lead me to believe she may not have been an only dog at her former home. She likes to jump up on people but we’re working on breaking her of that. She will often respond to a whistle but when she gets far enough away only a loud, stern yell will bring her back. Out of habit I yell “Dog!” but it’s possible any word will do, including a name. We’ve taken to calling her Lucy.

She appears to be at least half border collie, and someone suggested to my wife yesterday there might also be some lab blood. Despite the picture at left, her ears really look more border-collie-like than lab-like.

My wife’s co-worker says he and his family asked around in the neighborhood where they found her to find out if anyone knew where she belongs, but had no luck. Yet unless she’s just a stocky dog she seems to be a little overweight, which wouldn’t suggest she’d been on her own for all that long. Yet she at least hadn’t been bathed in quite a while and I suspect her previous family either didn’t have much time for her or simply didn’t know how to discourage unwanted behaviors and teach such basic things as sit and stay. We hope she’s not too old to learn.

The past 48 hours have been difficult, dealing with the loss of a longtime faithful friend. But a sad remembrance wouldn’t do her justice, because she brought so much joy and laughter into our lives. So to honor her memory, I’d like to share some of my favorite Furrari stories.

My mom and I adopted her on the day after Thanksgiving, 1985, from the animal shelter in Pinole, CA. The sign on her cage said her original name was Sweet Pea, and she was about five months old. She had been in the stressful shelter environment for a month already, and was not eating well; as a result she was even bonier than the typical teenager cat. When we took her to the vet, despite her malnourished state, she hopped down off the examining table and proceeded to explore the room, tail at 12:00. The vet commented, “You have a very outgoing kitten there.”

Once we got her home, lack of appetite was ancient history. She did such an excellent job of tanking up that when we took her back to the vet a month later, he thought we’d pulled a feline switcheroo on him. In later years, she developed a paunch that inspired Kevin to nickname her “Catzilla” and “Jabba the Catt”.

I wanted to help her restore her kittenish figure, but not all kitty weight loss ideas are created equal. For example, I tried putting her in a harness so we could go for walks outside. Unfortunately, Furry’s strategy for dealing with the harness was to simply tip over sideways and refuse to move. I thought maybe putting her on a treadmill—still in the harness—would force her to walk, but she simply fell over sideways again and rode the tread surface off the back of the platform, whereupon she landed with a dainty thud and a reproachful squawk.

Furry had unusual taste in “toys”, with a special fondness for small cylindrical objects. You could not leave a drinking straw unattended in a glass; she would swipe the straw and perform an entire kitty ballet with it. After Furry discovered the bathroom cabinet, we returned home one day to find the living room strewn with well-mauled tampons. They did sort of look like little mice… Later, when the moving company came to pack us up, they found a bunch more under the fridge. Try explaining that to a Teamster.

She certainly enjoyed typical feline favorites such as tuna, but the way to get her completely berserk with excitement was to open a bag of tortilla chips. For some reason she was a fiend for anything corn-related, and would even chew on a corn broom given the opportunity.

Furry always did things differently. She would sit on top of the scratching post and lean over the side, scratching upside down. Last year we were given a scratching post which dispensed kibble when a scratching cat pulled down on it. She, however, figured out that she could also get kibble by pushing the post up with her nose and letting it drop. Imagine trying to sleep with “ka-thunk crunch crunch ka-thunk crunch crunch” going on. Every night, “ka-thunk crunch crunch ka-thunk crunch crunch.” Furrari was a clever cat, but sometimes “ka-thunk crunch crunch ka-thunk crunch crunch” we wished maybe she were “ka-thunk crunch crunch ka-thunk crunch crunch” a little more like other cats. “ka-thunk crunch crunch ka-thunk crunch crunch.” Finally we moved the unit as far away from the bedroom as possible.

She was definitely a “talker”, usually prefacing her meows with a trill. She never enjoyed being picked up and cuddled, but was very affectionate with trills, purrs, head bonks and slurps, tail waving like a flag on Independence Day. I often threatened to get her a helmet, since she habitually butted her head into the coffee table with an audible clunk.

Furry was a well-traveled cat. Over her nearly nineteen years she was a part of several cross-country moves, including the 4500-mile road trips to and from Alaska. Each morning on the trip north, she led me on a merry chase when I was trying to catch her and put her in her carrier. One morning, in a motel room somewhere on the Alaska Highway, Furry was not to be found.

The bed was typical of motel rooms, with that barrier underneath that keeps things from getting lost under the bed. Or so I thought. Eventually I located Furry within that hollow under-bed platform; she had gained entrance through holes in the bottom of the box spring. With her most devious hiding place to date having been revealed, she finally decided she had exhausted her bag of tricks. Afterward, she walked right into her carrier by herself, giving me a resigned look.

In these last few years, she has been the grande dame of a three-cat household. Despite her advancing age, she never shrank from giving our big tomcat Taz what-for when he got too big for his royal Siamese britches. She offered only token objections when the young calico Suzie-Q joined us, and they got along very well. She had a sunny disposition to match her bright orange coat.

Her body, an earthly cocoon, was only a small part of who she was. Her spirit lives on, and we will be together again. Love you, Pooh Bear. See you after ‘while.

[This post was written originally for blogoSFERICS quite some time before Chris started her own blog. I’ve moved the post here because, well, really it belongs with her other critter-related writings. And I think Furrari prefers it this way.—McGehee]