Battle of the 'Belle

Annabelle was supposed to have her yearly shots today.  Here's the results of my attempts to catch her:

Six bite wounds on my right hand, and two more on my left.  Annabelle is not on my nice list right now.

What I did last Saturday

For the past few days we'd had a scrawny yellow and white pussycat hanging around our house.  She is tame, but when we brought her in the house she wasn't too keen about staying.  So we'd let her out and not see her again for a couple of days, then feed her when she turned up again.  Since she was female and unaltered I assumed that she was already pregnant, and we began preparing a place for her.

Wrong answer.  Last Saturday the cat (whom we call "Buttercup") showed up again...and this time she had kittens.  We live on a busy street, so after some hemming and hawing we rounded Mama and babies up and put her in a cage.

As you can see, the family was not happy about this turn of events; note that they've spilled their water and scattered litter chunks everywhere.  They weren't happy about our dogs either; one of the kittens even bit me when I was putting her in the cage.  THAT was fun.

In all, there are four kittens.  There is this beautiful calico (which I desperately wanted to keep):

Her sister is another little calico.  Her colors are more dilute.  This one was the one that bit me.

The third is yet another little calico.  Notice her unusual markings.

The last one is yellow, and I assume that he's a he.  He is the tamest of the bunch and loves to be rubbed.  Mama Buttercup decided to photobomb her child in this case.

Our intention was to keep these kittens in a safe place so that they would not be run over, and then find a good place for them all to live.  However, it turns out that these strays aren't all the way stray; our next-door neighbor has been feeding and sheltering Buttercup and the babies, as well as handling the babies so they will be tame.  I ended up having to give the cats back to her, and the last time I saw them they were romping around in her yard.  But I have the cage cleaned out and ready, just in case they come back!

Pebbles's adoptaversary

Okay, so that's not a real word (LOL).  Two years ago today, my sister found Pebbles crawling around on the side of a local road.  He was sickly, flea-bitten, and had very sick eyes.

We took him in, cleaned him up, fed him, and got him properly vetted.  There were a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of vet visits that first year, but Pebbles pulled through.  He is blind because of the infection, but has no problems otherwise.  Here he is now.  Two years old and two years with us.

He wasn't terribly excited to have his picture taken, though.

"Yawn..."

It's been a great two years!

Hunting for flies and other shenanigans

Today has been your typical day in the house; me sitting on my rear and the animals doing their typical little animal things.  A rather large housefly got inside during one of my forays out with the dogs, so Pebbles and Annabelle took it upon themselves to try and catch it.

Pebbles almost had it at one point, which is saying a lot considering he can't see.  Eventually Annabelle got bored and began nagging me for some real food.

"Noms NOW, Mommy!!!"

Pebbles got momentarily distracted by the noise the camera made...

...but he resumed his vigil like nothing had happened.

"Come closer, tiny buzzing insect!"

Annabelle gave up on her quest for food and decided to aid Pablo with his grooming (Pablo is on the left, and Annabelle is on the right).

"Love bites!"

My cats never fail to amuse me, even when they're doing everyday things!  

Cuteness times two

Annabelle's favorite thing to do is romp around the house, but today she's following in the footsteps of her buddy Pablo.

Pablo (left) and Annabelle

Sweet dreams, sweeties!

Lazy Pablo

I'd say he's pretty comfy!

"Ahhh, this is the life!"

Just one of those days...

Today was rainy and unseasonably cool for April, perfect for sleeping in.  Man and beast both took advantage of the downtime and relaxed.  Pebbles kept it classy.

"Yep, keeping it classy!"

Edgar and Mittens hung out by the window.  I love how this picture shows their contrasting colors.

Chewy and Sampson took the opportunity to snooze.

"What're you lookin' at, human?"

Not every day that the cats get the bed all to themselves!  Usually there's dogs in the way.  LOL

Annabelle, the feisty one

Annabelle is the youngest of her cats, at ten months.  She is also the smallest, but she has the biggest attitude!

She was just a little ticked with me when I snapped this picture.  I had her by the nape of the neck and she didn't like being restrained.  Don't worry, I wasn't dangling her like that; her rump was resting on the counter.

Annabelle came from a lady south of town; she lived on the highway and felt that she couldn't keep a cat.  After a brief debate Mama and I went to get her.  We made the assumption that she'd make a good playmate for Edgar and named her after the Edgar Allen Poe poem "Annabel Lee."

Things didn't play out that way, though.  Annabelle was active, but she wasn't constantly hyper like Edgar.  She preferred the company of Pablo, who is more placid.

They look a lot alike at first glance, and at a distance even we have a hard time telling them apart.  The difference is in the nose (Pablo is in front, and Annabelle is behind him).

Pablo has a black patch on his nose, and Annabelle does not.

Okay, so they get along like champs.  But the pair's personalities could not be more different.  Pablo, as I mentioned above, is very relaxed and calm.  Annabelle is very feisty and...well, the term I like to use is "persnickety."  She has a good temperament, but has mood swings.  One minute it's okay to pick her up, and the next she's wiggling and growling and demanding to be put down.  She even bites if you don't give her her way right then!

"Nyah!"

Ornery or no, she's still a cute little goomer and I love her.

Edgar, the black cat

Edgar was plucked off the bank parking lot in early May of 2013.  One of the ladies that worked at the bank drove in from Parma (a twelve-mile journey) with him in the undercarriage.  My aunt was home at the time, and she brought him to us.  He spent some time in Cape with my sister and her fiance, but had to come home because their landlady didn't allow pets.  He is the first cat that we've had that ended up breaking a bone on our watch.

Poor baby, he jumped off the kitchen table and broke all four bones in his foot.  We had to keep him caged for six weeks, which was hard for us and even harder for him.  Towards the end of that span he cried constantly.  When we DID let him go he romped around the house for two solid hours.

That was almost a year ago and his off switch still hasn't tripped!  Edgar is constantly pulling on the curtains, messing up the blinds, sticking his claws where they shouldn't, and trying to escape the house.  It is behavior like this that makes us believe he escaped from somewhere (he was very tame and knew what a litter box was, so we know he had to belong to someone).  Mama threatens his life on a regular basis (she jests, of course), but we love him to bits.  He gets along very well with the other cats; Mittens and Pablo are his favorite sparring partners.

Like Pebbles and the other cats, Edgar loves the sun.  He particularly likes sunning his belly.

He's ornery, though.  Two seconds after I took this picture, he moved!  Typical of contrary cats.  LOL

Pablo, the Election Day Kitty

Election Day of 2012 was not a happy day for us politically, but it was a splendid day otherwise.  We got blessed with yet another cat, a half-grown kitten this time.  A friend of ours captured him but could not take him in due to her own two cats.  Nor could she leave him outside, because the night was cold and the traffic was fierce.  We did not need another cat, but we adopted him anyway.  Sister named him "Pablo," after Pablo Picasso.

Pablo had a sweet disposition but was afraid of the dogs, so he spent the night in the cage that formerly occupied Pebbles.  He was small but completely healthy and weaned.  He got us through what turned out to be a bitterly disappointing election.

Of our cats, Pablo has the best personality.  He purrs constantly and rolls over on his back to get his belly rubbed.  He doesn't like to be tickled, though; he will dig his claws in if we tickle.  He loves to spar with Mittens, though he usually ends up on the losing end (Mittens is bigger than he is).  Like the others, he enjoys a good nap.  Unlike the others, he can nap anywhere and be perfectly happy.  One time he fell asleep on the dining room table:

Sleep tight!

Mittens, the feral

One month after we got Pebbles, my sister came dragging Mittens home.

We were told by the original owner that Mittens was a female and was crippled, both of which turned out to be untrue.  Mittens WAS limping when we brought him (that's right, him) home, but it turned out that he'd been running loose during a span of very hot weather.  We assume that he either burned his paw on the pavement or on a recently-burned field (the farmers burn off their wheat stubble during the late summer, and it's not uncommon for animals to get injured).  Anyway, we brought Mittens in...and he went berserk.  The dogs rushed him and he jumped up on top of the lampshade.  Mama vowed to have him thrown out, but that's not the way it went.  Mittens ended up staying and being subjected to the usual treatment of the house:  feedings, shots, dogs and other cats, a trip to the vet to get neutered, etc., etc.  Similar to Chewy, we never did get Mittens fully tamed, though he is docile enough to stay in the house.  He loves to cuddle, especially with Mama.

In fact, his favorite thing to do is be comfy!

He also likes to look saucy.  He doesn't like being disturbed when he's trying to eat, though.

"You bother me, foul human."

Pebbles, the blind one

WARNING!!!  This blog post contains photographs of a rescue kitten that had a very serious eye infection.  Some of the pictures may be disturbing to readers.  Reader discression is advised.  I try not to play favorites with these animals, but I couldn't avoid developing a close bond with Pebbles, our third cat.  This is a recent picture of him.

Pebbles will be two this year, and I estimate that he was born on May 15th.  Notice that his left eye is gray, and his right eye is nonexistent.  Pebbles was born to a semi-feral mother who lived outdoors on the south side of Malden.  He developed an eye infection and was abandoned by his mother by the age of three weeks.  He likely would have died if my sister hadn't driven by the yard where he lived.  She nipped out of the car, scooped the kitten up amid her then-boyfriend's protests, and brought him home.  He was the most pathetic excuse for a kitten I'd ever seen; his paws were dirty, his coat was full of burrs and fleas, and his eyes were swollen and full of goo.  Boyfriend absolutely refused to hold him, so he rode to the vet on my lap.  It was during this ride that he earned the name "Pebbles;" Boyfriend insisted that his eyes looked like little chunks of gravel.  I'll let you be the judge of that (the next picture is slightly graphic).

I know he looks bad in that picture, but he was actually thriving by then and on the road to recovery.  My sister did the bulk of his caretaking during the first week (Mama and I helped).  She had to feed him with a bottle, make sure he drank water, burp him, and "poop" him, meaning she had to help him go potty.  We also had to give him medicine, both orally and topically on the eyes.  As the eyes healed they began to itch, and we had to customize an Elizabethan collar to keep him from scratching.  His feedings had to be done every four hours, meaning we couldn't leave him alone.  This culminated in us dragging him to Jonesboro, Arkansas one day in a blue Rubbermaid bin.  It was an unorthodox way to rear a kitten, but we got it done.

After a week my sister had to leave for a summer college class, and I took on the caretaking duties myself.  I learned to hold Pebbles over my heart when he got fussy, and he spent most of the summer on my chest, through the Olympics, through the Niagara Falls wire walk, through the thunderstorms that came in August.  In time he outgrew his blue plastic bin and ended up in a wire cage.  He hated it, especially when it was bedtime!

Whether he hated it or not, that cage may have been the best thing we did for Pebbles, as it provided something for him to climb.  He built up his strength enough to climb to the top of the cage and hang upside down.  One night he was so angry that I'd put him to bed that he threw a tantrum.  That's right, a tantrum!  He hung from the top of the cage and kicked the bars with his hind legs, yowling the whole time.  It was hilarious.  Slowly we began introducing him to the rest of the house, and the cage was banished to a corner of the room.  

Combating the eye infection proved to be VERY tricky.  There were periods where it looked like we'd gotten rid of it, and then it would flare up again and we'd be back to draining fluid from Pebbles's eyelids and applying topical meds.  In between flares he looked like a perfectly normal cat, albeit with scarred eyes.  Here's what he looked like at eleven months.

Not too long after that Pebbles had another flare.  His right eye deflated and sunk into the eye socket.  We asked the vet if it should be removed, but he says it can be left alone unless it starts causing discomfort.  He also warned us that Pebbles's other eye was unlikely to recover, and he might see some shadows but not much else.

Being blind hasn't stopped Pebbles though.  He knows the layout of the house, the locations of the food and water dishes, and the location of the litter boxes.  He knows which room belongs to which person, and he cries if I don't let him into mine.  Regarding personality, Pebbles is something of a grouch.  He doesn't have much to do with my mother or sister, but likes the vet, my idiot uncle, and strangers.  He's very playful and likes to spar with the other cats.  Chewbacca hates his guts, but the rest of the animals put up with him.  In addition to play fighting with the other cats, Pebbles loves to sleep...in very weird positions!

 He loves sunbeams, and his cardboard box too!

And he likes my bed.

I didn't know I had it in me to take care of a special needs cat, but Pebbles has been nothing but a pleasure to have around.  He's my pride and joy!

Chewbacca, the mouser

The second-eldest cat in the house is Chewbacca, a.k.a. "Chewy."  In spite of the name, she is a female.

Chewy hates sitting still for photographs, so I only have a handful of pictures.  Chewy appeared on our property during the late summer of 2010 as a semi-feral, half-grown kitten.  It was hot and dry outside, and my sister managed to coax her indoors with cat food and a few well-placed cuddles.  She never fully became acclimated to house living, though, and spends a large amount of time outside.  She is an accomplished mouser and bird-hunter, though Sampson often steals what she kills.  She roams around the neighborhood quite a bit, and I suspect that our neighbors help feed her because she is quite plump!  She retains a fear of cars, in spite of the fact that she's ridden up inside them several times (she made three fifteen-mile trips to my mother's school on the undercarriage of a car; long story).  She hates cold weather and snow.  This is from late November of 2011:

We had a surprise snowfall, and Chewy hated every second of it!