Mama MissKitty Madness

Ah, MissKitty. I can't tell you how much I respect this little girl. When she first came to my front yard, she was starving to death. You could see all her bones, and she appeared to be frantic to find food and water in the cold, dry environment of the high desert.

I began putting out bowls of dog food and water, which she promptly gobbled up. She was eating so much food, but continuing to starve. So, I bought some cat food and began leaving a little more food in the yard.

I put the food as far away from the house as possible, thinking she was just a neighborhood cat hanging around because I was feeding her. We have a large front yard, so I would put the food and water at the far edge of the yard. When the ants got in it, I took out a plastic liner for plants to act as a mote.

As I look at her curled up next me while I write this, my heart breaks a little to think that I was trying to keep her away. I feel especially bad knowing what I now know. After a few days of feeding what I thought of as "the kitty," I realized that she had be nursing. That same day, I found her nursing those kitties: six of them!

This is the first photo I ever took of
MissKitty. I had just decided to
keep her.

No wonder she had still been starving on the piddly amount of food I left for her! That amount of food was only enough for one cat, not seven! Soon after that, I began leaving out much more food, but decided to bring it to the back yard, where the kittens were staying.

I also spotted her hefting rabbits that were larger than she was over my six-foot fence. All six kittens were perfectly healthy. She completely sacrificed her own well-being for that of her babies. I know that much of that has to do with instinct, but I've heard of cats that do the opposite.

This is right before she got spayed.
She still tried to nurse after being spayed,
so I had to separate them until she healed.
Even after two weeks of healing, she tried to nurse.

Some mama cats kill the weakest kittens, or even half the litter. Some will keep enough food to survive while letting a couple of the kittens starve. Not mama MissKitty. She kept even her smallest kittens as healthy as can be. I can't help but feel tremendous respect for her, instincts or not.

MissKitty reaches for the phone.

MissKitty still loves to hang out with her kittens.
Cheetah is on the left, and Gracie on the right.

Can you believe that sweet little face?

This photo was taken just a couple of days ago.
She still loves to groom all her babies, and play with them.

A little LOLCat I created that pokes fun at my dancing ability

MissKitty loves to stick her tongue out.

This is an early photo of me holding her.

This one pokes fun at my dad's computer literacy. :)

This is when she was recovering from spay surgery.
I bought this super-cushy bed to set on the couch next to me

Lovely Lady Lulu

Lulu and the cats
I've talked a lot about all the cats I've rescued recently, but now it's time to talk about my sweet Lulu. I've always considered myself a dog person, after all. My love for the new rescued cats running all around has not diminished the love for my dog, although she doesn't understand that.

I've been feeling bad for her lately, because she feels so neglected. I have not neglected her, but I do spend far less time cuddling with her than I used to. She's the only one who even gets to be cuddled. She's the only one who gets to lick my face. None of that matters to her though. The fact that the cats have invaded her yard, and get to spend any time at all with me makes her incredibly jealous.

The worst is when I hold one of the cats, even if it's just to put them outside. I try to hold them when she's not looking, but it's almost like she knows what I've been doing. She gets all huffy, and starts pouting. Then I have to take the time to snuggle up to her and win her back. I'm just glad Lulu is not violent toward the cats. She has been going to the beauty parlor since she was 8 weeks old, so she is used to being around cats and other dogs.

The smartest dog I've ever known
Lulu is probably the smartest dog I've ever known. I could see how amazing she was from the time she was very young, and could understand perspective. The most amazing thing is that I never had to train her much. She just knew things. Here are just a few of the amazing, human-like things little Lulu has done:

The ladies at the beauty parlor always give Lulu
what we like to call a "butt bow."

* She never needed to be potty trained. I just showed her how to go out the doggy door one time, and that was it. Granted, we had an older dog for her to emulate, but still. That's pretty impressive!

* She disciplined the other dog for me. The beautiful, wonderful older dog, Emily, had a few bad habits. One of them was to bark at the dog next door. Whenever I would say, "No," Lulu would run outside and grab Emily by the collar, and drag her back inside.

Similarly, when MissKitty is in the house and starts scratching the furniture, Lulu runs up and lets out a little growl, and tries to nose-poke her. It's based on the fact that I said "No" to MissKitty a few times when she scratched, but I never trained Lulu to discipline another animal.

* She's generous. When my older dog was not feeling well, Lulu came up to get her treat, then took it to Emily and dropped it in front of her! Then she came back to get her own. I had never seen a dog do that before!

* When she was stuck in the bedroom one night and couldn't wake anyone, she went to the bathroom in the shower. I never taught her to do this, and I've never had a dog that has done that before. She just seemed to know that is where things get washed away.

* When she was little and couldn't reach the windowsill to see my dad outside, but could hear him walking around, she stepped back and jumped on her hind legs to see him. It was very obvious that she could understand perspective.

I never ask them to, but the ladies
at the beauty parlor love to
decorate Lulu's pretty nails.

* She loves to create her own puzzle games. She loves to catch the ball, but when nobody wants to play, she will create her own game. She loves to push the ball into a difficult-to-reach place, then try to figure out how to get it back.

* She has human-like mannerisms. I usually call her front paws "hands," because she uses them almost like hands. Sometimes she'll wipe her chin in a way that makes me feel like I'm sitting next to a person. Sometimes she'll use her hands to squeak a toy. Other times, she'll reach into a container in which she dropped a toy, just so she could figure out how to pull it out.

* She loves to eat off a utensil. Sometimes I think she's trying to be human. She was always more likely to imitate me rather than the other dog. And so, she prefers eating high quality organic food off a fork rather than out of her bowl. And if I try to feed her regular dog food rather than organic Castor and Pollix? She turns up her nose at it and walks away. I mean that. She literally turns up her nose at food she doesn't like, and lets out a little huff as she turns away.

* She tries to speak. When she really wants to play, she'll start moving her mouth in a weird way and begin "talking." Then, she'll drop the ball in front of you and poke you with her nose. If you're busy or don't pay attention, she'll look you in the eye, then dramatically look down at her ball.  She'll keep talking the whole time.

* She loves to take care of me when I'm sick. If I don't feel well, she'll snuggle up next to me, and just stare into my eyes. Then she'll lick my cheek until one of two things happens: I stop her, or have a miraculous recovery.

* She loves to be held like a baby. I know when she wants me to hold her this way when she sits with her back to me on the couch, then pushes herself back until she's almost falling over on me. When she makes this motion, I reach over and pull her into my arms, so she's lying on her back on my lap, just like a baby. She's very large, mind you: 65 pounds! She'll then go completely limp, and toss her head all the way back so I can give her "baby kisses" (a really fast series of tiny kisses) all over her neck.

A to Z Challenge: Gorgeous Gracie Gets Gregarious

Gracie is one of only two, out of the six kittens and one mama kitty I rescued, that I was not able to tame before having her spayed. But as she recovered from the surgery, she became fairly tame within just a few days.

Gracie recovers from surgery

Before, she would run when she saw me. Now, she allows me to walk right up to her and pet her. The trick was simply to get my hand up to the side of her face. As she rested in the cushy covered bed I had created for her in the heated bathroom, I decided to just start scratching her behind the ear. All the kitties love that!

So, after over 24 hours of not eating or drinking anything, I just reached my hand up and began scratching her behind the ear. She loved it more than I ever could have imagined. In fact, she loved it more than any of the other kitties, actually leaning against my hand so hard that she fell over on her side.

Gracie looks like a pointer as she spots my dog

Soon after that, I was able to feed her. She would not eat out of her dish, however. She would only eat the food if I fed it to her directly out of my hand. I had to resist the urge to throw up in my mouth as she licked the wet food -- which looked a bit like poop as she slobbered it all over the place -- from my hand.

Luckily, the fact that she ate the food also meant that she was getting her pain medication. I had felt like such a bad kitty mom when I couldn't get her to eat the food that I had injected with the medication for a little more than a day. The poor baby must have been in so much pain! My only consolation was that she slept off most of those 24 hours.

Gracie tries to catch a birdie toy

I originally thought that Gracie was actually Grayson, because she seemed like she may grow a little larger. She is the largest of the female kittens, although she does not seem as heavy as Cheetah. I think Cheetah must have more muscle in her teeny, quick-moving body, while Gracie's small frame has a little more fat.

She had actually just gone into heat when I took her to be spayed. That really surprised me, because she was so young. As the largest female, I guess she just matured faster than the others.

Gracie looks camouflaged
in the pear tree

Unfortunately, the tom cats had just started hanging around about two days before I was going to try to catch little Gracie, so I had to get through the weekend by bringing all seven cats inside. That was a really tough weekend, but I got through it. I was able to catch Gracie in the trap on my first try on the Monday after.

Gracie plays with mama kitty by shoving her
in the face with her foot

It's too bad that she was feral at the time, because it means that they notch the ear, as you can see in her photos. There was just no way to know ahead of time that I would be able to tame her so easily. Now that she's tame, however, I'm considering taking her in to be micro-chipped.

She's really a darling, sweet cat. I'm just glad we never have to go through the spaying process again. She can just run around and play with her brothers and sisters and mama kitty in the backyard, free as a bird.

"Is that a doggy in my yard?!"

Fancy Furball Fascinates

Today is all about one of my seven rescued cats, Furball. Furball is unusual because he's the only kitty in the litter with very long hair, and with unusual coloring. He is also unusual because he doesn't act like the other kittens.

Can I have some meat if I
give you my adorable look?

Once in awhile, he'll come out and play with the other kitties, but he usually does his own thing. He's usually hiding out or sleeping while the others are playing, and out playing while the others are resting. Even when he goes outside with the others, he prefers doing his own thing.

Taming him was also a strange experience. He used to be one of the most fearful cats. He would run away when anyone even came near him. I would wait by the food bowls and try to pet them when they walked up. Furball would just run away.

Sleepy-bye baby

But then, one day, I was able to pet him a little bit when he wasn't looking. He seemed to think this was the strangest sensation imaginable. He began playing with my fingers, trying to hook them with his claws. But when I got my hand on him, he would twist and squirm while staring at my hand the entire time.

And then he wanted more. He would stuff his face under my hand and walk, all the while squirming and staring. It was difficult to hold in my laughter when he did this. It's as if he was studying this odd petting sensation. He still does it too!

He is still an enigma. Sometimes he will run away. Sometimes he will do his little self-petting while squirming. Sometimes he wants to cuddle. Oh yeah, he loves to cuddle now. When I pick him up, he just luxuriates in my arms, leaning into my nails as I scratch behind his ears, and looking up at me with those big pretty eyes. He loves when we touch noses too.

Please excuse me as I share tons of photos of this beautiful creature. I also made this little LOLCat that pokes fun at my dancing ability:

Moving toward the all-knowing EYE

"Is that my nemesis, Lulu the dog?"

I know this one is a bit blurry, but it looked so artistic to me.
He almost looks like a painting there.

This was soon after being neutered.
Imagine in the left picture he's thinking:
"You took the only testicle I had, and another I never knew I had?! I hate you."
On the right, he's thinking:
"Oh well, at least I have this cushy bed where I can rest."

Look at that beautiful fat tail!!