Sirius is growing and has gained a bit of weight. He has now had all of his shots. The vet reports that he is healthy and alert with a very high play drive. Sirius has several cat toys in the shape of mice that he seems to prefer over all of the others. He will pounce on them and bat them around. He has a shoelace that he will carry around from time to time. And he likes to play with the "birdie" which is attached to the fishing pole.
Sirius has several tricks which were self-taught. He fetches when he feels like it. If I throw his string toy and he feels like fetching, he will run after it. Then he will pick it up and run around the coffee table, coming up behind me in order to drop the string toy by my hand. He stands on two legs and then jumps. He knocked a bathroom towel off of the rack using this technique. He also ripped off a sheet of toilet paper and tasted it. [Sirius spit it out when the taste of the toilet paper did not please him]. Sirius can run up and down a ladder leaning against the wall with no difficulty. He enjoys this and has posed on the rafters before coming back down and then dashing madly about the cellar.
Sirius continues to run after Bramble the older cat, jumping on him and using his mouth to give kitten play nips. Bramble for his part yowls loudly when this happens. At times, Sirius will hide in the bathtub and wait for Bramble to meander along. When he does, Sirius will jump out in surprise. Sirius will also bunch himself up like a Halloween cat and jump sideways away from Bramble. Both felines have run into the "tunnel" together and then rolled themselves and the tunnel around on the floor. I've caught them sharing windowsills and nap spots together. Sirius has learned that Bramble is [also] entitled to human lap time.
Sirius loves Blondie, the older dog. He inspects her paws and bats her tail around. She sniffs at him. Blondie will block Sirius from Bramble when she thinks he is getting too rough. She encourages Sirius by making the dog sign for play. Blondie has corrected Sirius for getting too close to her supper dish, although she does allow him to drink from the water bowl next to her when she is eating.
Sirius will follow us around and will allow us to pick him up and cuddle with him. Unless he is hellbent on playing with Bramble, he settles in nicely with a loud purr and a few kisses. Sirius and Bramble enjoy nap-time together on the bed in the afternoons. At night, he can be found in my hair or under the covers with me when he is not stretched out at the foot of the bed. Both cats will sometimes retreat to the living room together during the night. They spend early mornings in separate baskets situated near the back porch windows for a session of bird-watching.
Sirius has been a playful and affectionate addition to the household. He is the cute one and he knows it.
sapphoq on life
There is a new kitten in the house. Sirius is four months old and pure black except for a few white hairs on his chest. He has the runarounds and has been working hard to win over the older cat. His relationship with the dog was quickly established since she is the lover of all little dogs and cats.
Sirius allowed both of us to pick him up when we met him and he immediately started purring when we did so. Once home, he cautiously explored each room before settling down in the living room. He will follow either of us as we move from room to room. He also offers a small soft "meow" when hungry.
Sirius alternates between having the runarounds and napping with or without a human when awake. He has not staked out a window as of yet but he seems to favor the living room window when he stops long enough to look out of one. I am relieved that he looks and acts nothing like the late great Twinkle. Consequently, Sirius also "saved" Easter Sunday for me. Hanging out with some atheists and Christians became enjoyable for me. Without Sirius, I may have yielded to the temptation to yield to a quiet and profound grief.
There are no decent pictures of him yet-- I will share one when I get one-- but he looks very much like a mini-version of this cat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Itty13.jpg : who is an Oriental shorthair. Sirius definitely has a triangular face and the big ears. Still and all, there are certain pitfalls associated with determining kitten species based on a few physical traits and personality. So I shall assume that he is a typical American shorthair or what we used to call "alleycat" in years gone-by. That Sirius may or may not have a bit of some other kind of kitty in his unknown to us ancestry really doesn't change anything at all.
As a child, there was one dog Fifi that I may have mentioned before. She was a Christmas poodle puppy that I found on the couch when I was in fourth grade but my mother had given her away/sold her/dropped her off at a pound or somewhere the following summer on a Sunday when I was visiting my dad without warning. I've heard from others that this was the way the getting rid of unwanted pets was often done in those days. My heart was broken and I was seriously butthurt at the time.
There was also a cat when I was younger. It was one of those gray tiger looking cats. Looking back, I suspect he may have had a home but was allowed to roam the streets freely but I don't really know. I befriended him and he spent some time with me on my open-air front porch. I presented him with cat food and water until my mother suddenly [and probably rightfully] insisted that I stop feeding him. I came across his body in the street around the corner from me after that-- he'd been hit by a car-- and in a childish overly dramatic way I blamed my mother's ban on feeding him for that one. I soon gave it up though. It was only when I was older that I understood that if there was to be blame, it ought to be assigned to owners who allow their bird-killing-machines to roam freely in what was what a large city [or any place really except for perhaps barn cats-- my grands' barn cats pretty much stayed in the barn and didn't venture out onto the road]. And then there is the overpopulation of cats and dogs that causes some to go to shelters and some to be abandoned by uncaring owners and so forth.
Sirius is fixed [as all of our cats and dogs are] which is my contribution to helping to stem the overpopulation tide here in the u.s.a. I understand that there are folks who breed purebreds with papers and I even understand the value of purebreds. At any rate, our cats and dogs are usually not purebreds. The one who was a purebred [flat-coated retriever] was not suitable for breeding due to a birth defect in one eye and so he also was fixed. If I was wanting a purebred for breeding purposes, by necessity I would also be showing it. Because a purebred with papers but without show titles is just a purebred with papers. The value of purebred dogs is that they were originally bred for certain traits which much of the time translated into certain jobs. Here I am thinking about purebred dogs who ride on firetrucks, do search-and-rescue, act as service dogs, go to ground when chasing small varmints, hunting dogs. tracking dogs, and so forth. I am less specific on the value of purebred cats other than that some folks might like a certain look. Again, a purebred with papers without being shown is just a purebred with papers.
sapphoq on life says: It is my opinion that there are entirely too many backyard breeders-- folks who either breed their mutts or who breed purebreeds without showing them-- and not enough responsible people who do the right thing for their animals.
