Tag: cat

Thunderdome

Our cat Trixie plays with a pink mouse on the dog bed

When we adopted Trixie early last year and were keeping her in isolation for the first couple of weeks, I let our dog Ellie come in and join us since she and Trixie hit it off pretty quickly. I brought in one of Ellie’s dog beds so she’d have a comfortable place to sleep when she wasn’t on the bed with us, but it was used as much as an arena of play by the kitten as a place of sleep by the dog. Pink mouse became an early Trixie favorite and remains so to this day. I’m sometimes awakened in the middle of the night when Trixie brings pink mouse to bed and one of them isn’t quite ready to settle down for the night.

Chicken Wings

Our cat Boo rests on the hardwood floor

Even though I’ve seen Boo in this pose many times, sometimes I’m still caught off guard and have a brief moment of panic because I think he’s had a medical problem and collapsed. But it’s just his chicken-wing pose, which he’ll do at random places around the house when he wants to relax for a bit. And then it makes me laugh, just one of the many goofball poses of our Boo.

I like to think he’s pondering the great mysteries of the universe.

Boo in a Box

Our cat Boo sitting in a box just his size

“This is The Box Store, how may I help you?”

“I’m looking for a box.”

“You’ve come to the right place, sir!”

“Do you have anything Boo sized?”

“Boo sized … Boo sized … ah! Here we are! Boo sized!”

“I’ll take it!”

Dilapidated

Our cat Boo sleeping in the cat tree

There’s a long-running trend in photography of people photographing models in fancy dress in dilapidated buildings, a style I’ve never liked although it is quite popular. But even I couldn’t resist a shot of my lovely model in a run-down location, Boo in the old cat tree that we moved in front of the larger picture window. This part of the cat tree is showing signs of wear but it’s the bottom that has suffered from the love of five different cats, the carpet now in tatters. It’s a shame because we’ve never found another design that we (or the cats) like quite as much, although the newer one in my office does the job.

Mr. Cool

Our cat Boo sleeps in the cat tree in a relaxed pose

Boo keeps cool in the darkened living room on the morning of the 4th of July. There’s a dichotomy between his waking and sleeping selves, as he’s a shy and nervous cat in general but he can sleep in any position and often appears chilled out when relaxed or asleep.

Sam Meets His Shadow

Our cat Sam sleeps beside the shadow of our cat Trixie

I was walking past the dining room when I saw Sam sleeping in an unusual spot, perfectly framed on the hardwood floor by the sunlight poring through the large picture windows on a warm spring morning. I ran to my office and grabbed my camera and got the lovely picture below, one of my favorite cat pictures ever. But then Trixie came in after me and jumped up onto the window ledge, her shadow so perfectly positioned that her head is next to his and her tail curls back towards me, as though his shadow had come to life and turned around to greet him. Thankfully I got the picture above as the moment didn’t last long. I like both pictures but the top one illustrates much of their relationship in an abstract form, Sam relentlessly pursued by his younger sister who adores him. I couldn’t have posed them any better as more than anything she loves to cuddle up face to face, which he’ll often tolerate when he’s sleeping on my legs.

Sam decided he was getting a little too much attention, between the clacking of my SLR’s shutter and the newly arrived Trixie in the window, so he got up and we all retreated to my office.

Our cat Sam sleeps in the sunlight on the hardwood floor of our dining room

Squeaky To-and-From

Our cat Trixie sits between the pillows on the bed

As adults cats meow to communicate with humans rather than each other. I had always assumed they all had a fairly similar vocalization, but only two of our six cats (Templeton and Sam) have had a traditional meow. Our first cat Templeton could be a bit talkative so I was surprised when we adopted Scout, who was almost silent and communicated mostly with soft grunts or a plaintive bleating, especially when she was scared or upset. Emma chirped, rather appropriate given her fascination with birds. Boo too is a quiet one and has an almost childlike cry.

Trixie continues the theme not only of quiet cats but of new vocalizations.

She squeaks.

She is tiny and energetic and affectionate. She especially adores her big brother Sam, sometimes more than he would like, and they are both sleeping on me at the moment. She is a full-on lap cat like Sam, a snuggler extraordinaire, a little lover. Like Em she likes the wildlife in the yard, although her obsession is squirrels.

She is also the slowest eater who has ever walked the earth. We have to sit with her to make sure the other cats don’t steal her food, although thankfully she is eating faster than she used to. She also isn’t as easily distracted, used to be you could forget about getting her to eat if she saw a squirrel running along the fence. And she eats in one sitting now, that was a battle of wills as she’d prefer to graze but between Ellie and Boo and Sam, we can’t leave food out unattended.

She’s been with us for over a year and has been an absolute joy. I took this picture a month ago when I found her in the guest bedroom sitting in a Trixie-sized opening between the pillows on the bed. She doesn’t usually hang out up there, but this bed was where she spent her first few weeks with us, as this is the room where we kept her in isolation.