My Cats
Biscuit, my 6-toed black male cat, birthday May, 2002.
The waterbed is one of his favorite spots to lounge.
Muffin, also with 6 toes, is Biscuit's sister and
littermate. She also loves to sleep on the waterbed. She
had a litter of kittens on 25-Jan-07 and I kept one of
them, named Cookie. She was "best buddies" with Tiger
and now that he's gone, she has decided that I'm a good
second choice. She sleeps with me in the heated waterbed
every night along with Biscuit and Cookie. Sometimes
Punky (Cookie's dad) joins us, but he likes to sleep on
top of the headboard rather than on the mattress with
the rest of us.
Update: 07-Jan-16, Muffin took her last ride to see the
cat doctor. She was part of my family for almost 14
years. She will be missed a lot. She was quirky, hard to
get to know for others, but a very loving cat. RIP, Miss
Muff.
Beaner was named because of a certain biological problem
involving gas :) She was rescued from the parking lot at
Wal-Mart in the rain September, 2003--her life-span at
that point was probably measured in minutes due to the
traffic. Her birthday is probably around June 15, 2003.
Unfortunately, Beaner and the other four cats don't get
along well, so she is somewhat of a loner when dealing
with them. I can often find her in the bathroom sitting
on the air vent to warm in the winter and cool in the
summer.
I had
forgotten about the wonders of cell-phone photography
and remembered taking pictures of Muffin with her last
litter of kittens. I was a truck driver at the time she
was pregnant and came home from a three-day trip to
discover what you see in the first picture above behind
my bedroom door. Four perfect kittens, anywhere from
hours to a couple days after their birth. There were two
grey ones, of which Cookie is one, one orange one, and
one which looked like Muffin except she didn't have
extra toes, which the other three all had. The two
grey ones were hard to distinguish except that Cookie
had barely-visible darker stripes on his tail and hind
legs. The last picture above shows the kittens and their
mom eating canned food. At the time I thought them ready
to eat on their own and be weaned, the first feeding was
mostly Muffin devouring it, with the kittens sniffing
and licking only slightly. The next day, she was
terribly sick and I took her to the vet's office. I
denied her being around any insecticides, pesticides or
harmful household chemicals, she hadn't been outside,
etc., so they were at a loss as to what the problem was.
Blood tests showed nothing abnormal but the X-rays
showed inflamation in her lungs. They kept her overnight
and gave her IV fluids and steroids. The next day she
was well enough to come back home and be with her kids.
Later that month, the news broke that Chinese pet-food
ingredients were poisoning pets around the US and
hundreds had died. I consider myself lucky that a couple
hundred dollars of veterinary care were able to save
her. I believe her babies would have gotten along OK at
the time of their transition to canned food from
mother's milk, but I don't know for sure. I do know they
were ready for her return when she returned home that
next day! She recovered nicely and is still a great cat,
purring contentedly as she goes to bed with me almost
every night in the heated waterbed.
Cookie is the grey one in the
left three pictured. Punky is the orange one in the right two
pictures. Punky is Cookie's father and wandered up to some
friends over a year ago. He was probably born in May 2006,
since he was about half grown when he "appeared" on the
doorstep. Cookie is probably the friendliest of all the cats
and loves to sleep next to me in the waterbed. He purrs until
I stop petting, then purrs some more, finally going to sleep
and snoring! One thing about Punky which is strange is the
length of his whiskers. One of them was measured at 5 1/2"
long! I have heard that they function to let a cat know if
they can turn around in a space. If that's so, then he will
eventually need about 16" wide, I guess. I can't imagine him
getting that big, although he now thinks he's the alpha cat
since Tiger died. Biscuit should have that spot since he is
older, but Punky is bigger and they have been fighting
occasionally to settle the matter.
Update: 22-Aug-2015, Punky made his last journey to the
doctor and didn't come home. He had a tumor under his
tongue which made it nearly impossible to eat. The vet
said that it was probably inoperable.
Holly (Miss Halloween). The most lovable and best cat I
ever had, died at age 2 in July, 2000, of unknown
natural causes.
Most of the cats who live here like my waterbed.
14-Jul-2005 pic of them
Composed
using
Mozilla Composer and SeaMonkey Composer. I use the
Mozilla browser, where it looks best, and it seems
to work fairly well in MSIE. Not verified with
anything else--you're on your own :)
Originally Posted 06-Nov-03, Updated 12-Dec-07
Copyright © 2003-7 Kenneth
E. DeBusk
Background music: Tom Jones, "What's New,
Pussycat?"
If
you have good comments or suggestions, email me ken@kdebusk.com
If you have bad comments, remember what your
mother taught you: "If you can't say something good, don't
say anything."
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