My Cats

Tiger was a huge Maine Coon Cat, about 18 pounds when healthy, birthday April, 1996. Unfortunately, his long and good life is now over. On 22-Oct-07, he made his last trip to the vet's office, where he was assisted on his final journey of this life and into the next. His kidneys failed and there is nothing you can do for them when that happens. I have often said that if there is any truth to reincarnation into animal bodies, I want to return as a house cat which enjoyed life as much as Tiger did. Rest in piece, my friend.

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
7 cats

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

If you have good comments or suggestions, email me ken@kdebusk.com
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