Shadik's latest fieldmouse catch that she proudly carried to our back door.
Shadik, now between 10-11 months old, enjoys basking in the sun on our porch. She still loves nothing more than stalking & jumping on her rival for my affection. Yes, these were both my daughter's cats. However, my being the one who feeds them & pets them & just spends time with them...has done its work. They now consider me "their person". If you look closely at Rachel, the middle-aged cat of 12-13 human years, you can see where bits of her fur have been pulled out by Shadik or herself. When stressed, Rachel reaches around & pulls out bits of her own fur. She leaves these all over the house for me to notice. It bothered me until I recalled that some cats urinate all over the house when they are stressed. I'll take Rachel's bad habit any day over that, especially since her favorite napping place is on the comforter on our bed!
We declawed Rachel years ago when she had nearly demolished Esther's bedroom door by using it as a scratching post. She totally ignored the official, carpeted scratching post that we had bought for her. So she is in a handicapped position when Shadik pounces on her. She tries to "psych. out" Shadik with loud hissing & growling, but Shadik figured out months ago that Rachel is fairly defenseless. Louis will not let me take Shadik to be declawed yet. She scratches the furniture, like our piano below, when she misjudges a leap. She has made most of our upholstered furniture her scratching posts, despite the catnip-odor on her official post. Rachel likes that odor more than Shadik & can be found rolling herself around on the post. Louis remembers the blustery day that Shadik was chased up one of our tallest pines by a coyote. We couldn't find her in the dark & windswept rain. We were convinced the coyote must have eaten Esther's kitten. The next day after church, while it was still raining, we finally located her by a tiny mewing coming from the tiptop of the tree. Her claws had to be sore after hanging on to the swaying top for hours and hours. She looked so teeny, being sopping wet. Louis used our longest ladder to get about a third of the way up the tree, his bow-hunting apparatus to winch himself up another third of the way & finally coaxed her down to him from there. After this very long hour of fear for Shadik & himself, he is anxious that no animal finds her outside defenseless. Her small teeth would be overmatched by those of a fox or coyote.
However, Shadik has found worthy prey herself. She has caught numerous fieldmice & now is catching these darling little birds that fly around our horse & sheep water troughs. When they land for a drink, they make themselves vulnerable to Shadik if she is outside. I like her catching the mice, but not the lovely birds. She even caught a hummingbird already! I have such a love-hate relationship with these two cats.
Shadik's latest fieldmouse catch that she proudly carried to our back door.
Shadik, now between 10-11 months old, enjoys basking in the sun on our porch. She still loves nothing more than stalking & jumping on her rival for my affection. Yes, these were both my daughter's cats. However, my being the one who feeds them & pets them & just spends time with them...has done its work. They now consider me "their person". If you look closely at Rachel, the middle-aged cat of 12-13 human years, you can see where bits of her fur have been pulled out by Shadik or herself. When stressed, Rachel reaches around & pulls out bits of her own fur. She leaves these all over the house for me to notice. It bothered me until I recalled that some cats urinate all over the house when they are stressed. I'll take Rachel's bad habit any day over that, especially since her favorite napping place is on the comforter on our bed!
We declawed Rachel years ago when she had nearly demolished Esther's bedroom door by using it as a scratching post. She totally ignored the official, carpeted scratching post that we had bought for her. So she is in a handicapped position when Shadik pounces on her. She tries to "psych. out" Shadik with loud hissing & growling, but Shadik figured out months ago that Rachel is fairly defenseless. Louis will not let me take Shadik to be declawed yet. She scratches the furniture, like our piano below, when she misjudges a leap. She has made most of our upholstered furniture her scratching posts, despite the catnip-odor on her official post. Rachel likes that odor more than Shadik & can be found rolling herself around on the post. Louis remembers the blustery day that Shadik was chased up one of our tallest pines by a coyote. We couldn't find her in the dark & windswept rain. We were convinced the coyote must have eaten Esther's kitten. The next day after church, while it was still raining, we finally located her by a tiny mewing coming from the tiptop of the tree. Her claws had to be sore after hanging on to the swaying top for hours and hours. She looked so teeny, being sopping wet. Louis used our longest ladder to get about a third of the way up the tree, his bow-hunting apparatus to winch himself up another third of the way & finally coaxed her down to him from there. After this very long hour of fear for Shadik & himself, he is anxious that no animal finds her outside defenseless. Her small teeth would be overmatched by those of a fox or coyote.
However, Shadik has found worthy prey herself. She has caught numerous fieldmice & now is catching these darling little birds that fly around our horse & sheep water troughs. When they land for a drink, they make themselves vulnerable to Shadik if she is outside. I like her catching the mice, but not the lovely birds. She even caught a hummingbird already! I have such a love-hate relationship with these two cats.
3 comments:
This was such a good read, Cary! Sad little picture at the end! That's the reality of the animal kingdom, I guess! Terrific story about Louis' cat rescue! He's right -- she would have been a goner that night without claws!
Um, wait a minute!
Is that a GRAND Piano that is scratched like that!
Oooooh my! If kitty was mine, she would wish she was yours if she did that on your piano which of course would really be my piano if since she, being yours, was mine! As you can see, I start to froth over things like this!
Yes, Carol-Ann, our piano is a studio grand...a dusty one in this photo. In my fretting over the scratches, I didn't stop & dust for the week before taking the photo. We bought this piano with the money given to us at our wedding in 1972. The couple we bought it from had inherited the piano & neither of them played it. They had bought a home & needed appliances, so they sold the piano to finance them. We saw the ad in the paper & rushed over to buy our first piece of furniture. Louis was an apartment manager at the time, so we lived in a furnished apartment. The piano took up nearly half of our tiny livingroom.
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