A little rough-and-tumble
Comments (1) I think Keaton wins this one, paws down!
Posts tagged: cats
Comments (1) Fatima
By Gary Roberts, September 7, 2009
Keaton swats a fly down and Fatima gets ready to pounce
After having been fed during the winter months by an older gentleman in his back yard, and then brought to the Homeless Cat Rescue in March, Fatima (formerly Elle-Bee) eventually found her way into our home to become the latest feline addition to our household on August 29, 2009.
The first few days were a bit tough on her, I think. The new home must’ve seemed incredibly large (it’s a 3-story row house) and filled with strange sights, sounds and smells.
Our other cat, Keaton, showed only a passing interest in Fatima at first, as he peered at her through the metal grill I’d placed over my office door. This was to be her new home for the first few days, just to get her used to where the litter pan was, and to give her a bit of privacy and alone time in order to familiarize herself with the new environment. She didn’t seem intimidated by Keaton, even though he’s almost twice her size. I suppose she was used to having other cats around during her stay at the cat rescue agency at Yonge & St. Clair, where we first spotted her.
We were told she was a fairly friendly and affectionate cat when she first arrived at the cat rescue. However, her personality started to change after a couple of months in the cat pen. I guess the longer she stayed there, the more depressed she became at not having the space and freedom to roam around and explore at will.
Now she has more than enough room to wander. She also seems to be getting along well with Keaton, to the point where they’ve started to play together and chase one another up and down the stairs.
To add to the excitement, yesterday a huge fly had the misfortune of getting in through the kitchen door and the scene suddenly shifted to the plains of the Serengeti, as two tiny lions stalked their prey. They finally cornered the fly against a window pane in the living room when Keaton swatted it to the floor, where it was quickly dispatched by Fatima.
All in all, she’s settling in nicely and is definitely warming to us. I’ve managed to give her a good brushing and she seemed to love that, as she rubbed against my legs and arched her back for a more vigorous scrubbing with the wire bristles of the brush. I ended up with a fair-sized hairball in my hand by the time I was done, so she obviously benefited from the grooming.
Fatima relaxing after feasting on flies
Garbo Jeng and Fatima: A Tale of Two Kitties
By Gary Roberts, August 29, 2009
Garbo Jeng
I had to put one of our cats to sleep earlier this month. Garbo Jeng had had a severe lung infection, which left extensive scarring on the lining of her lungs. It turned out she also had a very large tumour and she was in a pretty serious condition; her breathing was shallow and very rapid, and she was also leaking mucus from her nostrils and mouth.
I’d already gone through tests and biopsies with another cat of mine, Milo, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience for him. In the end,the prognosis wasn’t good for Milo and I had to put him to sleep, too. I didn’t want to have to put Garbo through that same battery of tests, so I made the decision to do the humane thing and have her euthanised while she was still relatively pain-free, although she was obviously in distress at having a lot of difficulty breathing.
It’s always sad when you have to go through this at the end of a pet’s life, but my philosophy is such that when one pet passes on, then that opens the door for another pet in need—whether they’re at a humane society, city pound or a pet shop after having been brought in as a rescue animal.
So it was with Fatima, a young female calico kitty whom El Franco had seen many times in a local pet store close to where he works. Fatima had been there since March, after having been brought in by a man who’d fed her and her brother after discovering the two of them (they were just kittens at this point) in his back yard. Their mother was nowhere to be seen, so it was obvious they were strays and were fending for themselves. This person fed them for 9 months, helping them survive the winter, and even built a small shelter for them in his back yard.
Once spring arrived, he then took the the two cats to his local pet store where they were put up for adoption.
Fatima’s brother, Archie, was adopted out after a couple of months, but she was left behind and her personality quickly changed once Archie was gone. She had been an affectionate if somewhat shy cat, but she then started to become withdrawn and reclusive. It seemed to the staff and to El Franco that she was becoming depressed at the loss of her sibling, and at the fact that she’d now been in a cage for over 5 months.
Fatima
It was at this point that we decided to adopt Fatima (whose name was then Elle-Bee, but we thought she had an exotic look which deserved a more exotic name). So I went on the subway up to St. Clair today, cat carrier in hand, and filled out all the necessary paperwork before taking a taxi back home with her. She’s resting in a cat bed at the side of my desk as I write this post. She’s shy and very quiet, but I’m going to leave her to her own devices so she’ll be able to orient herself and come round in her own time. I’ve placed a metal grill across the door to my office so she can see out into the hallway and even get to know Keaton, our other cat—once he wakes up, gets off the couch and finally realises that something different is happening!—through the safety of the barrier.
Fatima will now stay in my office for a few days, where she’ll have plenty of food, water and her own litter until I think she’s ready to venture forth, at which point I’ll remove the grill from the door and let her discover the rest of the house at her leisure.
Classy Cat
By Gary Roberts, May 12, 2009
Some cats are just naturally regal-looking and comport themselves well. Winston was like that. He was a stolid, good looking black cat of ours from a few years ago. Winston had survived on the streets for quite some time before being taken in by the Ottawa Humane Society, where we then adopted him. He’d been used as target practice, we soon discovered, and had to have a lead pellet from an air rifle removed from his side. He had this aloofness about him, an “I-will-not-deign-to-speak-to-you” attitude which was quite at odds with his friendly nature, once he got to know you.
Yes, Winston was a very regal cat. Until, of course, we caught him peeing in the toilet one day! Still, bodily functions aside, the fact of the matter was that Winston managed to look classy.
Of course there was also my favourite cat, Milo. Like Winston before him, Milo has now passed away and I’ve already written all I can about him. He was a faithful follower of mine, shadowing me from room to room and sitting with me whenever I worked at my desk at home.
And then, finally, there’s Keaton.
Ah, what can I say about Keaton’s regal bearing? Well, I think this photo of him says it all…
Warm light
By Gary Roberts, March 16, 2008
We got Keaton from the Toronto Humane Society in November, 2007 - not long after my cat Milo died. He’s a grey cat with lots of personality, who follows us from room to room. A regular lap cat, he likes nothing better than collapsing on me in the evening as I’m couch potatoing. He can also be found napping on the bed especially if there’s sunlight streaming in, which is how I found him today.
If they’re treated well, pets can have such a carefree life and it’s grounding to see how little they have to care about. I often wonder what thoughts, if any, pass through their tiny brains:
“Warm light - must lie down and stretch!”
“Human - feed me!”
“Scratch my belly!”
“Purrrrrr…”
Here’s a picture of Keaton, stretching in the warm light.
I am Cat, hear me snore!
Milo the Cat
By Gary Roberts, November 5, 2007
October 26, 2007 was the day I had to put my cat, Milo, to sleep. That was hard, one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Milo was my little buddy who’d been with me since I arrived in Canada in 1999. He was an orange and white cat who grew from a little ball of fur to a whopping 19 lbs - hard to imagine I could fit him into the palm of my hand when I first got him.
Milo developed cancer of the lymph nodes, which quickly spread, and the prognosis wasn’t good - 6 to 12 months with chemotherapy and even that wasn’t guaranteed to be a success.
I first discovered the lumps in his throat when El Franco and I were watching TV one night and Milo, as was his wont, jumped onto the couch and demanded his rightful place in my arms for a chest-and-belly rub. That’s when I felt the lumps and I immediately realised something was wrong. My initial thought was that he had a virus of some sort; having just moved into an old Victorian house with a small back yard, I let Milo hang out with us whenever we were enjoying the last warm days of summer. He would spend a lot of time sniffing around the perimeter and I thought he might have contracted something from another cat’s feces.
That week, the vet performed a biopsy and the results came back after more than 7 days. Needless to say, they weren’t favourable and I took him to a cat oncologist who had some doubts about the fine-needle biopsy and wanted to remove two of Milo’s lymph nodes in order to get better test results. I had to wait another week for the results and at this point I was already greiving for my little buddy. His personality had changed and he became more and more withdrawn, not wanting to spend time with me or lay in my arms. Eventually, the second set of results confirmed the first and that’s when I got the final prognosis.
Throughout this whole period, Milo had been poked, pricked, pinched and subjected to a battery of tests, none of which were pleasant for the little guy. He had to be force-fed medication and analgesics, which tasted abominal to him and made him froth at the mouth whenever his teeth punctured one of the capsules. The poor thing had just about had enough, I think, and the last few days were a listless existence for him - and, it felt, for me too.
In the end, I had to decide on quality of life versus a humane and painless end for the best cat I’d ever had in the whole of my life. That was so hard. I never thought I’d be without Milo, at least not for another 10 years or so, and it was incredibly painful to take him to the clinic in a cab, in rush hour traffic, knowing that I’d be going home without him. All the while, he’d rub his chin against my hand in his carrier and nibble my fingers.
Milo died peacefully in my arms at the animal clinic, kneading my face and neck as I scratched his chest and belly, just like old times.
Although the pain will ease as time passes, I wonder if I’ll allow myself to feel the same for another pet ever again.
Animals & Nature
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cats, milo, pets
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