Comments (1)

By Gary Roberts, December 6, 2009

I think Keaton wins this one, paws down!

Comments (0)

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

Comments (0)

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.