Piper Peeps

When I left off in the tail, er tale, of my mom's new Kitty, Piper, she had just walked out of her carrier and into her new forever mom's arms for her first hug. We took a few pictures, and then Piper was ready to explore.

And by explore, I mean run behind the couch. Oh boy. It was really late but we didn't want to leave until we showed her where the litter box and food and water were. Greg looked over the back of the couch and tried talking to her. He'd been talking to her on the ride home, and also opening the cage go give her the occasional pet. She was so good when he did that, until the last time when she decided, "Oh, I can come out?" and tried like mad to get past his hand. I give him credit for being able to drive and keep her in the cage and eventually get the door shut again! I couldn't reach her to help from where I was sitting.. also couldn't pet her, totally unfair!

So Greg talked to her from over the back of the couch and she responded by going out the other end. I saw her head down the hallway and into the bathroom. Mom followed her and tried sweet talking her at which point Piper decided she had other places to be and went into my moms room and under the bed. Mom had forgotten to shut the door to prevent just such an occurrence.. Still gotta show her the litter and food, so this set off a big ordeal where Greg and mom tried everything, including moving the bed, to find the kitty. After about half an hour they took a break.. And found Piper in the bathtub behind the shower curtain.

Mom picked Piper up with the intent on walking with her to the foyer with the food and the back room with the litter. But mom.. well, she's no spring chicken, she made it to the first chair and had to plop down to catch her breath while carrying her new bowling ball, I mean, new kitty! I did mention the she had wanted a large kitty, right? Piper fit that bill, and more!

Greg took over then, he's a much better bowler, I mean, he's much better at carrying heavy objects.. I mean.. Greg helped! He took her to the food and water dishes and showed her the yummies, then carried her out to show her where the litter box was. I told him to put her in it, if nothing else, she'll get her foot scent in the box and know it's hers, right? She sniffed around, then decided to explore this room, which is my mom's craft and computer room. There are doll house miniature things on and under tables everywhere and two desks and a cabinet, oh so many places for a kitty to hide. Oh so many places for her to get completely around the room without ever coming out where you can see her!

But she kept talking to mom, and she wasn't running to hide, just kind of hugging the walls. Time for us to leave! Sorry mom, Greg had to get up early the next morning for work and it was late as heck! I figured it would take a day or two for Piper to get comfy and then she'd be looking for attention. I was wrong.. The second Greg and I went into the garage to leave and shut the door behind us, she came out and rubbed on my mom's legs! She put her paws up on mom's lap and gave one of her peeping meows as if to say, you can pet me now!

We're not even out of the garage and mom hollered, "She came out!" Figures.. Silly kitty! I called once we got home and found out that while Piper kept going off behind things, she also kept coming out and peeping at mom and asking for pets. She was exploring the house from behind one piece of furniture or another. She spent quite a bit of time behind the washer, so the next day mom blocked that off. Not a good spot for a large kitty to get stuck..

The very next day Piper was attached to my mom. Every time she'd get a little lost, she'd meow until mom called her or went to her and she'd come out and get pets! She sits next to her on the couch and demands pets. If my mom doesn't pet her fast enough, she shoves her whole head under her hand DEMANDING what she wants! Piper goes into rapturous joy when she gets pet, "oh yeah, that's the spot, purrrrrrrrrrrr!" When she gets up next to mom, she flops over hard into her leg for her pettin' time!

My sister spends a lot of time up at my mom's house, taking care of her and basically being there for her. She spends several nights a week up there too. So the first day she came over after Piper's arrival, she came in to see the kitty. And Piper ran under the couch! At least I'm not the only one she hid from! It didn't take long though, for Piper to realize she wasn't going anywhere, and also that she had two extra hands for the pettin' times! Now she flops next to my sister too, demanding her pets!

If my mom spends any time at all at the computer, which she does every day, Piper comes out and puts her paws on her leg and peeps at her, letting her know it's time for pets! Mom is going to have to get Piper her own computer chair so she can sit next to her! Because girlfriend will not be denied! When she says it's pettin' time, it's pettin' time doggone it!

So I guess you could say, Piper has settled in quickly and is perfectly capable of running the household already! And now some pictures mom has taken!

Piper: This is where I lay when I want to by next to my new mom, but she can't reach me over the end table. Doesn't keep me from kneading on the carpet and talking to her though!

 

 

This are my foodies and waters dishes. That pink thing is my toy. My new mommy's daughter, the one who bringed me here, bought me new furry mousies. I reward her for this by staring at the mousies when mommy holds them up for me and giving them the eyes of "what the hell is that?! Get it away from me!!" hee hee, I think it's funny. I would rather play with the old toys from the kitty before me!

 

 

I call this, "it's my pettin' time!" I needs scritchin's on my neck and do not forget the top of my head, I loves pettin's on the top of my head. I also call this, almost out of mommy's reach, because it's hard for her to bend over this far. But I am still in the training mode with my new mommy. She'll get it soon enough I'm sure.

 

 

My mom's previous cat, Sir Moose-a-lot Goodyear Roadkill Thunderbottom, used to love to sit in front of my mom and let her pet him with her foot. Guess what Piper did?

Piper: I call this, "Oh yeah, that's the good spot!" The mommy training is going really well! She already understands that rolly polly kitties like to have their back rubbed by the tail! (it's hard to reach that spot for us full bodied girl kitties!) All in all, I'd say I'm a pretty happy girl here!

And I can report that my mom is a pretty happy girl too! She's got a new buddy, and it only took a few days before she decided to sleep on the bed with her! I think we found her a really good match, don't you?

Someone New Pipes Up!

Meet Piper! She's got a lot to say!

 

You all remember that my mom lost her Sir Moose-a-lot Goodyear Roadkill Thunderbottom not long ago? Well, she was ready for a new furry friend and I decided that I would find one for her as a Mother's day present.

I had no idea it would be so hard to find her a kitty! It's not like she was super specific about the kind of kitty she wanted.. Just had to be a big headed, white faced, tiger and white or tux, short haired, large male, super friendly, maybe dog friendly, kitty. Easy peasy, right? I'll wait for the laughter to stop.. ;)

Of course the first place I looked was Winnie's Wish! (do you know me?? hello!) But the only one who fit the bill, sort of, has to go with his brother and he doesn't fit the 'super friendly' or even really large. The super friendly Wisher is Sunspot, who really really really needs a home! But there's no way I could pass her off as a white faced large tuxie seeing as she's a lovely tabby with patches of copper in her gray tabby fur. Seriously, how is she still waiting?? So pretty!
(speaking of the brothers Binks and Blue, come on, someone out there must want an adorable pair of sweethearts who, while they may take a while to adjust, will give years of joy to whoever adopts them!)

I checked out kitties in local places, but no one seemed to fit the bill. I only found thirteen thousand that I wanted to take home, but none for my mom. (no, we're not looking for more kitties, three in our little house is enough!)

Meanwhile, I had a surgery consultation coming up in Columbus. Hey! I thought, I know someone who works with kitties in Columbus!! You all know her too, I'm sure, as the mom of the Random Felines, Jeanne! She fosters for Colony Cats, so I thought maybe they might have the special kitty we are looking for. I wrote to Jeanne and told her my tail, er, tale of woe in trying to find a big headed, white faced, tiger and white or tux, super friendly, maybe dog friendly, large male kitty. She wrote back right away with two quick suggestions and said there were probably more. The two she sent were adorable! But if you noticed, I forgot a key piece of the perfect kitty description.. These boys were both long haired. Mom wants short hair. Poo.

I got the link to their Petfinder page and oh boy! Lots of kitties that might fit the bill! Mom and I looked and I put all the possibles into a list for her. A few days passed and I said, hey, did you pick a kitty? She gave me a list of four (out of I think 16) that she liked. Between looking at them and picking them, three had been adopted! Poo again.

That leaves one, right? So we had our kitty? Guess again, there were a few new ones! Or at least a few we hadn't noticed before. More lists, more narrowing it down. We were getting down to the nitty gritty! My appointment was Tuesday and I needed to let Jeanne know as soon as possible so if it was in a foster home she could get it to the shelter for us to see!

Finally, I think it was Saturday night or Sunday when she finally said, "Piper." I looked her up to make sure she hadn't been adopted and.. "Um, mom. Did you know Piper was a girl?" "Oh? Well, that's ok." She was one of the only kitties listed as "large". So I let Jeanne know and we made plans to meet after my appointment!

Fast forward to Tuesday, we got out of my appointment very late and pretty much (with one quick stop at a specialty nut company) headed over to Colony Cats to meet Jeanne and Piper! Jeanne was waiting outside. Have you met her? What a really nice sweet lady! And it's not just her kitty tattoos that let you know she's a cat lady for sure!

We did the paperwork outside (busy inside even though they had just opened! Hope they had lots of adoptions!) and finally I couldn't take it, I had to get in there and get my hands on some fur! A mostly black little tuxie obliged and let me pet her as she sat next to me, so cute!

Piper was not one of Jeanne's fosters, so she didn't know her on sight, but knew where she was sleeping. Unfortunately just before we went in, a little boy ran into her cat tree and she moved. As I looked around at all of the tuxies, I realized that one persons idea of large and medium and another's idea can be vastly different! LOTS of the tuxies and tiger and whites that had been listed as medium were certainly large enough kitties to satisfy my mom's want of a big boy! But Piper had been chosen, she's the one we'd be leaving with. They listed her as 'large'. Me? I would have listed her as Extra Large! But adorable with it! Lots to love! Jeanne found her by the fish tank, that's where we took the picture I shared above.

"You like fishies, Piper?" I asked her, "Well, you're going to love the turtle tank where you're going!" Jeanne lugged, I mean, carried Piper over to me and I tried to hold her, but she much preferred to move to the tree right next to me where she enjoyed letting me pet her. She especially liked having her back right at the tail base rubbed. I've had big kitties before, that's the hardest spot for the round ones to get at, so scritches there probably feel great. (Shh, I didn't tell mom this, but I got too aggressive with the rump rubs and she put her teeth on my hand, "that's enough of that, lady!" but it wasn't really a bite, just letting me know to cool it!)

Time to load up and head for home! And that's when we found out what a talker she was! The second Jeanne put her in the carrier (let me pause here to say that Jeanne is an expert getting a kitty into a carrier! just, pop, and she was in! I'd still be there struggling I'm sure!) and girlfriend started up with a litany of complaints mixed with the song of her people! We paid for the kitty, and she sang. We walked out with her, and she sang. We loaded her into the van, and she sang. We said goodbye to Jeanne, and she sang. We loaded up, and she sang. We pulled out, and she sang. Continuously. But not loudly, because she has this adorable, tiny little sweet peeping kind of voice!

Piper sang for at least ten full, consistent minutes. Then she settled down, thank heavens! Though she peeped every so often all the way home, she was done with the long song. She was a good girl on a stop we made to see Greg's sister and her family who live in Columbus, met everyone through the carrier door and sat quietly while we visited for half an hour. Finally, it was time to get on the long road home. It was about a three hour drive to my mom's house and Piper traveled like a champ.

My mom called several times while we were on our way home, Piper even peeped into the phone for her! She called so many times that my phone battery went dead! I had to use Greg's phone then and I put the hurts to his battery too. Mom said this was even better than Christmas! We had to get her present home so she could open it!

We finally arrived, and the sky opened up and it began to pour with rain! Gotta love the timing, right? But we were there and Piper was home! I had mom sit on the couch, we put the carrier next to her and opened it. She didn't hesitate, Piper walked out and into her first hug with her new mommy.

Welcome home Piper! And welcome to the family! Happy belated Mother's day to my mom!

Since this has gotten WAY longer than I intended, I'll tell you how Piper is doing in her forever home next time! (I heard those groans!)

Easy Like Sunday

Glitter: Ah, pillows, is there any better nap spot?

Two for Tuesday

Nice days means open windows! Leo and Glitter tried to share a window. It sorta worked..

Glitter: Ya know, if you moved over or sat up, we could both sit in that window..

Leo: Hm, maybe so, but then again, maybe not.

 

 

Glitter and Leo: SQUIRREL!!

 

 

Leo: Oo birds too!

Glitter: Where does that squirrel think it's going?

 

 

All of the critters out there seem to want to torment the kitties, don't they? Thank goodness for strong screens!

Cashmere VS the Vet

Sweet darling loving FRIENDLY Cashmere had to go to the vet this week.. She wanted to explore the exam room. Until... the vet showed up! Oh the indignities! My girl hissed!

Neither she nor Glitter ever hiss! (Leo hisses when there is a substitute mail carrier) Shocking event for the vet I'm sure.. Probably shook in his boots.

Poor girl has a UTI and had to have a shot. She also has pills. The vet said, "I'll give her todays." And popped it into her mouth. Whoosh, pill down the gullet!

Yay, we thought, this means she'll be easy to pill for the rest of the ten days, right? Right. ...Now hold on, don't get ahead of me and start laughing yet! Wait for it..

Cut to the next night when she's due for her pill. Oops, we fed them their snack before we remembered she needed to be pilled. Well, the vet assistant gave us a syringe to squirt water down after the pill, so maybe she wont need the snack to get rid of the icky pill taste.

Greg gathers up an unsuspecting Cashmere, who decides it must be extra special cuddle time with daddy and starts purring away! Not that she's crazy about being picked up, but it was daddy after all, her most favorite person in the world! What's this? He brings her to the mommy, the not-that-close-second-favorite-person! This usually means nail clips, oh no! Cue struggles!

Claw clipping will come soon enough, poor girl, probably this week, but no, we were only after getting a pill into her. Nice tiny oblong pills. No biggie, right? I said no getting ahead of me!

It took a few tries, but I got her jaw open and popped that pill in, just like the vet had, closed her mouth, waited for a swallow, let go... nothing in her mouth! Perfect! Little squirt of water to follow and we're done!

Greg keeps hold of her to give her some "good girl" scritches and... what's this? There's a wet soggy pill embedded in her extremely fluffy bib!

How did she even get that out of her mouth?? I didn't see a thing! And I was watching!!!

Have you ever tried getting a wet soggy pill out of fluffy long fur without breaking it up because you have to reinsert it into the cat? Not fun, is it? Sigh.

Take two: Blap, saw her do this quick tongue move that slid it out of the back side of her jaws just before I closed her mouth! Little brat!

Take three: Faster this time, pretty sure it's in! Hold.. hold... hold.... ok water to follow, look around.... no pill! Has to have gone down! Whew!

A few "good enough girl" scritches and Greg lets her go. Zoom, she's off like a shot!

Then Greg says, "Hey, what's that?" There's a pill in the folds of my blouse... Oh no! But it wasn't wet or soggy.. hold on here.... Check the bottle, do a pill count. Doggone it, musta dropped one when I was getting one out! Sheesh...

Day one down, 8 to go... Will any of us survive? I have my doubts! (You can laugh now, I'm done!)

Cashmere: Thank goodness that's over!

Keep thinking that, pretty girl!

Hmm, probably should have titled this one, Cashmere VS the Pills!