Late Birthdays!

 Bad cat mommy, bad! Missed their birthday. Again. It was the 27th, so I'm only one day gone, but still.. bad mommy! 

 

 

Happy Birthday to my sweet kitties!! They are 11!  

 

They were born in a litter of six to a very feral momma kitty. Chrystal rescued them over the course of a few days. They were old enough to be weaned, and the momma was so so so feral that she was TNRed and put back where she'd be fed and looked after. Then she started the long process of taming the kittens. 

 

I didn't put any expectations on them for being cuddly but Leo immediately attached to me, even meowing for me when I was out of his sight so he could come running to me when I called back. He was very cuddly! Still is!

Glitter wanted to be friends, but was nervous. She would get all excited when I'd talk to her, she'd run straight at me, head bang into my leg then get nervous again and run away. She did that for a few weeks then she decided she could sit next to us and get pets. 

Cashmere, I was told, might never be a hands on cat, might never be a lap cat and would probably keep to herself all the time. This was true for probably the first year. Now she's a velcro kitty. Especially toward Greg, her one true love (although since the pilling for fleas incident she's been stuck to me, punishing him, but I'm sure she'll come around) 

I'm finding it hard to type right now as Cashmere is trying to tuck under my arm and is displeased by the movement that typing causes, and Leo is trying to sit directly between me and the laptop so that he is the focus of my attention as it should rightly be. Glitter, thank goodness, has had her snuggles and pets and is content to sleep with her head flopped over my ankle so hard that I'm pretty sure she's cutting off the circulation and will probably strangle herself, however as long as I hear the Harley-with-no-muffler snore, I think she's ok. 

This is our birthday naptime! 

Later they will get a wonderful snack, and maybe even some treats and they are being pet and snuggled to their hearts content, as is their due. 

I do not want to think about them being 11 now, and I refuse to believe the cat age chart that says they are 60 in cat years because they are still my kittens, not aging cats. Anyone who tries to tell me different will be subjected to me sticking my fingers in my ears and loudly singing I can't hear you! They are babies and they will stay babies! 

As a birthday gift, I will not use a picture of Leo post-shave. ;) None of these pictures are new because bad mommy hasn't got all their pictures moved to the new laptop yet..

Leo the Chinese Lion (that's his full name in case you didn't know)

Cashmere

 

 

 

 

Glitter

 

 

 

 

The three of them as feral kittens (plus sister Spitz tucked in the bottom left)

Glitter

 

 

  

Leo

 

 

 

Cashmere

 

 

 

 Three backs, left to right: Glitter, Cashmere, Leo

 

 

 

 

 

Top: Glitter, Left: Cashmere, Right: Leo

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday!

 

Mancat Mohawk Monday

 Leo here, hi hi fuzzy and non fuzzy friends! I gotta tell you my tail of woe! Actually, my tail is actually fine, it's the rest of me! Oh the Felinty! 

 

Ok, I'll admit that I didn't like those nasty fur balls either, but I certainly never consented to the buzz buzz wand thingie! I am proud to say that it took three of them perform this travesty on me! They had to recruit the Nephew to help hold me down while mom wielded the buzz buzz.

I suppose you must see what they did to realize the full extent of my woe. Prepare yourselves.. if you've never seen a mancat with a mohawk, you're in for a shock! 

 

 

 

This is from above. The fluff you see at the top of the picture is my fluffy tail, which, thank ceiling cat, is still fluffy! Not a very even mohawk, right?

 

I'm giving daddy the back of disrespect, tail up style, for his involvement in the whole episode. Also showing you my left side. See that pinkish circle close to the still long furs on my back? That was a particularly nasty mat and mom had to shave it even closer, you can see my skin!!! Boy did she get a shock seeing that pink ring of skin, pals! See, I'm what they call blue, or a gray kitty, which really means I'm a dilute black cat, so she expected me to have dark skin, probably gray, but nope, it is a mauve-ish pink!

This is my right side. I'm trying to convince dad that we can still be friends, but that he should not try to hold me for this shave thing again. I was not happy with him, but I need to remain on friendly terms because he's the one who picks out my dinner and he knows which ones I prefer. Sometimes you gotta be nice to the ones who open cans...

 

 Here's mom's attempt at mohawk-ing my mohawk... She wanted to see if my remaining furs would stand up. Answer: for a few moments. Those furs, by the way, measure 2 1/2 inches long. I need to show that to my v.e.t who has me listed as a 'short hair' sheesh, I don't think so dude!

 

 

 

Finally, here I am giving mom a bit of the ears of annoyance even though I"m sitting by her. Gotta make sure she knows this is an unacceptable situation that will not be repeated. while still getting scritches, right? 

Hope you all are having a better time than me! 

I'll let Glitter show off what happened to her on the infamous shave day another time. This was MY tale of woe after all, not hers!

New Developments

Oh have we got developments going on around here. Lots of them.

First off, had to get a new laptop and so I got a skin for it immediately! What do you think? Think anyone can tell I like cats a little bit?? :D

Next, you know Twin2, right? She and her hubby had the sweetest baby boy two years ago and he made friendly with my kitties. 

 

(old picture) 

Well about 20 days ago, July 31st to be exact, they welcomed another little guy into their life! 

 

And the big brother is very very happy with his little brother! Little brother came over to meet me last week and got sniffed a bit by curious kitties and they declared him perfect, just like his big brother! yay!We are all over the moon about this development! 

Then we had some issues with Leo's fur getting all matted up. I kept trying to trim them out, but he HATES that, so I had to sneak trim when he was sleeping comfortably. 

This is one such spot. Please note that the furs come back curly! 

This cutting them out here and there was not working, and some of them were getting pretty stuck-close to the skin so I had to take drastic actions... I ordered a pet trimmer.... it's so shocking that I will have to post about that another day! 

Glitter was having issues too. 

Her pretty ruff gets so long that she can't get it out of her mouth when she's grooming and we end up with pictures like that one! Poor girl! Obviously she'd need some trimming too... More on that another day as well.

After the trimming sessions we found a very revolting development! They have fleas! We have not had fleas here since before we got Leo!!! But in some shortened fur (oh the humanity, wait til you see!) we noticed them.... I HATE fleas!!! So we went right out and got some Advantage Frontline (went back and checked, said the wrong thing at first, it was frontline not advantage) and got it on them right away. 

It did nothing. Well, that's not quite true, it made for some very very very thirsty cats for about 24 hours. Have any of you had that happen?? 

They always lick the condensation off of my water bottles, right? Leo and Glitter the most, Cashmere sometimes. But that day, everyone was constantly after my bottles! Glitter came up every ten minutes I swear! And she was so obsessed she even tried grabbing them with her paws. They have a full water dish all the time. So I told Greg maybe they wanted it cold? He put ice cubes in their water dish and they drank half of it in a few hours! It's a big bowl so they normally just take down an inch or so, and they have water upstairs too that they like to drink on the bathroom sink. But they wanted ice baby! Is that normal with Advantage?

And while I'm asking. What is the best flea treatment now? Anyone have a good recommendation? Do I need to get something from the vet? I remember back when we did have fleas getting some kind of oral medication for the fleas that worked really well and fast.. Is that still out there? 

Thank you in advance!! 

So that's most of our new developments. And the hinted at one of post-trimmer Leo and Glitter... oh dear or dear, you're gonna flip your tails off when you see!