There's Something About Ernie

Like some people, certain cats are just blessed with charisma.

Ernie is one of those cats.

From the day that he showed up on my deck in Bay St. Louis, exactly six years ago yesterday, it was clear the tiny three-week-old grey and white tabby kitten with the big ears and enormous paws possessed personal magnetism in spades.

Immediately upon his arrival, he started charming the fur off the feral kitties that lived under my deck, working his way into their hearts (and their food bowls).

I thought he was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. Which is why I got concerned when I saw him trying to chat up the 'possum and raccoon that also helped themselves to the cat chow after darkness fell. In the wild, personality does not determine survival of fittest.

So I brought him inside to become part of my inside feline family.

Though Little Ernie was clearly delighted with his new family of five feline brothers and sisters, the feeling was not always mutual. His arrival in our lives coincided with the other cats' third birthday; a little brother was not on their birthday list.

Ernie was oblivious. For his first year in our family, Ernie, in true little brother fashion, padded around behind Henry wherever he went. He mimicked his mannerisms. Henry was not amused and frequently swatted the little guy sending him tumbling head over tail across the room. Ernie thought it was a cool game. He wanted to be Henry when he grew up.

Henry doesn't swat him around anymore now that Ernie is twice his size. He just hides from him. Ernie doesn't mind (I'm sure he's still oblivious).

And then there's Roxie. When she arrived, a skinny, frightened little feral, Ernie gallantly showed her the ropes, sharing his food bowl, protecting her from the others' malevolent glares, lovingly washing her gaunt little face with his big, pink tongue and heeding her piteous cries for company at all hours of the day and night. Theirs was -- and is -- one of the sweetest love stories I've ever witnessed.

When I fostered her three little grandchildren a year later, Ernie was their mentor and playmate. The slept in a pile, the kitttens happily snuggled against Ernie's growing girth. When awake they dueled, the kittens batting Ernie's huge paws with their tiny ones. One by one the kittens went off to new homes. When the last one left, Ernie wandered the house disconsolately for days. He missed his little buddies.

Just recently, three more kittens (Roxie's great grandchildren) joined our foster family. The semi-feral little moppets huddled wide-eyed in the training cage hissing in terror whenever one of the adult cats came sniffing their way. Then Ernie ambled by, belly a'swingin'.

It was if a switch had been thrown. The three kittens rushed to the wall of the cage, mewing happily, three sets of paws stretched out eagerly, reaching for Ernie, batting at his tail, their own tails up and alert. And, as always, Ernie was happy to oblige.

It's the damnedest thing.

My House Overfloweth

The House Where the Black Cat Lives has always been pretty much at capacity, but for the past week or so we've been overrun with black cats.

Gizmo, now about six months old, has been caught and spayed. She now resides in my guest bedroom waiting for relocation into a new home. Although she retains some of the skittish mannerisms of a feral cat, she is a naturally affectionate kitten, given to spontaneous cuddles and outbursts of impromptu purring. She is well on her way to being someone's devoted companion.


Gizmo

Her mother, Funny Face, has finally been caught and spayed (the culmination of over a year's worth of effort). She remains in her old neighborhood, adopted as a yard cat. Another happy ending.

Three of the four kittens in her last litter were caught at one go and are now undergoing socialization in my guest bathroom as a prelude to being placed in new homes. They are about seven weeks old now -- a truly adorable age. All are black and white tuxedo kitties with white whiskers and longish hair. While they still hiss defensively when I pick them up unexpectedly, they grow friendlier every day, allowing me to cuddle them (kitten therapy is the best!) and tease them with the feather wand.

As you might guess, all this extra kitty love pretty much eats up all my spare time -- the time I used to use for eating, sleeping ... and blogging. So my apologies for having been away, but it's been for a good reason.

So .... anyone looking for a kitten? Call me!

The Cat Mobile

You can tell a lot about a person by the car they drive. Not so much the type of car -- mine's a fairly generic Toyota Camry -- but by what they keep in it.

You wouldn't need to be a super-sleuth to figure out I'm a cat mama.

I actually chose the Camry over the Corolla so that I would have ample floor and seat room for stacking all seven cats in their carriers for our annual vaccination vet runs, household moves and emergency hurricane evacuations (been there, done that).


Peek into my trunk. On any given day you'll spy cases of canned cat food, large bags of kibble, water bottles, paper plates, trash bags, economy-size boxes of kitty litter (hefting those in and out of the car comprises my weight-lifting regimen) and a few empty Pet Smart bags, receipts and coupons that I never get around to using.


Like any cat mama, and a former Girl Scout, I travel prepared for any possible feline emergency. The "passengers" in my formerly roomy back seat include a wire small animal trap along with some camoflauge blankets and towels and some heavy duty claw-proof gloves. You just never know when the opportunity to trap a feral will present itself.

I also cart around a plastic cat carrier in case a kitty requires transport to the emergency vet pronto.

Always mindful of public relations -- yep, it's what I do in my spare time as well as my professional life -- I keep a few info kits about living harmoniously with feral cats from Alley Cat Allies, to hand out along with garbage can bungee cords and cat repellent to address some of the more prevalent crises I deal with.

And in my glove compartment? A supersize cat hair remover roller for last minute cleanup, wipes (because accidents do happen) and car deoderant -- because, let's face it, cat food stinks.

OK, so now you know what's in my cat mobile. What can people tell about you from YOUR car?

The Baby Daddy

I’ve rarely met a cat, especially a black cat, that I didn’t like.

But I don’t really like this one.

He’s mean. Really mean.

He chased off my two sweet boys, Fergus and Tux.

He beats up on his woman, Peggy Sue’s beautiful girl Funny Face, she of the sapphire eyes and Himalayan coat.

He’s the baby daddy to her two half-grown kittens, Gizmo and Leona, and probably also fathered the litter she gave birth to some three weeks ago.

He abuses his kids, too.

Gizmo and Leona hide in the tall grass when he’s around and walk between my ankles for protection from him when I come to feed them.

I usually just refer to him as "The Baby Daddy," but lately, I’ve started calling him “Sid.”

When Sid first started hanging out at the colony, he was wearing a flea color, so he must have belonged to someone sometime. He’s since lost the collar and apparently his home, too.

Maybe he was abandoned by someone in the trailer park down the street from the colony.

I suspect Sid’s home, when he had one, was not happy. The wary way he circles me, his plaintive cries, hisses and growls, the obsessively jealous way he guards his food tell a story of starvation and abuse.

I used to chase him off, but he refused to go. So now I feed him, speak to him softly, and, when he is receptive, scratch his ears. Even bad cats need love.

Occasionally, he purrs. He sounds rusty, like the engine turning over in an infrequently driven car.

Maybe if he wasn’t fueled by so much baggage and testosterone, he wouldn’t be so doggone cranky.

I know how to fix the testosterone. If I can manage to trap him, a trip to the spay and neuter clinic will get rid of all that in about three months.

Getting rid of the rest of his baggage may take a little longer.

And I don't have longer. I have just found out that my darlings are in trouble. Big trouble.

The neighborhood association where my little family resides has some issues and wants to get rid of them. Apparently, the fact that there are crack houses and growing drug problems in this neighborhood is no big deal to "the association". But they are very concerned about getting rid of a few cats who are cared for and sleep all day

To most of you this may not seem like a big deal. It is to me. Huge.

My heart is breaking, my stomach is churning, my blood pressure is up so high, it's like tribal drums beating in my ears. I just got a new mattress set. But something tells me I'm not going to sleep tonight. Or any night until I can resolve this.

You see. I've cared for this colony, and its evolving membership, for going on four years now. That's longer than many significant relationships in my life.

I've helped trap, foster and find "forever" homes for eight of its kittens. I've spayed/neutered three adult members and adopted two of them myself. One sleeps in my bed; one in my garage.

I've fed them by flashlight in the dark. Through cold winters and hot summers, I've slipped flea medicine on their necks when they scratch and antibiotics into their food when they are injured.

I've run interference with the neighbors and supplied informative literature about feral cats along with bungee cords and Nature's Miracle to deal with the more common complaints.

I've smiled into faces I've wanted to slap. Listened patiently and with as much sympathy as I can muster to some pretty outrageous (and I'm pretty sure some bogus whining). I've resisted the urge to point out that the "cats" they describe getting into their trash sound more like raccoons and that trash bags placed on the curb without benefit of first being placed in a can with a secure lid are an open invitation to raccoons, dogs, possums, foxes and other wildlife, not just cats.

I don't see myself just walking away at this point as some of my "friends" have suggested I do (for shame!) My babies, even Sid, need me now more than ever. No one else is stepping up to the plate.

I'll make a last ditch attempt to educate the ignorant, trap/spay/neuter/relocate the innocent and get assistance from the uncommitted . But I feel I'm going it totally alone.

And that scares the hell out of me. For me. And especially for the kitties.

Most of all this makes me mad as hell.

They're God's creatures. Don't they deserve better?

Peggy Sue, Part Deux

When we last checked in, our heroine, Peggy Sue, was holed up in my bathroom cabinet, resolutely , yet politely, refusing to be tamed while awaiting her date with destiny – an appointment at the local spay and neuter clinic.

I never did tame her, but I did get her spayed.

Now she’s living in my garage. Sort of.

The original plan was to return her to her home turf and into the bosom of the colony she had helped found. However, the colony underwent a profound demographic shift during Peggy Sue’s tenure in my bathroom.

In a turn of events worthy of a tragedy by Shakespeare, a mean cuss of an abandoned black tom cat had moved in, chased off Peggy Sue’s two grown sons, beat up and impregnated her daughter and staked his claim to the old homestead with a series of well-aimed, pungent sprays.


Feral cats, territorial creatures that they are, don’t really cotton to relocation, but I didn’t see as how I or Peggy Sue had much of a choice.

So into my garage Peggy Sue went with her carrier lined with now-familiar towel, her litter box and her food and water bowls. After about a week, I cracked open the door remembering that cheesy poster so prevalent on dorm room walls during my long-ago youth, “If you love something set it free, if it comes back it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.”

The next day all that remained of Peggy Sue were a few tufts of grey fur clinging to her terry blankie.

For nearly a month, I left food for her every evening at dusk, humming a few bars of “Peggy Sue” in the direction of my neighbor’s bamboo privacy hedge across the alley way where I fancied a feline shadow lurked.

The kibble was always gone in the morning, but no further sign of Peggy Sue. One grey dawn, I did see one of the other neighborhood cats squeezing his growing belly under the garage door. Mystery solved. Looks like Peggy Sue wasn’t coming back. Still, perversely I continued to set out food and a few of the treats she had grown so fond of.

Last Friday I came home a little later than normal. A familiar head with a bobbed ear cautiously peered from under the garage door and up at me with wide-set peridot eyes. Peggy Sue? She mewed in the affirmative and ran to the privacy hedge, talking to me all the while.

She had plenty to say.

She looked well fed, healthy and relatively well-adjusted.

So, now she’s back -- if she, in fact, ever really went away. Does that mean, she’s mine? Not really. She never was, probably never will be. But we’re still talking, and we’ll always have “our song.”

So now you know why I’m less blue ‘bout Peggy, about Peggy Sue.

To Stroke or Not to Stroke, That Is The Question

Is your cat lovey-dovey one minute, and downright mean the next? I have often noted the differences in my cats' personalities. One of the major differences is their varying thresholds for affection -- both giving and receiving . How quickly those thresholds can change!

Koko is a love bug whose favorite activity in life is to be snuggled into the crook of my side or knees, kneading away and purring his funny little out-of-tune purr. That said, he has a very low tolerance for actually being picked up in my arms and carried around.

Henry is a "Don't call me, I'll call you" type. As I have said before, he is SUCH a guy. That said, when he wants attention, he wants my FULL attention and will go around poking me until I give it to him.

Ernie, Roxie and Nettie, on the other hand, love to be picked up. Ernie, bless his heart, is just too big for me to pick up too often. I can do anything to Roxie, including rubbing her face and sticking my fingers in her ears and she won't let out a squeak. Nettie loves to be held, but can get pissy if I try to put her down, rub her too hard or even rub her too often. She actually curls her upper lip at me when I give her the wrong kind of attention.

Sammy is an attention whore who meows and head butts until he gets my attention. But after about three strokes, he throws the personality switch and comes after me. I have little bruises from Sammy's love bites all up and down the underside of my arm.

CJ is undoubtedly the most distant of my cats. From the time she was a kitten, she has been a loner. She doesn't even seem to like her siblings, except for Sammy, with whom she has always had a weirdly close relationship. Days will go by without seeing her. The Recurring Gentleman Caller and I had been seeing each other for three months when he asked "Did you get a new cat?" while pointing to CJ who had surfaced for a drink of water. That said, on rare occasion, she will come up to me, head bent, and sit by my side patiently waiting for a stroke on the head.

Apparently, dual-personalities is a common trait among cats, and major headache for the people who love them. But according to this article, we shouldn't take it personally.

They're just being cats.

Gotta love 'em.

I'm a Winner!

Bonjour, y'all! Just found out I won this great little cookbook in a blogging giveaway over at "My French Corner."

I love food, I love to cook, I love France. Lately I haven't had time for much of any of it, so a 10-minute French cookbook sounds custom made for me. I can't wait to try it. And the period illustrations look too cute.

If you're a Francophile, pop on over to "My French Corner." It's an adorable (and very readable) blog about adding French touches to your everyday life. It's one of my faves.

Bon weekend (this has made mine!)