Category: Cat blogging

Clickee for biggee
Sometimes they get along…

This is my 2500th post since June 6, 2002. That’s not really 2500 posts in 7 years, it’s 2500 posts in 6 years, because I sat out from May 2005 to June 2006. Well, I didn’t really sit out, I just blogged somewhere else. But it’s still a damn lot of posts.
So, since it’s Friday: Kitten Kuteness! LOL

Clickee for biggee

G’damn, is it Friday already? Sheesh.

Clickee for biggee
Awwwww….
(This is the first time I’ve seen them do this. Frankie is now 9 weeks and 3 days old. He has been terrorizing Tiggr for nearly three weeks now. Nice to see them sharing space peacefully for a change.)
This one is probably better.

Clickee for biggee

The good Lord may have broken the mold for Snoopy, but he must have had more than one of those molds sitting around. The only reason I know this isn’t Snoopy is because that’s not our kitchen.

There is, of course, no replacing Snoopy. When the good Lord made that cat, he broke the mold. He will always be in our hearts.
But Tiggr needs a new friend. And it looks like we found him one.


Six weeks old yesterday. We’ll get him in two weeks.
THURSDAY UPDATE: Now it seems we’re going to get him on Tuesday.

We’ll see you on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge.

Last picture, taken 5/4/2009 2:41 PM

Snoopy crossed over this morning, after Sally and I went to say our last goodbyes.

Snoopy was a different kind of cat. Probably the smartest cat I’ve ever known; you looked in those eyes and you knew there was a brain back there that was thinking right back at you. He was the only cat I ever knew who came when you called his name, or when you whistled. He loved to play fetch. He had, hmm, an indominatable will — if you took him off the counter, he’d jump right back up. Continuously.

He loved to play in the water. This is probably because he was a Turkish Van, a breed otherwise known as “the swimming cats”. He played “mommy” to Tiggr when we first brought Tiggr home, and pretty much for the rest of his life after that. He was a silly boy and we loved him very much, not the least because he picked us — first picking Sally when she visited Cats’ Haven 15 years ago looking for a black cat, and then picking me 9 years ago when I first visited Sally’s apartment. The latter was a fairly momentous occasion because Snoopy despised the mill run of human males, but he came up and did the figure-8 around my ankles when I came through the door, and then let me pick him up and pet him — and then when I sat down on Sally’s couch, he jumped in my lap. Sally called her mother the next day and said, “I think I have to marry this guy.”

He was never a big cat — I can’t remember him ever weighing more than 10 pounds, if he ever got that big, and he was under 6 when we took him back to the vet on Tuesday. Our best guess is that some breeder decided he was the runt of the litter, and coupling that with a viral infection in his left eye that never went away, he wasn’t ever going to be show or breeding material. In any case, he was one of nearly 100 cats left in the Cats’ Haven van overnight by an anonymous, er, “donor”, just over 15 years ago.

He was a pain in the ass who took up far more bed space than a little guy like him was actually entitled to — and when he slept, he slept HARD.

I’d gladly give up half my side of the bed to have him back.

We love you, Snoopy. Fare ye well in that undiscovered country on the far side of the Bridge.

Continue reading “Farewell, Snoopy”

If you’re so inclined, please keep him in your prayers. We may have to ease him across the Rainbow Bridge in another day or so. The spirit is willing but the body is failing.

Click to enlarge
Taken just the other day before he had to go back to the hospital. We call this his “throne”, and he just got to get back up on it for a few days when I put the guest room back together.

Sally went to visit Snoopy at the vet (Snoopy is coming home tomorrow, he’s fine) and the two cats mentioned in the previous post were gone.
The family came back and got them.
I feel much better now.

When we got to the vet, there was a cage in “Kittie Corner” with two adult cats in it, one 10 and one 12.
They were left there by a family because the family had gotten a new puppy that the cats didn’t get along with.
Now check me here: Isn’t that exactly backwards? Don’t you take the puppy back in that case? Whyinhell do you abandon the cats who have been part of your family for years?
These two cats were scared to death, huddled up together in a back corner of the cage and completely unwilling to deal with anyone, no matter how hard you tried.
It breaks my heart. Their people abandoned them and they lost their Only Home — for a puppy.
Some people shouldn’t be allowed to own pets. This family ought to be smacked, to boot.
If you think you might interested in adopting those two poor abandoned kitties (and wherever they go, they really should go together), please contact Michigan Road Animal Hospital at 317-291-9132.

but our 1615-year-old Turkish Van, Snoopy, hasn’t eaten for a couple of days and is going to the vet at noon for a checkup. Snoopy has hyperthyroidism and we’ve been medicating him for that for about the past six months.
So even though I know a lot of you folks are dog people, if you’d spare a word for Snoopy with the Power That Is, Sally and I would be greatly appreciative.
Sally got Snoopy from Cats Haven when he was about 6 months old. She was looking for a black cat because she wears a lot of black. Snoopy came up to her with his weepy eye (he was apparently born with some sort of infection in it) and patted her face with his paw, and that was all she wrote. He is one of about 100 cats the Cats Haven people found locked in their delivery van one fine and chilly morning.
Cats Haven does the Lord’s work for our furry feline friends. Please consider a donation if you love kitties.
Obligatory picture of our little fella:

(That’s 22-pound Tiggr to the left.)
Thanks for your support 🙂
UPDATE: Snoopy weighs 5.13 pounds (down from 7), is dehydrated, and (as a result) is constipated. They’re keeping him overnight to rehydrate and clean him out, and they’re going to do blood work and some other tests to see if we’re still on the right dosage of the thyroid medication.