I'm an animal lover and take to most animals (although some of the larger dog breeds scare me a bit!!). As a kid, I would bring home kittens that had "followed" me home - keeping them depended on how my aunt felt that day. When I married, we purchased a dog almost immediately and throughout the years we had a variety of pets - hamsters, guinea pigs, mice, fish, dogs and cats.
As my children grew, the number (and variety) of animals seemed to grow. My house was always full and I never really knew how many dogs and cats were around, not to mention the snakes, lizards, hamsters and the like. When Chris began working for the local animal control, the number of dogs rose drastically. If a home couldn't be found for a stray, it always managed to end up at our house. There was the double-jointed Beagle, the blind-in-one-eye Pit Bull/Boxer, and other assorted mutts. Of course, there were many more animals who just happened to follow one of the kids home!!
When we moved to East Lansing and campus housing, the only pets allowed were fish but that didn't stop me or the kids from taking in strays. One day Kim found 2 albino Guinea Pigs behind our apartment and they managed to find their way inside. Another time we found a mama kitty with 5 babies in an abandoned car - let's just say that many of my neighbors wound up with illegal pets!!! Of course, I kept mama and one of the babies but later gave up mama after she presented me with 4 more kittens (one of which I kept). Unfortunately, management had good eyes and I was caught with the goods - after a $50.00 fine and the threat of eviction if caught again, the cats had to go. Luckily management never did find out about the turtle and hamsters!!!
When I told the kids I was moving out of campus housing, Kim set out to find me a cat. A trip to the Humane Society and perfect timing netted the perfect kitten. Just that day a poor, underweight kitten had reached her adoption weight of 2 pounds. It was the sad eyes, the strange coloring, and the stub of a tail that convinced Kim this was the cat for me. She paid the fees and snuggled the little bundle of fur in her coat for the ride to my house. I named her Scooter because she would lie on her side and scoot across the floor to get attention. When I took Scooter to the vet for her physical exam, I was informed that she was a Domestic Short Hair/Japanese Bobtail mix. To learn more about Japanese Bobtails, click on the link below.
Even though Scooter is not a pure-bred Bobtail, she displays many of the Bobtail traits. She is extremely lovable, playful, loves to talk, and refuses to be disciplined. Her favorite pasttime is making swiss cheese out of a fresh roll of toilet paper or paper towels. When the mail comes, Scooter immediately walks over to the paper shredder, sits down and waits for me to dispose of the junk mail. If there is no mail or nothing to shred, Scooter remains at the shredder with a questioning look, so I take scrap paper and send it through. Once everything is shredded, Scooter begins her routine of pulling the strips of paper from the waste basket and spredding them across the room.
With Scooter being so playful, I thought she might like a playmate. One Saturday I happened upon a pet adoption at the pet store where I usually shopped. I hadn't planned on getting a second cat on that particular day, but I stopped to look at the animals anyway. I came upon a large domestic shorthair sitting in her litter at the back of her cage. She seemed very scared and I could see in her eyes that she was very lonely. I talked to the cat for a few minutes before she responded by coming to the front of the cage. The woman told me I could open the cage, so I reached in and talked with the cat for a few minutes before picking her up. She was calm for a minute or so, but then decided to take a walk - using her claws and my shoulder as her getaway!!! After a short chase, She was put back in her cage and just sat there with those sad little eyes. I was hooked!!! I learned that the cat had been abandoned and found by a Japanese woman who named her Sashi. I just had to have this cat - she would make a perfect playmate for Scooter. Since I had only enough money on me to pay for my purchases, I asked if Sashi could be held while I went home to get my checkbook and pet carrier. I filled out the paperwork and an "adopted" sign was put on Sashi's cage.
So here I was with two cats and fingers crossed that they would get along. It wasn't long before I realized they not only liked each other, they were best pals and playmates. They do everything together - eating, sleeping, playing and getting into trouble.
Sashi is my "snuggle with mom in bed" kitty. She knows when it's time for me to go to bed and if it gets too late, she nudges me until I follow her to the bedroom. If I happen to get out of bed, Sashi will move to the head of the bed and wait for me. The minute I come around the corner, she rolls over on her back and refuses to move so that I can get back into bed.
Both cats are water babies. Scooter loves to slosh around in the toilet (she never drinks from it!!!) or sit on the edge of the bathroom sink so I can sprinkle her with water. Instead of lapping her water, Scooter dips her paws into her water dish and then licks the water from her paws. Sashi loves to play in the bathtub regardless of whether it is wet or dry. While I'm in the shower, both cats wait for me to finish so they can splash around in the wet tub.
PSST! DOWN HERE!
CAN WE TALK?
Hi everyone, this is Scooter and I got a few things to say. My mommy really is a nice person, but she just don't understand how hard it is being a cat! We got a reputation to live up to or the other cats'll think we're sissies. I admit me and Sashi got it good here - a nice house with lotsa windows, 3 squares a day and snacks, lotsa catnip, a soft lap to sit on and a soft bed at night! But let's get real!
Wanna know why cats sleep so much? It's cuz they gotta work really hard training their humans! Like getting 'em up in the morning. Didja ever try waking a human at 5:00 am, it ain't easy! Me and Sashi got a system - I jump down from the shelf over the bed and land on mommy's head while Sashi walks on her back. If that don't work, we both pounce on her back. We hafta be careful though cuz sometimes mommy smacks us and goes back to sleep. A couplea times she even locked us outta the bedroom!
And then there's those other chores we gotta do, like helping with the laundry, making the bed, unrolling the toilet paper and stuff like that. Laundry is fun!! Me and Sashi take turns jumpin in the dryer but we gotta be careful that she don't shut the door before we get out. When the laundry's all dry and warm, mommy takes it to the bedroom in a basket. Sashi sometimes just lays on mommy's jammies, but I like to lay on the clothes on hangers - that way mommy can't put them in the closet. Couplea times I jumped in the basket and played tug-of-war with mommy's underwear! Making the bed is fun too! Sashi lays down right in the middle of the bed so mommy can't put the sheet on all the way and I lay on top the part a sheet that's already on. It's really fun cuz there's two of us so there's always one of us on the bed. One time mommy got so mad, she made the entire bed with me under everything! Took awhile to get out - glad mommy uses fitted sheets.
Every cat has the right to unroll the toilet paper - it's an unwritten law!! But we still haven't convinced mommy that she's puttin the roll on backwards. Try as we might, it just won't unroll!! Sashi is chicken and won't help so my job is to rip holes in the toilet paper until it looks like swiss cheese. Then I sit there and act innocent when mommy unrolls it!! One of these days we'll teach her how to put the roll on - sometimes it just takes longer for humans to learn stuff.
Some chores are little bit harder, like getting mommy to feed us when WE want to eat. Would you believe she's got a schedule! When we finally get her to crawl outta bed in the morning, we get a spoonful of canned food and if she's enough awake she fills the dry food. It's Sashi's job to make sure that dry food dish is full but sometimes she hasta work real hard to get mommy to do her job!! Later in the morning we get a spoonful of tuna (YUMMY,YUMMY for da TUMMY!!!) but not until mommy wants us to have it. Me and Sashi work as a team on this one. I start first by crawling all over mommy, sitting in front of the puter picture so mommy can't see, and if it gets really tough, I jump down on the keyboard or walk on the printer - this is fun only if mommy is trying to use it!! I like to sit on the paper so it can't move!! Usually mommy just says "not yet" and puts me down on the floor. Then Sashi goes to work. She starts with her hungry cry then goes to a yowl. If that ain't workin, Sashi starts crawling all over mommy's chair and swatting her in the back of the head. Then she'll jump down on mommy's lap just right so that her back claws dig into mommy's leg. Mosta the time this works, but if it don't we both go to work. Sometimes we just sit there staring at mommy or we start fighting - with hissing and growling. This always works but the funny thing is, we done all this work and still get our tuna at the same time ever day - at 11:00!! Suppertime ain't too bad, mommy feeds us and then herself. I like ta wait ta see what mommy's having before I fill up on catfood. If it's chicken, turkey or ham, she always makes enough to share! We don't always get a nighttime snack xeptin' when mommy has yogurt or ice cream - we get to lick the bowl!!
The hardest (and most embarrassing!) job of all is posing for all those pittures!! How would you feel if someone took a pitture of you spread eagle and then put it where everyone could see it!! Mommy always has that camera with her and we are the target!! Geesh, enough already!!
Me and Sashi works hard all day but we have lots of fun too. Mommy plays with us and snuggles us even if we been bad kitties. We know she loves us a whole bunch so we'll keep her around for awhile. Besides, we're not done training her yet!! Gotta go take a nap now. Bye.
pet adoptions
more on Bobtails
pet connection
Pet behavior
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