Post your Cat =^..^=
- Thread starter Patrick
- Start date
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Looking back through this thread, it's been a really long time since I posted anything about our crew. Lots of changes. It's been just about a year since Pauly Pawsby, the lord and and ruler of our home, passed away. I still can't express how tough it is not to have him around. I've worked from home full time since the pandemic and he was my daily partner - I even gave up my office chair and got a (considerably less comfortable) chair so he had a space to share with me everyday (picture below.) Now I only have a picture of him on my desk so I can still spend time with him every day.
But life goes on. Pauly had a brother (a real brother - from the same litter but two different fathers - that sort of thing is possible for cats, apparently.) Oscar was the quieter, less demanding member of the duo and he's been doing well without his bonded brother, surprisingly. He's never wavered in his daily routine, which pretty much involves sleeping 90+% of the day and only coming upstairs to demand a drink from the kitchen faucet at the exact moment when I have to jump on a Teams call. At first, he seemed to be looking around for Pauly everyday, but in the long run if anything, the loss of his brother has made him a touch more assertive, which I'm fine with. His basic needs include: a kitchen sink faucet drink every few hours, a daily massage, and use of the living room couch (with a stack of blankets!) for his looooooooong daily naps.
My wife spent months just wondering if she could ever deal with a new member to our "family" because the loss of Pauly hit her especially hard. But when an animal sanctuary in the Lehigh Valley advertised a tripod, semi-feral cat who needed a patient owner to take a chance on him, she knew she wasn't done in the "cat game" (personally, until we got together I hadn't had a pet since I left home at 18 - a springer spaniel named Daisy who was MY DOG no matter what my siblings or parents might have claimed), so I've always just gone along with what my wife wanted to do. So early last summer we added Kerm (short for Kermit because he hops around everywhere - get it?) Kerm is a gorgeous cat - possibly the best looking animal I've ever seen (see picture below - he's like a model, only less vacuous: chocolate spots and these striking blue eyes.) And he is DEFINITELY semi-feral. Every day, it's like we have to re-introduce ourselves to him - but he's come around to his life in a place that just wants to give him everything he wants whenever he wants it - who'd have guessed? But even though he has just three legs (apparently, he was a colony cat and there was an incident with a vehicle or something - we don't have all the specifics, but as far as I'm concerned we don't need them - he's amazing no matter how many legs he has) , you'd never consider him "physically challenged" - when he runs, he moves as fast as anyone we've ever had and he runs a LOT. And even though he is freaked by even the slightest anything out of the ordinary, Kerm won over my wife ten minutes into her first meeting with him by rolling over and demanding a belly rub. He's nuts, but he's awesome.
And speaking of "nuts but awesome", late in 2022, my wife saw a post about a colony cat who was about to be re-released into the Philly streets. They were trying to find a home for him before they had to let him back out on the streets after he was picked up in a TNR project because, as they said, he was "too trusting" to be a colony cat. And so with less than a few days consideration, we went from two to three with the introduction of Buddy. Buddy is the youngest cat we've ever had (Oscar is now going on 14, Kerm is 4 or 5 - not 100% sure on that - but Buddy is no older than 3.) We were told that Buddy was a "lap cat" and a "calm influence" on other cats. Bullshit. Buddy is a force of nature, and no one since Pauly (or the legendary Butters) has ever put a smile on my face as easily as Buddy does. Buddy is completely batshit crazy and 100% unaware of boundaries - he just assumes that anything that's happening requires his involvement. And there's no challenge for "alpha status" in that - he just doesn't understand that anything that's happening isn't better with Buddy involved (and I'm not sure I'd disagree!) Buddy wants to play every waking moment, he hunts anything he can, and every night when I go to say goodnight to him, he takes a few minutes to lick my head because apparently it's never as clean as he'd like it to be. Buddy loves everything - he loves any food we give him, he loves playing with Kerm (even when Kerm doesn't want to play - they spend a lot of time coiled up just kicking one another in the head with their back legs) and he loves following Oscar around like Oscar is some kind of Buddha who will teach him how to live. (This annoys the living shit out of Oscar, but even he seems to realize that Buddy isn't trying to be a PIA - he's just doesn't understand that not everyone wants to spend every waking moment with Buddy.)
So that's where we are now - outnumbered by three distinctly different cats who all want something completely different at any moment. We'll never get over losing Pauly, but our crew has found a "new normal" and these guys have made it just a tiny bit easier to get by now that our once and future king has left us (for the time being) ...
The One and Only Pauly Pawsby
His brother, Oscar (aka Feathy - don't ask ...)
Oscar doing what Oscar does best ...
The Kerm ...
Kerm is ready for his belly rub ...
Buddy (aka "Buduardo", an absolutely insane force of nature)
But life goes on. Pauly had a brother (a real brother - from the same litter but two different fathers - that sort of thing is possible for cats, apparently.) Oscar was the quieter, less demanding member of the duo and he's been doing well without his bonded brother, surprisingly. He's never wavered in his daily routine, which pretty much involves sleeping 90+% of the day and only coming upstairs to demand a drink from the kitchen faucet at the exact moment when I have to jump on a Teams call. At first, he seemed to be looking around for Pauly everyday, but in the long run if anything, the loss of his brother has made him a touch more assertive, which I'm fine with. His basic needs include: a kitchen sink faucet drink every few hours, a daily massage, and use of the living room couch (with a stack of blankets!) for his looooooooong daily naps.
My wife spent months just wondering if she could ever deal with a new member to our "family" because the loss of Pauly hit her especially hard. But when an animal sanctuary in the Lehigh Valley advertised a tripod, semi-feral cat who needed a patient owner to take a chance on him, she knew she wasn't done in the "cat game" (personally, until we got together I hadn't had a pet since I left home at 18 - a springer spaniel named Daisy who was MY DOG no matter what my siblings or parents might have claimed), so I've always just gone along with what my wife wanted to do. So early last summer we added Kerm (short for Kermit because he hops around everywhere - get it?) Kerm is a gorgeous cat - possibly the best looking animal I've ever seen (see picture below - he's like a model, only less vacuous: chocolate spots and these striking blue eyes.) And he is DEFINITELY semi-feral. Every day, it's like we have to re-introduce ourselves to him - but he's come around to his life in a place that just wants to give him everything he wants whenever he wants it - who'd have guessed? But even though he has just three legs (apparently, he was a colony cat and there was an incident with a vehicle or something - we don't have all the specifics, but as far as I'm concerned we don't need them - he's amazing no matter how many legs he has) , you'd never consider him "physically challenged" - when he runs, he moves as fast as anyone we've ever had and he runs a LOT. And even though he is freaked by even the slightest anything out of the ordinary, Kerm won over my wife ten minutes into her first meeting with him by rolling over and demanding a belly rub. He's nuts, but he's awesome.
And speaking of "nuts but awesome", late in 2022, my wife saw a post about a colony cat who was about to be re-released into the Philly streets. They were trying to find a home for him before they had to let him back out on the streets after he was picked up in a TNR project because, as they said, he was "too trusting" to be a colony cat. And so with less than a few days consideration, we went from two to three with the introduction of Buddy. Buddy is the youngest cat we've ever had (Oscar is now going on 14, Kerm is 4 or 5 - not 100% sure on that - but Buddy is no older than 3.) We were told that Buddy was a "lap cat" and a "calm influence" on other cats. Bullshit. Buddy is a force of nature, and no one since Pauly (or the legendary Butters) has ever put a smile on my face as easily as Buddy does. Buddy is completely batshit crazy and 100% unaware of boundaries - he just assumes that anything that's happening requires his involvement. And there's no challenge for "alpha status" in that - he just doesn't understand that anything that's happening isn't better with Buddy involved (and I'm not sure I'd disagree!) Buddy wants to play every waking moment, he hunts anything he can, and every night when I go to say goodnight to him, he takes a few minutes to lick my head because apparently it's never as clean as he'd like it to be. Buddy loves everything - he loves any food we give him, he loves playing with Kerm (even when Kerm doesn't want to play - they spend a lot of time coiled up just kicking one another in the head with their back legs) and he loves following Oscar around like Oscar is some kind of Buddha who will teach him how to live. (This annoys the living shit out of Oscar, but even he seems to realize that Buddy isn't trying to be a PIA - he's just doesn't understand that not everyone wants to spend every waking moment with Buddy.)
So that's where we are now - outnumbered by three distinctly different cats who all want something completely different at any moment. We'll never get over losing Pauly, but our crew has found a "new normal" and these guys have made it just a tiny bit easier to get by now that our once and future king has left us (for the time being) ...
The One and Only Pauly Pawsby
His brother, Oscar (aka Feathy - don't ask ...)
Oscar doing what Oscar does best ...
The Kerm ...
Kerm is ready for his belly rub ...
Buddy (aka "Buduardo", an absolutely insane force of nature)
I see what you did there.
1speeder
Well-Known Member
Is he a Panthers fan? My cat is. 🤣
Billiebob69
New Member
iman29
Well-Known Member
Melody and Jazmin chilling out on a blanket that’s a picture collage of our previous 3 furry family that have long since gone to the other side of the rainbow
Samson (Black and white Cat) 17yrs
Delilah (Some kind of German shep mix) 18yrs
Noah ( Grey cat) 16.5 yrs.
Still miss them ☹️
Not to be a downer but while I think of it, for when you eventually have to come to that time, have the Vet help you get an ink paw print I wish we had been told about that when Samson had to be put down but he was at an emergency vet and not our regular place. We have the other two paw prints locked up safe.
Samson (Black and white Cat) 17yrs
Delilah (Some kind of German shep mix) 18yrs
Noah ( Grey cat) 16.5 yrs.
Still miss them ☹️
Not to be a downer but while I think of it, for when you eventually have to come to that time, have the Vet help you get an ink paw print I wish we had been told about that when Samson had to be put down but he was at an emergency vet and not our regular place. We have the other two paw prints locked up safe.
