Skooter

N.J. BILL TO CRIMINALIZE DECLAWING

N.J. Bill to criminalize declawing.The very first cat that Dad Tom and I brought into our lives was a brown tabby and white kitten. It was the mid-80s. We named our kitten Skooter. He was the son of a stray that friends had taken into their home. His dad, Tubby, was their neighbor’s cat.

Skooter was five months old when we brought him home. He was a sweet and gentle cat, but we did something terrible to him. We had his front claws removed! I am ashamed to admit this, but we didn’t know any better at the time.

I don’t remember who suggested we do this or why we decided to do it. Even though I had no idea what declawing entailed, I always felt guilty about doing this to my boy.

Of course, now I know that declawing involves amputation of the last bone of each toe. That’s like removing a human finger at the first knuckle. Just the thought of it makes me cringe.

It recently came to my attention that the state of New Jersey’s Assemblyman, Troy Singleton, has introduced legislation to criminalize declawing in his state.  Those who perform declawing would face a fine of up to $1,000 or six months in jail, according to the provisions of the New Jersey Anti-Declaw Bill A3899.

Over 25,000 individuals (including myself) have signed a petition, begun by The Paw Project*, in support of Bill A3899. Won’t you please add your signature? Click here to go to Change.org to read more and sign the petition.

Thank you!

 

N.J. Bill to criminalize declawing.

 

The Paw Project is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that exists to increase public awareness about animal welfare and animal cruelty issues related to the declawing of cats.

FRIDAY FLASHBACK: SKOOTER LOVED CHRISTMAS

A slightly different and longer version of this post was published originally in December 2012, just a few months after Kitties Blue and I started blogging. Two readers commented on that post. Knowing most of you have never seen this, I thought it would be a fun way to start the holiday season. 

Skooter Christmas 1

Our very first kitty, Skooter, loved Christmas more than any of our other cats past or present. He enjoyed decorating, the thrill of unwrapping gifts and playing with the discarded paper and empty boxes as well as with his new toys.

His favorite pursuit, however, was sleeping beneath the Christmas tree. In those days, we still put a real tree in the foyer each year. Skooter had constant access and spent most of his days and evenings beneath the tree with lights warming his fur. As novice kitty caregivers, we never considered this could be a problem even when we were both away at work all day.

Look at that sweet and innocent face. Who would ever expect this adorable kitty to get into trouble? As Tom always says, “What could go wrong?”

Skooter Christmas 2The ornaments from the bottom of the tree were always on the floor, which I now know to expect. I didn’t have any expensive ornaments in those days, so ornaments were rarely broken. It was just a pain to continually pick up and put the ornaments back onto the tree.

And nothing did go wrong, until one fateful night as guests were coming up the front walk. They could hear us from within the house as we were in the midst of yelling at Skooter. The nine-foot-tall tree was teetering, and Tom and I were trying to prevent it from crashing down. Our big boy had caught his head in a string of lights as he was sprinting from beneath the tree. In his desperation to run upstairs prior to interlopers entering his house, he struggled to get away with those lights wrapped around his neck. As we tried to assist him, the tree was on the fast track toward the floor.*

Being younger, faster and nimbler in those days (1990, I think), Tom and I caught the tree just before it hit the rug.

Even after that near CATastrophe, the tree remained in the foyer and at least semi-upright for several more years. From then on, it was attached to the stair railings with bungee cords! This wasn’t a full-proof method for protecting tree and ornaments as the kitties were able to tip the tree and partially dislodge its base from the floor. But the tree never again came close to crashing!

As I collected more expensive and breakable ornaments (many as we have traveled in other countries), it was necessary to move the tree. It went to the living room behind closed doors. As I am capable of breaking the glass ornaments without any help, the tree-pouncing pusses no longer are required to provide their expertise. I also gave in and purchased an artificial tree. The opportunity to sharpen claws on the trunk was lost forever.

Please don’t feel too sorry for Kitties Blue, however, or turn me into N.U.C.A.T. We have an artificial tree with unbreakable ornaments in the dining room. They can whap, bat and jostle the ornaments to their heart’s content with no fear of reprisal. I just collect them off the floor before I go to bed each night and put them back on the tree in the morning. After all I can’t deprive them of their holiday fun!

* No cats or humans were harmed during the fiasco, but a few ornaments did not survive.

 

RAINBOW BRIDGE REMEMBRANCE DAY WITH OUR ANGELS

RainbowBridge-Web

 

Zee & Zoey’s Cat Chronicles have created a very special day, Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day, to honor and remember “those cherished pets we have lost but not forgotten.”

Whether your beloved pet had fur or fins, scales or feathers, they had a special place in your heart of hearts.

Today we are honoring and remembering the nine angel kitties in our family as well as our honorary kitty angel, Nylablue.

 

Angel Skooter

Skooter

Angel Steamer

Steamer

 

Angel Daphne

Daphne

Angel Thelma

Thelma

 

Angel Louise

Louise

Angel Chloe

Chloe

 

Angel Twinkle

Twinkle

Angel Madison

Madison

 

Angel MacKenzie

MacKenzie

Honorary Sisfur Angel Nylablue

Nylablue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To learn more about them, you can visit our The Felines page.

We’d also like to remember and honor the two woofies who came before any of us, Smack and Poppy.

Please consider taking part in this first annual event. The hope is it will be the first of many to come. You are encouraged to post on your blog, your Facebook page, or any other social media of your choice in memory of your angel anipals.

This event is hosted by Purr Prints of the Heart. Although this was a day originally created in honor of  Zee and Zoey’s Mr. Jazz, it will now honor all those who have crossed their Rainbow Bridge.

Today, we are sending purrs and prayers to all the families and friends with angels who have crossed that Bridge.

Purrs and paw-pats, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo

FRIDAY FLASHBACK INTRODUCES SOME OF OUR ANGELS

Just realized this hadn’t published when it was supposed to at midnight. Oops!

With our third blogoversary merely days away, I decided to participate in Flashback Friday and share one of our early posts with you. It received one comment from a personal friend, so I am relatively sure none of our current followers have seen it.

The post was originally published on September 1, 2012, and was entitled, “Naming Your Cat.” I have modified it slightly from a grammatical stand-point, but the content is unchanged. The post explains how several of our angels came by their names, so I believe you should find it interesting.

The asterisks in the post relate to a notes I have added at the end of today’s post.

NAMING YOUR CAT

Once you name a cat, it is no longer a stray. It is a member of your household. Friends have claimed they are feeding a cat that has been hanging around but haven’t named it. They just call it Cat or Kitty or some other generic moniker. Hey…that’s a name! My friend Tammy, who my Tom calls the pusher (she always calls me when she hears of cats that need homes) continues to have strays appear at her house. One of those, called Yellow Cat by her husband, Tom, was dropping by and they were feeding him. Tammy stated emphatically they were not claiming him or giving him a name. My Tom pointed out that Yellow Cat is a name. He’s now been around for a couple of years.

Poet T.S. Eliot (1888 – 1965) had advice about naming cats long before we started to care for cats, but we have our own list of “DOs” with regard to this: Number 1 on the list: Do give all your cats fancy names so when you’re outside screaming for them at the top of your lungs, your neighbors will think you’re classy. 

We haven’t used any of the imaginative and whimsical names, like Munkustrap, Bombalurina, or Jellylorum, Eliot suggested in “The Naming of Cats,” first published with other cat poems in 1939. To our minds, however, we have improved at this ritual as the years have progressed.

angelsNew to this important task with our first and second cats, our inexperience is evident. After days of debate with kitty #1, the best we could do was Skooter—a typical pet’s name or kid’s nickname. (He was not named after the Muppet, Scooter.) We made our guy’s name a little different by using a “K” instead of a “C” in the spelling. But, still, it was not unusual or imaginative. Scooter ranks very high on the list of popular cat names.

angelsOur second cat had an unusual name for a girl: Steamer. She was named after the brother of storyteller Ernest Randolph “Doc” McConnell (1928-2008): Cecil “Steamer” McConnell. We’d heard McConnell at a storytelling weekend at Mountain Lake, Pembroke, VA, and were delighted by a tale about Steamer and a Vienna (pronounced Vy-ee-nuh) Sausage tree. But this was yet another nickname.

angelsBy the time we got to our third cat, Daphne, we had decided human names were more sophisticated, developed our “DO” list and have not deviated from this system except when naming Twinkle. (However, I would like to have a Sparkle* someday, but probably will refrain as long as our neighbors have Sparky.) Daphne, according to Greek mythology, was a nymph pursued by the Olympian God, Apollo. Daphne prayed for help and was turned into a laurel. Though Daphne came into our lives in 1991, we did not know about the story of the laurel until 1994 when we visited Greece.

angelsUntil I began this post and re-read “The Naming of Cats” I hadn’t realized that we had used a derivative of one of Eliot’s “fancier” names. Chloë is another name for Demeter, the Greek Goddess of the Harvest. Chloë’s a very popular name on many pet naming web-sites as well. It’s the fifth most popular female cat name at cuteness.com and one of those listed at petrix.com along with Lily, Madison and MacKenzie. Dog lovers also must be partial to this name. The dog living across the street from us is a Chloë.

angels

We showed great restraint when it came to our cat Madison. He hung out on the back deck for more than six months before we invited him in the house. And he did not get his name until he had become a permanent member of the household! Madison is not an unusual name. Human girls have been acquiring this name at an increasing rate during the past several years. Our Madison, however, was a male, and his name fit him purrfectly. With his white fur and blue eyes most visitors thought he was a female. It really didn’t bother him as he was secure in his masculinity.

For information on how some of our other kids came by their names, please read THE FELINES page.

Involving your children in the selection of a new kitty or in the naming process is always a good idea. But be prepared to live with their selections. Our previous neighbors’ large, female, tuxedo cat was named Jim!

I have lists of potential cat names for future felines that might come into our lives. At the top of all lists are the names Audrey and Jeanmarie. These ladies are both previous veterinarians to our kitties. Audrey was instrumental in saving Lily’s life, which you will be able to read about in a future post.* Both vets came to the house for annual check-ups and vaccinations and also picked up and dropped off various kitties when they needed care that required an office visit. We think naming a couple of our pusses for them would be the supreme compliment.

If you truly are at a loss for a cat name and decide to Google “Cat Names,” you will find 73 pages of web-sites with various lists and suggestions for names. Numerous books also can be found with lists of names. But be adventurous and use your imagination. We have found that it takes about four months for the average cat (and, of course, none are) to learn its name, so we felt secure in renaming three of our kitties: MacKenzie originally known as Cyrus, Lisbeth formerly Cary and Astrid (Tabitha). Madison also most likely had another name. He was about two years old when he adopted us and so well-mannered that he must have been someone else’s pet at one time.

But no matter what you name your puss, as long as something good awaits (treats, stinky goodness), she’ll come when you call…eventually.

* This post was written prior to our meeting Sparkle or her blog.

* This post has never been written. I’m putting it on my To Do List.

 

CATS IMITATE ART

We are having ridiculously cold weather and are lying around the house like a bunch of sloths. Mom told us we could do a Friday Flashback post since we’re being totally uninteresting. Our task was to find a post with no comments from our early days of blogging.

The only post we found, that wasn’t a Christmas post from 2012, was about cat puke. The post was pretty funny, and you can read it here if you like. We, however, were not in the mood to embarrass ourselves so told the typist we had come up short.

Then she sent us to our photo archives. She’d been saving this photo for Caturday Art, but we convinced her to use it today.

 

CATS IMITATE ART

 

Does it remind you of anything? Could it be the “Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo from the Sistine Chapel?

 

cats imitate art

 

Yep, that’s the one.

We can tell you that Lily Olivia (left in the top photo) and Misty May would not have used this inadvertant touch for creating anything. Had either one realized what was happening, each would have been wishing for magical powers to zap the other right out of existence.

Back in September 2012, Mom did a Cat Imitates Art post on a Wordless Wednesday. It featured original Kitty Blue, Skooter. It was not on such a grandiose scale art wise. We had two comments on that one: Mom’s friend and her daughter. If you’d like to see it, click here.

Tomorrow, we will be joining Athena and Marie for their Caturday Art Blog Hop, and Sunday we will be hosting our Sunday Selfies Blog Hop. Hope the two-day reminder will give lots of you the opportunity to join us. We also have another Sharkie and Blue adventure (most likely their last before returning home) to share with you on Monday or Tuesday.

CATURDAY ART WITH THE ORIGINAL KITTY BLUE

My inclination was to turn this photo blue as it is of Kitty Blue #1: Skooter. This is the first photograph we took of him, with some creative editing. I layered three effects from PicMonkey and one from Picasa.

Skooterkitten-001When we adopted Skooter, we had two, ancient, small dogs and no intention of opening our home to a cat. I suspect many other kitty bloggers out there never planned on having a kitty or two or more in their lives either. But even if we humans are unaware, some things are inevitable.

For several months a colleague of mine had been telling me about some kittens and begging me to adopt one. Just like our second kitty, Steamer, Skooter was the kitten of a pregnant mother taken in by this friend. I continued to resist until he spoke the words no animal lover wants to hear: “If I can’t find homes, they are going to the pound.”

So, of course, I was on his doorstep that very evening. First we met the kittens’ mom and dad, who just happened to be the neighbor’s un-neutered male, Tubby (and, boy was he ever). We finally found our soon to be first cat hiding under a chair on the front porch.

Skooter was about five months old according to our vet; though, I think he looks much younger than that in this photo. He was a gentle soul and with us for 14 1/2 years, until he suddenly became ill. He died that same day of congestive heart failure while being treated at the Vet. That was in 2001.

You can read a little more about Skooter on The Felines page. You can see additional photos of him by clicking on the Skooter tag at the end of this post.

We are joining Athena, Cat Goddess’s Caturday Art Blog Hop. You can access that by clicking on the badge to the left.

This post also works for today’s Saturday Photos Hunters word: Colours.

FESTIVE FLASHBACK WITH SKOOTER

skooterxmas

Skooter was our first cat. We got him in the late eighties when he was five months old. I thought it would be fun to feature him today in some early holiday photos. He went to play at the bridge when he was 14 1/2 years old.

When Skooter came to live with us, we had two small dogs. Once they joined Skooter at the RB, we never got another dog. Our house has seen a steady stream of kitties, some finding us and vice versa. The current group are numbers 10 through 17.

An itty-bitty kitten even showed up at the front door one Christmas Eve. I knew we couldn’t keep her, but I let her in and called her Noel. She was promptly adopted by a visiting friend.

Skooter has the illustrious honor of being the only kitty ever to pull the Christmas Tree over when he got his head caught in a string of lights.

I hope you enjoy a look back at our original cat, Skooter.

merry christmas kittens animation

TUMMY TUESDAY WITH SKOOTER

corpulent kitty belly

Kitten Skooter

The First Kitty Blue

Skooter was our very first kitty (not counting our childhood kitties). He was such a little cutie-pie when we adopted him at five months old. At the time we had not met and did not know that his Dad’s name was Tubby nor that he fit that moniker perfectly. As the years passed we watched Skooter begin to resemble his dad; though, he always had a small head.

He was a very sweet man-cat and accepted all the kitties added to the household during his lifetime.

corpulent kitty belly

Skooter shows off his ample tummy.

Unfortunately he only lived to 14 years old. He had a heart murmur from birth and eventually succumbed to congestive heart failure. Though that was many years ago now, we still miss him and think often of our good-natured first kitty.

Freak Out After Escaping

P.S. from Astrid: On Sunday night I was able to heap a little more payback onto Mom, thanks to Dad. He had to change the propane tank on the grill so opened the door from our screened deck to the grill locale and I snuck out. That part of the deck is only about six feet above ground. When I can sneak out, I jump off and explore the yard. Unfortunately, as previously posted in, “Cats in the Garden,” I freak out when I get out. And I will not come to my dad…no way, no how, not ever!

This time I jumped the low fence to our neighbor’s yard and then couldn’t figure out how to get back to our side. The ground is further from the fence top on their side. Mom came downstairs and started calling me. I let her know where I was but that I wasn’t ready to come home. As all my housemates had eaten dinner, Mom brought mine out with her and started making clanking sounds on the bowl to get my attention. I wasn’t buying it.

As it was time for the humans’ dinner, I got a reprieve. While they ate, I figured out how to get back to our yard. (I’m not telling how I did it.) When Mom came back outside again and headed toward the fence, I shot out from where I was hiding and ran up two flights of stairs to the top deck while she closed the door behind me. I came down when she set my food bowl a few steps from the backdoor, ate it and then came in the house without any argument. I was all tuckered out.

But I sure had a good time giving Mom the runaround.

NO. 1 KITTY, SKOOTER, LOVED CHRISTMAS

Christmas Lover

Brown tabby and white cat wrapped in Christmas tree lights.

Skooter testing the lights.

 

The very first Kitties Blue, Skooter, loved Christmas more than any of our other cats have. He enjoyed decorating, the thrill of unwrapping gifts and playing with the discarded paper and empty boxes. His new toys came in a distant fifth place.

But his favorite pursuit was sleeping beneath the Christmas tree. In those days, we still put a live tree in the foyer each year. Skooter had constant access and spent most of his days and evenings beneath the tree with lights warming his fur. As novice kitty caregivers, we never considered this could be a problem, even when we were both away at work all day. As Dad Tom would say, “What could go wrong?”

Christmas Cat-astrophe

Brown tabby and white cat leaning through stair rail staring at Christmas tree.

Skooter looking angelic while admiring the tree.

On one particular Christmas just about everything went awry. The ornaments from the bottom of the tree were always on the floor, which I now know we should have expected. The worst event occurred, however, as guests were coming up our front walk. We were in the midst of yelling at Skooter and trying to prevent the nine-foot-tall tree from crashing to the floor. Our big boy had caught his head in a string of lights as he was sprinting from beneath the tree. In his desperation to run upstairs prior to interlopers entering his house, he struggled to get away with those lights wrapped around his neck. As we tried to assist him the tree was on the fast track toward the floor.*

Being younger, faster and nimbler in those days (1990, I think), Dad Tom and I caught the tree just before it hit the rug.

Brown tabby and white cat playing with toy wrapped in green Christmas paper.

Skooter plays with his new toy before he unwraps it. (That’s Louise in the background.)

Even after that near cat-astrophe, the tree remained in the foyer and at least semi-upright for several more years. From that day forward, it was attached to the stair railings with bungee cords! It wasn’t a full-proof method for protecting tree and ornaments, as the kitties were able to tip the tree and partially dislodge its base from the floor. But the tree never again came close to crashing!

Behind Closed Doors

After MacKenzie‘s first Christmas in 2001, however, the only time a tree was erected other than behind closed doors, was when it was covered with non-breakable ornaments. As I am capable of breaking the glass ornaments without any help, the tree-pouncing pusses no longer need to offer their expertise. By that time I had also given in and purchased an artificial tree. Sharpening claws on the trunk is no longer an option.

 

Brown tabby and white cat with head poking out from under Christmas wrapping paper.

“What new toy? I thought this was the toy!”

 

But back to Skooter…I have included several photos of his yuletide delights.

* No cats or humans were harmed during the fiasco, but a few ornaments did not survive.