Talking to Gun-Hee’s breeder

Sherry called me on Friday night and we talked for a ridiculously long time. It was awesome. We talked about all sorts of things, but a major topic was, of course, Gun-Hee getting disqualified for having a grey undercoat in one ring at that show back in August. She said pretty much what I did, that it seemed to be an overzealous interpretation of the standard, but she also shared with me some advice she had been given about grooming Scar (Gun-Hee’s father), Whitey (his uncle) and Dior (Scar and Whitey’s older brother, a former Champion now neutered and being shown in Premiership): Remove as much dead hair from the coat as possible. She said she used a special brush to remove the dead undercoat, and she was amazed at how much hair she got off of Scar.

Well, when we were in Florida, we picked up one of those ShedEnder combs because they had them for sale at CVS. I decided to try it out finally, after talking to Sherry, and see how it worked.

It worked amazingly! I have a shedding blade which works well on Tessie’s thick double coat, but which wasn’t so impressive on Gun-Hee’s thin, sleek coat. I didn’t really spend a lot of time on him with it, as this was more of a “hm, let’s see if this works” kind of thing rather than a serious grooming session…and I got a large handful of hair off of him!

This is the pile of hair I got off of Gun-Hee, and the ShedEnder comb.

“Wow…all that hair came off of me!?”
So the show is on November 11, two weeks from today. I think I’ll comb him with the ShedEnder every other day or so to get a good sheen on him and remove as much dead hair as possible. Hopefully, this will reduce any greyness in his undercoat and keep him from garnering any more disqualifications.

He only needs one more Winners Ribbon to earn his Premiership. I just want him to win one at this next show…just one. Anything else will be gravy.

Let’s Go Red Sox!

Gun-Hee is really getting into the World Series!

He decided to get a closer look during the first inning of Game 1.

Gun-Hee knows where the ball is!

Not Big Papi’s best side.

Getting up-close and personal with Dice-K.

There’s only one October!

He got interested again after the Red Sox won the World Series on Sunday night…

Posing with the starting pitchers.

He seemed to be rather taken with Papelbon.

Even if he wasn’t dancing!

Gun-Hee in the morning

Since I made my last post about Gun-Hee “helping” me get ready for work in the morning, I took some photos of Gun-Hee in the bathroom.

Look out, here he comes!

Hey mom, whatcha doing?

Evil Genius

Gun-Hee is too smart for his own good. This morning, as he does most mornings, he has hanging out in the bathroom with me while I was getting ready for work. His latest thing is knocking things off of the inside edge of the tub and then playing with them. Today it was my pumice stone and my razor (!?!). He already knows how to push the door in if it’s closed so he can come in the bathroom. I’ve suspected that he knows that to get out, he needs to pull the door towards him (the door opens into the bathroom). Generally, while I’m getting ready, the drawer my make-up is kept in is open, which blocks the door and prevents it from opening. Well, this morning he figured out that he needed to close my make-up drawer in the bathroom before he could pull open the door to get out.

I’m up close to the mirror putting on my mascara, and behind me I hear the sound of the drawer rolling closed. Then he started pulling at the door to open it enough to squeeze out. There are no photos of this, at least not yet (I guess I need to keep the camera in the bathroom!), but…that kind of spatial conceptual ability in a young cat can only mean we’re in for some interesting times in the coming years.

Trust and confidence

I’m constantly amazed at how trusting and confident Gun-Hee is. He has no qualms about exposing his belly to the world when he’s asleep…

I’m especially fond of the one fang he’s got sticking out.

Strange Bedfellows (Part Deux)

Last weekend, Patrick and Gun-Hee were cuddled up together in a patch of sunshine. Give that it’s more usual to see Gun-Hee biting Patrick til he gets out of the bed Gun-Hee wants to be in, I had to capture the moment of brotherhood for posterity!

…And, one with mood lighting…

Gun-Hee’s a bad influence!

It’s not so much that he’s a naughty cat, but he, more than any cat I’ve ever known, will try things. Most cats would never, for example, try to jump from the back of the sofa to the stepping stool. They look at the distance and decide there’s no way they can make it. But Gun-Hee, he’ll try it. He’s not afraid of what happens if it doesn’t work. He doesn’t care if he falls flat on his face.

Over the weekend he decided to try to wriggle out of the “flak jacket” – the vest harness I got him in Oregon. He got bored riding and wanted to walk, so he started leaning forward in the front carrier as far as he could, using the clip as leverage, and pulling his arms as close to his body as he could. Sure enough, he sort of slithered through the neck hole and out onto the sidewalk. Of course, once he realised that he could do it, there was no keeping him in his harness, because he kept doing it. But the point is, you put a harness on most cats, and after a feeble attempts, they just accept that they’re stuck wearing the thing. But Gun-Hee, it’s like he doesn’t know he’s not supposed to be able to get out, so he gives it a shot.

But once he figures out he can do a thing, that’s it. He keeps doing it. This is why I’ve got carabiner clips on his show cage: he’s figured out how to work the zippers.

One thing about cats is, they learn by example. A mother cat teaches her kittens to hunt, groom and use the litter box by showing them how to do it. This is why Gun-Hee does things like reach up for the elevator buttons: he knows they make the thing go to our house. He doesn’t know how they do it, but he knows that we get in, I touch them and we come out on our floor.

What worries me is that Gun-Hee’s pioneering spirit is going to rub off onto the other cats, and then we’ll be doomed. This past weekend, for example, Gun-Hee decided he wanted to see what was in the dishwasher.

You can see he’s got the concept of how to open the door down;
he’s even starting to position his body to use his weight to pull it down.
He’s just not heavy enough.

Kylie comes over to see what Gun-Hee is doing. He’s still trying to open the dishwasher.

After he finally gives up, Kylie gives it a go. You can see she’s not sure what he was doing, but if she were to figure it out? She might be able to do it. She’s got a little more weight and, being taller, a little more leverage.
At least he hasn’t started to work on opening the refrigerator…yet.

And, at over a year old…

…Gun-Hee is currently engaged in chasing the hell out of his tail.

I don’t know what it is about that tail of his…but he sure loves chasing it.

Gun-Hee and the Leopard Son

Because it’s Columbus Day (aka Canadian Thanksgiving), I got out of work early. I turned on the TV, and The Leopard Son was just starting, so I’m watching it.

And so is Gun-Hee.

He is utterly fascinated. Mostly, he’s just sitting on the sofa next to me, transfixed…

But once or twice he’s gotten up to try to interact with the leopards.

Just another Saturday in Boston

Gun-Hee loves to ride the T. I tell people this, but sometimes I get the feeling that they don’t really believe me. But this weekend I discovered that, not only does he like to ride the T, but he likes to wait for it as well.

This is Gun-Hee at Park Street Station, one of the two oldest subway stations in the country.

What I love best about these photos is how unfazed he is as “the train comes rumblin’ through.” The thing I love second best is that I had to really hold him to keep him behind the yellow line.

Gun-Hee goes to the Jewellers

I had to run errands on Saturday, so of course, Gun-Hee came with me. We went to the post office, and then we went to pick something up from my jewellers, Virgil and Florin Ghita.

Here’s Gun-Hee in the historic Jewelers Exchange Building in Downtown Crossing.

Gun-Hee visits the welders’ kitties

Last weekend Gun-Hee and I went for walks while the weather was still good. We stopped to visit the welders’ cats, as has become our habit since they kittens arrived. This year, I’ve been told they had 15 kittens, but all have found homes apart from the last three. Two are longish-haired black smokes and one, the most friendly, is a shorthaired black girl. She came out to see us.

Not only that, but she and Gun-Hee touched noses!

Gun-Hee was very interested in the little girl.

K.M.D. in the Kitchen

One morning last week I woke up, went into the kitchen…and discovered this: