Jacoby is gearing up for baseball season.
He’s just waiting to steal home!
Month: March 2012
Aby-a-Day – March 30: I wanna come, too! (Friday Flashback)
In Sunday’s post, I said I’ve hardly been away from Jacoby since he came to live with us. However, we did take a quick trip to Manhattan within a week or so of his arrival.
Even then, he didn’t want me to go!
Abys in Need: St. Anne and Jared again…Plus Simba & Beau in New York and Sammi & Lexi in Florida
Every so often, I search Petfinder for “Abyssinians.” Most of the cats that come up with that keyword aren’t actually Abys, but there are some. And, sadly, some of them are cats I’ve seen on there before.
Like poor Jared! I posted about Jared in May 2010, and he’s still looking for a forever home. And now, as then, he has Feline Leukemia Virus, issues with his eyes and has limited vision but his spirit is very much intact. This boy is such a character, he will do all sorts of tricks for attention. He plays like no one’s business. He doesn’t realize he is sick and besides his eyes, you can’t tell either. HELP will cover all his medical expenses for his lifetime, if you will just give him the chance he deserves, he deserves his own family. Jared was born, they think, in January 2009 and, almost two years later he’s still in a foster home.
I have to admit, I was extremely surprised (and not a little shocked) to see St. Anne on Petfinder. I’m sure you all remember St. Anne, and I know several people asked about her and contacted her “owner”…but somehow, for whatever reason, she’s still looking for a home and now she’s on Petfinder. I really don’t know what to think about that.
Then we have two brothers and two sisters! The two brothers, Simba and Beau are in Albany, NY, and would love to be placed together, but the shelter understands that may not be possible so they can also be adopted separately. Their owner, who had them since they were kittens, passed away and now they need a new home.
Simba is a 14 year old male ruddy/usual Abyssinian, and
Beau, who looks like a black silver, is a 10 year old male Aby. Both brothers are neutered, FeLV/FIV negative and up to date on vaccines. Both of them very affectionate, playful and love to have people around. They are great with children, too but the shelter isn’t sure how they would be around other cats or dogs since they’ve only been with each other for their whole lives.
For info or to adopt Beau and/or Simba, please contact Susie Burnett at jake1@nycap.rr.com or call her at 518-462-8575.
Finally, we have Sammi and Lexi, two sisters in Wildwood, Florida. Sammi (who I think is the ruddy/usual girl) is 7 years old and is a very affectionate cat who will sit up at her perch (designated as “her space”) and greet visitors at the shelter. She is a cat that needs to be in a house with few cats as she does not bond with other cats or dogs. She likes to be brushed and probably will be a good companion.
Her sister Lexi (and, I think, the blue) is 5 years old and is living in a foster home rather than at the shelter with her sister. She has settled in well there and sleeps with her foster mom and has the run of the house. So, while she seems shy in the photo, you can see how much a little extra attention and love will affect a cat. It doesn’t say why these two girls are looking for a new home, but they are both spayed and up-to-date on their vaccinations. For more information, contact the Wildwood Ranch Cat Rescue of Central Florida at 352-748-5260.
Aby-a-Day – March 29: What are little girls made of?
Remember that old nursery rhyme? “What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and everything nice.”
But what is Angel made of?
Yeah…I’m thinking she’s more vinegar and something else than she is sugar and spice…
Must Love Cats – Submit your feline fashion plates
I hope it’s not too late, but I literally just found out about this today.
On Animal Planet’s website, in the section for the show “Must Love Cats,” I found this:
They want photos of a cat dressed up? Yeah, I think I can help them out with that. I had to limit myself to only 6 photos…
They say it’s in honour of the fourth episode of the new season, which is, well, the day after tomorrow (Saturday, 31 March), but the website doesn’t specify a deadline to send in photos, so I figured that all of you might like to send in some photos of your own (Clancy, Finnegan, and Toki, I’m looking at you)!
And hey, if the photos intrigue them and they want to have John Fulton come and meet Jake on camera? Well, I wouldn’t say no to that.
(In case you’re wondering, I just watched the MLC episode featuring cats in the UK, which had a feature on the “Bionic Vet” Dr. Noel Fitzpatrick, the man behind Oscar the cat’s back feet. Other patients of Dr. Fitzpatrick were shown on this episode, including a red/sorrel Somali named Pip who’d had a knee replacement due to bone cancer. I was trying to find out more about Pip for you, since he’s a Somali…but I was not able to find anything about him, not even a still photo. I’ll keep looking, though. It’s a rare day when my Google-fu fails me!)
Meeting the Mooners at the Crab and Mallet
My sister lives in Baltimore, and I went to visit her the same weekend that the Crab & Mallet CFA show was being held in town. Originally, I had hoped to enter Jacoby, as that is a well-known show with a lot of entries and “famous” cats and cat people in attendance.
In the end, Jake and I went to the TICA show in Providence instead, but my sister and I went to the Crab and Mallet show as spectators on Sunday afternoon.
As soon as we walked in the door, we saw a sleek, steel-blue form in a harness greeting people at the entry tables. My sister called me over, and as she was telling me, “Look!” I heard the name “Twyla.” (These photos, I think, are Racy. Twyla was wearing a little walking jacket, but none of the photos of her really came out well, sadly).
“Whoa, wait a minute,” I said. “Did you say her name was TWYLA??”
And then followed the leash up to the person at the other end of it and asked again, “Did you say Twyla?”
And the woman with the blue Aby said, “Yes! This is Twyla.”
And I said, “Oh, hi! I’m Coco. From the Daily Abyssinian!”
And she said, “Hi! I’m Lisa-Maria!”
And then Lisa-Maria led my sister and me over to her benching area, where Twyla’s daughter Racy Mooner and her grandson, Banjo Mooner, were hanging out.
(You may want to go back and refer to my previous posts about the Mooners.)
All three of these Abys are just amazing. Busy show hall, second day, and they’re still playing with toys, rolling over for treats and just showing off all over the place. It was awesome.
It seemed like it happened as soon as we met, but Banjo was called up to a final in Nancy Dodds’ ring.
He looks a little crabby about having to stop playing in this photo, doesn’t he?
He waited patiently (well, as patiently as an Aby can be expected to wait) for his rosette.
As it happened, he was Nancy’s Best Cat in Premiership!
No sooner had Lisa-Maria taken Banjo back to his cage, but Racy was called to a final in Gene Darrah’s ring.
She, too, had to wait her turn.
But when her turn came, she was awarded Best Shorthair Premier and Best Allbreed Premier!
Look at her schmoozing!
Isn’t she adorable?
Back at the benching area, she was clearly very pleased with herself!
“I did good, right, Mom?”
Eventually, I had to tear myself from the Mooners and go see all the other cats at the show. There were 24 HHPs entered (more than I’ve ever seen at a New England show), including this pretty brown ticked tabby named “MyAbby.”
I suspect this is what Abys looked like 150 years ago when the breed first started.
I thought this black Oriental Shorthair was so handsome. And I love his name, too: GPR Kat-Tres Dashiell Hammett.
I have to show you this little man, though. He was just four months old (the youngest a kitten can be to enter a show) and he was adorable. I got to hold him (that’s my shoulder he’s flopped on)!
He’s a European Burmese called Bijouxcats Dewey. Tessie actually has Bijouxcats European Burmese in her pedigree (Her paternal great-great-grandmother was Bijouxcats Krystal SheerRose of Bes, and if you look at the EuroBurm section of the Bijouxcats website, you’ll see a photo of GC Bes Payton of Bijouxcats, International BOB 2002 – Bes is the cattery Tessie is from!), so they may be distantly related. He really did remind me of Tessie, though. Such a little sleepy sweetheart..!
I thought I saw some Somalis, too, but I wasn’t able to get photos of them as people were packing up; I was pretty impressed that the show was pretty much over and packed up by 5pm! There were a lot of great vendors at this show, and Chanan was there, too. Next year, I really want to go to this show as an exhibitor, because it’s every bit as good as I’ve always heard.
Aby-a-Day – March 28: Wordless Wednesday (Ready to go!)
Other People’s Abys – Another update on Allie
AbyFriend Kelli sent me another update on Allie the kitten this morning.
She is such a mess, into absolutely everything! I’ve started calling her “Gator” as a nickname, as in “Allie-gator.” 🙂 It works well because she is obsessed with water, always playing in the running faucets. She is just a doll, but she’s also the Aby in charge around my house. LOL.
Every time I hear about Allie, I can’t help but smile!
Aby-a-Day – March 27: I’m as Corny as Kansas in August (Cartoon Tuesday)
This never really happened, mainly because we never leave food unattended like this. But it definitely could happen.
(Click cartoon to embiggen, or you can view all cartoons in Slideshow mode on Flickr.)
Aby-a-Day – March 26: Elevator Ups and Downs (Hipstamatic Monday)
City cats have a whole different skillset than cats who live in rural settings.
Take, for example, the elevator.
Most cats would have no idea what the heck was happening to them if you put them into a box that took them to another place, but Jacoby takes it in stride.
“Oh, hey, the lobby! Cool.”
He knows that the buttons have something to do with making the doors open, and he knows which doors to stand in front on so he’s ready when they open. One of the elevators opens on both sides depending on which floor you’re on, and he almost always remembers which door is the one that will open.
He also gets impatient when the doors don’t open quickly enough for his liking.
Other People’s…well, Not-Abys: Caveat Emptor
If you’re looking for an Abyssinian, you really do need to be aware of unscrupulous breeders. Check out this advert on a UK website called Pets4Homes:
3 BEAUTIFUL FEMALE PEDIGREE X KITTENS
The Abyssinian is a pedigree breed of domesticated cat with a distinctive ticked coat. Stunning! The Mother is an Abyssinian, the Father a DSH Black & white
8 weeks old
Litter trained
De-flead
Wormed
Included (brand new):
Litter tray
Cat bowl
Blanket
Top formula milk
Royal Canin wet food
Pack of cat toys
And they are selling these kits for £220 (Roughly $350 US and $347 CDN)! thing is, the mother cat isn’t an Abyssinian at all. She’s a lovely brown ticked tabby, certainly, but she’s definitely not an Aby. There are photos of her, and the black with white father, on the kittens’ website.
I’d say they needed to check out the NAR’s “Is it an Aby” page, but I think they’re fully aware of their misidentification.
Aby-a-Day – March 25: Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone…
Two weeks ago, I went to Baltimore to visit my sister. I had originally wanted to bring Jacoby with me so we could go to the Crab and Mallet CFA show, but we ended up going to the TICA show in Providence the previous weekend.
I’ve left Jake alone before, but we haven’t done a lot of travelling in the three years since he’s lived with us, and I’m pretty sure that this was the very first time I left him alone but my husband stayed home. Apparently, Jake missed me. A lot.
According to my husband, the first two days I was gone, he waited by the door for me.
He’d get all excited when he heard someone at the door, but then, when Jake saw it was only my husband and I wasn’t there, too, he’d deflate like a day-old latex balloon. “Oh, it’s you” was his basic reaction.
By Sunday, he’d given up all hope that I would ever dome home. He slept most of the day on Sunday.
I tried to FaceTime him on Sunday night…he went in the bedroom and looked for me, but he didn’t connect my voice coming from the phone to looking at me on the phone.
He was so happy when the front door opened on Monday afternoon and I was behind it! He was suspicious about the smells that were on my bags, though. I told him those were the scents of his cousins…
…Towson…
…and Spike!
We did go to the Crab and Mallet show on Sunday afternoon as spectators, just wait til you see who I met at the show!
Aby-a-Day – March 24: Draw something!
My sister and I are huge fans of the game “Draw Something” She was the one who was into it first, and then when I was down in Baltimore visiting her, she got me hooked.
Today, I had to draw the word “Pirate” for her. So, what else would I draw but…
Angel, of course!
This is what she looked like before I drew the pirate stuff on her:
In my defense, it’s pretty hard to draw with your thumb while you’re riding a bus!
And, in case you’re wondering…yes, she guessed it!
Edit: Thanks to Cavepainter’s comment, I posed Angel with Puss in Boots!
Aby-a-Day – March 23: Shadow Boxing (Friday Flashback)
My husband gave me some photos he had on his iPhone that I’d never seen before. One of them was a shining example of why Angel is paranoid about using the litter box:
It was a lot worse when she first came to live with us; this photo was taken back in 2009, before Jacoby joined our family. Back then, Kylie and Tessie really ganged up on Angel. I don’t know if they didn’t want another female around or if they didn’t like the fact that she lost an eye, but it was tense in our house before Jake.
This is what happened one morning. Angel had gone to the litterbox. Tessie chased her as soon as she exited, and then Kylie, lying in wait outside the bathroom door, ambushed her. I didn’t have a camera, so I sketched it to describe it for my husband.
What’s funny is that Jake didn’t have any problems being accepted by the girls. Maybe it’s the “Cats play better in even numbers” thing, or maybe it was because he was a kitten, a male, or both, but he had nothing like the hazing that Angel did.
I mean, really…Jake didn’t have to put up with anything like the reception Angel did.
Aby-a-Day – March 22: Playing with light
I love watching Angel playing with laser pointers.
Look at her paw! Even though it’s light, Angel thinks she can grab the red dot. Adorable!
Other People’s Abys – Scenes from a Tasmanian cat show
Maggie, the person who lives with Chilli, an Aby in Tasmania, shared photos she took at the LABCC Cat Show in New Norfolk, Tasmania, last weekend:
It’s so interesting to me to see glimpses of other cat shows in other parts of the world! Wouldn’t it be fun to be able to travel the world and go to cat shows everywhere you went?
Aby-a-Day – March 21: Wordless Wednesday (Going up?)
Aby-a-Day – March 20: The galloping goofball (Cartoon Tuesday)
I just thought it would be fun to draw Jacoby running (and flopping!) in the hallway.
As you may recall, he does this…
(Click cartoon to embiggen, or you can view all cartoons in Slideshow mode on Flickr.)
Aby-a-Day – March 19: Roll me over in the carpet (Hipstamatic Monday)
Last Monday, I posted some photos of Jacoby running in the hallways of our building. But I left out the funniest part.
As I illustrated in last week’s cartoon, even better than running in the hallway, Jake loves to roll around in the hallway.
Just like I drew, he’ll be running along and then just suddenly flop onto his side.
I have to be careful if I’m running along with him; he actually stops so suddenly sometimes that I almost trip over him!
(This is actually a shot of him as he’s just about to flop)
And yes, sometimes he does that silly thing cats do on carpet: he pulls himself along on his side.
I have a theory as to why he does this. The house he was born in has carpeting. Our place has hardwood floors.
So I think that, for Jake, rolling around on the carpet is kind of like kneading; it reminds him of when he was a kitten.
Sparkle Claws Down Cat Myths
I had to post a shout-out to our friend Sparkle’s post this morning on Common Misconceptions about Cats, because in it, she perfectly expresses the way I feel:
Cats Are Not as Friendly as Dogs
I look at it this way: would you want to be friends with someone who liked everyone indiscriminately, or would you prefer to have someone befriend you because she decided you were special and worth it? Would you want a friend who was needy and always begging for attention, or would you prefer someone who had your back, but most of the time made no big deal out of it? When a cat likes you, it is a gift not to be taken lightly. We are friendly to the people we trust, and isn’t that a better way to be?
You would not believe the number of people who just couldn’t believe there was a CAT at the St. Patty’s Parade yesterday. And I hear it all the time: “OMG I’ve never seen a cat out a leash like this! How do you do it? Is he specially trained?”
Nope. He’s just my cat and I’m his person. Kind of like Catalyst and Catacombs, without the telepathy.
Most people don’t understand, but Jacoby does the things he does because I ask him to, and he likes to do them. I keep wanting to try to clicker train him…but then, I wonder what that would really do, since he already cooperates with me. Although I would like to teach him things like “Leave it”…
The one thing I would add is this: I have always said “Cats live up to your expectations of them. If you expect to have a cat who’s afraid of strangers, going out, being in a carrier, not come when called, not understand things like “Get down” or “Get off” and hide under the bed when you have company, well…that’s what sort of cat you’ll have. But if you expect a cat to be sort of a partner, a roommate, a creature that you can take out to the park, call over to you when you want to show them something, understand what you ask of them and comply because of your relationship, well…then you’ll have that sort of cat. Since I was in junior high, I’ve been leash-training cats; my cat in high school would go on bike rides with me in his own special basket. Harri, my Siamese, camped with me for 5 years when I was active in the SCA, and even when he was older he travelled with me.
And now Jake (and his brother Gun-Hee) rides the subway with me, helps me run errands and takes walks in the park, and also runs to the door when I come home to give me headbutts.
What cat myths do you hear all the time that really drive you batty? I’d love to hear them.
The Daily Abyssinian...and Singapura 