I had been told the training procedure with cats was difficult. It’s not. Mine had me trained in two days.-Bill Dana
It’s been three years since we had the pitter-patter of cat paws around the house. Our hearts needed time to mend after we had to put down Sheldon, our pet of twelve years. (If you scroll through my older blogs, you can read about the alpha cat.) Relatives kept sending us pictures of cute cats available for adoption, but the timing wasn’t right. Then I saw the Humane Society picture of a little calico cat named Iridessa. Such a sweet face! I called Michael at his volunteer job and told him about her. To my surprise and delight, he said “Let’s go see her when I get home.” We did, and now she’s a part of our family.
She was so tiny and thin—just five pounds. The name Iridessa didn’t fit this bedraggled little cat. She’d been found outside. A complimentary visit to a local vet revealed her front paw had an injured claw—still inflamed– and the pad of a back paw had been torn. We figured she may have been trapped somewhere and clawed her way out. She was extremely affectionate and friendly, docile to the point of acting lethargic. Her coat had many shades of grey (not quite fifty) yellow, brown, white, and black. Michael called her Josefina and her Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. She became JoJo for short.
It was an inopportune time to adopt her. My daughter, Megan, Tim, and the baby Leona were visiting. Two of the three were allergic to cats. A few days after they left, we were heading to visit our friends in Denver. We asked the shelter if we could pay an additional $100 if they would keep her for two weeks. The director said NO! “They’ll be other cats” she said.
For me, there was no other cat. She was the one. When you fall in cat love, you fall hard. No other cat had her delicate body, enormous yellow eyes and loud purr. We took her home that day. We taught the baby to touch her gently as she was reaching to tug on JoJo’s tail. We kept the door to the guest bedroom firmly closed. Best of all, we found a cat sitter to stay with her while we were traveling. Lauren, our sitter, sent us pictures every day. I felt much better about leaving her.
There is incidentally no way of talking about cats that enables one to come off as a sane person.-Dan Green
JoJo continued to suffer from soft stool. When Lauren sent us a picture of blood in in her poop, I felt scared. I consulted Dr. Google the vet. It could mean trauma, parasites, colitis or something she ate. Since we were in Colorado, all we could do was call our regular vet. She gave us an appointment soon after we returned home. The tests ruled out worms, but Dr. Kimmy discovered her ears were a mess. Out vet did much digging in her ears with several swabs and ran another test. The results showed a bacterial infection instead of ear mites. She sent us home with an antibiotic, Metamucil for cats, and prescription cat food.
After seven days, we had a totally new feline. JoJo was still friendly and affectionate– the best lap cat we’ve ever owned. But the lethargy disappeared. Instead, a mischievous furry imp suddenly appeared. She started using her scratching posts and an occasional upholstered chair more. She played with her toys. When I first shone the laser light at her, she ignored it. Now she was chasing it and leaping in the air to catch it. She pawed through her basket of toys, dragging around the catnip mice, and tossing the catnip pillow. She batted around her pink holey ball and carried it around in her mouth. We found strands of tinsel all over the house from her glittery ball. A nightly session of the Zoomies and chasing her tail ensued. JoJo made a remarkable transformation.
Unfortunately, JoJo also discovered the house plants. The large five-foot corn plant was just right for digging. Luckily, she just liked the feel of the black dirt, and never used it for a litter box. After a smaller plant was knocked over, the carpet needed cleaning. She decided to play jungle cat, hiding beneath the fronds of the Christmas cactus and leaping out as we passed by. We’ve nurtured a three-foot schefflera arboricola, otherwise known as an umbrella plant, for twenty-three years. JoJo perched among the branches, like a leopard, waiting for its prey, bending them downward. Michael covered the container of the large plant with rocks and a screen, moved the Christmas cactus to a higher spot, and replanted the fallen plant, but we were stumped on what to do with the umbrella plant. It was too big to move on high, and some of the branches were already drooping from the weight of our now eight-pound cat.
Megan came up with the answer. “My friend has a cat tree for her pets. That seemed to keep them away from their plants.”
We found a tree on Amazon, a triple decker with five scratching posts, and set it up in front of the patio door, her favorite spot in the sun. JoJo immediately stretched while digging her claws into the tree trunk, jumped from level to level, hid among the leaves, and attacked the branches until they formed a pile of fake greenery on the floor. Even though we need to continually replace the branches, the umbrella plant has been saved. As I’m writing this, the jungle cat is poised on the top level, watching birds out the window. SUCCESS!
JoJo has become the little cat with an insatiable appetite. For a tiny kitty, she has a loud meow and lets us know when she wants to be fed. She scarfed up whatever food the baby dropped on the floor, snatched Michael’s roast beef sandwich when left unattended, begged for scraps whenever we ate, even though we’ve taken to using a squirt bottle to discourage her from joining us at the table. She’s gained three pounds and according to our vet, she’s at her ideal weight. She may seem like she’s in a dead sleep on the living room couch or my lap, but if either of us make a move toward the kitchen, she’ll leap up and beat us to the fridge.
I wholeheartedly agree with Terry Pratchett. Cats will amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated by a paw.
We’ve become cat owners again, although I’m not certain owners is the right word to describe our relationship. Nobody really OWNS a cat. Cats allow us to care for them, maybe because they were once worshiped in ancient Egypt and they’ve never forgotten it. Cats find humans useful, and occasionally show their love for us with an earsplitting meow and a wet nose in our face at four o’clock in the morning.
Janice Detrie 