Posts
This is Boots.
Not a name I would have chosen, although it makes sense since she has four white paws, white belly and white chin.
Mostly I just call her Cat when I call her anything at all. She knows who she is and hasn't told me yet. But she stays so I guess it doesn't matter.
She weighs in at about 20 pounds. 32" from tip of tail to tip of nose. Yes, that's 20 pounds. No, I don't know what that is in kilos...google it. I think maybe around 9 kilos? Big girl that she is, she doesn't bite or scratch when upset or frightened.
She just throws up. Profusely.
I have learned through trial and error that to give her canned, wet cat food is to invite disaster. You can see the wool berber? It is no longer uniformly warm beige. So she must be fed only the expensive, dry food. Not only that, it must be the hairball formula food (just mineral oil but you just try to get a 20-lb cat to swallow that stuff!) and it must be only chicken or fresh water fish flavour. Not lamb, not turkey, not salmon, just fresh-water. You know, if my kids were ever that picky I would have sent them to boarding school or something. Lucky for them, eh!
Another thing about Cat, and all cats except the hairless varieties, (duh!) is that if you don't comb or brush them frequently, your whole house, your car and every item of clothing and bedding you have ever owned will soon be permanently covered in cat hair and dander. Forever.
Until today Cat has never had a bath. She is quite good at personal grooming and I do brush her sporadically. And when stoned on catnip she drags herself around on the carpet leaving large clumps of black hair for me to vacuum. This is an interesting thing to watch actually. She lies on her side, digs her claws into the berber's woven loops and pulls herself around the room for about five minutes. It is just as effective as brushing, and removes the same amount of fur.
I have problems with my hands and find it painful to use nail clippers or scissors to trim her claws. So once every 3 or 4 weeks I trick her into her travel box, haul her, mewling and whinging, 4 blocks up the hill and get the pet groomers to do it for me. Today I splurged and got them to give her a bath and blow dry. too. She was quite subdued when I picked her up. She is very embarrassed about the pink bow they gave her and has been licking herself all over to get rid of the shampoo smell. But I think they removed at least a pound of hair.
She seems lighter somehow.
1 comment:
Just read this post again. Sadly, Boots passed away about a year ago at the age of about 12. Her health was never strong despite her size. And I did manage to get her weight down to a more manageable 14 lbs eventually.
One afternoon, when I was very sick with pneumonia and dying on the sofa, she came up to me, mewed sweetly, and went to lay down on her favourite sunny spot on the balcony. When I awoke the next morning she had not come to mewl for her breakfast. I got up and went looking for her and there she was, still in her sunny spot. But not breathing. She had passed on to that catnip field in the sky.
I inherited a houseful of fleas I never knew she had, but that's another story. A year later, I still imagine I hear her gallumping down the stairs every time I open a can of salmon though.
I miss her.
Post a Comment