Cats in the House

Well, I'm a dog person...but you'd never know that these days. I now have more cats than dogs.

Poor Smudge, my #1 cat, has been so tolerant of all the dogs I've brought into the house over the years. He's only been afraid of one dog, and because he came up out of the woods at the ripe age of about 4 weeks old, I think he thinks he is a dog himself! He's never been around other cats until last year when I got Topaz.

Topaz was trapped at a local shopping center by my friend, Gail, and she had him neutered and vaccinated so he could be released again. Usually where you see one cat, there's an entire colony. After he was released she saw him again across the road in the parking lot of Applebees following people for attention and a handout. After she told me about how worried she was for his safety crossing the busy road, I told her that he could be released on my property if she was able to trap him again. Well, it wasn't long before she had him and brought him to me. He was so sweet that I brought him into the house and he's been a happy indoor kitty ever since. He wasn't very nice to Smudge for a while, but they worked out their differences and became very good friends.

Then Leo came into our lives. Same location, another cat, and Gail, the kitty angel. While I was helping Gail in her Christmas shop I met Leo and fell in love with him right away. He is gorgeous and not a big cat and so very sweet and loving. I told Gail I could foster him for her. He was just too sweet to be released in the busy shopping center.

Poor Smudge. Here was another cat upsetting his domain. Leo is half his size and picks on Smudge. Smudge, in turn, takes out his frustrations on Topaz. In the mean time, Topaz and Leo are starting to be good friends. Here is Topaz (the black one) grooming Leo. Please notice one of Dawn's images on the floor of my work room (sorry Dawn - the cats did it)

And here they are on the day bed. If you look closely, you can see their notched ears. That's how you can tell if a stray cat has been neutered or spayed and vaccinated.

Smudge trys to keep his distance from Leo as much as possible.

I have three more cats - my "outside/mouser" cats; two males and one female. You can't even touch the two males but the female is quite friendly. She started crying non-stop at the front door and windows and made me feel horrible. Then last week when we had all that snow, she wouldn't leave the porch and was freezing. Yes, now Wendy is in the house too. I don't have any pictures of her yet to share, but she is your ordinary, run of the mill tabby cat. She will play with Leo and Topaz but Smudge doesn't want anything to do with her or her friends. He's been insulted enough lately and wants to go back to being just one of the dogs.