Doggy-Dog World

I've been checking out some blogs of others here with Blogger, and I've decided mine are pretty bland compared to most of the ones I've seen--lots of images and colors and cutesy things said marginally. Other than a few photos I may insert, I think I'll stick to bland.

We are owned by two cats, Dusty, a male tabby, and Squeakie, a female calico. A few years ago I made the bad mistake of giving them treats sometime during the day, that is, canned wet catfood. They had been given only hard food for the first seven years we had them. They loved the wet stuff so well, especially the king of the roost Dusty, that he became more and more demanding as time went on--food on the floor more and more often and more and more at odd times of the day and night, especially at night. Anyone who might stumble onto this blog and is not a cat lover will not understand what I say next. Dusty always sleeps with us, Squeakie never. When we go to bed we can always count on his joining us within five or ten minutes after lights out. He's good until about 3:00 or 4:00 when his stomach tells him it's time for more fooooood. He never bothers Rosalie, only me, the foooood giver. I try to ingnore him and can usually get another hour or so of sleep before he finally does it and I give up and get up and give him a half can of Fancy Feast (oh, yes, only the best for the king). Then I return to bed and sleep until I hear him make that joyous run from about the living room, down the short hall to our bedroom, and then a leaping crash onto the bed. He's been fed, he's happy again . . . for a while. If he likes the brand I've given him, he eats his fill and is good for the next three or four hours. But if it's something that doesn't just happen to suit him this time, he eats two bites, comes back to bed, and then begins his torture tactics again an hour later. It's a contest every night to see who's goint to win the battle of wills.

Last night, just before we turned out the lights, Dusty, in the bedroom doorway, coughed up everything he had just eaten, an amount that was going to keep him happy for almost the entire night. The pig had eaten too much too fast and up it came. Cat lovers know that cat spitup is just something we all have to suffer with. No big deal. Paper towel for the majority of it, then water to dilute, then a towel to scrub up the rest. No big deal. But I knew I was going to lose the battle this night. He was going to want to be fed again . . . and soon. At 1:30 it began. He gets as close to my head as he can, whiskers brushing my cheek or forehead, then a little meow asking if I'm really asleep or just faking it. So I fake it. The trick is never to move a muscle or crack the eyes open even a tiny bit. He's very clever and he sees me in the dark. More meows, louder and more insistent, his way of saying, "Gettup! Gettup! I want foooood!" I hold myself frozen for five minutes, ten minutes. Then he circles me to the outer edge of the bed, stepping on my legs deliberately as he circles. This time he gives me the ultimate shot, a little saliva-filled sneeze in my face to see if I'm alive or dead. He knows the sneeze trick usually gets me moving. And he's right. It works. I get up and dutifully give him another half can of a variety I knows he really likes. Then, in defeat, back to bed until I hear him make his running leap to the bed, then a few satisfied smacks as he cleans his front paws before lying down till morning's light. God, I love that cat.

Well, I guess if I'm going to say I love Dusty, I'd better include a comment or two about Squeakie. I love her also. She got that name because she doesn't sound like most cats. Her sounds come out as tiny little squeaks. She's three years younger than Dusty, just a baby when we got her and Dusty from Four Paws. Dusty was (we estimate) three when we got him, and became Squeakie's parent and protector. But he knows he's the alpha cat and lets her know it too. We think Dusty was abused before we got him, because he wouldn't look at me or let me touch him when he first came home to live with us. In fact, I had to work very diligently for almost three years before he would believe I wasn't going to hurt him. I'm happy to say that now we're best of buddies (despite his nightly test of wills).