28 thoughts on “Weekend Question Thread”

  1. Four cats, which is two over my limit. Some things you just can’t plan. Here’s where they came from:
    Rocky: A persian abandoned at the SPCA. My wife adopted him to be a visiting pet. He’s retired from that how; he enjoys just being a crotchety old man. Whatever it is, he doesn’t like it.
    Jelly Roll: A tabby my wife found at a gas station on Causeway Blvd. in Metairie. We imagined that she’d be athletic, like an Abyssinian we used to have. Instead, she turned into the tubby tabby. Whatever it is, she’ll eat it. I guess she grew into her hame.
    Wednesday: A few years ago, a homeless man on the corner of Causeway and Veterans gave this tiny black kitten to my wife. The kitten decided that it was a good idea to lick Ray’s face. She stayed. Now she’s the top cat in the house. (Named after Wednesday Addams.)
    Alexis a.k.a. Petunia: When my mother died three and a half years ago, her cat needed a home. She doesn’t get along well with the other cats, so she has her own room in back. (She loves people; it’s cats she can’t stand.)

  2. I have a black cat named Nero who has a slow charisma leak. My ex described him thus: “Einstein himself could be giving a lecture on the Grand Unified Field Theory, and Nero could walk into the back of the lecture hall, and everyone would stop and say, ‘Ohh, what a nice cat!’ and want to pet him.”

  3. Louie the cat – whose only fault is being borrible in a car (I keep a stash of kittle downers in the evacuation kit)
    4 feral lap cats (Boots, Nora, Bandit and Spot) whose life is not made miserable by Sherman – S’s Old English Bulldog with a serious red Kong ball fixation…
    Sherman and Louie ‘happily’ share the compound by each laying claim to their own house. I used to stay that is how me and ex-Mr. lb stayed married (two houses) but well, time for a new joke.

  4. An overweight semi-feral Maine Con Cat which I rescued. Utterly demented and Everything Belongs To Her.

  5. Tigger–an orange tabby cat with a fluffy tail. I adopted him last January from one of the local cat/dog rescue organizations. He’ll be a year old next month…thus far he’s got me well trained.
    Here’s a picture:
    Link
    Last year my previous orange cat–Earl–sadly left his earthly existence. A friend found him as a stray and asked if I’d take him in. We were best buddies for some seven years.

  6. Grommit, the Boss Dog. Aussie Shepherd/Heeler Mix. Obnoxious but not in the least bit vicious.
    Possum, the goofy teenage dog growing into an assistance animal- provides herding and alarm clock service for me in my disorganized morning semi-consciousness.
    Ira, older orange fluffy (4LG once said he looked like a big Dreamsicle) who is laid back and passive. Nicknamed the Dude for a reason. He doesn’t want any trouble, man.
    Alfie, young Turkish Van mix. Tiniest kitten in the world turned into a huge punk of a teenager. Alternates between sweetness and hooliganism.
    Jeebs, the parrot. Alternates between agressiveness and angelic sweetness. Smarter than the rest of us put together.

  8. Four Gordon Setters (Kensie, Paddy Boy, Jolie, & CoCo, one very geriatric yellow Labrador Retriever who is a flunk-out Seeing Eye Dog (Rocky), Tipitina the cat & Tab Benoit the cat. I also have a Tennessee Walking horse mare named Bullseye & a Spotted Saddle horse gelding named Gabriel. I consider the horse pets since I use them as really big dogs in order to lower my blood pressure & pulse rate & respiration rate. That has been extremely important the last 8 years.

  10. Mrs. Geor3ge and I are a blended family. I came with two cats: Odin, a very large and very timid tuxedo cat; and Freya, a brown tabby.
    Mrs. G came with Jezmand, a grey torty; Sabine, a black torty; and Griffin, an obnoxious orange tabby. She also has Bella, the sweetest natured Shepherd/Collie mix on the planet.
    Last year we adopted a Australian Shepherd named Nyaene. She rules the roost.

  11. All these cats! I’m allergic.
    Two Guinea Pigs (cavies) – Primrose, longhaired coronet Buff/Chocolate mix; Reggie, shorthaired crested Tan/Grey/White mix. He’s been fixed, so no Rainbow Babies!

  12. Two rescued cats – one of ’em from being swept out the door – literally – by a convenience store worker, scooped up by a then-housemate who cussed the worker out, and then brought her over to me when said housemate remembered she was allergic. This dark grey tabby is the oldest of my pets.
    The other one – my big orange baby – was gonna be put out on the curb in a garbage bag along with his kitten brothers and sisters by the crackhead living in a house near my workplace. My boss grabbed him one morning, thinking he was the kitten a neighbor kid had adopted who had managed to wander back to that Godforsaken place. Turned out he wasn’t. I took him in, and he is my fourteen-pound orange longhair tabby moose baby.
    My dog was picked up by me one morning when I was driving to work. She was running around with no collar on, back and forth across St Charles Avenue in front of Loyola University, trying to find somebody she could be with. I got her in my car after watching her nearly get hit, and she slept for two days straight. Somebody had dropped her off. Been with me ever since, for seven-plus years now.

  13. In order of age:
    All-blackLala, of pea-sized head and bowling ball belly, was born under my next-door neighbor’s house on Carrollton in NOLA in March ’95, to a tiny black stray I was feeding. She was far bolder than her two 6-toed brothers, so I thought she’d be a good fit to stand up to my old cranky cat Maggie (sadly gone now), whom Lala, of course, proceeded to terrorize. She was a batshit crazy spidermonkey as a kitty, but now she’s just as old and cranky as Maggie was then.
    Boomer, our 7 y.o. former racing greyhound, doesn’t mind kitties but other dogs make him skittish. He’d go home with anyone at all – he is completely guileless. Boomer once at a whole giant kingcake I’d left cooling on the stove, leaving only the plastic baby licked clean in the middle of his dogbed. But he never gains an ounce, no matter what or how much he eats. Lucky dog.
    Froggy (dwarf African frog), Spotty (catfish) andSucker (Plecostimus) live in the fishtank with three unnamed but interesting tiny neon tetras.
    Blanca is a beautiful white long-haired cat who started hanging around last Thanksgiving and whose adoption was my birthday present in late December. Blanca’s two idiosyncracies: she loves to go on walks with the dog, and she loves to roll in the mud like a pig. So she’s only a beautiful white kitty about 30% of the time.
    Smokey andCoco are two mice who provide endlessly fascinating Mouse TV for Blanca (Lala could care less).
    AndSticky, the Australian stickbug who stowed away on a glass planter I bought at an amphibian and reptile show last Thanksgiving, and has grown from an inch-long skinny green straightpin into a jagged, brown, thorny animated 4″ twig. Very cool.
    Yes, we’re over our limit – but it’s fun.

  14. In order of their appearance in my life:
    The Princess Kymba, aka Her Pudginess. She’s an old crotchety longhaired calico kitty now. Once she was a brand-new baby my husband found in the yard, wet and helpless. Because her mother was a feline crackhead with no working brain cells (she drowned under a house), Kymba became my first-ever all-indoor kitten, living in a laundry basket at the foot of my bed until she got big enough to climb out of it and took over the house. She survived my husband stepping on her head when she was about two months old (he almost had a heart attack at what he’d done). She was the terror of our neighborhood in her adolescence; then we moved. Now she is the ruling monarch of the house, when she bothers to be awake; in her dotage, she sleeps a lot more than she used to.
    Rushlight, named for the bard in Janet Kagan’s excellent UHURA’S SONG Star Trek TOS novel, was abandoned after being in a fire. I found him in my yard one Saturday morning, about seven weeks old, with his whiskers and eyebrows scorched off and his paw-pads and nose blistered, wailing. I picked him up, fed him some milk, and rubbed his chin until he went to sleep in my lap; for the next six weeks, if he woke up and I wasn’t holding him, he yelled (he has a Siamese voice) until he could find me and get me to hold him. He and Kymba are 13 or 14 years old now (they were born the same year).
    Kymba had a premature litter of kittens when she was about seven months old; two years later she had a second litter, this time fully-developed babies. She promptly developed a uterine infection and mastitis, and spent a week at the vet’s. Meanwhile the babies (Redcat, Twocat and Bearcat) got bottle-fed and thoroughly imprinted on humans. They’ll all be 11 years old next month. Red is a fluffy orange pointy-eared menace to mental stability who, at six weeks, patted me in the eye and scratched my cornea; her sister Twocat, so named not merely because she was the middle kitten but because at birth she was a carbon-copy, appearance-wise, of her mother, is a beautiful little tortoiseshell calico with big wise eyes. Bearcat, their brother the runt, is now an 18-pound silk-black giant. These four are long-haired, extra-large cats with the temperament of ragdolls.
    Tribble, who came into my life as a temporary lodger in March 2000, hates being indoors unless the weather is wet or very very cold; he tolerates other cats slightly more than he tolerates dogs, which is not at all. He’s got a cougar’s face with the white-rimmed eyes, but they’re grass green, which sorts oddly with his fluffy steel-blue coat; he has tufts at the ends of his ears and the biggest feet I’ve ever seen on a domestic cat, and while he comes from a feral background — he used to be named Tarjay, for the Target parking lot whence his former owner rescued him — and is the absolutely meanest eight-pound fuzzball in the galaxy, he is very affectionate with me. He knows more bad language than any other cat I’ve ever met.
    Fiendy (short for fiendish thingie) is my oldest son’s first rescue. He’s gray and white or he’d be a tuxedo cat. His formal name is Bandit, because he’s a born thief and his face is patterned like a classic Zorro mask. He’s a scrappy little guy.
    Last but not least there’s Alex, he of the long white coat (except when, as recently, his mouth gets so bad he can’t groom it and we get him a lion trim) and the chronic dental infections. He’s a rescue too — from a K-Mart parking lot, full of burrs and filthy-coated, half-starved and miserably lonesome. Some stupid human declawed him, and then abandoned him. Alex won’t eat fish and hates canned cat food; he often seems to commune with invisible companions and I find him three or four times a day sitting on the divider between the sinks, drinking from the slow-drip at the faucet.

  15. I have my ‘grey lady’ GrisGris Laveau – a cat that I adopted when she was 4 months old from my mom’s friend (who discovered she was allergic). I saw the pic of this little steel grey w/white chin/belly and toesies…and she was next to a purple trick or treating Jack O’Lantern… The lady was calling her (a kitten mind you) “Miss Jingles”?!?!? I took one look at the pic and said “She will be my cat and her name will be GrisGris!” She just turned six years old on my b’day this past week! 🙂 I tacked on the “Laveau” part because it just fit. 🙂 She is a sultry 18 pounds, a tad aloof, but a total love.
    And as if on cue – my black/white now-5 years old ‘boo boo kidden’ Amelie (named for the movie) is pawing at the patio door (inside, I am out on the very pleasant verandah w/a cosmo and the laptop). I ‘got’ her one day when a then co-worker showed up w/a box of three kittens that were maybe 2-1/2 or tops 3 weeks old!!! A neighbor had found them, and handed them to her knowing she likes cats. I saw the black/white tux/cow marked weensie and had to have her. She curled her wee self up on my chest as I worked on Autocad the rest of the day. She is a complete and utter crackhead and I adore her. Her full name, as I have expanded it is “Amelie Louise, Duchess of Parma” – don’t ask, it just is. LOL! She literally THROWS herself down on the bed beside me – forcing ME over?!?! LOL!
    My goobers!!! I just hope I can find an in-town apartment for us soon – this suburbia stuff is for the birds…not me.
    Must go pay kiddenz tax. And give ’em a bit o’catnip. 🙂
    Peace,
    Elspeth

  16. Seven cats — all strays who adopted us, 1 goat — also a stray — and, as of last night, 1 kitten. The kitten showed up on our compost pile eating discarded hot dog buns. Huge wound on his chest turned out to be a wolfworm larva the vet extracted today. Disgusting and must have been painful for the little guy.Photos here, at the bottom.

  17. 2cats who are best friends with my Bearded Dragon.
    Also, Ball Paython, Rosy Boa, Corn Snake, Sinaloan King Snake, 5 geckos. Also 1 albino which appears to be a Californian King albino, perhaps which is gorgeous but is a real dufus to deal with; in fact I got him as a rescue when the owner couldn’t deal with his attitude.

  18. Two mastiffs, four cats and the world’s loudest parakeet.
    Prescott, the English mastiff came to us after we got very frustrated trying to adopt a Katrina rescue in late 2005. Facing a Christmas without a dog for the first time in thirty years, my wife couldn’t take it and Prescott came home with us on December 6th. Of course Noah’s Wish called us on December 8th and told us the adoption of Moose had come through, so on December 9th, we loaded our new puppy up, left the cats in the care of a sitter and headed down to the LSU Vet Center in Baton Rouge, Lousiana to pick up the newest member of our family…
    Moose, the Roman Cane Corso mastiff survived hurricane Katrina and far too many weeks in the LSU Vet Center on a diet of Science Diet. After many surgeries and a bout with heart worms, we picked up the 95 pound weakling and headed back to Vegas with a new puppy and his delighted big brother. A pair of elbow surgeries and a regular diet of Flint River Ranch food and 2 1/2 years later and we now have a healthy, happy 170 pound Moose and his 160 pound “little” brother.
    The cats are headed up Moriarty, the tabby terror, who came to use in April of 1998 as a caretaker for our first adoptee, the late Sabrina, a beautiful Russian Blue who succumbed to cancer two months ago. Mort runs the show and tries to supervise the Mastiffs, who are trying to supervise the cats and it’s so noisy. Vincent Aloysius is our grey and white tuxedo boy who takes care of his human mother and tries his best to make sure her fabrics in her quilts match. Hailey the monster tabby spends most of her time with her Mastiff boyfriend Prescott. Hailey’s a 25 pound tabby whom I believe is the reincarnated soul of Mae West.
    Cheech came to us as an adoption along with her long departed partner Chong, who was in mid-note competition with a Mockingbird when he shuffled on his mortal coil. Cheech, who had never sung a note while in the presence of Chong, soon took up the singing duties and adds to the daily cacophony we loving call our household. When the dogs are supervising the cats and they’re all woofing and meowing their instructions, it’s the peeps, chirps, warbles and screeches of Cheech that provide the counterpoint and puncuation.
    Now how I’m going to get this herd packed up and moved to Lafayette, Louisiana sometime in the next six months, I have no idea, but we’ll get it done, because I can’t imagine a day without any of these guys.

  19. MapleStreet, I am so jealous or your reptilian menagerie. We had a garter snake for a while which we all loved but he seized up and died about 9 months in. When the mice go on to their just reward, I’m hoping we can opt for another scaly friend to fill their glass enclosure.
    (And yes, I’ve suggested there is a way to get a snake and get rid of the mice at the same time, but just get looks for horror from husband and son, who are such squishy-hearted loves they won’t even let me turn old stuffed animals into dog toys.)

  20. Two cats, both 1.5 year old rescue cats from a local shelter.
    Fisher: all black. The athlete of the house and a talker. Loves human interaction.
    Klondike: all white. Klondike was the only of his litter to survive and was raised on a bottle. Which means you can hold him, grab his paws, rub his belly, and he loves it all.
    The biggest difference is that Klondike is a ‘fraidy cat: runs from thunder, trash bags, you name it. Fisher, on the other hand, sits in the open front bay window during storms and loves every minute of it.
    http://picasaweb.google.com/marc.dukes/FisherKlondike
    Marc

  21. Kim, sorry to hear about the loss of your garter – they can be kind of touchy to keep sometimes.

  22. oh, my favorite topic! people’s pets! opening the door for tales about MY marvelous pets!
    james, my oldest, is a thirteen-year-old cocker spaniel who looked old when he was a puppy. his half-sister patty, twelve next week, still looks like a puppy. patty’s tennis ball doubles as her security blanket, james prefers his soft toys.
    the cats are gracie and mittens. gracie, six weeks old, was sitting on the counter waiting for me when i stopped at a small store to ask for directions in september 2003. she’s black with a white V-shaped patch on her underside that looks like little kitty underpants, and a sprinkling of white along the bottom of her throat that looks like a pearl necklace.
    gracie spent much of her early youth thinking she too was a dog and developed a taste for dog food. at meal time she would wander close to the eating james who would whip his head around to bark at her, spraying dog food around the floor, then turn back to eat, leaving gracie to “clean up.” she has long outgrown that game and instead gets her very own tiny bowl of dog food when she shows up at puppy snack time.
    mittens, a tuxedo, is a year younger than gracie and dwarfs her, having grown to a 23-pound behemoth, she being a diminutive 10 pounds. his name is not my fault. he was adopted and named by my elderly neighbor sarah, with his sister (baby doll), when he was a tiny five weeks old and crusted with fleas, but once he was old enough to be out and about, he moved over here to set up housekeeping with gracie (they’re neutered/spayed). i couldn’t change his name because sarah would barely speak to me for two years, believing i had “stolen” her cat, despite my protestations that my only role was opening the door for him to enter or exit. (try telling a cat where to live – ha!) the name does suit him though in that he’s a kitty crackhead, whose delight in having his softball-size head massaged is only exceeded by having his giant tummy rubbed.
    the four of them keep me laughing every day. one of their favorite games is “bedroom access.” the dogs lay at the foot of the bed waiting for the cats to try to come in. cat spotted, the dogs hurl themselves off the bed, barking like maniacs, and chase the cat away from the door. if the cat gets into the room, then the game is to keep the cat off the bed. because of the competition between the dogs they frequently end up on the same side of the bed and the cats simply come up the other side. once the cat makes it up onto the bed, game is over, everybody lays down and goes to sleep.
    gracie’s favorite game is to take up a strategic position and tag the dogs as they walk by (no claws ever – she’s just being a smartass). if she’s waiting for them at the door, they make me escort them past her. i’m not sure that gracie would be nearly as friendly to me were it not for the extra opportunities that proximity to me provides her to give the finger to patty and james.
    james and gracie both think they run the house. patty and mittens know that james and gracie run the house.
    my motto: it’s not a home if it’s not full of pets.

  23. Four cats: Aretha, Millie, Rudy, and Angus. However, I don’t “have” them. They “have” me. How else to explain that I clean their damned toilets every single day?

  24. 6 cats altogether.
    grew up with my paternal unit”s cat’s offspring whiskers and ‘princess’-tabby. only princess at the vet. i had both to the 20’s. like loosing a sibling.
    after whiskers died in my arms at 21(i finally decided to put him to sleep and he saved me the dough)
    then pansy and cosmos from the pound. pansy is 15 and fighting intestinal cancer. cosmos had an untimely passing at 10. 1 cat is not enough and no cats sucks. so then comes the spares.
    castaways from iowa. my brother’s girlfriend’s relatives cat had kittens. my bro brought a adorable black one home. before they could get the cat fixed, she got knocked up. i wanted tedy’s 1/2 bro + sis. but had to take all 7 back to milwaukee. i got the pick of the litter. basil was a must name. was gonna go with pepper(herbs + spices), but turns out sybil was the right name for her. they are the fawlty’s.

  25. hey, that was me at 13:55 on june 29 — i don’t know how my name got left off.
    just letting you all know in case anyone wants to steal my dogs — i’ll leave the door unlocked.

  27. Many of y’all have met my cats via the Crack Van, but can’t resist another introduction for the lurkers: Regina, the most beautiful all-black cat you’ve ever seen, named for the Audrey Hepburn character in Charade; Quin, short for Harlequin, a tortie calico with a parti-color face and the roundest body you’ve ever seen–she’s HUGE!; and Olivia (a.k.a. Kit-ten), a gray and white doll who’s more skittish than our other two, but tries very, very hard to be loving.
    We’d have more, and also dogs, if we had the time and the space. I grew up with dogs, but I’ve come to love the cats just as much (if not more). There’s nothing quite like waking up to a nasty poke in the side of your neck from the cat who loves you so much she wants to wrap her arms around you and SQUEEEZE!

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