The picture to the right is of Cookie, a Siamese mix breed. She was eighteen when I took that picture.
She seems to have gotten their intelligent, mischief making traits but not the large size. She weighs around nine pounds most of the time.
When I took that picture of Cookie, Dawn was about a year old and had shown herself to be rather playful and really wanting to play with Cookie who wanted no part of that. That got me to doing some serious thinking.
It was likely Cookie would not be around much longer, after all eighteen is a pretty good age for a cat. Dawn clearly needed younger company to bond with so she had someone to share her energy and socialness with.
But, I really wasn’t sure I wanted three cats even if one basically spent her time sleeping near me. My house is not large and I really didn’t want that crazy cat lady like feel to my household. Eventually, I reached a decision.
So, at six weeks old, he was brought into the household.
While the picture shows his eyes as green, they were and still are amber. His name is an old English word meaning fawn coloured. I was grateful that the name is also gender neutral as I originally thought I had a female cat.
I brought him home in a cardboard box which immediately brought Dawn running to see what I’d brought in. I opened the box expecting her to be happy to see a new friend. I was shocked to see her fur stand on end and her hissing at this interloper. This wasn’t going to be as easy as I expected.
For the next few days, Fawnya would try exploring his new space and Dawn would hiss and howl at him, sending him running to me for protection. He came flying across the floor at one point and tried to burrow between my leg and the arm of my chair as Dawn was whacking at his backside.
Meanwhile, Cookie accepted this new addition and even would curl up with him as she slept. I was astounded. As she got older and more feeble, the by then much bigger Fawnya would lay down and wrap his paws around her like he was protecting her. It was sweet to see.
By about the third day, I had to leave the house for most of the day. I was a bit uneasy about doing so but decided that either there would be blood on the floor when I returned or Dawn and Fawnya would be starting to get along. They started to get along.
So, here we are a few years later. Cookie has passed away at the age of 24 and the household is back to two cats and me. We are a household and even though I don’t think of the two cats as kids, they behave very much like them at times.
They often will play together in the house until they notice me watching and then it turns to swatting at each other. Like a couple of kids.
Fawnya likes to hunt which makes him the mouser in the house. When he catches one he prefers to play with it until he wears it down and finishes it off. I really don’t like seeing it but living in a rural older home, he’s doing a job I need done.
Dawn watches this going on but doesn’t take part. She on the other hand is really into watching videos with me. Recently I was watching the movie “Nine Lives” on Netflix. It’s a cute movie about a guy and a cat switching bodies and the guy’s struggle to get the message to his family.
She was laying on the back of the couch when I started watching it on my laptop.
I caught sight of her head moving from side to side as she looked at the screen. That is the usual indicator that a video has caught her attention and she’s watching. A few minutes later, my view of the movie was taken up with her sitting on the keyboard getting up close and personal with the cat on the screen.
We had a bit of a discussion about her being a better door than a window. I moved her to my lap and she moved back to the keyboard until I put the movie on pause each time she tried the keyboard. She got the hint.
When she first started taking notice of videos, she would paw the screen trying to touch what ever animal was on the screen and then go around behind the screen looking for it. The next thing I saw was her head popping up above the screen with a look like “WTF!” on her face. Eventually, that stopped and now she just views.
If you think cats can be aloof and standoffish, these two can definitely put that concept to rest.
Take some sleeping on me time and then he disappears into the bed for most of the day. I do mean into the bed as in under the comforter.
So, you may think me a tad crazy for how much they are allowed to run my house, but I do keep in mind this adage: Dogs have owners, cats have staff.
And I remember my place, no matter how crazy that makes me.
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