Checking in with cats of blog posts past

What that title says.

Click on each cat's name in large type above their picture to read the original post about them.

Aurora

Wonder of wonders, Aurora is out of her cage! True, she didn't have much of a choice in the matter, but still...
Major renovation work recently started on the building where she'd been living up until recently. With the whole inside being gutted and rebuilt, including the cages, cats who'd been housed there before naturally had to be moved somewhere else. As her preference for cage dwelling is well known, Aurora was given portable cage in another building. She stayed there for a time, the one day there she was snoozing in a bed on the table next to the cage. Now she seems quite pleased with her new little corner of the world and is even making a few new friends.

Baby

Baby has also left her cage recently, though in her case no convincing was needed to embrace broader horizons. Now she's in the front yard and looking quite pleased with herself.

I'd wondered if her obsession with swatting at other cats who came near the door of her cage would continue or even escalate once she was free to roam around and swat at will, but this doesn't appear the case. If anything, it seems like she just likes reaching through barriers - evidenced by her cheerfully pawing at me through the fence as I was coming through the gate the other day. Once I was on the same side of the fence as she, it was all purrs and cuddles.

Grizzy

Somewhere along the line, Grizzy concluded that the world hated him and so he wasn't going to let anyone near without a defensive hiss and swat. The fact that cats like Groucho unaccountably decided to start beating up on him certainly didn't help.

How to convince a cat who thinks he's friendless that he's wrong? We kept trying, but were consistently rebuffed. Then slowly it seemed like he perhaps wasn't swatting quite as hard. More time passed, and he'd allow himself to be touched - if food was part of the bargain. Finally, he started to show signs of wanting a few pets, food or no.

We're so glad he's beginning to understand that he has a few people on his side after all.

Grizzy & Peaches - Part II: Grizzy

Grizzy arrived at the sanctuary last summer with two eyes, his friend Peaches, and a temperament that had me mistakenly calling him Grizzly, like the bear, for months.

photo provided by Marianne

Not long after arrival, he'd lost his left eye to an infection and Peaches had to be moved to another cage because the strain of being with him in his current vitriolic state was too much for her.

These days, he generally lives on top of the cages in the double wide, coming down to floor level only rarely. He seems to have made a friend or two, with a grey and white cat called Harry able to share a blanket with him without any skirmishes. A few other cats, however, seem bent on harassing him. And so he's still having a bit of a tough time of it.

For any inclined to take pity and try to spend a little time with him, Marianne says:

"He loves to have special wet food or treats served to him and will allow a few pets while he's eating these goodies, but will then growl (I suppose that's how he got his name) and swat at the hand that feeds him.  Perhaps it's wishful thinking on my part, but his swats don't seem to be quite as nasty as they used to be.  I can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, he once was a nice cat and could be again someday, but that life has been unkind to him recently and he's become kind of bitter."

True, tonight when I made the mistake of waiting until he'd finished his wet food before petting him and he responded by swatting me, it lacked the violence of the swats he doled out while in his cage. I mean, he didn't even draw blood!


Looking at his face in the pictures below, I, like Marianne, can't help but think there's a neat cat in there somewhere buried under all that bitterness over his rotten luck. And I'm willing to risk a few more swats to find out.

Grizzy & Peaches - Part I: Peaches

Grizzy and Peaches

photo provided by Marianne

Friends Grizzy and Peaches came to the sanctuary last summer. As Marianne says and I think many at RAPS would agree, "Peaches turned out to be an old sweetie, Grizzy definitely NOT." Grizzy has his reasons, but more about him on Monday.

The two cats were initially kept together in the same cage with the idea that they could be made feel more at ease in the familiar company. Unfortunately, rather than making her feel more at ease, Grizzy managed to stress Peaches out so much that she eventually had to be given a cage of her own. Staff put up a sign telling people Peaches "needs lots of love" and asking them to spend time with her. And so people did, to Peaches' great delight.

September 2009 Peaches receiving visitors in her cage

Now she's out and about, looking well adjusted to her life at the sanctuary but no less delighted to receive any cuddles being handed out. An old sweetie indeed.