Rio

photo by Phaedra 

I first heard of Rio when people mentioned similarities in markings between her and fellow torby girl Saffron. I heard of her again in connection with her orange & white brothers Tang and Creamsicle. Phaedra was telling me a bit about the formerly wild trio and spoke fondly of her "litter lap buddy" Rio.

Rio playing Queen of the Castle, cat style

photo by Phaedra

I asked Phaedra to tell me a bit more about her. Here's what she had to say:

I guess she's just always stood out for me because she's so much more in the background than her brothers. She's sweet but shy and takes her time getting to know you. She started off playing with my laces while I was scooping and has progressed to joining me at least once on my single wide days for lap scooping time.

She's really affectionate but hasn't learned her manners yet and doesn't understand when it's over and will sometimes lash out when you think it's time to do something else. She will play with my laces or kneepads still, but if I try to play with her with my hands she gets very frightened and pretends to be fierce. This can make me laugh out loud for real but then I feel bad because she's a silly timid kitten and coax her back.

This made me want to meet Rio for myself, so I asked Leslie to point her out to me. This she did, but we must have caught Rio when she was settling down for her after dinner nap, as she simply refused to be coaxed out of her comfy bed on the top of the cages to interact with us in any way.

Disappointed, I eventually had to admit defeat and left to go and photograph the much more amenable Tang. This done, I happened to look up to where Rio had been sitting and found the place empty. I looked around a bit and found she'd ventured down to floor level, apparently now ready to visit with me.

As you can see from the photos she let me take while I patted and played with her, Rio is very much as Phaedra described her: playful, a little shy, occasionally a little swatty, but always very sweet.

Cleopatra

I like hanging out in the "gericatrics" trailer. It's quiet, the cats are older, mellow and pretty much have their own thing going on.

These days however, if you go to the geriatrics trailer you will likely encounter what seems to be a regular problem happening in the the kitchen sink - it's full all the time. With dishes? Dirty water? Half rinsed cans of cat food?

None of the above.  Try the last queen of Egypt.

Huh?

Yup, queen Cleopatra sits on her thrown on top of a plate, in the sink. By now you've figured out that. Cleopatra is a cat. She is a beautiful black cat with white markings surrendered along with her former housemate Cesar to the no. 5 road shelter sometime last year. Her medical history reveals a problem with her thyroid but otherwise no other issues.

She is quite a congenial cat, while in the sink she purrs and accepts pets and scratches behind the ear, a contradiction to her initial RAPS arrival assessment of being deathly afraid of people. I even felt comfortable picking her up and taking her to a chair to see if she would interested in a cuddle.

It seems however that Cleopatra is not so fond of being out of her sink and once in my lap she fussed and squirmed, clearly not happy at being dethroned. When I let her go she scooted right back to the sink, indignant at the interruption from her happy place. It was then that I noticed a sign by the sink that read as follows:

So I spent some time observing Cleopatra curious to know if the sign was justified - what would she do if she ever left the sink? Sure enough just as the sign had said, the accused soon hopped out of the sink and headed over to the litter dish to take care of business.

So there you have it, clearly the evidence speaks for itself. I've since noticed in my last couple visits to the gericatrics trailer that a large white overturned basin sits in the sink banning the admission of water filled dished or any queenly cats with sink fetishes.

It's tough to be a queen these days. Soggy paws and all.

Tang

It can be difficult to tell orange & white brothers Creamsicle and Tang apart from a distance. Fortunately, their facial markings are distinct enough (quite symmetrical for Tang, while Creamsicle has when Debbie describes as a popsicle-shaped marking on his nose) to reveal who's who.

Like his brother and sister, Tang came in as a kitten so wild it was hard to imagine he could ever be tamed.

Rio, Creamsicle and Tang

photo provided by Debbie

These days, he's the most generally people friendly of the three and will quite happily visit with you whether or not he's had the pleasure of meeting you before.

Moe

Moe was one of a number of cats who started off at the No. 5 Rd. shelter but was sent to the sanctuary largely due to lack of space. These cats had been there a while and were either not as obviously friendly or simply kept getting passed over for no special reason when people came in to look for a cat to adopt.

A striking grey shorthair, Moe saw me visiting with another cat in his enclosure and seemed to feel it quite important to introduce himself to me. After ejecting his rival from his perch and captured my attention, Moe proceeded to shamelessly mug for the camera to make sure he kept it.

He was happy to be stroked as well, but mostly it was just the general attention that he wanted from me. Sometimes cats are all about the cuddles and kisses, but sometimes they really just seem to crave a little human interaction.

Creamsicle

Leslie remembers Creamsicle and his sibings Tang and Rio as "3 of the wildest kittens we've ever had."

"... hard to imagine now." she adds. 

Indeed, when I introduced myself to Creamsicle last month, he certainly didn't act wild. He was still cautious at first, though, taking his time staring at me from a safe, just out of reach distance before rushing into any decisions regarding my friendship potential. I let him take his time, and my patience was rewarded with a willingness to try out a few pats followed by a cat dance of approval.

Phaedra describes Creamsicle as the least outgoing of his siblings when it comes to humans (he's quite happy hanging out with his kitty friends), but recognizes he's come a long way from being thought a hopeless feral who'd never learn to trust us. He may not come running for cuddles when she arrives in the mornings, but he's overcome his shyness enough to allow some pets... particularly when there are treats to be had, which I hear he loves.

Molly

Cats seem to enjoy messing with us humans so much that I'm sure they'd be delighted to learn that they sometimes do it without even trying. Recently - and rather famously - Marianne's beloved girl Shayla was revealed by a trip the vet for dental work to be Marianne's beloved boy Shayla... I think we're all still recovering from the shock.

On Monday evening in the doublewide I looked up to see a striking tabby peering down at me from one of the catwalks. I asked Brigid, who was there with me, if she knew who it was. She didn't, but between us we got as far as deciding it wasn't Duke but was surely a boy.

Imagine my surprise when Leslie responded to an email saying she thought her name was Molly. More of an "oops" moment than a surprise of Shayla magnitude, but still...

Molly is apparently one of the brown tabbies who came from the same place on No. 4 Road where Clooney was trapped. The man who'd been feeding a number of cats had to move when a developer bought out a block of houses including his. RAPS was asked to come and trap more than a dozen cats.

That was about six years ago. Molly is still shy about being touched, but when Brigid passed me a morsel of chicken to tempt her with, this definitely caught her attention. And while she wasn't quite up to taking it from my hand, she was quite content to take it from a spot next to my hand and then to give my fingers a good sniff afterward to find out if there might be anymore treats where that came from.

Cheetah

Cheetah came to RAPS some years ago with his tabby mother and two black siblings. Mom and siblings were all friendly but Cheetah was a big chicken when it came to humans, so they got adopted while he remained at RAPS.

Cheetah is now around eight or nine years old. He's turned into a friendly boy, though he can still be scared if startled. He is quite fond of treats, as Brigid demonstrates:

He's also got a good friend in Foxy, so even in his less brave moments he doesn't have to worry about being lonely.

Cheetah and Foxy (centre)

photo by Barbara