Why the half? Because we have 4 indoor cats that were adopted on purpose and 2 strays that now call our porch and shed their permanant home, plus another cat that only comes around a few times a week........so he's the half....lol. If you want to see pics of my adorable clan you can look up their cat pages, but I haven't gotten around to making any for the outdoor cats. So here's my story..........
I have 5 human kids, Raven 15, Slade 13 and Skye, Denissa and Ridge are 11 year old triplets and been married to Joe for almost 18 years.
While it's true I am and always have been a major cat lover, I never intended to have so many cats. I've had 2 cats for quite a while and it seemed the perfect amount, Fritos is an 8 year old male and just the most awesome cat I've ever had, he is so sweet and loving with both humans and other animals, although he has hissed at our 1 year old dachshund occasionally, but I can't blame him, that dog is so hyper and annoying I would hiss at him too if I was a cat. He loves being carried around like a baby on his back and will stretch out in my arms and hang his head upside down to observe the world. He just cracks me up. We also call him the healer cat because if anyone in the house is sick he lays with that person all day long, never leaving their side. He also listens very well and I swear he understands what I tell him. We take the cats out on a harness leash when we can and many times he'll be meowing at the door like crazy and I'll say something like "I can't take you out right now, but maybe if your a good boy we can go out after supper." and suprisingly the meowing usually stops and at whatever time I told him we'd go out that is when he starts the meowing again.
Coconut is a 4 year old male, I got him at 9 months old from a person giving away a free siamese cat because her dogs bullied him and he had to be kept confined to one room for his safety. (if it was me the dogs would have been the confined ones since they were the troublemakers, but hey thats just me.....lol..I always favor the cats) He is also a very sweet cat and if the petting session ends before he is ready he will follow you and jump up to grab your leg as you walk away or pat you on the butt......lol. His only issue is that for some reason he doesn't like our 2 newest members of the family (the kittens) and will randomly growl, hiss and sometimes hold them down while whaling loudly. I have no idea why he acts like this with them, I've tried letting it go for a little while in case it's just a thing about establishing heiarchy or territory, but usually I break it up because I'm afraid he's going to hurt them.
So that's my two indoor cats we've had for a while, then last spring we found a cat by our shed who was very near death from starvation, she was so pathetically skinny that my husband caved and said we could break our rule about feeding strays and give her some food. Well now she is quite the chunky cat.....lol, very sweet and loving, but a little shy. We named her Cracker and consider her our cat now, in the winter we leave the shed door open a crack and put hay in there for her and the other strays to stay warm. Others? Yes, soon after that a beautiful Calico we called Pepper showed up, she was declawed which upset me, not really because of the declawing but because obviously she was someone's pet and they just discarded her like nothing
Luckily for her my Mom ended up taking her into their house for the winter and now love her and decided she is their permanant kitty. Then Coon appeared, he is a gorgeous Maine Coon, he looks so big and scary, but he has a kitten like meow and is just the sweetest thing, he waits by the door all the time and shows his disappointment if you walk by without giving him a scratch on the head. Somewhere along the line Nacho appeared, he is the orange tabby that I said is our "half" cat and was very much less friendly than the others, my daughter whom I call the Cat Whisperer has managed to get him to the point where she can pet him on the head while he eats.
So I was already getting teased about me and my daughter, Skye (11) being crazy cat ladies when my neice found a mother cat and 4 tiny week oldkittens in her new apartment that weren't supposed to be there and she couldn't keep them, rather than her taking them to a shelter, I decided to foster them until the kittens were old enough to adopt out. Right away Nestle stole my heart with his huge polydactyl paws.....I've always wanted a polydactyl.....and I convinced hubby to let us keep him, then one by one the mother cat and 2 of her kittens found good homes, but Brownie, the only girl kept getting people that would say they were interested, but then no more communication and we finally decided enough, was enough and this was a sign she was meant to stay with us........and that is how we ended up with so many cats and now I proudly wear the Crazy Cat Lady crown....lol.
If you read my first post to this site, I took the kittens who are now 4 months old to get neutered less than a week ago and when I picked them up the next morning we found out Nestle had had a stroke overnight. It was bad, really bad and I was so scared he wouldn't make it, but am so excited to report that in 5 days time he has made almost a full recovery! He has a little weakness in his back legs which is less and less noticable each day, if someone had told me he would be this good this soon last week I would have told them they were full of crap. I am so thankful though, my cats are just like my kids and I was devastated when I picked him up last Friday.
So that's my intro........sorry it's so long.
I have 5 human kids, Raven 15, Slade 13 and Skye, Denissa and Ridge are 11 year old triplets and been married to Joe for almost 18 years.
While it's true I am and always have been a major cat lover, I never intended to have so many cats. I've had 2 cats for quite a while and it seemed the perfect amount, Fritos is an 8 year old male and just the most awesome cat I've ever had, he is so sweet and loving with both humans and other animals, although he has hissed at our 1 year old dachshund occasionally, but I can't blame him, that dog is so hyper and annoying I would hiss at him too if I was a cat. He loves being carried around like a baby on his back and will stretch out in my arms and hang his head upside down to observe the world. He just cracks me up. We also call him the healer cat because if anyone in the house is sick he lays with that person all day long, never leaving their side. He also listens very well and I swear he understands what I tell him. We take the cats out on a harness leash when we can and many times he'll be meowing at the door like crazy and I'll say something like "I can't take you out right now, but maybe if your a good boy we can go out after supper." and suprisingly the meowing usually stops and at whatever time I told him we'd go out that is when he starts the meowing again.
Coconut is a 4 year old male, I got him at 9 months old from a person giving away a free siamese cat because her dogs bullied him and he had to be kept confined to one room for his safety. (if it was me the dogs would have been the confined ones since they were the troublemakers, but hey thats just me.....lol..I always favor the cats) He is also a very sweet cat and if the petting session ends before he is ready he will follow you and jump up to grab your leg as you walk away or pat you on the butt......lol. His only issue is that for some reason he doesn't like our 2 newest members of the family (the kittens) and will randomly growl, hiss and sometimes hold them down while whaling loudly. I have no idea why he acts like this with them, I've tried letting it go for a little while in case it's just a thing about establishing heiarchy or territory, but usually I break it up because I'm afraid he's going to hurt them.
So that's my two indoor cats we've had for a while, then last spring we found a cat by our shed who was very near death from starvation, she was so pathetically skinny that my husband caved and said we could break our rule about feeding strays and give her some food. Well now she is quite the chunky cat.....lol, very sweet and loving, but a little shy. We named her Cracker and consider her our cat now, in the winter we leave the shed door open a crack and put hay in there for her and the other strays to stay warm. Others? Yes, soon after that a beautiful Calico we called Pepper showed up, she was declawed which upset me, not really because of the declawing but because obviously she was someone's pet and they just discarded her like nothing
Luckily for her my Mom ended up taking her into their house for the winter and now love her and decided she is their permanant kitty. Then Coon appeared, he is a gorgeous Maine Coon, he looks so big and scary, but he has a kitten like meow and is just the sweetest thing, he waits by the door all the time and shows his disappointment if you walk by without giving him a scratch on the head. Somewhere along the line Nacho appeared, he is the orange tabby that I said is our "half" cat and was very much less friendly than the others, my daughter whom I call the Cat Whisperer has managed to get him to the point where she can pet him on the head while he eats.So I was already getting teased about me and my daughter, Skye (11) being crazy cat ladies when my neice found a mother cat and 4 tiny week oldkittens in her new apartment that weren't supposed to be there and she couldn't keep them, rather than her taking them to a shelter, I decided to foster them until the kittens were old enough to adopt out. Right away Nestle stole my heart with his huge polydactyl paws.....I've always wanted a polydactyl.....and I convinced hubby to let us keep him, then one by one the mother cat and 2 of her kittens found good homes, but Brownie, the only girl kept getting people that would say they were interested, but then no more communication and we finally decided enough, was enough and this was a sign she was meant to stay with us........and that is how we ended up with so many cats and now I proudly wear the Crazy Cat Lady crown....lol.
If you read my first post to this site, I took the kittens who are now 4 months old to get neutered less than a week ago and when I picked them up the next morning we found out Nestle had had a stroke overnight. It was bad, really bad and I was so scared he wouldn't make it, but am so excited to report that in 5 days time he has made almost a full recovery! He has a little weakness in his back legs which is less and less noticable each day, if someone had told me he would be this good this soon last week I would have told them they were full of crap. I am so thankful though, my cats are just like my kids and I was devastated when I picked him up last Friday.
So that's my intro........sorry it's so long.
