Tag: tabby cats

Columns

The cat’s out of the bag

Cindy Hval

The text from my son flashed on my phone while I was at the gym pedaling my way to fitness on an exercise bike.

“Is this a bad time to talk?” Sam texted.

I picked up my phone and typed, “I’m almost done with my workout. Can it wait?”

A few seconds passed before he texted, “We have a situation with Walter.”

Sir Walter Scott is our 2-year-old rescue tabby. We often have “situations” with him. As the kids say, “He’s a bit spicy!”

Walter epitomizes the cartoon of a cat wearing a T-shirt that reads, “What doesn’t kill me makes me curiouser.”

Usually, his situations involve food – specifically anything involving bread or chips. Recently, I enjoyed a slice of cold pizza for breakfast. Well, I tried to enjoy it while fending off Walter’s grabby paws.

After I ate, I wadded up the foil and finished reading the Sunday paper. When I got up to take the detritus to the garbage, I couldn’t find the foil. Then I looked down the hall and followed a trail of shiny scraps to my bedroom where Walter was doggedly shredding the tightly wrapped ball in hopes of scoring a bit of crust or fragment of pepperoni.

Aluminum foil is not a healthy snack and we anxiously watched him for signs of intestinal distress, but he was fine.

A couple of days later, we had homemade sub sandwiches for dinner. Like all the young men I’ve raised, our youngest gets a bit peckish before bed. He came upstairs and made another sandwich after Derek and I had turned in. What he didn’t do was hide the last hoagie roll in the microwave or stash it in a cupboard.

I know this because in the morning when I groggily got the cats’ breakfast ready, I stepped on something wet and squishy. Stepping on wet, squishy things is just one of the joys that occur when you’re owned by cats. This time I’d stepped on the well-chewed roll, still encased in its plastic bag. It seems Walter had the midnight munchies.

The situation that prompted Sam’s urgent text, however, didn’t involve food. He’d been getting ready to clean the litter box and dropped a plastic bag nearby while he went to do something else. A few minutes later, he heard banging and crashing and ran downstairs. The plastic bag was gone, and so was Walter.

I called Sam on my way home, and he said he’d found Walter cowering under the TV cabinet with the bag wrapped tightly around his back leg. Evidently, he’d tried to rummage through it got stuck.

“He won’t come out,” Sam said. “He’s so freaked out he peed himself, and he actually hissed at me!”

We didn’t even know Walter could do that.

By the time I arrived, he was missing again.

He took off when I tugged at the bag on his leg,” Sam reported.

I discovered the terrified tabby hiding under the stairs. He didn’t run when I reached for him, but he did hiss. He’d managed to get most of the bag off his leg, and Sam and I finished freeing him and checked for damage. Walter walked a bit stiffly at first, but quickly began winding himself around our legs.

After some cleaning and cuddling, he appeared to recover – until Sam took a new bag out to finish the job he’d started. At the sound of rustling plastic, Walter bolted and ran to his safe place – under my bed.

Walter hiding from the SCARY plastic bag monster.

“I think he’s got permanent plastic bag PTSD,” Sam said.

When I relayed the sorry tale on Facebook, my friends found the bright side.

“Perhaps food in plastic bags will be safe, now,” one said.

Another replied, “You could experiment with plastic-bagging those carbs just to see what happens.”

I have brilliant friends.

Will Walter’s bag phobia be stronger than his love of carbs?

Stay tuned.

Columns

My #1 Fan Can’t Read

Cindy Hval

It’s flattering to have an ardently devoted fan.

One who follows your every move and watches everything you do with unabashed interest and adoration.

It’s also annoying when that fan is an adorable, but constantly underfoot tabby.

Sir Walter Scott, our rescue kitty, turned 2 this summer and I’m still his favorite person.

Supervising my social media updates is just one of Walter’s annoying habits.

However, my status was briefly in doubt when I took him to the vet for his annual checkup. It seems His Royal Cuteness can hold a grudge.

The day after his appointment, he didn’t jump into bed to cuddle after breakfast.

I shut the bathroom door when I showered and he wasn’t waiting for me with reproachful meows when I opened it.

He didn’t follow me downstairs to my desk or come running when the printer whirred to life.

I put on my walking shoes without fighting Walter for the laces. When I returned home, he didn’t run to greet me. Instead, he stared somberly at me from the top of the cat tree.

Just when I thought I’d permanently lost his devotion, he jumped into my lap while I did a crossword, and tried to grab my pencil. Walter is passionately fond of pencils. He also loves emery boards. He can hear me open the drawer that contains them from wherever he is and scurries to find me, so he can steal another emery board for his collection.

Walter adores me so much that at bedtime he can’t stand for anything to come between his face and mine. Therefore he loathes books, newspapers, my phone; and Derek often ends up in Walter’s bad graces. Sometimes when my husband goes in for a kiss, he ends up with fur on his lips. No, I haven’t grown a beard, but Walter is pretty good at blocking affectionate advances from my spouse, which is why he isn’t allowed to sleep in our room.

“Why you read when you could cuddle me?” Walter

In fact, he’s taken to hiding under the bed and waiting ‘til we fall asleep. When he thinks it’s safe, he jumps up–usually near my face. This gets him in my bad graces because I’m the one who has to wrestle him out of the room.

I’d hoped he’d outgrow his obsession with food in plastic bags, but if anything it’s intensified. Our bread is stored in the microwave, but we recently discovered Walter will scale great heights for a bag of corn chips.

We’d taken to storing chips on the top of our freezer. Since I have to stretch to reach them, I thought they’d be safe.

Wrong.

Our son Sam soon found a trail of tortilla chip pieces and a bag of previously unopened chips on the floor. It seems Walter jumps from shelf to shelf to freezer top.

Sam moved the unopened chips to the highest shelf in our pantry. A week later, I found a bag on the floor with Walter’s teeth marks all over it.

I moved the chips to shelves on the opposite side of the room and I’m hoping he can’t Parkour himself to reach them.

Right now, I have another problem. While writing this column, I took a break to gather dinner items. My feet crunched something on the carpet. I bent down and retrieved a piece of uncooked pasta–Walter had ripped open a bag of noodles.

He’s got this terrible two thing down, all right. I’d tell you more about it, but he’s curled up on my desk with one paw on my hand. He’s gazing up at me like I’m the best thing since canned tuna. I don’t think he’d be as adoring if he knew I’m documenting his crimes.

I’m just glad my No. 1 fan can’t read.

Always adorable when sleeping.

Columns

The pitter-patter of little paws

Cindy Hval

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I didn’t get much reading done this week. Every time I picked up a book, Sir Walter Scott scooted his head beneath it, and collapsed on my chest, obscuring the pages.

Coffee proved difficult to drink, because Walter kept trying to dunk his nose in my mug.

And I’m not sure what kind of texts I sent, because Walter believes nothing should come between my face and his, and keeps batting my phone away.

Walter is our new addition – a tabby kitten – approximately 2 1/2 pounds of fuzz, energy and affection.

When our senior cat, Milo, died in November, we knew we’d adopt again. However, our hearts needed time to heal, and that included our 7-year-old tabby, Thor, who missed his nemesis/best friend.

This spring we started looking at animal shelters and pet adoption centers. There were plenty of beautiful adult cats who needed homes, but we agreed it would be too much for Thor to have to fight for space with another big cat. A kitten he could boss around seemed like a better fit.

But there were no kittens to be found.

“I hope that means people are doing a better job at spaying and neutering,” Derek said.

We kept looking.

And then my friend Haley, told me about a litter of kittens being fostered by Mona Richardson.

Mona and her husband, Dave, own the Hub tavern on North Monroe Street. Mona also works at Northwest Seed and Pet.

A friend of hers had a neighbor who moved away, abandoning a litter of kittens, but taking the mama cat. Mona is a cat-lover and an experienced kitten foster mom. Of course, she took in the kittens.

Several weeks ago she brought the brood to the tavern and invited Derek and me to take a look at them.

They were all adorable. Tabbies, black kitties and even a homely Calico. I held a couple of them, but when I picked up Walter, I knew he was the one.

His blue-green eyes are lined white, and each tiny paw looks like it’s been dipped in a bucket of white paint. He squirmed, then snuggled.

From then, it was just a matter of waiting until he had gained enough weight to be neutered.

Derek dubbed him Walter. I added the Scott. The Sir is optional.

On Friday evening we returned to the Hub to pick him up.

Walter proved popular with the tavern regulars who gifted us with bags of cat treats as we said goodbye.

At home we took him out of the carrier, and Zach and Sam each held him, and then he was off, exploring his new home at full speed. In fact, our tiny tabby’s throttle appears to be defective. It’s either flat-out or dead-stop!

He’d just been neutered the day before and was supposed to take it easy. Apparently, no one told Walter that.

Thor’s reaction? Stunned horror.

He cautiously sniffed the new arrival, but when Walter bounded toward him, Thor backed away with an angry hiss.

Then he mumbled some mean meows, which if I translated, could not be printed in a family newspaper.

Zach, our third-born, sympathized.

“I know what it’s like to be replaced by someone younger and cuter, Thor. The same thing happened to me,” he said.

After several hours of nonstop action and exploration, Walter was having a tough time calming down.

I took him to our bedroom, shut the door and got his new bed ready. He had other ideas and made a flying leap from the floor to our bed. He jumped from square to square on our quilt, like a kid pretending the floor is hot lava, and then he bounced back down.

I’d forgotten I had a mirror on the floor next to a stack of stuff to donate to the Goodwill. Walter took one look at the kitty in the mirror and promptly attacked. That’s how we learned his Ninja skills include somersaults, sideways rolls and stealth pouncing.

I turned the mirror to the wall and got into bed with the exhausted kitten. He tucked his head under my chin, commenced purring and conked out. Five hours later, he woke us up by bouncing on our heads.

Which is why my husband revoked Walter’s big bed privileges. However, as soon as Derek gets up in the morning, Walter races to the bedroom and launches himself on our bed to join me. Sometimes, he even falls asleep.

Thor is slowly warming up to him. Extra treats and affection, and a new cat tree, so he can look down upon the new arrival, helped.

Meanwhile, the rest of us cannot resist a kitten that stands on his back legs and holds up his front paws when he wants to be picked up.

Sir Walter Scott is equal parts entertaining and exhausting. and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

For us, the pitter-patter of little paws is what makes a house a home.67768753_2463199130385366_8603458589316612096_n

 

Columns

Lonely tabby’s love weighs heavy

Cindy Hval

Sometimes love can feel oppressive, even suffocating, especially when it weighs 14 pounds and is sitting on your chest.

I’m speaking of Thor, our tabby cat, and his deep devotion to me. He’s always been a mama’s boy, but when our tuxedo cat, Milo, died in November, Thor’s adoration intensified.

To be perfectly honest, I’m not even his first love. Thor’s heart actually belongs to whatever comes out of the refrigerator, pantry or kitchen cupboards. He has a food fixation, and since I’m the primary provider of meals, his passions are twofold.

He doggedly follows me throughout the house, like I’m littering cat treats in my wake. It’s sweet, but it’s also dangerous. I’ve tripped over him many times, and I’ve often trodden on his tail.

Love hurts, but occasionally it’s just annoying.

For example, I love to start my morning by curling up in bed with a hot cup of coffee and the newspaper. Thor likes to start his morning by curling up under my chin for a serious round of petting and affirmation. Coffee and a newspaper are no deterrent to a feline in purr-suit of affection. After he’s had enough chin-scratches, he moseys down to my feet and naps.

He’s already had breakfast because our son, Zach, is the first one up in the morning, and the first one awake has to feed Thor. Otherwise, the rest of us won’t be allowed to sleep.

Sometimes the mix of a full tummy and cuddles zonks him out while he’s still on my chest. Thor is a heavy sleeper. Literally. It’s very hard to dislodge 14 pounds of purr.

When I manage to get up and start my day, he follows me to the bathroom to supervise my ablutions. He used to drink from the bathroom sink, but once he didn’t dodge quickly enough when I was brushing my teeth and we both discovered Thor is not a fan of mint toothpaste on his whiskers.

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If I’m working from home, he follows me downstairs to my desk. We bypass his food dish on the way, and Thor sees his food dish is empty. Since it’s been at least two hours since breakfast, Thor assumes he’s starving and launches into a piteous round of meows and complaints, which I ignore.

He sidles up next to my desk chair and nudges me till I pet him, just to show there are no hard feelings. Then he heads over to a nearby recliner to resume napping.

I swear he sleeps with one eye open because any movement from me convinces Thor I’m on my way to give him lunch.

I think he misses Milo most after lunch. Most afternoons following their noon meal, Milo would go cat-crazy and chase Thor up and down the stairs and all over the house.

Now and then Thor does the runabout on his own, but it’s not the same if you’re not in fear of a pouncing from your furry friend.

When I prepare dinner, Thor supervises, and his supervisory skills have gotten overbearing. He’s a micromanager when it comes to food prep, especially if there’s meat involved. He bats his paws at the cutting board and loudly demands a portion of whatever I’m cooking. If nothing I’m preparing is suitable for cats, I’ll give him a couple of treats.

He sits next to my chair during dinner. Just in case I feel like slipping him a morsel.

Since he’s so food-motivated, I’ve taught him to sit up, to beg, and occasionally he’ll even roll over for a treat. Playing dead? Well, he does that for hours at a time, with no treat needed.

I usually read for awhile before bedtime, and Thor drapes himself over me, lest I get cold. Or in case I decide to get up for a snack.

When Derek joins me, Thor will often try to suffocate him with affection, too, but we all know it’s just a ploy to get Derek to let him sleep with us.

Derek commands him to leave. Thor ignores him. Ignoring is prominent in his skill set. This irks my husband to no end, because when I get up to shut our bedroom door, I say, “Night, Night, Thor,” and Thor immediately jumps down and scoots out the door. This cat knows which side of his tuna is buttered.

His steadfast, fixated devotion to me may stem in part from loneliness. Thor has never been an only-cat. He came from a litter of four, and when we adopted him, he came home to Milo.

Perhaps it’s time to adopt a furry friend for our tubby tabby. I’m more than willing to share the spotlight of Thor’s saucer eyes.

Stay tuned.