Cat Update

Back in early April, 2011, I mentioned that a Little Cat was visiting the farm.  Well, that Little Cat never left, and now he is a member of the farm family.  We took a few weeks to name him, as we wanted a name that fit his personality.  And so, I'd like to introduce Bobby.  Bobby actually chose his own name.  I called him an array of names, but Bobby was the one that he seemed to answer to.  And it fits his sweet personality.  Bobby. Bob.  Bob Cat.  He has a bobbed ear.  He loves his name. 

Bobby and Randy

We still need to take Bob to the vet.  We've been working on getting him friendly.  He's already more friendly than Shadow, and we've had Shadow for 2 years now!  We put worm pills in Bob's food and he scarfed them down.  He's not picky about food, even if it tastes funny like medicine.  I attempted to put flea and tick drops on Bob's neck.  As soon as a dropped touched his neck fur, he started bucking and bouncing all over the back yard, looking back at me in horror.  It was as if it was acid or something!  It took 2 days for him to trust me again after that episode.  Now he sees the little bottle of drops and he bolts.  I put some flea and tick drops on me and confirmed it's not really acid.  I think Bobby is sensitive to smells, although it doesn't really smell bad.  And on a good note, I am flea and tick free!  Bobby loves his home, despite the weird things we do to him.  He'll probably really hate us after his first vet visit.

Jerry on left, Bobby on right, eating breakfast

Shadow and Jack

The week before Easter I mentioned how we had to rush Shadow to the vet for an emergency visit because she couldn't walk on her right back leg.  She had a slight fracture to her leg, which eventually healed up without a cast or anything, and she is doing fine.

Almost a week after the vet visit, Shadow seemed to have "gone feral" again, and became very scared of humans.  She hid from us continually, wouldn't let us even see her.  And she's an indoor-only cat.  She was just as feral as she was two years ago when we took her in, only then we locked her in a small room for a few weeks.  She couldn't hide, and she got used to us.  It took a long time to really get her used to humans.  We had gotten it so that she loved to be pet and we were working on holding her.  She greeted us at the door every day, she was very friendly.  She learned how to shake hands, she brought her toys to us to play with her, she was a sweetie. 

And then she's feral again!  So we locked her into the kitchen with us whenever we were in the kitchen to force her to be around us, trying to make her remember that we aren't monsters.  We have no idea why she suddenly became so afraid of us.  Her leg appeared to be fine during this time.  After two days of terrible fear she just as suddenly became friendly to us again.  Now we can pet her again, and she's back to being her snuggly, loving, playful self.  Strange.  Hopefully she will not have nightmares about being feral or setbacks like this for the rest of her life!

Shadow with the black leather nose