Kitty Update

It's been a while since I updated you on the antics of our kitty boys.  As you can see in the photo above, they're doing very well!  Huck has adjusted well to his new home, and our two boys are very happy together.  They spend a lot of time cuddled up together and dozing during the day, but also have great and glorious games of tag.   

Huck had to spend a day at the vet's for a small medical procedure last week, and you should have seen the look on Tugby's face when I put Huck into the travelling cat crate.  It was absolute horror -- oh NO, he'll never come back.  Tugby was clingy until his buddy returned, and then had to give him a good bath all over so he smelled like home.  Huck has a clean bill of health now and is up to date on all his shots so we've all relaxed and taken a deep breath, I was a little worried after Chester became so ill.

Since all cats are individuals, we're still learning about Huck.  This morning my husband found him perched 3 feet up the trunk of my Ficus Benjamina.  Now, I've had this tree since we owned our original cat Smokey in 1985, and I have never before had a cat climb it.  It's around 5 feet tall and not terribly sturdy for climbing.  It sits in a fairly large pot which is actually on a platform with wheels on it.  This is pretty big ambition for a 6 pound cat!  Actually he loves to scoot around in the pots with wheels, and I can foresee a disaster of memorable proportions at some time in the future unless we can gently discourage Huck from his experiments.  I have my doubts, because in my experience cats are pretty determined.  The longer he waits, the bigger he will get, and the potential for damage increases dramatically.


Huck still enjoys visiting me in the bathtub.  I'm not too sure how long he will maintain his fascination with water since yesterday I found him stuck with all four paws in the toilet.  Neither of us were impressed with this situation, he even less than me because I washed and dried all of his paws before I put him down.  He loves to tightrope walk around the edge of the bathtub, but one side narrows to about 1 inch wide with a wall very close.  One of these days I will have a cat in my lap in the bathtub, I suspect.

We call Tugby "Ricochet Rabbit" after a cartoon character popular when we were young.  That's because he bounces off the walls and furniture "bing - bang - bing" like Ricochet Rabbit did.  He particularly likes to bounce around first thing in the morning after the alarm clock has gone off, but before I get out of bed to feed them.  He'll hop up and down on me and then fly off down the hall into the kitchen, back into the bedroom and then hop back up onto the bed.  It's a pretty persuasive technique to get me moving because he seems very heavy when he's bouncing on my back!

Tugby still loves to eat and I don't think it's possible to over feed him, in his opinion.  Once he's finished eating he saunters down the hall to the bedroom where Huck is fed.  He waits until I open the door and then rushes in to see if Huck managed to finish everything.  If not, Tugby is more than happy to help with the cleanup, of course.  He's grown so much from the gawky kitten we brought home last Fall.  He looks like a magnificent leopard or panther stretched out, but he's still less than a year old and just a kitten on the inside.