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Art by Laura Lee Donoho

I’m a proud “cat lady” but not a stereotypical one. (whatever that is.)

Our two cats, Sabby and Captain do have free reign in our home and our two boarder kitties, Asta and Amos, live in the Charlotte Wing of our house until our daughter finishes law school. All four cats are indoor kitties and except for a few escapades into the outside world, usually prefer living their lives indoors with us.

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Adorable Amos

We use non-clumping kitty litter. The clumping kind got on one of our cat’s paws and found it’s way into his intestine, causing a blockage. Captain’s a clean freak, always licking his paws and that clumping litter really did some damage. He’s okay now but no more clumping litter is allowed in our home.

We keep our home clean except for an occasional hairball.

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Birds frighten Asta.

We have been lucky in our choice of food for our cats. Although they do eat Nutro Max Cat dry food, the kind we have fed them is not on the list of life endangering Chinese rat poison cat food.

Our cats have traveled with us all over the world, from Panama to Germany. They’ve never caused any problems during our travels. In fact, I believe our cats’ travels have broadened and informed them about life as a whole.

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Don’t try feeding Sabby people food. He won’t eat it.

Nothing attracts Sabby to my lap more than when I’ve got a good book in my hands. Cats are intellectually stimulating. If you don’t believe it, check out Sissy Willis.

The cats have shared their lives with us and if they could speak the human language or were literate, I am sure they would have some interesting tales to tell.

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Captain tours the renovated kitchen a couple of years ago.
It’s his favorite room.

They’ve never done any harm to anyone, except the time (full disclosure) that Sabby bit me because he was upset at another cat and I interfered in the fight.

That caused a trip to the doctor, resulting in a shot and antibiotics. For me.

So do I think our family needs to invest in a Feline NeutralTM Cat Offsets Program.?

Hell no!

So what if our cats celebrate National Bad Cat Day every few months? If they want to disturb the peace inside our own walls that’s our problem and we don’t have to appease any over-protective song-bird lovers by selling them out. Hasn’t anyone ever heard of Blue Jays?

Don’t get me wrong. I do love dogs. Most of our family members have dogs as well as cats and we did too until our beloved Pattertwig died. But our home has no fence around it so we decided not to get another dog for the time being anyway.

When we lived in Germany we had an odd neighbor who was afraid of every living creature, especially rabbits. This woman lobbied the post officials to get rid of the rabbits! Unbelievably they did. One day while we were away for Christmas, German hunters were allowed on post to hunt the rabbits. We discovered bullet holes in our living room window when we arrived home and called the MPs. That’s when we learned about the unbelievable German rabbit hunt.

I never saw another rabbit on post.

Then the nutty woman started in on the birds. I was outside one day watering some plants and the lady walked over, pointed up to the tree, and said, “look, there are birds in that tree.”

I looked at her and thought, duh.

Apparently she wanted the post officials to remove the birds. Because they sang and disturbed her peace.

My idea is - let the birds fly, the cats chase the birds, and the dogs chase the cats. In other words, let nature take its course. My cats won’t be involved in that business because they are safely indoors, sitting in the windows, watching. Not bothering anyone. So what if they go on occasional riots in our house? If I miss a nights sleep that’s my problem.

The only offset for that is a nap later.

Go see many more independent minded cats at The Modulators Friday Ark #131.