Tales of the Moggy Horde

or
How I learned To Stop Worrying And Love Bast

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Tales pre-blog 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

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We let Uni outside before we had breakfast. By the time we finished
and stepped outside, Uni was having his own freshly served, hot gopher
breakfast. That's one less gopher to tunnel under the patio. Go
Unicom!

Now he's on the bed having a stuffed-stomach nap.

Later today, however, he goes to the vet to have his shoulder
examined. We're worried about the limp, plus the strange shrugging
motion he makes when he's falling asleep.

posted at 11:25 AM

 
Owl is doing his best to make me mental. I've tried everything to
overcome his obsession with removing the fur from his back. He's had
cortisone shots, he's had courses of Prednisone, I've rubbed him with
bitterapple lotion, he's had flea treatment, and I've been giving him
Chlor-Trimetron every night for weeks. Just when he seems to be doing
a bit better, he relapses. Today he has several bald streaks where he
removed the fur. If it's not a physical problem, it must be an
emotional/mental one. One vet suggested kitty-Prozac, but I really
don't like that idea much. I'm stumped for now.

This was the first day I couldn't find Puck after lunch. He's usually
lounging around on the back deck and comes right over so I can bring
him inside for the day. I walked all around the outside of the house,
calling him and looking for him. Then I went down and looked around
the outside of my office. My eye happened to fall on the shadow of
the roof and there was the shadow of a cat strolling along the edge of
it. I looked up. Puck looked down from the roof.

He showed no interest at all in finding a way back down. I fetched
Randy. Randy fetched a ladder. Puck came readily over, then purred
in Randy's ear as Randy brought him down. I'm sure Puck would have
found his own way down eventually, but I didn't want to work with half my
mind worrying about getting Puck inside.

posted at 3:11 PM

 
I had to run into town this morning to do a bunch of errands that had
piled up. I spent some of the time petting other people's animals.
While waiting to have a battery put in my watch, I had a delightful
time with a sweet, German Shepherd-mix. She adored having her chin
and belly scratched.

In the feed store, buying 20 pound bags of cat food, I discovered the
store's mascot, Oscar, demonstrating a piece of cat furniture by
sleeping in it and peeping over the edge at me. He's a lovely cat, a
pale gray tabby with a peach nose and green eyes. There I stood, with
14 cats at home wanting attention, while I scritched Oscar around the
head and played "catch the hand" with him.

In the grocery store, a woman had the tiniest dog, a baby Chihuahua
only 7 weeks old. It was so damned cute. My fingers got thoroughly
licked.

Artemis has once again positioned herself between my keyboard and the
monitor. I can't seem to get through to her that her big, fat body
doesn't fit there and no, I can't type with the keyboard being pushed
into my lap. She's as stubborn as she is fat, so it's a tough battle.

There are gophers tunnelling under my patio. The patio is paved with
thick square adobe bricks. It's driving Unicom nuts. He can hear the
gophers under there, but can't get to them. I saw him trying to stick
his paw between cracks in the bricks last night. Poor frustrated
Gopher Slayer.

posted at 5:38 PM

 
You never know how the cats will greet you after an absence. Even
though we were only gone a day and a half, the office Horde mobbed me.
But Unicom rather snubbed us. All he wanted was to get outside. Of
course, he was locked up inside with Nefreet while we were gone, so I
can understand that.

We decided to leave the bedroom open to Uni while we were gone, so he
could sleep on the bed. The downside of that is that we knew he would
be demanding about sleeping on the bed last night. We barricaded the
door as a precaution.

Sure enough, around 4:30, Uni threw himself against the door with a
heavy WHUMP, then complained when he couldn't get in. He tried again
about five minutes later, and again around 7:20.

When we finally got up and let him in, he commenced to drool all over
the bed. Actually, he always drools when he first gets on the bed,
but this morning he was a prolific drooler. We joked about needing to
get him on an IV drip so he wouldn't dehydrate. Uni grossed us out,
however, with an inch-long piece of drool hanging from his mouth until
we wiped him up with a tissue. He was a happy boy.

I was only gone one night and already Owl has removed patches of fur
from his back. I have a sitter who comes twice a day to make sure
Querida gets her pills, but I told her not to worry about trying to
catch Owl. Now I'm left wondering if Owl did it because he didn't get
an anti-histamine, or if he did it because he was neurotic over my
absence.

posted at 9:49 PM

 
We didn't barricade the door, so at 7:20 am, Unicom butted the door
open, padded into the bedroom and made himself at home on the bed
between us where he purred loud enough to wake the dead.

This sounds like a pleasant thing, and it is, unless you desperately
need that last half-hour of sleep. We weren't about to toss such a
divinely happy cat off the bed, but we really need to do something
about that door.

posted at 10:52 AM

 
I let the Horde out and stood watching for a couple of minutes.
Knobby came around the corner with his tail all pouffed out for some
reason. Puck saw that and did the Sideways Dance across about ten
feet. He arched up, fully pouffed his tail and dance-glided the whole
distance sideways in an instant. It was a performance that
Barishnikov would have envied.

Usually this a lead-in to a fight. Instead, Puck and Knobby just
sniffed noses, then Puck instantly deflated and relaxed and strolled
on his way.

Diva has a small puncture wound over her right eye. Nothing serious.
I cleaned it with some peroxide last night. I suspect it might have
come from playing with Tosca. Mother and daughter get into some very
rough bouts of playing.

posted at 11:30 AM

 
Before I let Nefreet out this moring, I spent some time checking out
the birds to see who had shown up. At one point, there was a
bluebird, goldfinch and red finch in the birdbath together. It would
have made a great photo.

I was delighted to see a pair, male and female, of that unusual
woodpecker, the Flicker, I spotted a few days ago. They're beautiful
birds. The only difference is that the male has the red markings on
his neck and the female doesn't.

One of the differences between these particular Flickers and other
woodpeckers is that they also eat ants and their feet are designed to
let them move around on the ground. This pair were hard at work
spearing their beaks into the ground, I presume looking for ants or
insects.

The moggies left me a gift at the doorstep of the office -- the very
tip of a rodent snout. Go moggies!

posted at 9:33 PM

 
Puck is an exceptionally smart cat. He's already catching on to the
daily routine.

When I came down from lunch and headed for my office, about five cats
fell in around me. I always call for the cats to come in at that
time, but most of them know enough to simply follow me down and into
the office. Tribble and Theseus wait for me near the house, Owl and
the others tend to wait for me closer to the office.

I came inside with those cats and closed off the cat door. I looked
around and realized Puck wasn't inside. But a minute later, I heard a
cat "knocking" at the cat door. I opened the door and there was Puck
who promptly trotted inside.

Smart, smart boy.

posted at 8:13 PM

 
All is quiet and happy amongst the Horde. If you don't count Unicom
and Nefreet having to suffer through their anti-allergen rubdowns.

Uni has become a bed addict. He scratches outside the door as we're
waking up. He rushes in first thing in the morning and hardly budges
from the bed until late afternoon when he's finally refreshed enough
form his all-day nap to go outside and romp a bit. He caught a gopher
a few nights ago.

Then he wants to return to the bed at night. Randy had to remove him
the other night and Uni sulked for the remainder of the evening and
kept on sulking right into the next morning.

"You've created a monster," I said.

posted at 11:18 AM

 
Relations in the Horde have become even more peaceful now that Puck
goes outside with the rest of them. First stop is the Rolling Trough
for a good morning dust bath. They take turns, but Puck has been
getting there first.

Some of the others follow up the dust bath with a breakfast of
grass-eating. I'm sure they do this so they can present me with the
upchuck later on as a gift.

Theseus has a bad scratch on his nose. Wonder who gave it to him?

Yesterday, I was surprised to find Puck already inside the office when
I came down from lunch. I didn't have to find him and carry him down.
This is working out very nicely.

Nefreet killed a small sparrow yesterday. Randy happened to look up
from his window just in time to see her nab it. He was deeply upset
with her for the rest of the day. I hate to see my cats catch birds,
but it's in their nature. We can try to prevent it and that's about
all.

Which made it disturbing to get up this morning and not see any birds
around. Usually there are lots of them on the patio and in the
birdbath. Hardly a one. I hope there isn't some sort of bird
telegraph marking us as a cursed place.

posted at 11:17 AM

 
Interestingly enough, Puck wasn't with the usual batch of eager moggies
who rush out the door. That batch includes Tribble, Theseus, Tosca
and Diva. The second batch tends to be Sly and Owl. Blue and Knobby
take their time.

This time, I found Puck lazily stretching on the workbench. I gave
him a bunch of love and scritches. He eventually wandered over to the
cat door and stuck his head out it. He looked around briefly, then
backed up, went over and sat next to Knobby looking out a window. I
concentrated on my morning tasks and I think he's finally gone outside
since I don't see him around. I suppose now that he knows he can get
out, he's not desperate about it.

Part of the morning routine is changing the water bowl. I don't have
water in the office, so I have to carry down gallon jugs. I dump out
the old water, wipe out the bowl with a paper towel, then fill it from
one of the jugs. Artemis waits for me to do this. As soon as I put
the empty bowl down, she rushes over and positions herself so she can
lap from the stream of falling water. She loves drinking water that
way. One of these days, I'll have to buy her one of those circulating
fountain-type water bowls.

I must be getting thick in my old age. It should have occurred to me
right away that Puck would be likely to have tapeworm. I hadn't seen
any signs yet, but Randy was giving Puck some attention on the front
porch yesterday and definitely saw it.

Because I have so many cats that catch rodents, I keep some
tapeworm-killing pills handy. Puck wasn't happy about having pills
popped down his throat, but he wasn't too difficult about it and he
didn't run away afterwards. He let me pet him and love him up
instead. He's already put on a little bit of weight, but this should
help a lot.

I got back the photos of Uni on the cosmic rug and they're gorgeous.
Really gorgeous. I'll post some on-line in the next day or so.

posted at 11:22 AM

 
When Randy opened the front door to let Uni and Nefreet out, a gopher
had poked its head up in the front yard. Both cats raced over and
staked out the gopher hole, to no avail.

Puck was the first out the door this morning. I checked on him a
couple of times and he's hanging around nearby. I'll feel better when
I see him coming in the cat door by himself, though, and when he's
gotten into the routine with the rest of the cats of coming inside
after I come down from lunch.

My old Querida is no longer going outside at all, not even when I set
her down at the open door and encouraged her. She used to love to go
outside. Now she mostly sleeps. I'm afraid old age must really be
catching up to her.

posted at 11:23 AM

 
This morning I opened the cat door and let the moggies come and go as
they pleased, including Puck. He was one of the first ones out the
cat door.

I stepped outside, closed the door and sort of "helped" him to go back
inside via the cat door, just to make sure he understood that it works
both ways. Then I said, "Ok, you can come back out." And out he
popped.

I focused on my work for the next hour and some before checking on
Puck's whereabouts. He seems to like to hang out under one of the
cars next to the house. As I walked up the hill, Uni strolled over to
me from the direction of the dumpster. I looked over and saw Puck
lying next to the dumpster, very relaxed. This means they were in
relatively the same vicinity without fighting!

I also saw Nefreet come over to check out Puck. She wasn't too sure
what she thought, so she was somewhere halfway between warily friendly
and ready to defend herself. Since I was there, I mediated things and
that went pretty well, too.

One of my favorite things in the morning, before letting Uni and
Nefreet out of the house, is watching the birds. I've been more
attentive about putting out birdseed and keeping the birdbath filled
lately. Randy heard a specialist say that this was an important time
to put out food and water for the birds because many birds that get
sick with West Nile virus have a hard time foraging while they're
sick. The extra food and water could make the difference between life
and death for the sick birds.

So far, I haven't heard of the virus getting to the west coast, but I
imagine it inevitably will. Besides which, I love watching the birds
and identifying the many different kinds that show up. When I went
out to fill the birdbath, I found a dead bird, a very small sparrow,
lying next to the house. Mindful of the virus, I used a plastic bag
to pick it up and dispose of it. I don't think I can blame the cats
for this one, because it was untouched. I suspect it flew into the
bedroom window, poor thing,

During breakfast, I was astonished to see a bird I've never seen
before. He was large, about a third larger than the acorn woodpeckers
and almost the size of the roadrunner, with beautiful, unusual
markings. He had a gray face, black eye and red stripe running back
from the eye. Light brown stripe on the top of his head, black patch
on his breast at the base of the neck. Brown and white barred
feathers on his back, white breast with black spots all over it, a
hint of red in the lower part of the feathers, and white at the base
of the tail. Long, strong, slightly curved beak.

I had a hunch it was a type of woodpecker and I was a right. It was a
Red-Shafted Flicker. Really a gorgeous bird. I hope he shows up
again.

posted at 2:48 PM

 
PUCK'S BIG DAY

When I came down to the office and opened the door, the usual batch of
moggies raced out and this time I let Puck go with them. Since it was
a lovely day out, nice temperature but no insects to worry about, I
simply left the door standing open most of the morning.

I stood outside for a long time at first. Puck sniffed around and
investigated the entire outside of my office. He hung out with the
other cats with no problems. He plopped into the Rolling Trough,
where all the moggies love to take their dust baths. He came over to
me a couple of times to be petted and he didn't run off when I would
come over to him.

Then Unicom got curious. He strolled down the driveway to his
favorite rolling spot, about halfway between the house and my office.
Puck instantly came to attention. He went right up to Uni. They
sniffed noses. I watched Puck's tail expand and expand, which made
Uni begin to get his back up, so I quickly stepped in to cool things
off. Puck was ready to defend "his" territory and Uni was ready to
keep Puck from heading up the hill. Fortunately, nothing came of it.

I shot off a short roll of film of the mogs. Since things were going
so well, I came inside to do email. Some time later, I decided to
look for Puck and couldn't find him. I called a bunch of times, but
wasn't too worried. After alll, the reason we ended up taking him in
is because he kept coming back to our house. About ten minutes
later, Randy came down to see how Puck was doing. I knew Unicom was
inside at this point, so my guess was that Puck might be hanging
around the house somewhere.

Sure enough, Randy found him under the back deck and brought him
inside. I shut the door, unblocked the cat door, and headed up to the
house for lunch. When I came out after lunch, Puck was under the car
right outside the back door. He either knew how to use a cat door
already or took no time at all in figuring out how to use it. Smart
boy.

I brought him and the rest of the Horde inside for the day (there
outside time ends around 1 or 2 pm).

There was a "gift" waiting for me in the office...a headless bluebird.
GAAAAHHHHH! My cats have killed the Bluebird of Happiness! I am so
doomed.
posted at 3:16 PM

 
I had a dream about kittens. Not ordinary kittens, however. In the dream, I discovered two, fairly new litters of kittens that were lurking in the backs of shelves in a store, or something to that effect.

In one litter, there was a tabby kitten whose stripes and markings were of sky-blue.

In the other litter, there was a kitten that had green fur. I was thinking of calling it Emerald something or other, when Randy showed up and said, "No. No more cats."

So no blue and green kittens for me. ;)
posted at 11:46 AM

 
I got home from a two-day business trip and went down to check on the
Horde, clean the cat boxes, etc. The cats crowded around for
attention and ear-scritchies. Puck got exuberant about it all and
began harrassing Diva and Tosca, the little bugger.

He was equally crazy this morning, literally bouncing off the walls.
I haven't worked up the nerve to let him outside yet, but I think it
will help when I do.

Puck is currently alternating between attacking the cat bed and
leaping into it.

Randy, softie that he is, has been letting Unicom come into the
bedroom and sleep on the bed. The original idea was not to let any
cats into the bedroom so there would be at least one room that was as
free as possible of cat allergens.

At first, we were only letting Uni in there right after he'd had one
of his rubdowns, when he was as allergy-free as he could be. Then
Randy discovered the enormous pleasure of taking a nap on the bed with
Uni curled up next to him. Now, Uni is spending nearly every day
sleeping on the bed. Last night, he was already there when we came in
to go to bed. We spent a long time petting him and rubbing his belly
and scratching his chin before putting him out and shutting the door.

Now the djinn is out of the bottle. Unicom has already figured out
that he can bump open the bedroom door. For some reason, the latch
doesn't quite catch. Around 5 am, we heard Uni scratching at the
carpet outside the door, followed by a soft but firm FWUMP! as he
forced the door open. We could hear him pad, pad, pad around the
room. Then he landed on my legs, got between us and proceeded to
knead, purr and drool.

That's all very nice, except when you're both short on sleep and
desperately tired. Randy had to get up and carry him out. Five
minutes later, FWUMP! Pad, pad, pad. Back on the bed.

Randy evicted him again. Followed by "No, Uni!" when he made another
attempt. Then Nefreet had to get involved. We finally managed to get
the point across. It didn't do much good for a full night's sleep.

Uni's been sleeping on the bed all day again. This time he's curled
up on a throw that I put on the bed that is a bright gold sun
surrounded by stars and comets on a midnight blue background. Uni's
golden coloring against this was gorgeous. I ran for my camera and
tripod, flooded the room with a much natural light as possible and
shot off an entire roll of film. Uni cooperated beautifully by lying
very still for the long exposures and shifting position every few
minutes. I hope I get some great shots out of that batch.
posted at 4:14 PM

 
Puck continues to have minor skirmishes with Tosca and Diva. Tosca
doesn't help. She's such an aggressive alpha-female. But Puck just
jumped, or rather bounced, onto my desk and plopped down to sleep
against Querida. She ignored it for awhile, then shifted herself to
remove the weight of his head. She hasn't left though.

I'm still fighting the battle with Puck over the need to keep stray
paws off the keyboard, though.

Theseus came in from rolling around in the largest burr-patch he could
find. He was literally untouchable. A large fluffball stuffed with
burrs from one end to the other. These are especially nasty burrs
because they're very small and have infinitesimally tiny hair-needles
that come off at the slightest touch. They're virtually invisible,
nearly impossible to get out of your skin, and they hurt a thousand
times out of proportion to what the are. They hurt like hell.

I combed Theseus out as thoroughly and carefully as I could, then
spend another half-hour with tweezers trying to pry the blasted
burr-needles out of my hand.

posted at 3:02 PM

 
It took a couple of hours, but Theseus and Tribble were finally
persuaded to come out of hiding and follow me down the hill to the
office where they immediately plonked their noses into the food bowls.

posted at 9:28 PM

 
Tosca went outside this morning and became one with the yard. She was
so thoroughly coated with dust and bits of dry grass and weeds that
she looked like a piece of battered chicken ready for frying.

I decided to let Puck outside briefly. I stepped out and he followed.
He didn't run off. Instead, he sniffed around the outside of the door
and only went a short distance away. He kept coming back to rub up
against me, then went off to sniff some more. He brushed past a
couple of the other cats in the process and there was total
acceptance. I stayed outside with him for about five minutes, then
decided to bring him back in. It's a good first step, though. I feel
more comfortable about the prospect of giving him access to the cat
door pretty soon.

After lunch, I stayed up at the house to get some accounting and
bill-paying done. Randy went outside to continue digging a trench for
some pipe we need to lay. Then one of my neighbors drove up the hill
on a noise old ATV to fix some barbed wire.

The end result is that Tribble and Theseus are deep in hiding under
the back deck and not about to come out until they're good and ready.
I usually have them inside by this time of the afternoon. I called
and enticed, but they were having no part of it. "In our own good
time," they said.

I had high hopes for Owl after I started giving him Chlor-Trimetron.
His hair was growing back and he was looking much better. Now he's
either found a way to get rid of the pill even though I think he's
swallowing it, or he's become immune to it because he's denuding his
backside again, as badly as before. It's discouraging.

posted at 2:56 PM

 
Shortly before lunch, I heard Tribble whining and whining outside the
door. That's his normal voice. He just happens to have an extremely
whiny sort of meow. At any rate, I went over to let him in and
instead found him standing guard over an acquisition. I leaned in and
rescued a lizard, unharmed and very much alive, though playing dead.
I carried him to a stack of old wooden pallets behind my office where
he quickly scuttled off to safety.

We have three main kinds of lizards around here. The most common ones
have a long, thin body, long tail and smooth scales, and they're quick
to lose large sections of tail when they need to escape. They can get
pretty big. The cats catch those a lot. I will sometimes find just
the tail, or I will rescue one that has barely started to grow its
tail back.

The kind I rescued today is closer to the appearance of a horned toad
with a squat, round body, short wide tail and scaly bits that stick
up. Then there's another kind with a bright, irridescent blue stomach
that are quite beautiful to see, but more rare.

I saw Puck rub his head up against Tribble's head this afternoon.
Tribble was a bit unsure about it at first, but he's such a mellow
boy, he let Puck do it.

Unicom has been frozen in place on the patio. Apparently, there's a
gopher tunnelling beneath the thick, square adobe tiles. He can hear
it, but can't do anything about it. It's driving him nuts.

posted at 9:10 PM

 
Nefreet has a passion for birds. More correctly, I should say Nefreet
would passionately like to catch a bird. I haven't seen her succeed
in this particular quest yet, but she will sit at the glass doors or a
window and chatter enthusiastically. When I let her out this morning,
she was surrounded by birds: quail, woodpeckers, jays, sparrows,
finches, nuthatches, titmouses (titmice?). I'm not sure whether she
was thrilled or frustrated. So many birds, so uncatchable.

She is equally obsessed with lizards. Unfortunately, she's too good
at catching lizards. We do what we can to discourage it, since eating
lizards is supposedly bad for cats.

Sounds like the Puck and Diva show is gearing up again. Sigh...

Puck did chase Blue around yesterday, but I notice they don't growl or
get into a fight at the end of it. They might actually be heading
toward becoming play-buddies. That would be an excellent thing since
Blue hasn't formed much of a friendship with another member of the
Horde.

Querida caused me to lose about ten minutes searching for her with the
morning pill in hand. She found an entirely cunning new place to lay
low, or in this case, to lay medium-high on a shelf of stacked
posters. But I found her, eventually. There is no escaping the
dreaded Thyroid Pill.

posted at 11:15 AM

 
Blasted Puck has been harrassing Tosca and Diva again. As I observed
from his arrival, he seems to have a big problem with black cats and
I'm guessing a black cat has caused him grief in the past.

I had to run intervention several times. I'd pick him up and carry
him to another part of the office, set him down and he went BOUNDING OFF
to continue the confrontation.

I finally opened a window and plonked him down next to it, hoping that
would distract him enough to break the cycle he'd gotten into. So
far, so good.

posted at 11:52 AM

 
I had to keep jumping up and running intervention between Puck and
Diva again this morning. It's a good thing the Horde settles down and
sleeps during the afternoon. Peace descends on the land of snoozing
moggies.

posted at 2:50 PM

 
Puck has been a total snot this morning. He attacked Diva, chased her
around, jumped on her and behaved not at all like a gentleman. I had
to grab him by the scruff and give him a Severe Admonishment. Then I
had to do it two more times because he just wouldn't quit.

I got fed up enough to grab the cat nailclippers and snip off the
needlepoints at the end of his front claws. He didn't give me the
slightest bit of resistance when I did this, even though it meant
holding his paws firmly enough to push the claws out and then snip
them. He's an exceptionally tolerant boy.

Unicom was more vociferous than usual when he got his mid-week
rundown. You would have thought I was ripping his ears off. Of
course, to most cats getting wet is about the equivalent of having
their ears ripped off. Randy could hear him all the way out in the
living room while listening to CNN.

I could just see PETA at my door to investigate. "No, no, nothing
wrong here. We sacrifice a cat to Satan every Wednesday. Sorry about
the howling."

There's a new competitor in the Silly Sleeping Pose Olympics and I
must say she's very talented. Miss Dinah opened her eyes at the last
second when the photo was taken, but I decided to bend the rules.
You'll see why.

posted at 1:56 PM

 
I'm getting extra exercise these days from having to get up and down
from my desk numerous times during the morning to let cats out and in
of the office. Normally, I'd just open the cat door and let them come
and go as they please. I'm not ready to risk that with Puck yet. He
wants to go out, very much so, but I'm worried he'll revert to his
wild ways and run off. He'd probably come back, provided no predator
nabbed him in the meantime, but I'm now thoroughly attached to the boy
and don't want to lose him.

He sits and looks out the window. He'll head toward the door when I
open it for another cat, but doesn't make any mad dashes for it. He's
not *desperate* to get out, in other words. So for now, I'll accept
the extra exercise and jump out of my chair when I hear the cats
outside "knocking" on the closed cat door.

I still feel bad about that snake, dammit.

posted at 11:22 AM