I loved reading about your new pal. He sounds like a lot of fun. He is
lucky to have found you all. Can't wait to hear more of
his antics.
Taria

"Night Mist" wrote in message
...

First off, I'm coming in from google because I've been having fits with
software upgrades and I am not installing or reinstalling anything again
until I am sure my system is stable.

Second off, New fur baby!
I had been thinking that sometime after Christmas I would think about
getting a new cat.
That plan was thrown to the four winds when the Humane Society got
overcrowded and decided to have two weeks offering free cats and $50 dogs
who were more than 6 months old.
So last month when they did this my daughter and her boyfriend took me over
to see who was there.
Going in I was thinking I would get me a little girl cat, probably a black
one since they usually have a lot of those.
As I was going through the colony room giving out petting and ear scritchies
to see who fancied me, somebody grabbed hold of my arm with both front paws
and held fast.
He wanted all the lovings.
He was in kind of rough shape. Missing some teeth in his dental comb, looked
to be blind in one eye, his coat was a dried out mess, his paw pads were dry
and rough, and his claws were such that they were just a tiny fraction away
from his back foot being bounty eligible. Come to find out it was his first
day in the colony room as he had spent the last month in the medical care
and convalescent rooms. His bad eye had had an ulcer and they had had to do
third eyelid surgery.
So apparently what we had here was a big old alley cat that just loved me to
pieces.
So I brought home 12 pounds of underfed tomcat (technically a gib, since
they do not allow unaltered animals out the door).
They called him Herbert, we renamed him Jericho.
He is a colorpoint shorthair, lynx point. That is tabby point in some parts
of the world, or white tiger more generically. All that means is a siamese
cat got together with a tabby cat and produced an offspring that looks like
a siamese only the points are tabby.
He is supposed to be some 3-4 years old, but he has feet like dinner plates
so I wonder if he will grow more. He has already packed on a fair bit of
muscle.

We took him to the vet first thing. Normally I would have waited a month or
so for him to settle in, but I particularly wanted that eye looked at, as
well as his teeth.
We brought home some opthalmic ointment to try to reduce the scar tissue in
his eye, and the assurance that while he is missing some teeth he has none
that are broken or appear to be infected. The ointment did reduce the
scarring, though he will never have perfect depth perception. Boy does the
male half of our vet couple like this banged up boy of ours! He could not
stop grinning at him, and I have never seen the man so happy around one of
our cats before.

Jericho was afraid of everything at first. Jiji who is naught but a ball of
fluff scared the dickens out of him, and it took weeks for him to quit
running for his hidey hole every time a male person walked into the room.
Now he has grown bold and begs everyone equally at the supper table. There
are some stray cat habits we are going to have to work on breaking. He seems
to think that bread is the finest cat food ever invented by man, and will
try to snatch a bite right out of your hand. Any time cellophane crinkles he
comes running, I think he finds electronics the most disappointing, but
potato chips seem to be as interesting as bread.
He has taught my DH to always put the bread back in the breadbox. Something
I have not managed to do in almost 35 years! It only took finding half eaten
onion buns and scraps of bread bag scattered in a line from the kitchen
through the living room but once, and now I can count on the bread always
being where it goes. If I had known that that was all it would take I would
have tried the trick myself some 30 years ago! Maybe if I scatter tools
across the floor and blame the cat...?

DD3 is saying she is going to get some pictures.

NightMist


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