April 1st kicks off Prevention of Cruelty to Animals month. I don’t think there’s anything I hate more than the abuse of the goobers who trust us & depend on us. I know there are plenty of people out there “avenging Dusty” but I’d like to suggest we do that in a cool & groovy, pay it forward kind of way instead of in vengeance. (There is definitely a lot of animals out there that need your attention more than that kid does)

During these crap economic times, a lot of people are having to give up their animals, or, at the very least, can’t take care of them for a while in order to pay other bills.

If you have the space, think about fostering an animal or two; our local fostering organization will actually pay you per day to foster, and has a page of other useful information.

You can check in with North Shore Animal League as well, who are another favorite of ours, or the ASPCA (so maybe they can take those heartbreaking ads off TV).

& Here’s Endymion coming out of his favorite corner, between the nightstand, the bedroom window, & the cozy radiator.

My sister made me a lovely blanket for the cold Wisconsin winter - just a small one to curl up with on the couch. The only thing is, Endymion seems to think it’s his.

Another shot of Endymion on his radiator shelf:

Aeneas on the coffee table where I frequently grade papers, re read texts, and watch Law & Order. & Eat. In other words, Aeneas as usual near my center of attention.

This is Endymion’s new favorite spot, with the snowy vista of Appleton behind him, me in front of him, and a warm radiator under him.

Why is the dog show broadcast but never a cat show?

It’s not a riddle; I really want to know.

Aeneas in his new home, on his new couch, which he sleeps on quite often:

Since Betty’s not here to see the boys do their usual goofy stuff, I’ve been taking more photos of them, & thought I might resurrect Friday Cat Blog in order to share them. So here’s the first of a series:

For your amusement, while we’re driving:

(h/t to Sandy for this one!)

and here’s one for the dog folks (h/t to Lena):

I haven’t cat blogged for a while, but I took this photo of the boys recently & couldn’t resist. Aren’t they just too adorable? This was right after Aeneas came home, after his surgery, and he seems very happy to have his big brother next to him again.

I can honestly say I’m baffled by this New York Times article, because I’ve grown up with men who like cats, from my brother to my friend Peter to many other guys I’ve known over the years, most of whom aren’t gay, if you need to know. I had a friend when I was 20 or so who always said, “Never date a man who doesn’t like cats” (which I found to be pretty good advice, actually, even if I didn’t always heed it).

So have I just been in some alternative universe? (Yes, I know I have. But still. Do people really know guys who won’t admit to liking cats?)

It’s been a long while since I’ve done a Friday Cat Blog, but today just had to be done. Aurora, whose full name is Queen Aurora Crankypants Thunderfist Quickbiter, has finally conceded to sharing her warm orange self with her adopted older brother, our big Endymion. He’s been working on her for three years - always trying to sniff her, trying to give her a lick once in a while, reaching out a paw to touch her when they’re both asleep, etc. It’s been so charming to watch her go from bristly freak-out to annoyance to - well, concession. And today, on this cold drippy rainy fall day, he has finally succeeded in getting her to let him use her big orange belly as a pillow.

Even Aeneas needed to find out what was going on. & While I did get their attention with the flash, they went right back to sleeping a minute later, & Aeneas, always the jealous kid brother, came & slept on my lap.

Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow.

Betty & I have been working on Aurora for years now. What we found out is that cats who are de-clawed are often meaner, and more prone to biting. If the cruelty of declawing your cats isn’t enough, those are two more good reasons not to do so.

But of course we got Aurora long after whoever owned her before had declawed her, & so we got a bitey cat who is something like post-traumatic. She doesn’t like her nether parts touched ever. Nor her belly, or her paws. She is mostly okay with being scratched between the eyes, and sometimes on her cheeks or under her chin. But mostly all touch is very conditional - depending on how full she is, how sleepy, how recently she’s had a standoff with one of the boys, or how long ago she saw some other cat in her front yard, how recently it’s thundered… you get the picture.

We’ve worked to make her a little less sensitive to touch, or more used to being touched in good ways. That is, we just try to communicate that a human hand does not need to be attacked immediately; she tends to be “shoot now, ask questions later” about hands. Things have gone very well, to the point that I will actually take a catnip toy away from her while she’s playing to toss it back to her, without fear of losing a finger.

Except that sometimes it’s hard to judge how she is. Sometimes the flick of the tail doesn’t predict her mood quickly enough to take your hand out of harm’s way. & So it was with me late Sunday night, early Monday, when she really got her teeth into me. It would be bad enough except, of course, I’m allergic too. So it started to swell, from about mid-forearm to wrist, and I had to go to the doctor, who put me on antibiotics and gave me a new tetanus shot.

So for this week at least, she is no longer Princess Aurora Thunderfist Quickbiter (which is her full name, after all), but just Quickbiter, and occasionally, that orange rescue fucker who bit me. (But of course I still love her, and I’m extra glad we didn’t rescue a pit bull, instead.)

Do you see that belly? Our downstairs neighbor - soon to depart for IN - calls her Butterball, now. And whenever I take her out on her leash, someone invariably asks me if I take her out so she can get some exercise, or they ask if she’s pregnant. I’m glad she can’t speak English.

Aurora, despite having been declawed by whoever lived with her before us, still has the habits of a cat with claws. She is all ferocity, no?

I love the way her tail kind of fades into the wood flooring, but then the little white tip hangs there in space.

Aeneas, too, appreciates some peace and separation from the rest of us. Though one has to be careful: one day I shut the drawer not realizing he was in there until - maybe 45 minutes later - Betty asked me why Aeneas kept meowing & wanted to know where exactly our noisy cat was.

Tada! He was in the panty drawer. & Yes, those are my panties, if you must know.

Oprah’s doing a show on puppy mills today that I can’t even stand to watch, and I’m not even a dog person.

There are reports around that many of the people who are victims of this subprime mortgage scam are having to give up pets because the rental places they’re moving to don’t allow pets. As we well know, having three cats, & from having numerous friends with pets who had to move, it can be difficult to find a place to live with them.

Volunteers here in Park Slope catch, neuter, and release feral cats. Others like BAFN foster, save, and check in on pets that have been left behind

So why is this the case? With all the people who are currently unemployed, why don’t we have a New Deal type program to take care of our nation’s animals and to change the laws that would keep landlords from barring pets? I can understand restrictions on how many pets, or how many pounds worth of pet (our three cats, for instance, don’t do nearly as much damage as one large dog could), or whatever. But we’re a nation that loves our animals, and yet you have horrors like animal abuse and puppy mills and the stupid decisions that separated people from their pets during the Katrina evacuations.

It seems there’s plenty of work to do, and improving conditions for our four-legged Americans might be a good place to start.

I’d taken out a drawer to rearrange its contents, and heard a yowl when I went to put it back in.