For all of my life I have been told that my cats seem to have a lot more personality than other people's. I have always thought it was due to a combination of things, one that if I get to choose the cat (as opposed to fate choosing it and one shows up dumped on my doorstep so to speak) I always choose the most intelligent kitten in the litter and I spend a whole lot of time with them in their formative early life and it has been scientifically proven to make people smarter the more attention they get when they are young so why wouldn't the same thing make sense in animals? I also know I have a bit of a reputation as an animal whisperer because I have been at people's houses having a great time with one of their cat's or dog's and the owner's walk into the room and tell me that animal doesn't like anyone and they are amazed that I have bonded with it. I was once given a 2 year old snow Bengal that the breeder had given to a friend of mine because she wanted to breed it (she had spent a year trying to produce a cat of this quality to breed to a stud she had and for 2 years it was schizoid and would have nothing to do with a male cat) and was hoping he would have better luck than her. After 6 months, during that time he was never able to pet her much less breed her, the most socialization he achieved was that if he held his hand out she would pet herself on it but he wasn't allowed to pet her. My friend knew my reputation with animals so he offered her to me in the hope I could at least make a pet out of her. The first night I had her she was running around the house chirping as if she was happy and the next day when I fed her some canned cat food she let me pet her. She seemed to like it and then the next day she came up to be fed, she was a real beggar for treats, and she let me pet her without food and that was the beginning of a very sweet and loving friendship I had with this cat and she would also let my friends pet her. Never was it ok to pick her up but she would sit next to me on the couch and let me pet her. A year later she did allow a male Bengal to breed with her, I found out that it had to be on her turf and her terms, no going into his enclosure but he had to be allowed to go in to her bedroom. I guess you might be able to conclude there might be a control issue going on, she wanted to be in control. She had only one premature kitten out of that breeding and she came and asked me to help her with the tiny little baby that looked like a white rat more than a kitten and she allowed me to take her two hour old baby and feed it formula and give it back to her to keep it warm and she let me do this for the two days it took until her milk came in - so together we saved her baby's life. Needless to say I kept the baby and I still have her years later and she is so much like her mom it is uncanny. But back to my original story. I also have two cats that are now 13 years old that I adopted from a local shelter when the male was 8 weeks old and about 6 months later I adopted a buddy for him from the same shelter, she was 5 months old. They became instant buddies and still are best friends to this day. All of my animals do have lots of personality for whatever reasons but these two older cats have pretty much have always had the same weird personality traits that they had as kittens. For some reason they have started walking on me as if I were a part of the furniture, instead of walking up and jumping on the couch next to me they will get on the back of the couch and walk right down from my shoulders using my stomach to walk on for balance to get to my lap. Why? It looks harder for them and it sure doesn't feel that good to have their little paws dig into my chest and stomach as they "come on down" but the difficulty of this way of getting to my lap almost seems like it is the goal instead of being an obstacle. I wonder if they are just getting to be eccentric jerks or if they are just trying to bother me because I am sure that they know that they are. I guess old animals can get weird just like old people, senescent beings may have a lot more in common with each other than they realize!
- The old cats - Mojo & Jasmine
- Moonshine & her Moonbeam Kitten!
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