Dogface: The Conclusion

The human is awake very, very early this morning cuz I decided that I did care after all if there were mancats in the snow. I decided to invite them over so that I could still see them, but wouldn't get cold. Now, bear in mind that the front door is very good at keeping out the cold. This means, if you ask me, that it's also probably good at keeping in noise. Add to that the muffling affect of the snow, and you can see I really had to shout good to get any mancat's attention. This I did with gusto. I even sang a little opera to them, just to encourage them in, you understand. Sadly, the only reward I got was an annoyed human who told me that no mancats were coming. Well, how does she know? She's up anyway which means I get cuddling while it's nice and quiet. I've been taking advantage of it. I've also been biting the long lead hanging down from the side of her small computer box thing, a laptop she says, which she doesn't seem too thrilled with. Her hand comes out of nowhere when I do it and takes it off me straight away. Still, it's a fun game.




So we left you yesterday not knowing what had happened. I was incredibly worried. I'd given up my quiet, girls only Christmas at home to come up here for the sole purpose of helping the stupid Dogface settle in, and now she wasn't even here! But where was she? It was cold outside, and she's not used to that. Surely they hadn't just dumped her by the road? I started snooping, sniffing, asking questions. In short, being the best detective ever. From the clues, here is what I was able to piece together. This was later confirmed by the human.





When I sniffed shoes and coats, I smelled the smell of a strange ladypeople. now, sniffing alone would not let me work out who she was, so I had to go to the human for that. turns out that she is Dogman's mummypeople. Some further investigations told me that this mummypeople had been with Dogface and the human and Mark, so I suspect that the stop we made was at her house. Dogface went in, but never came out. I grilled the human most thoroughly on what happened inside, but she assures me that the mummypeople doesn't have a simmering cauldren of water waiting to pop Dogface into. I was worried about this cuz the human says the mummypeople made her and Mark a stew so that they would have something to eat after the long drive. I wondered if it was a Dogface stew, but apparently not. Obviously, even peoples have the capacity to realise she'd taste awful.





The only conclusion that I could come to is that Dogface stayed with the mummypeople, but I wasn't all the way sure until last Friday night when a ladypeople with the same smell as the mummypeople came to the Dogman's house. She was going to get a snow shovel for him, but when she came, she wanted to say hello to me. Initially, stews were still in my mind, so I kept my distance and tucked right in under the table against the wall in as small a ball as I could get. This is not because I was hiding, I promise you. It's just that I know how much it would distress the human to lose me to a stew pot, and I don't want to cause her upset. I'd never hide. I'm too brave for that. The mummypeople talked nicely to me for a while though, and, from her tone (she doesn't speak a word of felinese so I was reduced to listening to silly people talk noise and trying to piece together the meaning), I deduced that she wasn't intending on making me into a stew, so I came out and let her admire me. And admire me she did! She fell in love with my beautiful blue eyes. This is the mark of a good colourpoint Persian, actually, the bright blue eyes, and I have 'em. Many peoples say it's very unusual in a cat. The mummypeople certainly thought so. She said they were very beautiful. Well, thank you, mummypeople, for stating the obvious. It's kind of you to say so though.





Anyway, while the mummypeople was admiring, I managed to sneak in a covert sniff under cover of headbumping her, and there it was, Dogface's smell. So it's confirmed, friends, Dogface is with Dogman's mummypeople. The human is telling the truth. I was a bit annoyed about this. After all, as I said, I'd given up my Christmas. I told the human this in no uncertain terms, but she only replied that she thought it best that we were all separated for a period to let Mr Bug run its course and hopefully we'll stop having him round to stay. I've said before that I don't like mr Bug (sorry, I know that's rude to say about house guests, but I don't!), so although I'm mightily cheesed off at the duplicity practiced by them all, I understand the necessity. I just wish they'd told me is all.





Despite the lack of Dogface, I wasted no time at all in settling in. this was something the human had worried about, cuz when I first came to live with her, I hid for over a week. She wanted me happy before she left so that she wouldn't worry about me. She needn't have worried at all. She thinks I was so quick to settle cuz she gave me a natural herbal thingy that calms the nerves, but I know the truth. I'm just more confident now. Even without that herb I still would have busted the butt of Dogman's new house with my outgoing approach. I explored the bathroom, the hall, then the bedroom when the human opened the door. she let me see the living room and kitchen briefly, but didn't leave me there for long as she wanted me to learn where the box was before I could get lost in the new space. She's so silly sometimes. I'm not a kitten any more. Show me where the box is once, and I'm good.





When Dogman returned from the work hunt the next day, I kept out of the way as a token gesture, but then came out and paraded around the place as if, my human says, I'd always been here. this pleased her.





Speaking of Dogman, my human has worries. Not about him at all, but about me. you see, every time Dogman walks at me and gets close, I run and run and run like the biggest, growliest dogface ever was chasing me. I actually do this when most manpeoples come towards me, and I'm more hesitant usually about coming for a cuddle with them. The human wonders whether the manpeople in the last place wasn't particularly nice to me and so I've learned to fear a kick or being pushed off a lap or other similar things. She asked me about it, but I'm not telling. It's not something I want to talk about, and in any case, when Dogman's sitting down, he has a reasonably good lap. I sat on it yesterday for a few minutes but only cuz he coaxed me up there and cuz the human's knee was taken up with the laptop, but as soon as it moved, I climbed off him and onto the human instead. She's more comfy, more familiar. Dogman's nice though. I don't know why I'm so wary of him cuz he's never done anything horrible to me. He's come close to walking into me a few times cuz his eyes are a bit broken too so it's hard for him to see me in dim lighting, but the human does this and I understand it. It's just that instincts die hard, I guess. Actually, come to think of it, no manpeoples here have been nasty to me at all. some of them don't particularly like me, it's true, but they are never cruel or anything. They just don't ask me to come for a cuddle. I guess I'd better start getting used to the fact that manpeoples aren't all bad. Dogman certainly can't be, cuz he said to me last night that he'll be feeding me when the human goes away, and that he suspects this will help me come to trust him more. Well, I'm not for a second implying that my love is cupboard love and totally food dependent, but if a people feeds you, they're definitely not a bad people, specially if they give you stinky goodness, which he promises he will.





We're still on the hunt for the memory card thing that Dogman needs for his camera. Even if he doesn't find it, I'm gonna send the human out to make a snow angel anyway so that she can tell you all about it. I don't mind her getting cold in the name of bringing you folks a good story. She says to tell you that going out in bare feet in the snow is an incredible feeling. For about the first 30 seconds it hurts as bad as having your tail stepped on, but after that it goes away, and then when you come back inside, your feet feel absolutely incredible. I'll take her word for it, I think. When she went out yesterday, the snow was well over the top of her ankles. She says it would have easily reached past my yummy tummy and probably about halfway up towards my back. That's a lotta snow!





the human is also looking forward to Christmas dinner later today. It's gonna be a lot of hard work, but she knows it'll taste good. They've bought a chicken instead of a turkeybird. They say they couldn't find any turkeybirds left in the food place that takes the moneys, and that chicken will be fine. My human puts an apple and an onion inside her chicken when it's cooking. She says it sounds strange, but the flavor you get from that is incredible, and you have the added bonus that the apple keeps everything moist and juicey. Wonder if they'll give me any chicken? I do hope so! She says she'll tell you all about her early Christmas tomorrow if she gets a chance.





Oh, Dogface is loving the snow, apparently. She's been running in the garden and getting very confused when Dogman's mummypeople throws snowballs for her, cuz of course, when she looks for them, they've gone cuz they explode when they land. This means she has to run around and eat as much snow as possible, just in case it's buried under there somewhere. She also helped the next door children make a snowman. her help consisted of running around like a crazy and licking small, cold hands to put some of her slobbery yuck into the snowman, but the children considered her as having helped build him, so who are we to argue? the human's so glad to hear all this. She couldn't have let Dogface even eat loads of snow when she was working, cuz it usually makes her sick, so she's very pleased to see that already Dogface seems happier as a pet than as a worker. It will make the final break that much easier when it has to come.





It's still very early in the morning, and I've given the human permission to go back to bed. I've been mousey quiet since the minute she got up, actually. For some reason, this really annoys her. Speaking of mousies, I lost mine. has anyone seen him?

The Great Unknown

I'm not even talking about outside, oh no! I'm talking about peoples. I was just looking back through my old posts, when I found this comment.

Tia, I don't suppose your human has told you about me, but she's my kitten, which I guess makes me your human grandma. She had three sibling cats when she was young, but in those days she thought humans were better than cats and refused to relate to them as sisters and brother. Now she's all grown up and knows better. I'm sorry if this hurts, but I'm not ready to be a great grandma yet, so I guess I was a bit relieved about the ghost kittens. But I'll have got my head around the idea by the time you have your flesh and blood babies, which will hopefully be very soon. I might even adopt one of them... Love and kisses from HG

What? Um, wait a minute! Nobody told me about this lady people! And now she thinks she's my grandma?

I didn't have a clue who the lady people was, but she'd given me a clue to solving the mystery. She said that the human was her kitten. That must mean that HG, as she calls herself, is my human's mummypeople. I needed to talk to her about this, so I waited until she was in the middle of doing something then went and shouted at her until she sat down with me for a few minutes. Why, you might ask, didn't I just pick a quiet time so that I wouldn't have to shout? Well, I reason that when she's quiet she wants to snuggle. When she's busy, she obviously doesn't mind conversation. She did moan about being interrupted, but I know it's only a save face gesture really.

I sat on her, then I lay down, then I rolled to my back and made her rub my yummy tummy. This was just to make sure she couldn't move, you understand (they do have a bad habit of getting up and walking away right as you're in the middle of telling them something). "Human," I said sternly, "You have a mummypeople. Why didn't you tell me!" She didn't answer my question. She only said, "what else do you want? I'm tickling you already!" I tried again and again, but it wasn't until later when she'd fed her stomach monster that she really got listening to me. I won't go through the whole conversation. It's full of too many boring people words. Let me summarise for you.

The human does indeed have a mummypeople. It seems strange to think of her being a kitten. She says she's not any more, and tried to explain it as being similar to my relationship with Mummycat. Even though Mummycat still looks at me as a kitten, it doesn't mean I am. So this Mummypeople of hers is very far away at the moment. The human says she's travelling the world for a year. A year? What in the world takes her so long? I mean, it's not as if it's miles or anything. I travel my world in about ten seconds flat at an all out run. Peoples are so slow compared to us, aren't they?

But there was one even more important area to clear up. The three cat siblings. The human got a funny look on her face when I asked her about this and just laughed. She says her mummypeople really used to tease her about the cats. They got two kittens when the human was only a half-grown kitten herself. She didn't like cats back then. I stopped her here. Didn't like cats? I'm sorry, but I can't believe that. I called her out on her lie, but she maintains that it was true. Dishonest human!

Anyway, back to these kittens. they were named Nelson and Peaches, boy and girl, except that Nelson turned out to be Peaches and Peaches Nelson. See? They can't even get smart enough to sex us propperly! Imagine the indignity of being a mancat with a name like Peaches! He sorted this out though. The human says he was a terror. He knew she didn't like him and would deliberately go out of his way to get in her face. Nelson was timid and mostly just hid. Peaches unfortunately had a fight with a car which he didn't win, and Nel got to be very old before she just didn't wake up from a sleep.

The human says that after Peaches left, her mummypeople got Flossy-Jane who was even worse than Peaches! She bit and scratched everyone, attacked from under chairs and everything. The mummypeople just loved her all the more because of it. Strangely, the only one she was nice to was the human even though she didn't like her. Knowing that the human didn't, her mummypeople used to tease her about the cats being her brother and sisters. Boy did she hate that!

I have to admit, I hated the thought of her having other cats. I'm her one and only! Do you hear me, world? Her one and only!

Now, this last message is for the mummypeople. Mummypeople, in the nicest, politest way possible, I need to tell you that you are not my grandma, well, kind of not. The human isn't my mummycat, you see, and if she isn't my mummycat, you can't be my grandma. However, this empty bowl does have a fishy lining. I like the fact that you hinted you might adopt one of my babycats. The human says you love the cats who own you very, very much, so we know the baby would have a great home with you. Because of that, I like you, and because of that I will agree to call you HG (human grandma). This is only on the condition though that it doesn't make the human start thinking that she can boss me around like a kitten and actually expect me to start obeying her as though she was a mummycat. Isn't it enough that I don't bite her good when she brushes my yummy tummy? I don't know what else she wants, but I don't want her getting a false sense of her own importance either. If you are happy with that arrangement, then HG, I welcome you to my world. Now, stop being so slow, travel the rest of your world at a run, then come to mine with treats and food and mousies and belly rubs and, oh, did I mention treats? I'd even let you cuddle me and everything!

Disclaimer: I am not in the least bit shallow, and my affections are not transparent. They cannot be bought with treats alone... Chicken and fish are also a requirement of contract.