RandomSaturday

Ok, I confess to plagerism, as I got the idea for random days from Amy and the House of Cats
but it's just so fitting. The stuff I have to tell you today is all over the place. There's some happy, some sad, some exciting, some boring.





The boring bit is the human, of course. She did nothing today except lie in bed for ages and ages and ages and then do lots of washing in the noisy machine. We haven't even done a training session today, which means I haven't got my daily dose of a gazillion treats. What's happening with the world. It's all wrong!





Speaking of the Daily Dose brings me to my next bit of random news, and this bit is the sad bit. I've mentioned her many times, but I'll mention her again. Chrystal over at Daily Dose of Dogs and Cats runs a private animal rescue for dogs and cats. The cats there are well cared for and normally happy, except for one poor little soul.





Sparkles
is that poor unfortunate. She was one of a pair who were helped by Chrystal and her family a few months ago. Her brother, now known as Jimmy, has recently been adopted, and since that point, Sparkles has gotten lonelier and lonelier. She doesn't interact with the other cats, preferring to hiss and spit at them instead. But peoples? That's another matter. She loves them. She can't bear to be parted from them. In fact, even when Chrystal is nearby but unseen, Sparkles will scream for her until she comes close. If a people goes into the cat house, she stays glued to them, and won't even play with other toys, even new ones, in favour of their company. Through no fault of Chrystal's, Sparkles is desperately unhappy, and she needs a home urgently. KC of the Cat Blogosphere has agreed to help by funding air fair anywhere within the USA, so please, if you can offer this lost little lady a lap to curl up on and a people to call her own, don't waste any time. Contact her right away. Please, even if you can't adopt her yourself, go read the story and post on your blog about her or talk to others who might want a cat for a forever home.





We got our bowl too from our bid that we made in the auction to help out Chrystal. It is so, so beautiful. The human has placed it on her display table, despite my promptings that it would look just great filled with my ping pong balls. I think it's so nice that we bought crystal to help Chrystal. It makes it sort of special, you know? Jan, thank you so much for donating it. It is truly stunning, and so tactile for my human to get her fingers all over. You don't need working eyes to appreciate the beauty of it.





That reminds us to mention to Amy and the Random Felines that you shouldn't think I've forgotten about the exchange I promised on my 100th post. I'm sorry the human hasn't written to you both yet, but with this being her first week back at the work hunt, she's been too busy and exhausted to even order stuff, let alone post it. She says she'll email you when she's made some more headway on actually getting all of the toys. I'll tell you a secret though. She's gotten a few, and they're so good I've tried to steal them twice now! She says she doesn't know when she'll get the chance to order them. It's her birthday on Wednesday, so she'll probably get that over her first before she goes ahead and gets them. Guess I'd better start thinking about a present for her.





In other exciting news, we've been featured on another blog! Wyatt's Corner
wrote to me today, telling me that I'm featured on today's post in a cartoon! Thank you so much, Wyatt. That's super cool! The human says she's not sure if the cartoon is of us or if it's just a link to us. If we're in a cartoon, would someone with working eyes mind describing it to us in the comments? That would be super!





Now, the news just keeps getting more and more exciting! I've mentioned before that my human and I are hoping for kittens. Well, I'm not about to tell you I'm pregnant, but today, the human got approval for her prefix! This means now that any kittens I have will carry the human's cattery name with them wherever they go, and if they get shown, it will tell everyone just how beautiful my babies are, cuz they'll know they came from me and the human's cattery! Her prefix is Moonspun. If I carried that prefix, I'd now be called Moonspun Dolly Mixture as my pedigree name. I tell you that just to show you how the prefix slots in. This is big, big news, cuz every reputable, responsible breeder should have a prefix of their very own, and it took us 18 or so weeks to get ours approved and all the paperwork done!





Now for the most excitingest thing of all. you remember I hinted a few weeks back that I was going to have a celebrity guest on my blog? Well, I've finally managed to get her to agree, and she's taken on a regular place here at Cuddles and Catnip. From now on, she'll be doing the Sunday post, and it hasn't even cost me any treats in payment! She seems happy to do it, so it will be her instead of me tomorrow. Isn't that great? I'm not telling who she is, but I'll give you a clue. Regular readers of my blog will have been introduced to her in a round about fashion already! My human and I have talked about her.





Please do come back tomorrow to see who it is! It will be her first ever blog post, so I hope it goes well for her.





Wow, that was a lot of news. I feel so much better now it's all off my chest. While I go for a nap to work up enough strength to hassle for treats, I'll leave you to remember Sparkles. Let's use the power of the blogosphere to get this unhappy little ladycat a home. Come on. We can do it together!

Livestrong Day

Peoples, cats, even stupid dog faces should read this. Today is Livestrong Day
to honour all of those who left us through, battled with and survived the dreaded cancer. I've never seen this myself, but the human is very familiar with it. She says:

Many in my family have had cancer, and many have left us because of it, but the one who stands in my mind was my great auntie Irene. She wasn't very old when she passed. Nor was I, actually, but throughout her fight she was cheerful and content. She loved life, and continued to live despite the difficulties chemo through at her. In her last hours she was singing cheerful hymns with the pastor of her church, and instructed us all not to be sad once she'd gone. Tears weren't allowed, she said. Instead we were all to be happy that she'd left her pain and gone to meet her maker.

Irene touched the lives of so many, for she was a well known woman. The only way to measure this is in numbers, and after her death, the family counted. Through her, her sunny outlook on life and her reluctance to give up, 112 people became a Christian, and two of those travelled the world continuing her legacy by journeying to small African villages to help those so desperately in need. Auntie Irene, today, I honour you.

She speaks well sometimes, doesn't she? For me, Livestrong has a slightly different meaning. I extend massive support, as does my human, to those lost through cancer, Snippy, Fat Eric, and all the rest we never met. Mine and the human's lives are all the poorer for not knowing you. I also want to give a huge thumbs up to Zoolatry Girls and their man people
As he fights the good fight.

For me, my Livestrong day is going to be about living without Mummycat. I know I can do it. My human tells me I'm a big, strong girl, and for once, I believe her. I'll be sad for her as well as the cancer victims today though.

To clear up some of the questions in comments, let me explain. Mummycat was born to a breeder who was only interested in money. She was kept in a cattery all of her life, in a small, never-changing, always quiet environment. Peoples were fun to her because pretty much the only times she saw them was when they were bringing food or water, cleaning or snuggling her. Cats were good too. They were her constant companions. When she was bought by the lady people who we owned before the human took us, she also ran a cattery, so Mummycat went into the same conditions again. She's five now, almost six, and has spent her whole life up until a few months ago in the same type of living space. When the human came for us, she took us to a house. It was busy. There were stupid dog faces. There were vacuums. Worst of all for Mummycat, there was a lot of open space and new people and things happening all the time. She couldn't cope. As soon as she got here she headed for the litter tray even though it was dirty and stinky. And there she stayed.

The human tried all sorts to get her to come out, to even hide in a different spot. I've been into that in other posts though, so I'm not going to do it here. The upshot though was that Mummycat just couldn't cope. She stopped eating. She started getting stress infections, until the human had the idea of clearing what she calls her spare junk room, and putting Mummycat in there. Soon she was out of the litter tray, but it took her weeks to be really confident enough to stay out of it all of the time. If she's in an enclosed, contained, cattery-like space, she's happy, but she's not content alone. She cries for company sometimes, and the human just doesn't have the space to get a third cat, not with the size of the house she has at the minute. She doesn't like the thought of two cats in such a small space all the time anyway.

She did her research and it said that cattery cats, if they're gotten when they're older, sometimes never can adjust to normal family life. After about four months or so of trying, and she's tried everything, the human is forced to admit that Mummycat might be one of those poor babies who's just grown to expect, and even crave, the small sppaces, the lack of change, the other cats for company. It's just what she's always been used to.

If she could have found an older person who lived in a really small house that was very quiet she'd have sent Mummycat there, but Mummycat has health problems, and most older peoples can't afford to pay for them. She's tried for months, and has found nothing. The only solution is to give her back to the lady people we used to live with. While the human doesn't agree with the conditions the cats are kept in, their health needs are met, their food is good, and they are snuggled regularly. She just wants Mummycat to be a family pet, not one of many in a cattery.

There's a good side, though. Mummycat is old enough that she'll probably never breed again. The human had her during the time when we want mancats most, and given her age, the breeder lady people won't have more babycats from her, we don't think.

Anyway, that's all for now. The human's upset all over again thinking about what Mummycat is going back to, but she knows that even if we were to find her a home, the same thing would happen in the end. She says I am to say that she hates breeders who don't keep their cats as pets, and hates conditioning seeded so deeply that a good life is nothing but upsetting to a soul who deserves nothing but love.