Six Toes Learns to Walk With a Leash...

Wow.  I didn't realize it had been so long since I last made an entry!  But that's spring for you:  home projects, work and cleanup just seem to take over.  Now that summer's here, I can sit down and relax with the blog. 

Before I get to Six Toes learning to walk on a leash, I need to talk about his best friend, Bully.  Bully is a large brown dog of mixed boxer, ridgeback and gosh knows how many other breeds.  He weighs a lot, near 80 pounds if I had to guess.  He and Six Toes have been best buds since Six Toes came to stay with us.  If Bully goes outside, Six Toes sits anxiously at the door, crying his eyes out.  If you open the door, Six Toes shoots outside just because Bully's out there!  He can't stand to be without him.  So after a month or so of warm weather escape attempts to be with his friend, we decided the best thing would be to train Six Toes to walk outside.

The first thing we did is got him a little five-point harness.  These are usually reserved for small dogs, but we needed Six Toes to get used to it.  Anyhow, we put it on him and he spent about two hours trying to get out of it...he's never even worn a collar as long as he's been with us.  After that he seemed to settle down.  A day later we hooked a leash on the harness and took him outside with us the same time we took Bully outside for his walk.  We stuck to the yard because we knew Six Toes doesn't know a lot about the outdoors.  He spent considerable time attempting to chase bugs and birds.  Cars scared him so much he stood up like a squirrel behind Bully.  Everything was of interest to him...the grass, the air, the sun, the leaves, the ponds of water.  We walked him outdoors for about 15 minutes and put him back.  Each day when it's not raining we let him go outside with Bully once a day and it's helped Six Toes be more content when Bully's gone.  The first thing he does when he goes outside is to greet Bully, bopping his head on his belly or chest or nose if he can reach it.  They really love each other. Bully sometimes licks Six Toes, but he doesn't really like it...it's just too big and sloppy of a swipe!

Next week we're going to try taking Six Toes on a longer walk around the block with his buddy.  I'm not sure how it will pan out, but we'll see how he does.  Just pray there's no huge cat-hating dogs on the path!

New Pics of My Guy....

It occurred to me that I haven't posted any new pictures of Six Toes for quite a while now.  He's grown a lot and gotten tall and lanky.  Here's a few pics:

As you can see, he's got quite the Barbie fetish....it tires him out!

Six Toes Fights The Spider

With spring now under way spiders are finding their way into my home, much to the entertainment of my cats.  Six Toes also discovered spiders.  Here's what happened:

I spotted a large daddy long legs spider in my bathtub.  So I thought, here's an opportunity for Six Toes and Buddha to see a spider and find out it's alive!  So I grabbed both kittens and put them in the tub.  Buddha was not interested in the spider.  In fact, he looked bored.  Six Toes, however, upon discovering the spider moving on its own, decided to play with it.  He stepped on it and attempted to pick it up.  The spider, being clever in defense, climbed up on Six Toes' head.  He looked up at me with crossed eyes, trying to see where the spider went.  The spider fell off and began to attempt to get away, but Six Toes wasn't having it.  Pursuing the spider, he stomped on it again, and it tried to climb back on Six Toes head for a rest.  Six Toes shook off the spider and promptly ate it. 

At least he got his protein for the day!

Six Toes the GIRL?

I might not have mentioned this before, but I have three male cats in my household, including Six Toes.  One is 7 years old and the other two haven't even hit one yet.  All of my male cats have been neutered. 

Anyhow, over the past few weeks, my 7 year old male has been actively trying to mate with Six Toes.  He grabs him just like a female on the neck and tries to hump him.  Six Toes cries because he doesn't understand why he's doing it and fights to get away.  His brother Buddha has no problem with my 7 year old male.  So what gives?

I did a little research and apparently, when male cats feel unhappy or threatened, they will resort to humping the competition.  It has nothing to do with sex but is concerned with establishing dominance.  My 7 year old male cat has been MY cat for as long as I've had him and apparently, he doesn't like sharing me with Six Toes.  Six Toes has a habit of sitting in my lap whenever I'm sitting to sew and  my 7 year old man doesn't like it.  He sees that attention as a threat to his position as the alpha male.  So Six Toes has been very unhappy lately. 

The way to solve the problem is to grab the aggressor by the scruff of the neck or squirt them in the face with water to deter them from their actions. I did that with my 7 year old male yesterday and it seemed to work for a few hours.  Six Toes was left alone and in peace. 

Has anyone else had this problem with their male cats?  If so, how did you solve it?  Let me know!

Six Toes Summer Preview

Yesterday was a great day for Six Toes.  It was 80 degrees and all the windows were opened for the first time over an extended period.  Six Toes sat all day near the window, listening eagerly to the birds outside and watching them with his wiggly tail.  It was exciting for him.  He felt the wind, sniffed the air and seemed very contented at his perch on the windowseat.  And all his friends including his brother Buddha, were with him.

Later on in the evening he got to try his first ice cream cone.  Six Toes really adores ice cream!  He stayed until it was all gone, licking his chops with approval. 

He hung out around the fan and watched everything as the sun went down.  It was better than anything he's seen so far. 

When night fell, so did my buddy.  He collapsed among the pillows on my rocking chair and went to sleep.  Awwwwww.....so cute!

The Naming of Six Toed Cats

I just had to write when a reader asked "Why in the world did you name your cat Six Toes?  There's so many other names that would show a little more imagination!"

Well, that's kind of hard to explain.  You see, when we first got Six Toes, we weren't sure about keeping him.  So we tried not to give him a name which would make it harder for us if we chose to give him away.  But as the months went by we had to call him something...so we chose a name that was descriptive:  Six Toes.

But the reader is correct.  There are a lot of names out there for six toed cats.  Here's just a few to consider:

Mittens
Mitten
Thumbs
Ace
Alien
Godzilla
Paddy
Bigfoot
Boxer
Octo
Decca

Six Toes just seems to fit him somehow.  When we call him, he always answers with a quick mrrrrr sound.  He likes his name. 

Spring In Michigan

It's been a very interesting week for Six Toes.  He's never been through spring before, being born in the summer, so everything is new to him.  In Michigan we've had a lot of rain...a whole lot of rain.  And melting snow.  And thunderstorms.  Normally the rain would mean nothing to Six Toes...except his basement suddenly had water creeping across the floor.   He seemed rather puzzled at this event and climbed up to a high perch on a shelf to look over the situation.  His master did all sorts of interesting things:  vacuuming up the water (he did NOT like the sound!), picked up and threw out damaged things, build a platform for the litterboxes (that was REALLY interesting for him, he got his nose as close to the drill as possible) and hauled water upstairs to throw outdoors.

On a very windy evening, we had a loud thunderstorm.  Six Toes was determined to see what was making all that racket and kept looking outside.  He wasn't scared at all.  He just wanted to figure out what was making the noise that was disrupting his night-time stroll!

One afternoon, he got a real treat.  He's always loved to look at snow falling and was just beside himself at seeing hail bouncing off the front deck.  The sound fascinated him.  After it finished (it was smaller than a pea), I went outdoors and got him some to look at.  He didn't know what to make of it.  It was cold, like ice cubes, but very small.  Finally after pawing it and sniffing it he ate some.

So far, Six Toes is finding spring pretty darn exciting!