We didn't even have a Petfinder post last week. Apologies. We can have one now, in the animal interview format that annoys the humor-impaired. I write these things from sober human observation... For new readers, Serena is the resident cat in charge of the Cat Sanctuary.
She was a baby Queen Cat when she was five months old. Now she's five years old and really into being the matriarch around here. She's easy for cats and humans to love, provided that they accept that, at least as far as she's concerned, Serena is the boss,
PK: "Stop clawing at the door! What is your problem, anyway? Don't tell me you're hungry already."
Serena: "No. I'm a nibbler not a gobbler. As usual I saved some food from breakfast for nibbling if I feel like it, later."
PK: "Want some water?"
Serena: "Purr-course! They changed the package and the taste of Pure Life water this summer, and it's better than ever now. I always like a taste of your water."
Crayola: "Me too!"
Pastel: "Me three!"
Silver: "Leave some for me!"
Serena: "Well! Aren't you going to sit down and finish the bottle?"
PK: "I'm taking it indoors. It's not so warm out here for those of us who aren't covered in fur."
Serena: "You're no fun!"
PK: "Will you stop? You're damaging the wood."
Serena: "You can get more wood if you want it."
PK: "Serena, look around you. See the orchard? See all the trees? See all the dead wood they shed? I need to prune some more dead wood and cut back some of the privet hedge, but already you have a selection of wood to claw at. What makes the door so special? Why don't you claw at this piece of firewood? It's nice and dry just like the door."
Serena: "That wouldn't get your attention."
PK: "Why do you want attention now? What do you want?"
Serena: "I'll show you. Follow me. See the corner of the shed? What do you see leaning against it?
PK: "That switch I used to amuse the kittens with, before the weather got too hot and they got bored with baby games."
Pastel: "We're not bored with those games now."
Crayola: "It's not too hot any more!"
Serena: "Yesss! For a human you seem almost rational sometimes. Swing it faster! That's the way! I like skidding and sliding on dead leaves, too!"
PK: "I thought you had decided it was beneath your dignity as a Queen Cat to play with kittens."
Serena: "That was when the weather was hot."
PK: "Well, if you don't mind playing with kittens, you have plenty of playmates."
Serena: "Hide the end of the switch under some leaves so I can guess where it is! Of course I have other playmates now, but sometimes I want to play with you. You're my human and it's my responsibility to exercise you. You were my first playmate. You're still my dear friend. Your alien brain thinks up moves that would never occur to a kitten."
(Three days later)
PK: "If only doors could grow back like pruned hedges, that door might be starting to grow back now. Is it really safe to take your leaving the door alone as an indication that you're satisfied?"
Serena: "Purr-now I'm satisfied. You're coming out to play in the sunshine, playing with me instead of the Lap Pooper."
PK: "You don't seem to want your claws trimmed."
Serena: "Of course not. I take care of my own claws, thank you very much! The kittens like to let you trim their claws just as an excuse to snuggle up to you and get treats, but when I call attention to myself it's because I want attention."
PK: "It's time for another Petfinder post on the web site..."
Serena: "Fiddle-dee-dee! I wish you'd find another home for the Lap Pooper and let that web site go!"
PK: "The laptop computer supplies you with bottled water and kibble. Now, have we anything to say to humans whose cats suddenly start clawing at things the humans want them not to claw at?"
Serena: "I don't know about them. Some cats are just dumb animals who don't have enough brains to remember their own families. Once they stop nursing and smelling milk on her, she is just another cat to them, and instead of being as polite to other old females as they want other cats to be to their mothers, they are as vicious and violent with their own mothers as they are with other old females. It must be hard for you to imagine. Pastel's and Crayola's father's family--if you could call them a family!--are just trashy! And I don't think much of their humans, either, but...Are humans ever so trashy as to scratch or bite an old female?"
PK: "Once in a while they are. There was one in California last week. He wanted to hurt an old lady, but not finding her at home, he hurt her husband instead. He wasn't even in the right country. Some people who belong in different countries want to be here because they've had disasters or wars in their own countries, or because people there want to kill them, but this fool was here just because his own family despised him and told him to go away. And he was babbling about politics, but what would our politics have to do with him, as a foreigner? If he'd had any real interest in politics, his own country has some controversies going on. Some humans just have something very badly wrong with them .Yes, it's hard to guess what that kind will do."
Serena: "But yes, if we are dissatisfied, we'll send you some sort of message, even though many humans are said to be so thick that nothing less than a big puddle of personal 'honey' right on their pillows, or down in the toes of their shoes, gets their attention."
PK: "Many cats are less imperious than you, Serena."
Serena: "That's their loss. They will still have to find ways to communicate to their humans when they aren't satisfied with their humans' behavior. That could include anything the human has told the cat to stop doing. Not all cats understand or remember when a human told them to stop doing something, but most of us have quite clear memories of things that really got the human's attention, whether it was jumping down onto the human's back, clawing at a particular object, whining, or whatever else. Most of us will try to avoid doing those things again, because we like peace...and we'll do them again if it seems to be necessary."
PK: "What about things the human thought were cute and clever?"
Serena: "Of course we'll use those ways to get attention too, if they work. If you spent more time in your bedroom, where you could hear a cat pull the screen door ajar and make it rap against the door frame, we'd probably do that to get your attention, as you say the cats who lived here before the Lap Pooper used to do. Now that you spend almost all the time in the office, the screen door is no use to us. If you spent more time outdoors, I'd make eye contact and blink at you, which has generally worked when you've been out where you could see it. When you're hiding from us, indoors with the Lap Pooper, you don't always even hear when Sommersburr calls you."
PK: "With this important message in mind, which kind of shelter animals should we feature in today's blog post?"
Serena: "Don't do a blog post! These warm southwest winds are too much fun. Stay outside and play with me!"
PK: "Black cats, because Halloween is over and shelters feel less need to hide them?"
Serena: "I am ignoring you! I am playing with my own daughter!"
Black cats it is, then. But, on opening the Petfinder page, I immediately see that at this time of year I'm not going to be able to find the cutest cat pictures. There are two thousand pictures of black cats who've been hidden in shelters during the season before Halloween in New York alone. Actually some of these pictures appear to be duplicates, possibly because pages were pulled in October and restored in November, and most of the cats look very similar to each other. Several of them are in fact siblings, having been placed in the shelter as litters of four black kittens. Any slim, short-haired black cat with amber eyes and white skin rates high on my scale of appealingness, and there are thousands of them. Here are nice clear pictures of cute black cats in search of good homes. Search your own location; you may well find cuter pictures, and the relative cuteness of the pictures doesn't even indicate the adorableness of the actual cats. Shelter staff often fail to make the time to take good clear pictures of animals who are naturally adapted to fading into the shadows.
1. Kenny from New York
Good things come in small packages but Kenny, who was born in August 2021, might grow a little bigger. A year-old cat is like a college-age human. Both are still growing, but usually the bones are at least close to as long as they're going to grow and the gains are in bone and internal organ mass. They are still bursting with energy at a level that can be tiring; the shelter recommend Kenny to a family without children because his restlessness might cause problems with them. (They don't actually say that if nobody gives him something to chase he's likely to try to start a good play-fight, but that's a thing some adolescent tomcats do.) Already neutered, he reportedly gets along very well with other neutered males but "seems to dislike" the female cat he's met. The shelter staff think he'd be an ideal junior cat for the human companions of an aging male cat. Kenny has been brought up as a house pet with a lot of freedom; at his web page, https://www.petfinder.com/cat/kenny-58705937/ny/new-york/anjellicle-cats-rescue-ny488/, there's a picture of him looking not exactly enthusiastic but resigned to being bathed in the bathroom sink, and one showing that he's comfortable riding around on someone's arm.
2. Sammy and Maggie from Mount Rainier
The one on the left is Maggie, described as the smallest kitten in a large litter. Sammy is the one who qualifies as a black cat. As you can tell by their size relative to a cat carrier, they're late-summer kittens with purrsonalities described as, well, classic kitten personalities. They like to play, they like to snuggle, they take lots of naps. They look awfully little to have been spayed and neutered, but they have. Sammy reportedly turns up the volume on his purr when allowed to nap in someone's lap, and Maggie seems quieter but, if moved off the lap in question, will bounce right back to it. They share a web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/sammy-maggie-56864388/md/mount-rainier/a-cats-life-rescue-md492/ .
3. Raven from Fayetteville
She was a spring kitten and she's already run up a vet bill of $125 that includes microchipping. I'm not enthusiastic about microchipping, but all black cats can look very much alike--if she were lost, after a few weeks on the street that glossy blue-black fur would probably start to look rusty. So at least with a chip you'd be able to prove she was yours. All the shelter staff took the time to write about her hisstory or purrsonality is that she's a "sweet kitty." Well, yes, her willingness to pose (as distinct from trying to grab the camera and throw and kick it about, like some cats I could mention) shows that.
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