Horse People Are Animal People, Right?

February 25, 2008

I figure that anybody who loves horses also tends to love animals in general. We’re typically surrounded by a menagerie of pets, whether it cats and dogs or llamas, alpaca, goats, chickens, cows, birds, guinea pigs, hamsters, fish, whatever.

So knowing that, I’m going to subject you to a non-horsey post about my kids, er, I mean my cats. I don’t live on a farm or in a house with enough room to harbor lots of animals, or anything bigger than a chihuahua, which is why I’ve taken in several intriguing (and sometimes really annoying) felines. And if you aren’t convinced about their place on a horse blog, I got my kitties from Dave and Tracie, my friends who so generously share their horses with me (and their two dogs and 11 cats, 8 of which live in the house).

Luna

Meet Luna, my 2.5 year-old diva cat, who thinks by looking really cute and showing me her soft belly I’ll go feed her. Don’t let that sound-asleep look fool you; she peeks through a small slit in her eyelids periodically to see if I’m noticing how cute she is.

Luna (I’ll admit, my hubby and I picked her name out of a baby name book), is your traditional, stand-offish cat. She is incredibly friendly and is always right in the middle of things when we have company. But she hates, I mean hates, to be touched. She never cuddles, fights if you hold her, and will only let you stroke her once or twice before she runs or tries to bite.

She crawls in boxes, bags, holes and any small cramped space she can squeeze into. She will fit every inch of her body on a scrap of paper on the middle of the floor and go to sleep. It’s very difficult to put clean sheets on the bed because she gets under them. I’ve made her into the bed on several occasions.

When she was still an only child we used to take her with us when we traveled. Once at my in-laws, we took the mattress off the bed to adjust some supportive boards underneath. After we put everything back together, I heard this muffled meowing. I looked in the closet and under the bed trying to find the silly cat. Suddenly, Ben jumps off the bed where he had been relaxing and threw off the mattress. Out comes Luna, who had crawled underneath the mattress as we replaced it and gotten squished inbetween it and the box springs. Not to worry, she was fine.

Rooney

Rooney, on the other hand, is a rescued stray who acts more like a dog than a cat. He follows me around and wants to be in my lap at all times. He sits on command. All he wants is to be loved.

Which is a very good thing, because he’s also very very very bad.

The first week or so he was here, Rooney still had stray cat mentality. He didn’t realize he was getting fed regularly and didn’t have to fight for food any more. I was eating dinner on the couch one night, and before I realized what had happened, he darted up, grabbed half a chicken breast off my plate and was across the room. I forgot my lunch one day, and he pulled out the sandwich, chewed through the plastic wrap, and ate all the lunchmeat. He pulls over the trash can, and grabs food out of the refrigerator if I leave the door open too long.

Rooney always has be to in your face. He is also down to his few remaining lives due to his curiosity. These traits make it very difficult to take his picture. Every time I pull out the camera, he sticks his nose in it.

Luna and Rooney have your typical brother/sister relationship. She was not at all happy when he came home with us last fall and invaded her territory. It didn’t help that he never ever left her alone. He’d chase and tackle and bite, and she try to run away. Now that she’s used to him, she acts like a typical girl. She’ll torment him, and then as soon as he chases her she gets mad and growls and hisses. Such a little whiner.

But that’s just the beginning. These two are so crazy that I always have great new stories to share on them. So move over Marahute, you’re now sharing space with the cats.

Posted in Crazy Cats