|
I have two sisters, from the same litter, who were born in December of 1990. Yes, they will be twenty-five in a few months. Their mom lived to be twenty-three, then got a rapidly growing cancer, and didn't make it to her twenty-fourth birthday. Both of my twenty-four year-olds are fairly healthy, all things considering. In fact, the last vet bill that either of them had was when one of them got into a fight with another of our cats, probably her sister, and got bit on the butt. I didn't witness it, so I don't know for sure what occurred there, but they often fight over things like cat beds. Although there are four identical cat beds, and only three cats, that is nevertheless a source of contention at times. At other times, it might be some cat issue that only makes sense if you're a cat.
Both of the older cats are black. I have been married for fourteen years, but my wife still can't tell them apart. The alpha female is Cutie. She usually gets her way unless her sister, Lydia, really wants something, in which case Cutie often loses. Cutie has only recently begun to gain a little weight, but she still keeps it pretty much under control. For most of her life, she weighed in at ten pounds even, but she was a couple of ounces over that the last time she saw a vet. She has arthritis; it is pretty much kept under control with Cosequin. I have to make steps for her to get up on things like my desk, but she sometimes decides to make the leap instead. She is still playful, although certainly not as exuberant as she was twenty years ago. Neither am I. The vet wasn't able to find a problem, but I think that her night vision isn't as good as it used to be, because I have to leave more lights on around the house or she will yell. At first, I thought she just wanted me to get back up out of bed but I found that she's okay if I leave a light on.
Her sister, Lydia, has always been a strange cat, but she is the reason that I learned to feed my cats healthier food. About fifteen years go, she began losing her fur. She would lick and pick at her fur, especially on her legs, but anywhere that she could reach well. She also began acting out in ways that resulted in messes around the house. I brought her to the vet and he put her on steroids. That seemed to help a little, but only for a while, and i was worried about having her on steroids. Then I came across a Blue Buffalo representative in a pet store, and she suggested that the problem could be due to a reaction to corn, soy or wheat. At any rate the foods that didn't have these ingredients were better foods, so I tried it. Within a few days, she calmed down a lot, and then I could see that she was no longer picking at her fur. It grew back, and she still have nice fur today. Although the vet says she is very healthy for her age, she is a lot thinner than I would like. Throughout her life, she would bulk up, then get thin, and bulk up again, but over the past couple of years, she is no longer bulking up. Then again, I suppose that's not so unusual given her age.
Until a year ago, I had another cat who was just a few months younger than Cutie and Lydia. Born a feral kitten, I had fed her for several years, gradually making friends with her, and named her Bird. I didn't want to take her in because I already had four cats at that time and didn't want to become one of those people you read about in the newspaper every now and then. She had been born in the open porch of a vacant house next to one of our ambulance stations (I was a paramedic at the time). I secured the porch so that dogs couldn't get in, but she and her sister could, and I fed her every day. Another day, I will tell the interesting story about Bird but I'll cut it short for now, except to say that, when we moved from Texas to Maine, we decided to take her with us. Her sister had been killed in traffic by that time, and it was just her.
Cutie and Lydia hated Bird. Although they were to be together for fourteen years, they still treated her as if she didn't belong. Having been born feral, I couldn't keep Bird restricted to the house. She would have escaped at some point, and would have been in unfamiliar surroundings, so it seemed safer to allow her outdoors. I know how some of you might feel about letting a cat outdoors and I often agree with you, but in her case, I felt that it would have been cruel, and potentially more dangerous than allowing her out. She lived to be twenty-three, so I am satisfied that it wasn't the worst decision in the world.
Despite the fact that Cutie and Lydia hated Bird, once she was gone it was as if their purpose in life had gone away. Rather than competing with Bird for attention, or seeing who could be the rudest to her, they just laid around in their cat beds. After a few months of that, we decided to get another cat, and took in Ella, who was just over a month old at the time. Of course, they hated Ella, but now they had something to live for, even if it was only trying to get us to get rid of Ella. Ella is about eight months old now, and Lydia still hates her, but they don't hurt each other. Cutie, on the other hand, has taken to her like a long-lost daughter, although she hated her at first too. They play, Cutie chases her around the house and Ella lets her catch her sometimes.
Ella is quite the little diplomat. Having made friends with Cutie, she does not leave Lydia alone. She makes a point of being near her as much as possible, and when it comes time for canned food, she nearly always chooses the spot next to Lydia. Twice, I caught them cleaning one another, but mostly Lydia just follows her around grumping at her like a crabby old lady.
|
