Silly Cat and Her Silly Quirks

The following is an article on the life and times of Lindsay my calico cat. Throughout her 12 + years (and still going) and her many funny little quirks that make her very special. Some of the things she does may make some surprised but it is the honest truth. Read on...

The first you notice about my cat, Lindsay, is that she only has one ear this is because she began her life at my childhood home in the country. One night when she was only a couple years old she disappeared for a night and when she reappeared her ear was missing. My best guess is that she ran into a raccoon or another wild animal but ended up getting away. About a year later my wife and I brought her home to be our new house cat.

Throughout the years since switching from being an outside cat to being an indoor cat life has been fairly easy how her she eats regular cat food has her own bed and toys and all the attention she wants.

Living in the country throughout my childhood and teens we had a LOT of cats. I can remember at one point through strays and procreation the number had climbed to fifteen (until my dad had to thin them out). So I can honestly say I've found that most cats are not very intelligent. At least not in interactions. They just lay around play with eachother sometimes but unlike dogs don't really learn tricks, come when their called or understand a lot of things dogs do. That said Lindsay is the first cat I've ever seen that was different.

No matter how many cats I owned in my youth if the cat was between you and the door and you yell at the cat it would run out the door, but not Lindsay. Is she goes toward the outside door and you are behind her and yell at her she will run away from the door even if it is toward you. She seems to understand that is a no no.

Lindsay also has conversations with us if you meow at her she will meow back, sometimes this back and forth can happen a dozen times before she get tired of it. She also nods at us and we nod back and she nods again. She also loves attention. When we're at the table eating as a family Lindsay will jump up on her hind legs and tap me in the side with her paw until I pet her or play with her. This move in particular seems to amuse any visitors we have in our home.

Lindsay also is sometimes spoiled. In the old days living in the country she ate scraps like all the cats but now that she switched over to cat food she is just a taster. What I mean by this is that when ever you make a sandwich, sit for a meal or whenever there is food around she wants some but not much. You can put a little piece of meat on the ground for her and she will eat it but put a second little piece down and she will smell it, possibly lick it and then walk away leaving it there. What's that all about?

There are a few things that have surprised me about her transition from outdoor to house cat.

1) She almost immediately understood what the kitty litter was for.

2) After placing her in her new bed she understood that was where she should sleep.

3) She switched from scraps to food in a heartbeat.

There are only two times in her 12 year old life when she became so disturbed that her personality disappeared completely. Once was when we moved.

Leading up to the day we moved the furniture, and everything in our home out she became agitated meowing more keeping us always in plain sight as though she thought we would leave her behind or at least that something bad was going on. When we were ready to drive away with the moving van I carried her outside and put her on the passenger seat of the moving van and started the van. Immediately Lindsay freaked out and tried to jump through the closed passenger side window. When she realized there was no getting out she jumped onto my lap and nuzzled close to my belly hoping I would save her from the noise.

When my wife joined us she held her for awhile on the trip and pet her until she calmed down a bit. We had been packing for days and had just spent the past 20 hours awake and filling the truck. We were incredibly exhausted and in that state stopped at a motel as we couldn't stay awake anymore to make it all the way to our new home.

I carried Lindsay, shivering with fear, claws dug into my arm up two flights of stairs to our motel room. The moment I put her down she ran under the motel bed and hid. After a bit I had to chase her out and she went into the bathroom and meowed like a child crying. Pretty much having a nervous breakdown as she was now in a strange place with nothing familiar. I went back to the van looking for her kitty litter house but it was somewhere burried under odds and ends from our home. I went back to the room bringing my wife's large makeup case. She was thankful until I told her what we needed to use it for. Putting some kitty litter in the large case we put it in the bathroom with Lindsay.

All night Lindsay was a shadow of her former self cowering under the back of the toilet in the motel bathroom staring at the floor like her life was over. The next morning she was not much better as we got back into the van. When we arrived at our new home and let her out in the empty house she ran around meowing and trying to figure out where she was. We had to keep her in the bathroom at out home over night as well until we had unloaded all out things. the next day when we let her out she walked around and saw our couch, rugs, cabinets, table, chairs and most important her bed and kitty litter house and she calmed down. Within a day or so she was back to her old playful self.

About a year ago Lindsay developed a hard tumor on her abdomen and after it continued to bleed and not heal no matter what we did we took her to the vet. They advised us she had cancer and needed to have a have her teats an uterus removed. The price of it was between $1500 - $1700. Now we are not a rich family by any means and spending that much on an animal would make someone like my father cringe and if I were a bachelor maybe I would have had to have her put down. But it wasn't just me, she meant a lot to my wife and children as well and so we mustered up enough money to do the operation.

When we left her at the vet she had such a look of horror on her face and obviously no idea what would happen next. A few days later after the operation we went in to get her and they brought her out and sat her on a table. Her eyes were vacant almost like she had nothing left in her mind. As though instead of removing her sexual organs they did a lobotomy. When the doctor showed us Lindsay's stitches and touched her belly she shivered. All the time Lindsay was there she must have thought she was there to die, it must have been a horrible feeling even if it was just a cat.

Bringing her home she didn't make a sound but when we opened the cage it was a different story. Disoriented and drugged from a pain killer shot they had given her earlier she stumbled all over the house running this way and that until she cowered in a corner in the kitchen. I tried to pet her and clam her down but she shrank away from me like I was going to hit her. She tried running under things she wouldn't even fit under and later tried attacking nothing in a pile of bags as if she say creatures there.

We realized if we didn't contain her she could possibly break her stitches open so we captured her and had to put her in pet cage. All night she kept sitting then standing and staring out through the bars with strange looks as though she could see something monstrous. Later she became tired and laid down and not able to control herself peed in the cage. We had to eventually take her out during the night clean out the cage and then put her back in. The next day when we let her out the pain killer had worn off and she realized where she was. For the next week she spent a lot of time sleeping and eating and slowly she regained her personality and silliness.

Although Lindsay came through her operation and has completely returned to normal we realize that she is getting older. It wouldn't be an uncommon thing for a cat of 12 to die of natural causes but we do hope that she has at least a few good years left in her. I can't really imagine our lives without her. For now though she is content to play with her stuffed cow toy and chew on her catnip pillow with the best of them. We love you Lindsay!