The thing I find hilarious and wonderful is that Ishka is a survivor of not one but two hoarding situations: she was born in one of those old, very bad hoarding houses that winds up with one pregnant queen spawning her own inbred colony. Then the rescue that took her in was one of the sort that gets in over its head and doesn't adopt the cats out enough and winds up not entirely sure how many cats there are--at least eighty--which are cared for by dumping kibbles in a heap on the floor and getting out of the way.
And then Ish had a bad case of ringworm when she came to the rescue we were fostering her through. She's our only true foster fail when we were fostering; Arthur doesn't count because there was a vacancy and he auditioned very hard. And so she lived in the ringworm room for months with hordes of kittens under treatment, getting "fatter and sadder" the whole time on the free range dry food. (Rescue coordinator's words.) When she finally got out, she was one foster among twenty odd cats in our coordinator's house, and she was so shy that H never saw her move--she appeared to teleport from moment to moment, but she was friendly enough. Just a quiet, snuggly queen who took what affection was offered and was grateful for it, as long as you didn't move too fast.
Then she moved in with us, slowly expanded mentally into the available space--we had two cats at that time, Peter and Janet who has since died--and also lost a bunch of weight as she went from free-fed dry only to wet only with actual portion sizes. Within a few months she turned into the hard-playing, demanding, bossy little queen that sits and glares up at you until you pet her, tries to steal everyone's phone so she can play the phone games herself, bites mostly gently when she's overwhelmed and demands that you scritch her harder if she isn't yet, muscles cats twice her size and half her age away from any wand toy in the offing, and generally grabs her kitty life with a single-minded hedonistic stubbornness.
Of all our cats, Ishka is the one who knows full well what a shitty life looks like, and Ishka is the one who is fiercely determined to never go back. She's stubby-legged and bobtailed and weird-bodied and has one lazy eye and brays like a donkey, and if I die in my sleep she'll probably eat me before the body gets cold. I love her unreasonably.
She's stubby-legged and bobtailed and weird-bodied and has one lazy eye and brays like a donkey, and if I die in my sleep she'll probably eat me before the body gets cold. I love her unreasonably.
Weird-shaped cats are frequently the best! Okay they are all the best. My late lamented cat had a crafty angle on this, being in all ways the Generic Short-Haired Tabby With White Bits except that he had the feet of a cat several sizes larger.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-02-28 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-28 03:58 am (UTC)And then Ish had a bad case of ringworm when she came to the rescue we were fostering her through. She's our only true foster fail when we were fostering; Arthur doesn't count because there was a vacancy and he auditioned very hard. And so she lived in the ringworm room for months with hordes of kittens under treatment, getting "fatter and sadder" the whole time on the free range dry food. (Rescue coordinator's words.) When she finally got out, she was one foster among twenty odd cats in our coordinator's house, and she was so shy that H never saw her move--she appeared to teleport from moment to moment, but she was friendly enough. Just a quiet, snuggly queen who took what affection was offered and was grateful for it, as long as you didn't move too fast.
Then she moved in with us, slowly expanded mentally into the available space--we had two cats at that time, Peter and Janet who has since died--and also lost a bunch of weight as she went from free-fed dry only to wet only with actual portion sizes. Within a few months she turned into the hard-playing, demanding, bossy little queen that sits and glares up at you until you pet her, tries to steal everyone's phone so she can play the phone games herself, bites mostly gently when she's overwhelmed and demands that you scritch her harder if she isn't yet, muscles cats twice her size and half her age away from any wand toy in the offing, and generally grabs her kitty life with a single-minded hedonistic stubbornness.
Of all our cats, Ishka is the one who knows full well what a shitty life looks like, and Ishka is the one who is fiercely determined to never go back. She's stubby-legged and bobtailed and weird-bodied and has one lazy eye and brays like a donkey, and if I die in my sleep she'll probably eat me before the body gets cold. I love her unreasonably.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-01 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-02 04:03 pm (UTC)Weird-shaped cats are frequently the best!
Okay they are all the best.My late lamented cat had a crafty angle on this, being in all ways the Generic Short-Haired Tabby With White Bits except that he had the feet of a cat several sizes larger.