Kitty kitty kitty

You hear people say all the time that people resemble their pets. This always to me bring about images of stocky men in bowler hats walking broad chested English bulldogs, or women wearing $700 shoes and smothered in diamonds carrying a little yappy purse dog with a diamond studded collar. In my head though I always associate this with people and their dogs, not their cats.

I am not really sure why I have this particular mind set. I am a cat person so one would think I would go to cats before dogs in my mind, but I don't. I always think of dogs and not cats. It isn't that I think cats are devoid of character, if anything I think they can have more character than most. I mean seriously if you have ever owned a cat you know how true this is.

I suppose it is because I have never really seen anything of myself in my cats. We own three cats. The youngest, Miss Etta James, is really our cat whereas the other two cats most certainly belong to one of the two of us. Etta has not thus far chosen between the husbeast and me. She seems to like us both pretty equally. Actually I think she likes the kid most, maybe she is really her cat and just living with us.

MuShu is the husbeasts cat. She has been from the moment we saw her. He picked her up and the first thing this tiny little kitten did was reach up and put a paw on either side of his nose and proceed to lick his nose. He melted. I paid the nice lady from the ASPCA. There is never any doubt that he is her thumb slave and I am simply tolerated.

My pretty baby boy.

It is fine with me that MuShu is his, because Pigwidgeon is mine. Pig is the oldest of our cats. We got him just before we hit our one year anniversary of dating. He has been my sweet baby boy from the day we brought him home from the shelter. He was nothing but fluff and head back then. The husbeast used to joke that he was going to tip forward from his head being so damned big.

He has always been an incredibly smart cat. He figured out quickly how to trick everyone in the house into feeding him. It took us a couple of months to figure out why we were going through cat food so fast and why he was so fat. Feeding him five times a day will do that.

He also figured out how to open doors early on. We used to find him hiding in cabinets all the time. Whenever he got startled he would run and open a kitchen cabinet, run inside, and reach out to swing the door shut behind him. We had to start placing heavy objects in front of the bedroom door at night early on to keep him from escaping. He has taught this trick to the other cats.

He is starting to get old though. He will be 12 next summer and I am well aware that this is about the age that cats start having health problems and age issues. Thus far the only signs of his aging has been him becoming a little more grump about everything. He has no problem very loudly displaying his displeasure with everything. Even when you pet him he will let you know he is a cranky old man.

Last week he started to sneeze and sniffle a lot. I didn't think much of it until I realized he wasn't eating. This cat lives to eat, so I knew he was sick. The vet said it was just a head cold and gave me an antibiotic for him. He said that cats don't like to eat what they can't smell and he should be fine in a week or so.

So this past week we have been babying the old man. He has been allowed to sleep where he wants, he is getting his own can of food a few times a day to go with his medicine, he has been getting extra skritches and cuddles, and no one is yelling at him when he makes a lot of noise. He is being treated so well because we love him and he is not well, but really it helps that he looks so pathetic that no one with any heart could be mean to him right now.

Seriously this is the most pathetic sick cat ever. The first day after he started his meds he just sort of lay in one spot all day long. The husbeast picked him up to give him his dropper of medicine and he barely put up a fight. After the meds were done I brought him a dish of food and he just barely raised his head up enough to get his mouth in the bowl. He didn't even try to stand up to get the food, he just let me sort of hand feed him.

It was at this exact moment in time I realized my cat and I are exactly the same. Sure there are lots of things about us that are similar; I am smart and clever, he is smart and clever, I love food, he loves food, I can be very vocal, he can be very vocal. All of that aside though, we are both ridiculously pathetic when we don't feel good. I mentioned this to the husbeast and he laughed as he agreed with me.

Thankfully he is on the mend. His head is still full of snot but he is up and moving around acting more spry. He has figured out that medicine means a can of food so he is less pathetic around medicine time and more eager. This all makes me happy. He may be getting old and grumpy but he will always be my sweet little fur baby.