Tag Archives: cats

Obviously, I’m talking about my kitten, not anything else. Recently, someone asked “how long has he been a kitten now?” or something to that effect in response to another one of my facebook statuses bemoaning his tendency to break small things / knock over plants / eat plants / wake people at the crack of dawn. And even more recently, I went away for 24 hours, and when I returned, it did seem as if little Yuki had grown noticeably in my absence.

Having looked it up, it seems that a kitten can be considered so until about 1 year old, when they’ve settled on their adult shape and got most of their bulk, but won’t fully stop growing / maturing until about two years old. They’re sexually mature at 6 months, but not for long, as he’ll tell you. Yuki is now seven months old. When we got him nearly four months ago, he was a small, gangly, leggy, unco-ordinated, fuzzy, fluffy and frankly stupid kitten. With Gizmo-from-Gremlins worthy ears. That are completely useless. Yes, life and karma conspired, and we found ourselves with a deaf white kitten.

"I'm blurry because I won't bloody sit still"

See what I mean about the ears? What fascinates me is that they still work in every aspect other than hearing; they indicate interest *pointing forwards, what’s this? Can I play with it?* annoyance *twitch / flick away, leave me, woman. I’m trying to sleep* and nervousness / excitement *half flat, what’s this? What’s this? What’s this? I must run at it very fast!* they still swivel around randomly (why, I don’t know) and twitch when he’s asleep.

I have no idea if he even knows what their original purpose was. But he seems to have fully adapted; he can identify the vibration of the front door shutting, he knows at least four signs (Hello / Come on / No / Get Down!) and has a very disconcerting habit of looking behind him by turning his head upside down. Literally, he leans or tilts his head back until he can see what’s behind him. Believe me, it’s very strange, and not a little unnerving when you appear to be being observed by a cat with an upside-down head. He also, unusually for a cat, likes to be held tummy-up so he can see all that’s around him when he’s picked up. He sleeps like that too. I can see he’s going to be a confident deaf cat. Good on him. This is him now:

"check out these radar dishes, baby!"

My kitty got buff.

And lest Lucy, our elderly, 22-year-old, ridiculously fluffy tuxedo cat feels left out, here she is in her most alluring pose:

"I still got it"

Unfortunately, they still don’t get on. If only he’d stop playing with her tail. But, hey, he’s still got the excuse of being a stupid kitten – for a little while at least.

Time for something a little more light-hearted! The cats have settled in, and they’re still polar opposites. The kitten and the old lady, the dainty white short-hair with big, foreign ears and pointy nose and the scruffy long-haired black cat with white bib and socks with classic british build and face. The little, playful, occasionally incredibly destructive, ball of energy and the sedate, permanently chilled-out old-timer who can’t be having with all this fuss.

Yuki is a deaf white cat, but unusually for such cats, he doesn’t have blue eyes. They’re a sort of light olive green, and every other part of him that isn’t white fur is pink. Bright pink. He has ridiculous huge siamese-type ears, and every time I see them, I laugh - not at the ears, but at life’s little joke: what does a cat so deaf need with those radar dishes? Sometimes I really think that someone, somewhere, has a sense of humour.

Life with a deaf kitten is interesting. Unable to hear shouting or scolding, he happily plays with kitchen towels, pencils, notepaper, string, letters, anything that might idly be left unattended, and jumps up wherever he likes. I think we’ve managed to teach him not to jump on kitchen side (only because he jumps down when we catch him, not as good as not jumping up there in the first place). He runs around madly for no reason, doing a very good impression of a kitten high on coke and speed, and drives Lucy, our elderly matriarch, insane.

She hates him. She really hates him. Even the sound of him purring makes her tail twitch. And who can blame her, when one of his favourite games when he’s feeling playful is to jump on her or play with her tail? The other day, he made the mistake of trying to sniff her food while she was eating it. Her response was to swing out a paw and trap his head on the floor while hissing. He still hasn’t taken the hint. Bless him.

I have a picture somewhere on my phone of him sitting on a hoover. A running hoover. He thought it was a wonderful purring toy. I also have a picture of him tearing a HSBC letter to shreds – I didn’t put him up to it, honestly, he just happened to be on my lap when I opened it to find another “we are investigating your comments” letter and he went mad. He attacked it with claws and teeth and played with it until it had little pin holes all over it (my, what cute tiny little teeth you have) while I laughed my head off. He then proceeded to clean himself while sitting on what was left of it, so now I have a picture of a little white cat licking his bum while his paw rests next to the HSBC logo. Now there’s a cat who’s in tune with his owners’ emotions.

Lucy doesn’t do much. She allows herself to be groomed (sometimes) but for the most part, she can be found on a small cupboard in the kitchen, curled up dozing but accepting strokes from passers-by. She lives for food; food and going to the litter tray are the only reasons she moves from her spot. Still, for a 22-year-old, she’s not doing badly at all, even if she prefers to be carried to the food bowl rather than jumping down.

We’ve started introducing Yuki to the outside with a harness, the first attempt was a mixed success. First, he sat there, terrified. Then he cautiously investigated the herb garden. Then he decided he just wanted to sit on my lap. Then he decided he’d had enough of the harness and started attacking it, forcing his return inside. I’m calling that a partial success, hopefully next time will go better!

It would be nice if they got along a little better, but either way, they’ve both definitely become part of the family.

I promised an ode didn’t I? Here goes…

Now that my blog is written,
I’ll tell you about the kitten,
He’s cute and white as snow,
But he can’t hear you saying no,
So letters and moths he eats,
And he performs daredevil feats,
And Lucy he does annoy,
Who thinks he’s a stupid boy,
She hates when he plays with her tail,
His loud miaows are a fail,
The only thing she loves is food,
Cat food, glorious cat food,
Yuki annoys her by making a din,
Maybe he’s got it wrong,
If he learns how to open a tin,
I’m sure they’ll get along.

Interesting responses to my last post – and the majority voted overwhelmingly in favour of me being too hard on him. Ah, well. For the record, we did make up about half an hour after this incident, after I apologised for giving him a hard time and he conceded he could have attracted my attention when the mechanic started talking to him; we both agreed to lay the blame at the door of the mechanic, and on that note of harmony, we all moved on. I also cooked him one of his favourite meals later that evening (Roast pork with scratchings, roast veg, home-grown courgettes and my famous ‘apple sauce gravy’) so hopefully it’s all forgotten.

Cats – our cat, Tabby, disappeared over four months ago. Given that she was pushing 16, and had thyroid pills, heart pills and kidney pills that she was supposed to be taking daily, it’s unlikely she made it a week without them, never mind a month. Nevertheless, Dad and I both searched the garden, together and separately, we searched the recreation ground behind it, we had a quiet look in the neighbour’s front gardens, we – with permission – searched adjoining back gardens, put up posters, notified vet to register her missing and so look out for her microchip – and anybody adopting this particular stray would have had to take her to a vet pretty soon – and hunted all up and down the street.

Nothing. We don’t know how she did it. How did an arthritic, limping, pill-popping, weak-hearted, stranger-shy cat vanish into thin air? How? We even searched the garage and the shed. It’s been driving us crazy, but eventually we had to admit defeat. After a suitable mourning period (and hoping that she would miraculously turn up) we’ve given her up for lost. I’m almost impressed. She was an unassuming, elderly, fussy little cat who seemed content to live out her autumn years sleeping on a bench in the garden, but in her last act she’s pulled off a mystery that has us completely foxed.

But the house is quiet, and we miss having a cat. So we got in touch with a local organisation (Bristol and Wales Cat Rescue) to see what they had. We intended to get one quiet middle-aged cat, but life being the randomness that it is, we’ve ended up reserving an ancient 22-year-old moggy and a sprightly 14-week-old kitten. The moggy, because she was friendly, and apparently likes to spend her days curled up on a lap, and the kitten well… first he attracted us with his good looks (snowy white) and then the foster owner told us he was deaf. Awwwww……. come here, fellow deafie. The clincher though, was when he happily curled up in Mum’s arms and purred. He purred so loudly that Mum heard him. This was only the second time in her life she has heard a cat purr. I knew at this point we were getting him. No question.

So next week, the house will have two cats. We need to kitten-proof the place, and we’re in the process of sorting a fence or something to keep the deaf one away from the road. Why tempt fate? And poor Dad will be outnumbered three to two – this will remain a majority-deaf  and majority- female household. Poor darling. More cuddles for Dad!