C is for ...

[C] is for Cats

I've never owned a dog. They don't do much for me. Yeah, they are cute as puppies but they smell, don't clean themselves and it's like have another kid. Cats are more my style and they are far better for photoshopping in kung-fu scenes or as animals who like rock music (see right). Regal, clean and much more intelligent than their canine equivalents. I mean, you wouldn't find a cat retrieving a stick only to have it thrown away again and again. The cat would know that it's owner must not have wanted the stick in the first place ... don't be silly!

Saying that, I'm not one of these bogans who says "death to all dogs/cats" just because they like the other one better. Jeez, that's almost as bad as getting into a conversation with a footy fan over who is better between the Crows or the Power. Pointless really.

Our first family cat was Susie when I was about six. She was a tabby kitten with the most gorgeous golden belly, offspring of a wild cat and feline temper that was obviously gene-based. She was a victim of the deadly cat flu virus when she was about 5. My folks replaced her with another tabby who was named Dusty, because he literally looked like a ball of dust when he was a kitten. He soon grew out of that phase and the name was never appropriate from that point forward. As Mums sometimes get the kids names mixed up, quite often I was referred to as Dusty before being corrected. I knew my place in the household.

These days the folks have a big, fat silver tabby called Remi (named after a football player). This cat has no neck. It's like a chunk of meat with some little podgy legs sticking out it's torso.

We have three cats in our house all of which we rescued from the Animal Welfare League. The first we got within a few weeks of moving in. She's a tortoiseshell named Meg. Technically her name is Megara, named after the sultry-voiced character in Disney's Hercules cartoon, but she goes by Meg most of the time. She's a moody broad, has irritable bowel syndrome and what looks like arthritis in her hind legs. At one stage we were buying protein-free cat biscuits for her at $30 a pop. Then we managed to find a brand that didn't irritate her bowels, so she's happy, we're happy and there's no need for a second mortgage on the house.

In late 2002 we picked up our second cat, Ollie, a semi-long-haired black and white kitten. Full name Oliver Guido. Ollie seemed to suit him and Guido was after a really old black and white cat which we'd seen at the AWL once before. We fell in love with Guido, but he didn't like kids and other cats so it was an instant no-no. Ollie has never been able to meaow properly. It comes out in such a way that he sounds like he's using a voicebox and anyone else would question his sexuality. Hence, he's a poofycat. These days he's trying hard to shake the gay undertones by getting his head covered in scars, etc. But the meaow, or lack thereof, has stayed put.

Earlier this year we picked up Jezebelle, a semi-long-haired 1 year old with beautiful green eyes. Currently she likes to gnaw on any limbs that present themselves as meat, whether the owner is awake or not. She's good fun but goes completely mental for the 20 minutes leading up to using the dirt tray and usually at least 10 minutes afterwards.

So three cats, no dogs. Abbey had two goldfish but they died a slow death. The only other pets have been sea monkeys. If they had hamsters in Australia we'd probably have one or two of them as well, for the entertainment of the cats as much as being kept awake all night by the gnawing of little teeth on bars. There's talk of a beagle one day .... not for a while methinks.