Kittens Carnival

20190114 TerraHertz http://everist.org NobLog home

I like both cats and large, intelligent dogs. However suburban back yard living isn't much fun for a large, smart dog. They need wide open spaces to roam. Plus they require a lot of attention, all the time, or they become miserable. With my own pursuits, having a large dog isn't feasible for me, or fair to the dog. So cats it is. They're good company at times, othertimes they are quite happy to lead their own aloof lives. Especially with a large yard with bushy areas, and a cat flap to indoors.

Cats and INTP types are a good mix. Recently I was down to three. Two I'd had since kittens, the third turned up as a middle-aged stray, and had apparently been maltreated since she's emotionally damaged and basically just lives here and eats food. She's now very old. Of the other two, both are lovely and affectionate though Blanc (all white) is a stereotypical 'dumb blond' to a quite laughable degree. They too are getting quite old. Like me, only faster.

Since she was a young adult when she turned up, there was the matter of de-sexing. But for a very long time all the cats I've had have been stray arrivals. One lot were an abandoned set of four kittens, the 'grayscales.' A pure white, two shades of gray, and a pure black. Of them one died (Ozu the black one; choked on a chicken bone my ex-wife gave him.) We gave one away, leaving Blanc and Tiny (the darker gray.) They are late middle age now.

I decided to let nature take its course (once.) Hoping the father would be a huge Russian short-hair gray cat belonging to a neighbor. It's friends with me, and became friends with my new cat too. A fine looking cat, and very smart (for a cat.)

Sadly, as I had suspected, the poor fellow has been desexed. Some other local male took his place. So my currently nameless cat became pregnant. Her new name soon suggested itself.

Being quite young she's still a lot smaller than the other three cats. But she dominates them totally. What she lacks in bulk, she replaces with determination. It's very impressive, seeing her behave as if she was three times her actual size.

The movie Alita Battle Angel trailers are out, and I'm looking forward to this one. Hopefully a very good SF story, plus apparently entirely free of SJW bullshit. Meanwhile, this cat strongly resonates with the Alita character. Mostly with her 'runs into any battle' character, but also her eyes are remarkably large for her head size. So Alita is her new name.

1, 2. Early morning on 14th Jan 2019 she started giving birth next to me on my bed while I was asleep, then moved to the dusty space between the bed and wall before I woke up. Here she is with two newborns, then all four.
3. A week later, they are all going strong. Mostly sleeping.
4. Pretty exhausting for mum. She conks out when not required for feeding purposes. It's the height of summer here, so the relatively cool concrete workshop floor is most comfortable.
5. Can't use the usual flea treatment with newborns, so there was a flea problem. Here they are after I'd given them a first bath in skin-temp water with a little shampoo. Only up to their necks and rinsed well. Killed most of the fleas, but afterwards the kittens look pretty bedraggled. Never mind, it was a hot day. And after they dried out, so fluffy!

Here they are at a bit over 5 weeks, on a first expedition to an area of the back yard they hadn't seen before. Running around a lot and I'm not great at 'action shots', so all the photos needed cropping.

At the end of this outing, Alita really lived up to her name.
Our very nice neighbors on one side have a dog. He's a great big goofy lovable fellow, called Ollie. They have a cat too (this one, still healthy 3 years later), and Ollie gets along fine with CeeCee. (Short for Cancer Cat.)

The dividing fence is wire mesh. Ollie often stands on his side, watching my cats in the yard. Today he turned up and started staring at the kittens playing. I went over to say hello, and found he was far too intent on the kittens to even acknowledge my presense. Just standing there, staring. Too focussed for my liking, but he's on the other side of the fence, so can be ignored.

Alita quickly noticed his focus too. She didn't like it all. I was watching her as she became equally fixated on Ollie, and started fluffing up. Putting on her battle suit. I was going over to see if I could calm her down, take the kittens back inside, when she started walking towards Ollie. I say 'walk', but that's just shorthand for 'threat intimidation combat warning.' Her 'I am a lot bigger than I look' swagger.

Oh oh. I'm not so much worried about her, I'm worried about Ollie getting killed. Regardless that he's at least six times her size and has great big teeth. But I'm much too slow. She got to about 3 meters from the fence, then things went south at lightning speed. In eye-blink sequence:

Alita went from walking slowly, to flying through the air in a straight line towards the fence, Super-cat style. Simultaneously Ollie transformed from 'big friendly doofus' to snarling, teeth-gnashing wolfhound, flinging himself against the wire. There was a brief moment where Alita was reaching through the fence wire with motion-blurred clawing arms, trying to claw Ollie, while he was trying to take off her arms with his teeth. Both missing, barely.

Then Ollie remembered that the wire mesh doesn't quite reach to the ground here. He dropped to his side and tried pushing himself through the gap. In a fraction of a second had got as far as his head and most of his front shoulders through. Jaws gnashing as he threshed his head around struggling to get further, and was progressing. But this was a really bad tactical move, since now he's pinned to the ground on his side. Alita picked this instantly, and tried to drop onto him. Likely outcome: equal probability of a dog-jaw crushed cat, or a dog with half his face and an eye ripped right off.

This is the point at which I got back to the combat zone. (Humans are really slow compared to animals in fight mode.) Evaluation: One volume of space with furiously chomping dog teeth, and another volume of space that's a kind of levitating whirlwind sphere of slashing cat claws and teeth. Task: keep these two areas separated, while also preventing Ollie getting all the way through the fence. Pushing him back without getting bitten would be good too. Also not injuring either animal, while minmizing my own injuries.

With a lifted shoe I flip Alita away, then apply the same shoe sole in a quick in-and-away light stomp on Ollie's face, to point out to him that he is in an untenable position. He gets it, and starts pulling back under the fence. But not quickly enough for Alita, who has bounced off the ground into a trajectory straight for Ollie's face again.

Now I'm back standing on that foot. Can't get the other foot into the zone in time, so have to use a hand to block her.

This is as I expected to get from that. One of the claw slashes punctured a vein, so there was a fair bit of blood and a big haematoma swelling. Here later with a compress to fix that. The middle finger things are a bite, I think. I didn't even see that happen.

Never mind, it all heals well. Worth it to see Alita in her full battle mode. Very impressive!

Ollie ran off, Alita took a few moments to calm down from 'kill anything that moves.' She says she's sorry about the cuts and trail of blood drips back to the bathroom cabinet for antiseptic and bandages.