Furry Friends – becky57 – 4 Cats… Not Too Many, Right?

Stories of Obama, Bandit, Chicago, Scribbles and Rockyby their Mom, beckya57So we have 4 rescue cats.  No, we didn’t plan to have 4.They have an interesting family dynamic: Bandit (female), the oldest, is the mother, Chicago (female), the second oldest, is the older sister, and Scribbles (male, 2 yo) and Rocky Maine Coon (male, 6 months, who posts on Twitter as the Democat!) are the 2 naughty younger brothers who live to annoy Chicago.We Started With Three…We had 3 cats, and we were happy with them: Bandit, Chicago and Obama.BANDITCHICAGOOBAMABandit is a Troublemaker!Bandit was named that by my husband, due to her dark grey mask over her white face. It also turned out to be an accurate description of her character.  She is a major troublemaker; for example, no roll of toilet paper is safe in her presence.BANDIT GETS IN TROUBLEShe also, however is the oldest of the four, and periodically plays mother to the others.Obama!We got a ginger cat next, Obama (yes we’re moderate liberal Democrats), who was very friendly and lovable, as gingers usually are.OBAMAChicagoChicago came next.  She is a tuxedo cat, very sweet, quieter than the others.  My husband named her too; he thought her tuxedo coloring made her look like a Chicago jazz musician.  I thought that was stretching it a bit, but Chicago is one of my favorite cities, so I didn’t mind.  (Yes, it would’ve made more sense to have named the black tuxedo Obama, but whatever.).  She is much more attached to my husband than to me (unlike the others), and loves to sit on his lap.CHICAGOWe had these 3 for a couple of years, and they got along well and we enjoyed them, aside from periodically wanting to kill Bandit after one of her misdemeanors.  However, Obama developed cancer and died at age nine.Here comes Scribbles…We were heartbroken, and I started scouring Petfinder for another ginger, which led us to Scribbles, our first kitten.SCRIBBLESHe was named that by the Humane Society, and we decided we couldn’t improve on that.  He’s a Manx, and has some weakness in his back legs.  He compensates by putting his legs together and bounding around the house like a rabbit, which has led us to dub him the “cabbit.”Surprise!We were planning to stay with 3.  However…I went on a Mountaineers hike one day.  (The Mountaineers are a Washington state outdoor activity club.). One of the other hikers started talking about some kittens she was fostering, who would be needing permanent homes.  I was only half-listening, until she mentioned that one of them was half Maine Coon.  I’ve always wanted a Maine Coon, so I told her I wanted that one, but would have to talk my husband into a fourth cat.  I went home and talked to him, and while he was unenthused he also realized quickly he wasn’t going to win this argument, and so we acquired our fourth cat, Rocky Maine Coon (a pun on Rocky Raccoon from the Beatles’ song).ROCKY RACCOON…And Then There Were FourSo we now have the mother, Bandit, the goody two-shoes older sister, Chicago, and the rowdy two younger brothers, Scribbles and Rocky.The latter two love to chase each other around the house, wrestle, and on occasion harass Chicago.ROCKY and SCRIBBLESROCKY, SCRIBBLES and CHICAGOFamily DynamicsPoor Chicago always gets upset, which of course only encourages them.  In addition to mothering the other cats, Bandit goes through periods of deciding that my shoes are her kittens, and carries them in her mouth around the house.Bandit has developed diabetes as she’s gotten older.  She puts up with the indignity of twice daily insulin injections without too much fuss.Scribbles is by far the most vocal of the group, and meows at me when he wants treats.Rocky, aka Rocky RaccoonRocky is about eight months old now.  For most cats that would mean he would be getting close to full grown, but I read in Wikipedia that Maine Coons keep growing until they’re about 4 years old, which is why they get so big.  So far he’s a regular size cat, about 9 ½ lbs, but who knows where he’ll end up.  If Rocky is any indication Maine Coon genes are very dominant, as he has classic MC looks, including the floofiest tail you’ve ever seen, which he carries aloft and proudly.He is also very playful.  His favorite game is “kitty handball,” which consists of him sticking his paws under the bathroom door when one of us is in there, in order to bat small balls and other toys back and forth with us.  He also went through a period one of my brothers dubbed Dishwasher Fascination Syndrome, in which he would jump into the open dishwasher and carefully examine the contents; clean or dirty, he didn’t care.  He only rarely does this now, which given his continued growth is probably just as well.ROCKY INSPECTS THE DISHWASHERLove, love, love.As you readers can undoubtedly tell, we are hopelessly besotted by our crew, who manipulate us shamelessly and very successfully on a daily basis for attention, treats and anything else they want.  They are a great deal of fun, and have been wonderful company during quarantine.  I even got a T-shirt with avatars of each of them:WHO DOESN’T HAVE A T-SHIRT OF THEIR CATS?.I hope you enjoyed the pictures, and that you get as much pleasure and love from your pets as we do from ours.SOCIAL DISTANCING!*****If you think you might like to have your furry family featured here, please send an email to watergirl at balloon-juice.com.  If you check out the banner picture for Furry Friends, you’ll see that we’re not limiting this series to cat and dogs!  ~WaterGirl
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