Sponsored by The Corporation Internet services provided for free by Alachua County FreeNet. About My Pets

OCTOBER 19, 2000: My best and closest friend, and my whole world, Raisen, died last night at about 11:25pm, suddenly and inexplicably. I only found out this evening what had actually happened to her. More about this on Raisen's home page, below. Muffin - a.k.a. Mom - came to us in the early part of 1993, with a soft scratch or two at the front door and a few barely perceptable mews to get our attention. She was, of course, successful. Feeling sorry for this poor little kitty, whose pursuer was even still standing right behind her when we opened the door, we let her in just for a little while and gave her some food. Two months later, Muffin had indeed become a regular and, by now, we had begun to call her our own. ...That same two months later, she had surprised us with a little magic trick of her own - by tripling herself... Muffin is the mother of two of our other cats: Raisen and Bran. [WARNING: The story of Bran is one of a case of animal cruelty committed by a next door neighbor's teenage son just out of high school. I do have a page about her, but its rather depressing and, in one place, gruesome. If you're not up to stories of animal cruelty, then please don't click on it. [About Bran] On the other hand, if you have a child who recently committed a senseless act of animal cruelty and you're looking for a way to try to teach the child what happens to other people personally when they do these things ... then maybe you SHOULD let them see this page. Yes. In those cases then, maybe you really should.] We also had another cat, named Mischief, who also appeared at our doorstep one day almost a year after Muffin had, and whom we also adopted. But Mischief is in no way related to the other cats. The other cats do call him Uncle, however. Mischief now lives with my brother, Trent, and his family. Of course, both Muffin and Raisen (and, when we had her, Bran) were trained to use a runner in the back yard. When the back sliding glass door is opened, they know what its for, so they come running. They don't run right outside, tho. They stop, look up at me, and wait for me to attach the leashes. Once they hear the click, NOW they're out the door, pulling ME. They're so used to runner, in fact, that they really only barely know that its there. They know the length, how high and how far they can go, by instinct. They can be chasing something - a bug, a lizard - and just when you think they're going to end up yanked into the air, hanging by harness and leash as if in a trapeze act, they cease chase. They know. Its use is learned, just like with dogs. However, with cats, it just might take a little while longer for them to finally get used to the idea. It is MUCH easier if you train them for it while in their first year. If you introduce them to it while still kittens, they won't know that they're supposed to balk, even. The purpose of the runner is two-fold: 1) to keep them safe within my sight, while 2) in compromise, allowing them as much freedom as possible (so that they may be as much a pussycat as possible), at the same time. The length of the runner, and the lengths of the attached leashes, are carefully measured so as to allow the cats the full freedom of the back yard, and even to enable them to climb some of the backyard trees, while at the same time, preventing them from surmounting fences, or from reaching the first level of branches on the trees (so that they don't end up accidentally hanging themselves. A lot of people ask me about this runner system, so eventually I'll add a page on that. Here's a little web page I made with lots of cat links. Cat Stuff - Putsicatus-Catatipus Links Here's a site to order some Christmas music for your pets! JINGLE CATS My little opinions page regarding the treatment of cats in society. Todd's Catpinions Page About My Pets Todd L. Sherman/KB4MHH Gainesville, Alachua Co., Fla. E-mail: afn09444@afn.org Created: September 24, 1995. Last updated: October 19, 2000, February 24, 2002. © Copyright 1995-2000 by Todd L. Sherman. All Rights Reserved. [ Top of Page] [ Back to Author Page] [ Back to Main Page]