Our
Kitties
NEWS!: Click below to watch Oreo, the new kitty of our friends Nadia, Koceto and Emil. She is playing with a flower wrap.
We have three of them!
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August 30, 1999: Belcin and Chernomyrdin are two sweet little sisters, who have just arrived in our house, |
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... and they immediately started fighting. And the fight goes on ever since... |
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Belcin is slim, smart and elegant ... freak! |
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.... while Chernomyrdin is puffy, bold, light and calm, responsible cat. |
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Now you are probably wondering "Why
these names?". Try and guess!
More pictures (2003): getting older and lazier... please, notice that our fence has imrpoved in the meantime...
Zzzzzzz
But now the big sleep is over!
BIG NEWS (26 December 2004): We have a new member joining the cat family! Enter "Rasputin" - a 2 months old man with flame in his eyes and firesome energy (and appetite).
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Niia described him with one sentence: "He plays like mad, but you take him in your arms, he immediately calms down and starts purring!" Initially she borrowed him from a friend (whose cat has given birth to a litter of 6 and he was the last one not to be given away). "Mom, let's just see how our cats will react to him! Please!" "Okay, but just for this afternoon!" (it was Christmas and Ralph and I were feeling generous...). But the minute we saw him, we fell in love, as does everyone who meets him, instantaneously! We couldn't give him back. He was a tiny kitten, 2 months old with huge white boots, which made him look a bit like Mickey Mouse, clumsy, but fast, brave and enthusiastic as a dog. His first name was Jack Sparrow - because he had the charm of the Johnny Depp character and was nearly as brave as him (actually, he grew to be a real coward, despite his 20 pounds of weight). Of course, the new cat was renamed, according to our family tradition, after a Russian polititian - guess whom? Answer: We hestitated between and Lenin and Trotsky because he has a black goatee, but finally we settled on: RasPutin - a more contemporary name. He still needs a shorter name though... This beast doesn't leave you a lot of time to shout "No, Rasputin!!!" from crashing a plate down from the table to a run-and-skratch on the sofa to a flying jump across the room and hanging on the curtain. Ralph calls him lovingly "der kleine Mann" as the first step towards balance of the sexes in the family... (still the males are outnumbered 2 to 1). Now we have converged to "Mr. Matso Man". So how does the story evlove? Cat relationships follow a weird dynamics. Belcin and Chernomoerdin were not amused by his arrival: it turned out they were territorial. At first they were amazed and curious, sniffing him from far away, surrounding him very cautiously and hissing when he made an abrupt move (and he made a lot of them). Two weeks of hissing and wacking did not impress Jacko, who continued asking for trouble, attacking Beltsin (just joking), laying down when they growled or hissed at him, only to jump and continue the chase as soon as they turned their backs.
Now, after a year of relative peace, Cherno has finally decided that she hates him: the young man has not learned manners and is not respectful enough for this lady. She leaves the room as soon as he enters, but never misses a chance to hiss at him, carefully, so that he doesn't jump to fight her. He won't, but she knows that if he does, she has no chance; he is about twice her size now.
Belcin, who used to be the less dominant cat, has now taken a key power-balance position. Sometimes she plays with him - his best friend, but sometimes she sides with her sister and they both chase him mercilessly through the whole house until he hides under the bed. Then they guard him for some time, not letting him come out, and the poor "baby" is very scared. Once we found traces of a big battle, hair everywhere, Raspi with a scratched nose and a broken cat nail still stuck on it. The poor boy ran for his life - it is funny, since he is twice as big as them, but he is so good-hearted, that he never uses this to his advantage. His paws are huge and his nails look like an eagle's claw, but he never uses them to his advantage... He likes to chase and wrestle the ladies, which they hate. After they have taught him a lesson, we have to cuddle him for a day or two, so that he gains some confidence and then it starts all over again: playing, getting bolder and bolder, and then "I'll teach you some manners, yound man!"... screams, thunder of cats galloping up the stairs and very frightful hissing and growling. The best to do in this moment is make a big noise to scare them off, because then they all disperse, each cat saving her own fur.
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Useful info about cats:
How to give a cat a pill? Check here.
Click here to see a funny cats video (2.71MB).
