June 2nd 2012 12:19 pm
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Meowmy was asked to compose the story of her first kitty, Groucho, so here it is for you all to read and grump over and enjoy, as the case may be...
This kitty came to our furmily with his name, and we never once thought about renaming him, it was rather apt!
Groucho
He was one of a pair of cats that a family with preemie twins had to sadly evict from their home due to the health concerns of the babies...they were on respirators with tracheotomies, and no animals were allowed to be in the home. Meowmy & Pawppy were just newly married for about half a year, in 1988. Meomy had never had cats, though pawppy had had 3 before getting to know meowmy.
Meowmy knew that she was not allergic to oriental cats for some reason, so she felt bad, but she could not tolerate domestic kitties, esp longhaired ones. So the lady said she felt it would be OK to separate the kitties, one of which was a long haired kitty, just to get her home ready for her twins. Such a sad start to this kitty's gotcha-by-his-second-furmily story.
Anyways, meowmy took Groucho (Already aptly named, she found out...MOL!)home. When she opened the carrier, he ran out and hid...and hid...and hid. She didn't even know where he was, but she did know he was around because at night he ate the food and used the litter box. After days and days of that, meowmy found him exploring, but he ran off when he saw her...meowmy was not well versed in kitty behavior and had no clue how to acclimatize a scared kitty to a new home.
So the next time she saw him, she went to him...and he was at the top of the stairs, crouching. She tried to pet him, and got a hiss and a smacky paw for her efforts.
A while later, Groucho still being at the top of the stairs, she went up there again, and tried to pick him up...bad mistake!
He not only hissed, he peed all over her! MOL!
So she let him be and went back to ignoring him on the vet's advice.
One day he came up to her and sniffed at her hand and gave it a bonk, before going back to his now new hidey hole under the table on a chair seat where he could peer out and observe the household goings on.
Soon the greeting events were more frequent...and after many weeks, even months he warmed up to meowmy & pawppy. He got to loving to be a lap kitty and nothing gave him more pleasure than jumping on their bed (Which was off limits, usually), and then he would purr up a storm and 'make bread', or play chase and pounce with the bumps under the covers...
But if there were strangers around, we didn't know we had a cat! MOL!
One of the things that meowmy had to get used to at first was his very blue eyes! She had never seen kitties up close with those colors! He was also cross eyed, but it didn't stop him from stalking bugs and toys!
He was a catnip lover, and would sing to the toys he was carrying around in his mouth. He loved a plain old sock, with catnip tied into the toe, or some calico fabric tied into a little ball, filled with nip. One of those got lost and to this day meowmy has never found it, anywhere! Every time she moves furniture she searches for it...perhaps it is in the heating ducts...if found, it will surely be a treasure!
Meowmy often found Groucho lying on the top of the dining room table, on a soft cloth table cloth, in a sun puddle...sigh...kitties will do what they want...even though they know it isn't approved of, MOL! They give their peeps such a look!
Groucho loved to use his intelligent mind to explore things, the faves being the bath and kitchen cabinets. He knew how to manipulate them to get them open.
He also was a scientist of sorts. His hobby was trying to get anything that could be moved, pushed or jostled to go onto the floor. He loved to test the forces of gravity!
He was scared of thunder. One time when meowmy & Pawppy were at work, he had to ride out a severe storm. When meowmy got home, the house was intact, but there were limbs and branches everywhere.
Groucho was again invisible...but meowmy knew where he was, because there was a mantle clock on the floor...not pushed off in a mischievous moment, but knocked down when Groucho went behind the china cabinet to hide from all the racket of that storm. Poor kitty!
Poor clock! It died...but meowmy's pawppy was able to put a new movement in it and now it still keeps time all these years later, but without needing a windup every week, and now it has a battery inside! And no more chimes:(
Meowmy put that clock in an inaccessible room to prevent a recurrence...but each time she dusts it she thinks of Groucho!
When he had only been with us a short while, we thought we had mice...because the baking that meowmy would leave out, loosely covered in the kitchen and bread in bags on the counter started having chew holes in them...OMC! One day she caught him red handed...red pawed...busted! He was trying to get at the food! That was the start of a much neater kitchen...and a series of baking pans at the counter edges to deter the counter surfing, MOL!
Where he came from had small windows, and not very much open space to roam in. Here he had huge picture windows, and plenty of space, at least until there were human babies in here, MOL!
He would get on a window perch we had for him, and chatter his teeth at the critters he saw outside but couldn't get to, the most fun was when the windows were open, then he could hear the buzzing of bugs and the chirping of birds (Sorry, Tabbies...)and the best things to chatter at were the chipmunks and squirrels! He would run from one window to the next to try and keep track of the things he saw!
Woe was any kitty from the neighborhood who dared to trespass! The sounds that Groucho would make, OMC!
Good thing he was neutered, because otherwise the windows would have gotten spayed, and not with windex, MOL!
He had no interest to go outside, and when meowmy tried to get him used to a harness, that was just not going to happen...according to Groucho's behaviors, MOL!
One day pawppy came down stairs early in the morning to a very perturbed Groucho. And rightly so, there was a BAT in the house! OMC! We opened the windows and managed to shoo it out with a towel and a broom...but not without a lot of hissing, floofy tails and human noise making, too.
When we received this kitty to our home the first furmily said he was 5. However the vet records we got from his owners vet said he was 7 years. So he was quite a mature kitty!
Sometimes pawppy & Meowmy would go away, for a day or two. They left plenty of food, water and litter out. He was always fine, but he had many grumblings and kitty complaints when they got back. So then they got a trusted neighbor to come once or twice each day...she cleaned the box and put out fresh food & water...but he still had lots of disapproving mews whenever they got back. Meowmy & Pawppy thought he was lonely.
So after they had him for a few months, they got a wee kitten into the home...that was Simba.
Groucho was not amused at all! The hissing and smacky paws that went on! MOL!
Well, Simba was a forward and confident kitty, but since he was a baby he slept a lot...and then Groucho would go and sniff at him...and one day, meowmy heard this furry strange chirping sound, like a furry high pitched mew.
She then saw that Groucho was making that noise...he was trying to get Simba's attention! He wanted Simba to come and play with him. After sonme tentative playtimes, and a lot more of those chirping mews, they became fast furends and close buddies.
The game of chase became a regular thing in our den...funny how two kitties can sound so much like a herd of stampeding cattle!
Then they would curl up and snuggle together. But the grumbling continued whenevfur the pawrents came home...by both kitties, MOL!
Sometimes meowmy's sister would come for a visit...and she brought along her puppy! He was so full of energy! And curiosity about *that cat*...but Groucho had no use for that furry pup...and he gave it plenty of hisses and smacky paws! Ruffy just wanted to play, he was friendly and not interested in getting a taste of Groucho, but what kitty in his right mind would know that?? MOL! But Ruffy was not deterred...so at night we had to put him in a room away from Groucho, to give everyone some peace!
Groucho was born at the beginning of October, on the second we think, because of his name, he shares the Birthday with Groucho Marx..But it seemed to suit him well!
He also shared this day with the first unfurbro...MOL!
When that baby was brought home, the peeps put the baby carrier on the floor, and watched to see what would happen...soon both Groucho and Simba came to greet the peeps who had been out of the home...and OMC! They suddenly saw/smelled the presence of an intruder! They both floofed up,and when curiosity got the better of them, they started to try and stretch out to get a bit of a sniff...and when the baby stirred...they both jumped up,and ran away! MOL!
Soon though, they got used to this new furmily member. Groucho liked to come and sit next to meowmy on the couch when she was feeding the baby, So she would take the baby's little hand and stroke it over Groucho's back; she was teaching both that they were going to be furends. And they were..sort of! When baby became toddler, of course there was a time when unfurbro would try to chase/pull tail, or pick up Groucho...but he soon learned that Groucho didn't like that!
When unfur started to talk, he had a whole list of his own words...but Groucho/kitty/cat seemed to not get that special treatment...he could say those.
Groucho loved his high up perches...and he enjoyed climbing on to the top of our dining room bookcase. There was a large portable radio up there, too.
One day when the furmily was gathered there for dinner, in one swift movement, Groucho jumped on the table, and sprung onto the top of the bookcase...and almost right away began to try and push the radio out of his way...and you guessed it! He pushed it DOWN! It bounced off the back of the highcahir, glanced a bit of a blow to the back of unfurbro's head, and crashed to the floor...unfurbro was not badly injured other than a small bump, but the radio was dead, and the unfurbro was SCARED! He said...'O-Na-Na-Boom!'
O-Na-Na was unfurbor's word for the radio...Groucho took off and hid, for a long time before he dared to come out.
One of his other pastimes was to paw us when we had food that he wanted us to share with him...his way of begging! He liked to nibble on popcorn and potato chips.Fish was another favorite, and he truly loved salmon!
When Simba was 7, he passed away unexpectedly.(Probably of an embolism due to heartworm...) Groucho paced the home, yowling and meowing as only a meezer cat can do. He was mourning. It was heartbreaking to see him that way.
So, soon we got another new kitty in our den, who was Suki.(Very strangely...or not...she had the same day for a birthday!! It was meant to be!)
She initially got the same 'treatment' as Simba...and almost as soon was accepted by Groucho and got those beckoning chirps and mews to play!
The bonding had once again occured.
By now Groucho was an elderly kitty of about 14...so we got another kitten in here, so that Suki wpouldn't have to be alone when 'the time came'.
This was kitty number four, his name was Toki. And now this furmily had a trio of kitties! All Meezers!
Toki was such a rascal, poor Groucho seemed to be a bit overwhelmed by having two kittens in the home with him...a baby and 6 month old Suki...but eventually they all did get along to a degree. But Toki would push Suki out of her nap spots, and since she let him get away with that, he started to do that to Groucho too. Sometimes there was a lot of kitty growling here...and once in a while there would be a mass of three kitties all curled up together!
When they decided to have a game of chase, it was more like a herd of elephants, MOL!
Groucho was a master 'scooter'!
Once when the neighbor lady was caring for him, he got into the scoot mode...what a disaster awaited meowmy when she got back from her trip...UGH!!
He also was a puker kitty...the older he became the more it happened. The vet man said it was from his thyroid, tachycardia, and his liver and likely kidney issues..but he never suggested anything be done.(!) Maybe back then he didn't know how to assist. When Groucho's quality of life became such that he didn't eat, groom or try to be social with the peeps, and he also had started to do a lot more vomiting, we felt that it was his time...and so sadly we had to help him go to the RB Land. He was at least 17, perhaps as old as 18 or 19...we will never be really sure.
Suki and Toki were intrigued by his body when we brought it home to bury in our yard, but after a few minutes they both walked away. They *knew*. They never seemed to grieve for him, either, the way Groucho had grieved for Simba, probably because they had each other.
And there you have it, the long life of a kitty, in a nutshell!
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