I'M OFFICIAL!!!

HURRAY!!! My Official Therapy Cat vest and badge came today in the mail from Love on a Leash! I made mom promise that she is going to take my picture in my new vest and scarf and put it on my page! I'm SOOOOOO excited! We're going to celebrate tonight!

Love,
MO

I WON A COSTUME CONTEST!

I am SOOO excited! Mom and my auntie made me a fly-fishing costume and took me to the local Petsmart and entered me in a Howloween costume contest. I was the only cat in a whole crowd of dogs.

I was sooo surprised when I took 1st place. I won a Petsmart gift card and a big bag of kibbles! YUM!!

Mom posted my 2 best pictures. The one that Petsmart took and the best one that Mom took.

HOW PAWSOME!!

Mo

Busy, Busy--Lots of Kitties!

Well, it has been REALLY busy at my house. Mom adopted a partner for me, as if I really needed one! Jeesh! She adopted me a little sister, named Macy. Macy apparently means "Enduring Gift from God." Check out her page. She's been in the car with me a couple of times. Mom has it in her head that she can train Macy to be a therapy kitty and take us out together.

We also have Minnie and her babies that have taken root on our front porch. Mom wants to find good homes for them. I'm hoping my Catster pals will spread the word and help them find good homes because Fall weather is definately here in Ohio and its getting cold. It makes me sad when I'm inside and have everything a kitty could want and these little ones and their mom are on the front porch. I did put a large plastic kennel for them out there and made sure Mom put loads of thick fluffy blankets in the kennel for them, and I propped the door open so it wouldn't come shut on them. I also make sure they get fresh food and water several times a day. I don't like it that Mom cuddles them and holds them, but she keeps promising me I'll always be her baby. AWWWW--Gee!

The house is TOO quiet!

Well, I have to say that the Itty Bitties must have grown on me because Dad and I went looking for them when Mom came home without them yesterday. And it was very weird for Mom not to have to feed them last evening or this morning.

I raced Dad around the living room and up and down the cat tree several times for good measure just because I didn't have to be respectful about not waking the Itty Bitties. Mom says her 2 legged friends have a hard time believing that I can and do practice being respectful of both 2 leggeds and 4 leggeds who are sleeping, but I do. I know how I don't like being rooted out of a really good catnap, so I am very respectful of others during theirs. On the weekends when Mom is home, I never ever make noise before she is awake. I let her sleep in. The same thing goes for after she's in bed. I make sure I don't make any noise that would wake her or my brothers or sisters up.

And this weekend, on the 4th, Mom put me on my leash and took me out to Grandma's house. Grandma was having a party, and all the people there remarked what a big handsome boy I was and how very well behaved I was. I just curled up on the floor beside Mom's chair and stayed there. Unless someone was specifically looking for me, they didn't even know I was there. They thought I was wonderful. Mom said over and over how proud she was of me and gave me extra pets and snuggles and treats. I LOVE riding in the car with her and going places to meet people. That's why I'm sooo excited that I'm working towards being a therapy cat. Mom thinks I'm just a natural. Me, I can't wait until my blue therapy cat neck scarf is official and I can put a "work picture" on my profile.

Hope you all had a great Wednesday. Just remember the weekend is just around the corner!

Love,
Mo

The Itty Bittys Have Been Adopted!

Mom and I are thrilled to announce that Solomon and Sheba found a furrever home today--together! We feel so blessed that we just had to write about it. A very nice lady met Solomon and Sheba and fell in love with them, and adopted them on the spot in spite of their special needs.

What a blessing that is to Mom and my family and me. All we really wanted was to do the best we knew how in giving Solomon and Sheba a good start in life and then find someone who would love them as much as we did.

And as for Minnie's Mini's, she's still taking really good care of all 5 of them. We thought she had abandoned 2 of them yesterday when she left 2 of them alone all day, but she did come back for them after all.

So all's well that ends well. We just wanna say THANKS! to the folks who were such a blessing in our lives today--and they know who they are. Loving people like you are perhaps the finest gift God has ever created. Thank you SOOO much!

Love,
Mo and Mo's Mom

Life with the MINNIE-MINI's!

Well, we have MORE itty bittys! Minnie, the stray calico who sleeps on the front porch, had BABIES under my bush right under my big picture window. This past Wednesday night, just before midnight, Mom and I heard MORE babies crying. Jeese Louise! She went outside and found Minnie had had 5 itty bittys no bigger than about 2 or 2 and 1/2 inches long. But what they didn't have in size they made up for in lung power. They were hungry and letting their 4 footed mama know it.

The good thing is, is that Minnie is an excellent kitty mama. She is VERY protective and won't let anybody or anything near her babies. Mom wants to help Minnie by making sure she has really good food now and plenty of water right beside her so she doesn't have to leave the babies. Their dad is a big brown tabby named Luke who also answers to Mickey, and Minnie hasn't let Luke near his new kids. Luke belongs to the neighbors but he likes to hang with Minnie on my front porch. I think they smelled us and figured it was a safe place. Mom is planning on setting a live trap when Minnie is done weaning her babies so we can get her spayed. And she's already working on a plan to find the itty bittys good homes with good, loving families.

HEY! Any Buckeyes who have good homes--ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A ADORABLE ITTY BITTY? WE HAVE A STOCKPILE OF THEM HERE!
CHECK OUT THEIR PICS!!

Love,
Mo

Uh-Oh! I'm not the baby anymore!

Boy, oh boy!! This has been a grim 2 weeks at my house! The indignity of it all! I mean, really! I'm the baby, and I'd REALLY like it to stay that way! Mom had an inkling to take in these 2 little orphaned kitties that were just a few days old, and that made me not the baby anymore.

I've been letting her know how much I think this whole situation stinks. She started by feeding them from an eyedropper, and then moved to bottle feeding them. She said she wasn't going to keep them and then she named them! Sounds like they're staying to me! She named the male Solomon and his sister Sheba.

They are cute, though. I have to admit. Solomon is going to be a dove-gray colored tabby, and Sheba is going to be a tortie. She even has this miraculous perfect gold cross the full length of her back that sits in giant black spot. That is pretty cool if I do say so myself.

Solomon has some sort of permanent cerebral injury that the vet said is going to give him a tremor for the rest of his life. And he and Sheba are really bonded. Mom isn't sure anybody will want to adopt them because of his head injury. (She still says she would adopt them out to a really good home that doesn't mind special needs babies.) He doesn't seem delayed in any way except that he has to overcome the shaking to learn to walk. So far, he's doing a really good job, and he's really trying hard to overcome it. He works now sometimes for an hour at a time before he wears out just walking on the sofa or on the floor w/ Mom right there to help. They'll be three weeks old on Tuesday.

I know I haven't been much help, but this is tough on a guy who isn't much more than a baby kitty himself. I'm only 15 months myself. My dad, Max, is a perfect dad and guards these babies like they were his own. My big brother, Sam, is another great dad. He's real protective too. And, me, well, I'm too busy growling at them to bother doing the big brother act. The other 4 leggeds in the house just seem to take it in stride like "Well, its just another one Mom brought home--So what?"

I have noticed that there have been extra playtimes and snuggles and treats for me, and that's been really nice. I do like the fact that Mom is pampering us. She doesn't pamper when I'm growling. She says she doesn't want to reward behavior she doesn't like. But when I stop being angry, there are lots of nice perks for that. And nice bonuses for just staying in a good mood.

Mom wants to load new pics of us and build pages for Solomon and Sheba, but she misplaced something called a USB cable that she says take the pictures from her camera to the computer. (I didn't do it, Mom! Honest!) New pics would be nice, but do we have to share pics of "THEM" too?

Mom says if I help take good care of Solomon and Sheba, and share my pics of them w/ you....OOPS! Did I just admit I took pics of them too?...Uh oh... anyway, Mom says if I can do both those things, she'll share some real, fresh salmon with me next time she buys fish for dinner.

Sounds like a deal to me. Now where's that jingle ball?...They ought to like that......

Love, Mo

Mo's Genesis--Chapter 2

Well, I said I'd talk about what it's like to have a 2 legged Mom. In order to do that, I think I should tell you about her. She's a mental health therapist, and she thinks I help her at work to make people feel better. She takes me to work with her a lot, and the other people who work with Mom like to spoil me.

My mom is a sucker for us Four Leggeds. There's 8 of us and 2-Two Leggeds. Mom sort of designed the house around us. There are lots of water bowls, one gianormous food bowl that we all share that's somehow never empty, plenty of sandboxes, a 6 foot tall carpeted cat tree in front of a huge picture window so we can see the whole neighborhood, lots of sunbeams on the floor to "tan" in, jars and jars of treats and catnip, a big toy box, and oodles and oodles of toys. She even bought me my own dresser to keep all the different colors and styles of collars, leashes, shirts, scarves, and hats that I am starting to collect.

Mom gets up really early every morning, but I soon learned that Two Leggeds can be difficult to wake up--especially when it's still dark outside. Mom has this funny look on her face when she first gets up. Her eyes are more shut than open, a little glazed over, and she sort of looks like she's sleepwalking until she has her first cup of coffee.

And--we REALLY don't understand her habit of purposely shutting herself in a little box so she can get her "fur" wet all over. We pound and pound on the door and meow frantically at her to try to rescue her or until we can convince the other Two Legged that she surely must either be drowning or has lost her mind. None of us FourLeggeds have to go through this "fur soaking" every day--and besides that she doesn't smell like herself afterwards. She thinks she has to smell like flowers or something. No cat in his right mind wants to smell like flowers. We all try to help her dry off. We try to lick her "fur" dry, but she just drips water on us while we're rescuing her. I think if she were hairy-er all over she'd be easier to lick dry.

From there we try to get her to give us the milk from her cereal, and sometimes she'll give us each a little taste, but not much more. We have to approve each piece of clothing she wears by leaving a signature stray hair to show our approval. I really don't like how she feels she has to spray the fur on her head into place--I think if she'd just lick it, it would stay. Mine does. But I really like her earrings and her necklaces. I like to try to take the earrings and carry them around and I like to grab at her necklaces. They're nice and long and shiny and they're really great to play with--although she doesn't understand that. She also doesn't understand why I have to hide a toy in her left shoe every day. Shoes are like bank accounts: I can tuck a toy away and come back to it later and my brothers and sisters won't find it first.

But, by far, the best part of the day is when she comes home from work. We all wait by the door because she comes in and talks to each one of us by name, pets us and is just as glad to see us as we are to see her. We spend the evenings taking turns either cuddling on her lap, or bringing her a toy to join us in a game. And at night I sleep at her feet.

It's a great life. But don't ever let your Two Legged think you're going to come when you're called on a regular basis--no matter how tempting their bribes become! Remember--we are cats, and we are the superior species!!

Love,
Mo

Moses Writes His Genesis!

My best cat-pal Guido suggested I write a diary, and I think it's a PAWSOME idea! Thanks, Guido!!

Mom thought I ought to write about how I came to live at her house. My biological mom was a feral cat, and she left my brother and me all by ourselves in the basement of an apartment building and she never came back. When Mom's Two-Legged son found us, my brother was really, really sick. We were only 2 weeks old, and we were really cold, wet, hungry, and dirty. Mom's Two-Legged boy gave us to her. Mom stayed up all night trying to make sure we'd survive.

By morning, my brother crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Mom says he was just too sick. I had other plans, though--I wasn't crossin' no bridge. Mom was afraid to leave me alone with my brand new Four-Legged brothers and sisters, so she took me to the vet on the way to work and then took me to work with her that day so she could take care of me. The vet said I was really healthy, really active--just hungry. I was just under 8 ounces.

I spent my first day with Mom, eating, cuddling, and curled up sleeping in soft warm blankets on Mom's desk.

Sure was better than that cold, wet, dirty cellar!

Tomorrow, I'll tell you what it's like to be raised by a Two Legged Mom!

So, till then, remember, we're not persnickety. It's our perogative to choose the finer things in life, and our responsibility to educate the Two-Leggeds about what they're missing!

Love,
Mo