Maine Coon Kittens!!!

If things have seemed quiet 'round The Box House these last few weeks, it's because Ted and I have been on the road. We went to visit family and friends in Kansas and Missouri, getting back just in time for election day.

On our way home we stopped at a cattery outside of Peoria that specializes in Maine Coons and Norwegian Forest Cats. After playing on the floor with the kittens for over an hour, we chose two that we plan to take home at the end of the month. Or, I suppose, they chose us.

Here's the little boy, a blue tabby:

And this is his sister, a blue patched tabby:

Just look at those sweet faces! They were born 7/27, and will be ready to come live with us in a few more weeks. They are part of a litter of eight (originally there were nine, but the mama cat rolled over on one--something the breeder says can happen when there are more kittens than nipples to feed them). We were a bit overwhelmed when all eight kittens came to meet us at once. They are extremely well socialized, even the most shy among them only waited a minute or so before approaching. The boy kitten we're getting jumped into Ted's lap immediately, and pretty much stayed right there, unwilling to budge to make room for the others, no matter how much they tried to push him aside.

Cats always seem to have a strong affinity for Ted, often ignoring me to get to him. But the little female we selected settled right next to me, and started to doze off. I was completely charmed.

Originally, we only planned on getting one. But the breeder likes to adopt them out in pairs, and offered us a good deal for two. So what could we do?

Eventually, they'll grow up to look something like this:

According to Wikipedia, The Maine Coon is one of the largest breeds of domestic cat, known for its high intelligence and playfulness as well as its distinctive physical appearance. The breed is one of the oldest natural breeds in North America, specifically native to the state of Maine (where it is the official State Cat). This cat is known as "Maine Coon", "coon-cat", "Maine Cat" or (colloquially) "the gentle giant".

Some authorities say that the Maine Coon is descended from Norwegian Forest Cats brought over by the Vikings, who used them as mousers on their ships, and from other seafaring felines. "Natural selection (and climate) has had a significant effect on (longhair/Maine Coon) gene frequency in the 200-300 generations since domestic cats were introduced to America. The Maine Coon developed outdoors into a large, rugged cat with a water-resistant, thick, longhair coat and a hardy constitution."

This is our first time going to a breeder for a cat. Usually, we have adopted rescue animals. But this time we were looking for specific traits in a cat. Because we have a large and rambunctious two-year-old rescue dog, we wanted a cat that was going to be big (Maine Coons can be over 20 pounds, and the largest on record is 48 inches long), laid back, friendly, and with a dog-like constitution. Here are a few pics I found on the 'net that show how big these cats can potentially be:

I don't think ours will reach quite this size--but you never know.

Also, we wanted a kitten this time around. Our reasoning for this is pretty straightforward. Our dog, Maggie, came with a lot of emotional baggage. She's doing very well, but there are obvious signs of past abuse, from the the scars all over her body to her timidness with strangers. We feel that a well-socialized and well-adjusted kitten would only benefit Maggie.

Finally, we wanted a purebred Maine Coon from a reputable breeder because the breed has a few known genetic health problems, including hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which causes sudden cardiac death, and hip dysplasia. HCM can now be tested for, and most breeders have been able to avoid passing the trait on. This is not always the case with mixed breed and Maine Coons of unknown origin. We didn't want to get a cat only to have it drop unexpectedly on us.

So now we just have to wait a few more weeks until they can leave their mama. And we need to think of names. The names that are on their official papers are Helio Courier and Sqwauk. Yeah, I know. Not the best choices. We're trying to think up names from mythology, gods or heroes or spirits, and preferably for mythological siblings or spouses. Here are a few choices so far, girl's name first:

• Artemis and Apollo (actually, Ted hates the name Apollo, and has already vetoed this choice)
  
• Bridget and Lugh (Celtic)
  
• Luna/Selene and Helios (moon goddess and sun god, and if want to keep a variation of Helio, this would work)
• Ishtar and Shamash (Babylonian)
• Isis and Horus (Egyptian)
• Titania and Oberon (fairy queen and king)
• Mielikki and Tapio (Finnish goddess of the forest and mistress of the hunt, lord of the forest. I'm leaning towards these, as I'm half Finnish)

We're definitely open to suggestions, so if you have a favorite mythological pairing, let me know!

For further reading:

Are We Ready for Another Cat?
Maggie as Little Edie of Grey Gardens
Bark Softly and Carry a Big Stick

Are We Ready for Another Cat?

When we first met, six years ago, Pascal and I took an immediate and active dislike to each other. She was Ted's cat, and I was the new woman in his life. Whenever I visited, she would look at me with disdain, judging me from across the room with her beady-little eyes. My attempts at befriending her were met with soft hisses and sharp claws. "She's a bit of a bitch, sometimes," Ted would shrug and smile apologetically as Pascal wound herself around his ankles, looking up at me with half-slit eyes and an air of cool superiority.

"Humph," I humphed. Who cared if the stupid cat liked me?

But I did care. I could see that Ted and Pascal had a special bond, and because I found myself liking Ted quite a bit, I knew that I would have to get his cat to somehow like me. Or at least tolerate me. Or at least stop biting me. I tried to woo her with treats, scritch her behind the ears as Ted did, but nothing worked. I gave up and decided we'd simply give each other a wide berth. Really, she was already 11, it wasn't like she was going to be around forever.

There really wasn't any one event that caused Pascal and me to raise the white flag and form a truce. No single act on my part or hers that allowed us to overcome our differences and jealousies--because yes, I was jealous of a cat--and form our own friendship. Pascal did not wake up one day and suddenly decide to leap up in my lap and lick my chin adoringly. It was a gradual shift. I think she slowly came to realize that I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, and decided to accept it. We weren't friends, exactly, but there was no longer any animosity between us. We could sit together on the couch. She'd let me rub her head briefly or feed her a tidbit. No, we weren't friends, but we weren't enemies, either.

It wasn't until after I moved in with Ted that things changed between Pascal and me. Late one night, I woke up with her curled up on my pillow. I picked up my head slightly so that I could see her face, and she reached over and briefly laid her paw on my cheek before turning away and going back to sleep.

Stupid little furball had somehow wormed her way into my heart.

Pascal and I eventually fell into a routine. We always managed to wake up before Ted, and would creep down to the kitchen for coffee and Catsip, a lactose-free milk that she adored. Our conversation would go something like this:

Milk?

Meow.

Milk?

Meow.

Miiiiiilllllllkkk?

MeOOOOOOwwwww.

Then we'd go to my office, flip on the computer, and she would sit purring in my lap while I checked e-mail.

Over the years the three of us--Ted, Pascal, and me--would establish a dozen similar routines. Naps on the couch. Burrito night, where I would pick out bits of carne asada and feed them to her while we watched a rented movie. "The Hall Game," where I would sit at one end of our shotgun hall and rub and scritch Pascal while Ted sat at the other end, calling her and calling her until she couldn't stand it anymore and had to run down the length of the hall to see if his scritches were better. Then I would try to call her back.

My favorite game was "Attack the Poofy Slipper," a.k.a. "Foot in the Belly," depending on who instigated it. In the winter, both Ted and I wear our thick sheepskin slippers. Pascal loved to walk up to one of us, throw herself on her side, grab onto the toe of our slipper, and rip into it with her back claws. Then she would stop, look up at us, and meow a question at us to see what we would do next.

Or one of us might say "Foot in the Belly" while Pascal was sleeping or lounging in the sun, and poke her with the tip of our poofy slipper until she went on the attack. None of us ever tired of this game.

It was last fall that we began to realize something was not quite right with Pascal. She wasn't eating as much and she drank a lot of water. We would find her drinking from our water glasses or from the toilet. She was slowing down quite a bit, too. We figured she was just getting old. Rather quickly, however, she stopped eating altogether. She would only want the gravy from her food or Catsip. We had just moved to my mom's house, and took Pascal to the vet up the road, sick at heart at what he was no doubt going to tell us. She was 17, nearly 18. Old, for a cat. But it was too soon.

He told us what we didn't want to hear. That Pascal was suffering acute onset, chronic renal failure. It had come upon her fast. A month before she was attacking squirrels on the deck, running like a maniac down the hall, and chowing on her dinner like a hound dog. And now she was creeping across the room like an old woman, and all she wanted to do was to sit next to us and sleep. In just a few weeks, she had lost half her weight.

The vet left us with few choices. We could let Pascal live to her natural end, unassisted by treatment, and she would live maybe a few more weeks. Or we could try aggressive therapy, bringing her in three times a week for fluid treatments, and maybe gain two months at the most. Or we could bring her home for a few days to say our good-byes and bring her back to be euthanized. We didn't want her to suffer and we didn't want to traumatize her with all those vets trips. We brought her home.

Those were the saddest two days. It was obvious that she was not happy. She would try to drink her Catsip or eat some gravy, but quickly lost interest. She started to hide behind my mom's rocking chair, or the bathroom door. I guess she felt safer. She couldn't get comfortable in my lap, but she was able to sit on Ted's desk. When she walked across a room, she would lay down to rest every few feet.

The last night she was with us, Ted and I placed her on the bed between us, stroking her head and telling her how much we loved her. We talked about the fun times we shared. And as I scritched her little, bony chin, I found it hard to believe that I had ever disliked this cat. And I couldn't imagine what it was going to be like without her. Pascal looked up at me, blinked her kitten eyes, and reached out a tiny paw to lay against my cheek.

I can't talk about what happened the next morning at the vet; it's still too painful. All I can say is that we brought her in, we were with her at the end, she was calm and quiet, and then she was gone.

It's been four months, now. We've been telling ourselves that when we're ready, we'll start the search for another cat. A home is awfully empty without a critter in it, isn't it? But how do you know when you're ready to bring a new animal into your home? How do you know when you'll be ready to accept a new pet for all her own quirky qualities, and not see her as a replacement for the love you lost?

We've begun to visit pet adoption shows in the area. My cousin fosters animals, and is at Petsmart every weekend, so we go there. And while we've played with the cats and kittens through the wire cages, we haven't picked up any of them to snuggle yet. So maybe we're not quite ready yet, after all.

I didn't mean to work myself into this sad state this evening. But yesterday, Ted sent me a link to the Garfield Minus Garfield comic spoof and it got me to thinking how big a hole Pascal's loss has left behind. How different our daily routines are without her in them. Now, if you've made it down this far in the post, let me give you something cheerier before signing off.

Here's the idea behind Garfield Minus Garfield:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb.

Go to Garfield Minus Garfield for More