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Since we've been doing a bit of the twenty-year reminiscing, lately, and a discussion about walking cats on leashes came up in another forum, I have been remembering the three cats I had when I met Eor. When I first started keeping my LiveJournal I still had Ginger and Paula...
Alexandria was a brown kitten with black spots when I found her on the steps of a church in a box, with a towel and food and water, and a note saying she'd been found in New Hampshire and they couldn't keep her. Two scrungy, scary guys were sitting on the steps looking down into this box with a sort of tender delight and concern; she had obviously captured their hearts and who was I to let them down? I took her home, and promised them I'd look after her. She was completely fearless, but learned how to not use her claws when playing. (I think this was one of my roommates' doing; she would cuddle the kitten and calm her down when she got too wild and used her claws, so hurting people meant ENFORCED CUDDLES, YUCK!)
At that time it was all the rage in Portland to carry cats around on the streets, mainly started by this one crusty old biker dude who actually rode a bicycle. He wore a black, leather vest at all times, even though usually without a shirt, because he had a tricolor cat who rode on his shoulder, without a harness, but most people got harnesses for their cats so as to not let them run off. (His cat apparently knew her way home if she didn't want to stay with him.) So of course I got a tiny, red harness for my new black kitten, and walked her in the park all the time.
This worked fine until she was an adult and went to live for a while with someone in a small town, where she could run outside and hunt. When I got her back she was having none of this harness idea. If I put it on her she would just lie down and refuse to stand or walk. I could drag her as long as I wanted (which wasn't long, I'm not heartless) and she would just glare at me. She had grown into a sleek, black, warrior elite huntress with scimitar claws, and being tied to a human cramped her style. (However, she still never used the claws on us when she was playing. She was a merciful overlord.)
Ginger, meanwhile, even though Alex raised her, never wanted anything to do with the outdoors at all. She liked her house, she liked her familiar rooms and routines, and the out-of-doors was terrifying to her. She would spin in my arms like the Tazmanian Devil, winding her leash around herself and glaring at me. Snow was a huge affront, and obviously my fault.
Paula, who we picked up on the street as a scrawny young adult, was a weird cross of the two attitudes. She wanted to go outside, but was always scared and yowled incessantly until we got her back inside. Once, when she fell out of a window, I suspect she'd have been lost, only she walked in a huge circle around through the neighbor's yard and circled back through ours. Meanwhile, we were painting the side of the house and I went, "Gosh that sounds like Paula, yowling. But she's inside." :)
Alexandria was a brown kitten with black spots when I found her on the steps of a church in a box, with a towel and food and water, and a note saying she'd been found in New Hampshire and they couldn't keep her. Two scrungy, scary guys were sitting on the steps looking down into this box with a sort of tender delight and concern; she had obviously captured their hearts and who was I to let them down? I took her home, and promised them I'd look after her. She was completely fearless, but learned how to not use her claws when playing. (I think this was one of my roommates' doing; she would cuddle the kitten and calm her down when she got too wild and used her claws, so hurting people meant ENFORCED CUDDLES, YUCK!)
At that time it was all the rage in Portland to carry cats around on the streets, mainly started by this one crusty old biker dude who actually rode a bicycle. He wore a black, leather vest at all times, even though usually without a shirt, because he had a tricolor cat who rode on his shoulder, without a harness, but most people got harnesses for their cats so as to not let them run off. (His cat apparently knew her way home if she didn't want to stay with him.) So of course I got a tiny, red harness for my new black kitten, and walked her in the park all the time.
This worked fine until she was an adult and went to live for a while with someone in a small town, where she could run outside and hunt. When I got her back she was having none of this harness idea. If I put it on her she would just lie down and refuse to stand or walk. I could drag her as long as I wanted (which wasn't long, I'm not heartless) and she would just glare at me. She had grown into a sleek, black, warrior elite huntress with scimitar claws, and being tied to a human cramped her style. (However, she still never used the claws on us when she was playing. She was a merciful overlord.)
Ginger, meanwhile, even though Alex raised her, never wanted anything to do with the outdoors at all. She liked her house, she liked her familiar rooms and routines, and the out-of-doors was terrifying to her. She would spin in my arms like the Tazmanian Devil, winding her leash around herself and glaring at me. Snow was a huge affront, and obviously my fault.
Paula, who we picked up on the street as a scrawny young adult, was a weird cross of the two attitudes. She wanted to go outside, but was always scared and yowled incessantly until we got her back inside. Once, when she fell out of a window, I suspect she'd have been lost, only she walked in a huge circle around through the neighbor's yard and circled back through ours. Meanwhile, we were painting the side of the house and I went, "Gosh that sounds like Paula, yowling. But she's inside." :)