atlanta cat behavior

Freyja

Probably about 16 or 17 years old here!

Freyja was honestly one of the kittens that drew the urge to keep the whole litter, I just thought she was so scrumptious. She grew up to be, what I think, was our most beautiful cat we have ever had. She lived up the goddess’s name we bestowed her. Our best friends nicknamed her Sasquatch! They would pet sit for us and leave us notes (remember, she was around before smartphones) or send texts that they had a “Sasquatch sighting!” I always thought this was hilarious but also tells you how elusive she was. She had no shortage of nicknames that is for sure. One that stuck the most, was “Bloomies” or “Bloomers”. You see, I have a thing for calling everyone some variation of “pants”, Leftypants, tortiepants, you name it. Freyja was too classy for pants, she wore bloomers! She also shopped at Bloomingdales (she told me), “Bloomingdale Blooms” was not a rare thing to hear me shouting around the house! I do realize that I am mildly insane, but hey, it’s fun to have nicknames!

Our dear Freyja. Her name means the goddess of love and beauty in Norse mythology. If you have not gathered by now, I’m of Swedish and Norwegian heritage so we have a bit of Scandinavian flare with some of the names we have chosen over the years. Freyja is the last kitten to feature in the “Mammas and her babies” category. I am sharing everyone in the order that we adopted them!

Freyja was a shy kitten and remained a shy cat for most of her life. This is a good life lesson for all of us. You cannot necessarily make a cat be who you want them to be. I adopted these kittens at barely 4 weeks old and they were all so different, every single one of them! Loads of commonality too, so much so that I do think there was only one father, plus the color patterns makes sense, and lead to just the one dad. Still, so much personality variation and I raised them all the same, offering the same experiences. I think it is important to learn to love your cats for who they are and the unique qualities each one offers.

You had to sneak up on her for good pics!

Full blown Sasquatch mode right here! Look at that lush coat.

She was a screamer like her siblings, the whole family was so vocal. I can recall all of the typical young cat naughtiness she embraced like getting in the fireplace, shy, skittish, super fun to bathe! If you even made eye contact with her downstairs she would bolt, you definitely could not bend over and pet her or pick her up! No way! However, she did always seem to know that when you were on the toilet, fresh out of the shower or horizontal in bed and that meant you were safe. She would get on our chests and embrace shoulder scratches and drool little drool drops right into our mouths if we weren’t careful! Such a wonderful purr and cooing, it was a special gift. I was the only one who could medicate her and trim her nails her whole life!

Chillin' in her condo. Look but do not touch!

Captured a pic of her playing! A rare photo indeed.

Some pics are not the best because so elusive!

It was as a senior that we really got to know and appreciate her. She gradually started to lose her hearing and it was actually a good thing! We had a new cat! She was far less noise phobic, she started to come downstairs to “meds time” wondering what all the fuss was about, she started to allow us to handle her and once in a while she would grace us with her presence of the sofa. If Freyja came to see you , you did not dare to breathe or move a muscle, it was a special gift and you embraced it! I even trained her to a leash and harness at 18 years of age and she enjoyed our “supervised yard fun” time. It was amazing!

So many words! "You're doing it wrong!" Is what I'm sure she is saying!

Waiting for our bi-cavity ultrasound at the internist's office!

At the vet for lab work recheck.

She lived almost exclusively upstairs at the top of the “treehouse” (the vertical space treehouse we built in our master bedroom) until she lost her hearing. Then she decided she needed a change of scenery and decided to join the family. It was awesome. She pretty much set up shop on a cat condo right in-between the kitchen and living room, she was in the heart of the action for her last 4-5 years of life. She would bark orders at us from the top of the condo, it was glorious! She demanded a lot of room service and we obliged, we were a very dedicated staff. This also led to us missing her more than we ever thought because she blossomed into such a big personality!

Enjoying meds time with a syringe of yummy food.

A "Mommy and Me" day at the office!

Still puzzlin'! Foraging right up until the end.

"Did someone say sparkly puff?"

This cat played with interactive wand toys and foraged for food up until a few weeks before she died. She was also a fierce hunter of sparkly puff balls and “called” while carrying through the house. This is a behavior that we sorely miss and loved the sound of her “calling” us to a meal with her prey. She also truly loved our dogs, groomed them, and even herded them! It was pretty hilarious to watch 20 year old, 7# Freyja, tell 100# Sebastian that he needs to move, “no, over here, never mind go over there!” And he would go! She had a lot of opinions! Her quality of life was outstanding. Even at 21 years of age, the top of a six-foot-tall cat condo (complete with heating pad) was where she lived. Needless to say, I start joint support very early in life, she started around age 12, and never showed a single symptom of arthritis or stiffness.

Freyja loved all of her doggies. She groomed them and taught them well!

Freyja blooms knew every single animal that I have cared for in my adult life. She was strong, survived so much, including our housefire, and had great quality of life well into her geriatric years. She is dearly missed, but we hold no regrets with this one. Others have left us feeling robbed and heartbroken. Some we did so much for and still lost them so young. Twenty-one years, 5 months and 10 days is a pretty good run that we can accept. She will always be our beautiful goddess.

Her last day with us, since 4 weeks old. We had a good run. She was finally tired.

How lucky are we to have these amazing and gorgeous animals that someone else just threw away?

Beyond the Nip! Honeysuckle Scent Enrichment

Tartarian honeysuckle is a scent that some cats respond to in the same euphoric way they do catnip. Not all cats respond to all scents so it is worthwhile to try them all.

Zinnia

The very first Fundamentally Feline profile pic was this beautiful girl!

Professional photo shoot was a challenge because she was shy.

She freaked out in the trap! Hardcore. Again, not knowing then what I do now, Jake and I were freaked out too. She thrashed around in the trap, bloodied her nose, we were afraid to open it because she was like a wild animal. But we couldn’t possible leave her in that trap all night, or could we? No. So we let her out in a bathroom, instinctually I have always been super paranoid about disease and fleas, etc. (perhaps a precursor sign that I was born to work in feline medicine!) She bolted around in there, but calmed down considerably quickly. Insanely, I gave her a bath, because that seemed like a swell idea at the time! We made an appointment at what was soon to be my future employer and brought her up to be tested for the communicable feline disease, treated for fleas, spayed etc.

Zinnia is the reason I am here, or Z, as we have affectionately called her for years. She started it all. Sure, I had cats before Zinnia came along, but she is what gave me my start. She presented challenges that forced me to learn more about cats and their behavior; she provided circumstances I had never dealt with before, she got me my job at my first feline veterinary practice, she was the first face of Fundamentally Feline and here is her story.

We were still living in our apartment at the time we started seeing her outside our window. All too commonly people move and just leave their cats behind. It was always dark when we would see her and we were novices, so we though she was huge, likely male and maybe even a long hair. I called the vet practice where we already took our 4 cats and they allowed us to borrow a humane trap. They taught us how to use it, suggested what to bait it with, and emphasized patience, that apparently some cats are “trap smart” and it could take weeks to catch her. Well, turns out she was pretty hungry because we laid a trail of canned food and had her in 15minutes!

I got the call that she was all done, got through surgery fine and was ready for pick up. When I go to pick up I was informed that she was pregnant but not too far along, so they spayed her anyway. Given my beliefs and the homeless pet population, I was fine with this. I was surprised at how very routine it was to do so, and how nonchalant everyone was about it though. I later learned how commonplace pregnant spays were and how necessary.

As I was returning the trap, discussing post op protocols and her follow up vaccines visit, the office manager turns to me and says, “you want a job?” I said, “are you kidding I have wanted to work here for years!” I had no experience and was about to graduate from art school, and here I am considering a job as a vet tech. So, we set up an observation day so I could see what I was getting myself into and I guess the rest is history! (I met cat #6 on my observation day, but that is another story!)

Kitchen and dining area was her headquarters.

Supervised outside time towards the end of life.

So then it was integration time. We had 4 male cats already, two pairs of brothers. So Zinnia was the “odd man out”. She was pretty “pissy” but all and all the intro went ok. Knowing what I know now I feel certain that Zinnia was likely someone’s only kitten, and was what we call poorly socialized. She likely grew up isolated from her our species and did not understand all of the social cues that most kittens learn from their litter mates in the first few formative weeks of life. I have always been a believer in adopting in pairs, just because it seemed like the right thing to do, but Z confirmed this! So she coped.

Then we moved. Shortly after Zinnia settled in we bought our first house, our only house thus far, and the house that has landed us on Animal Planet and in magazines for the feline accommodations we have made for it. It was good at first, more space for successful avoidance with the boys. When #6 came along that wasn’t so bad either, that was Peaches and she loved everyone. But by now I had started my job at the clinic; in fact, I started there the day after we moved into the house. The influx of stray and down on their luck cats in need of homes, blew me away. I set out to save the world, and well, adopted way too many cats too quickly.

So, within two months we went from 4 cats to 5, to 6 to eleven! In came Mamma and her babies. Our first foster failures and Zinnia was pissed. I do not know if there was any psychological impact on her having recently aborted her kittens, or if I just had a few too many bitchy females. Regardless, I had two females that hated each other (Mammas and Z) and some males that were happy to join in the fun, and some kittens who were about to grow up to be little hoodlums! Well, actually, they were amazing, but Zinnia never did take too kindly to them. The trouble shooting began.

As time passed by I somehow thought it was a good idea to have even more cats. And, well, it was! In fact, it was the best experience of our lives, except for poor Zinnia. You see, she was really the only one that wasn’t having a good time. It became imperative that food, water, litter, vertical space was provided in every room of the house, but most especially in Z’s favorite places. Everyone would come to use everything, but it had to be right for her. You see, successful avoidance became the goal. I didn’t need her to be cuddled up on an armchair grooming one of the kittens, but I needed her to be able to get to all of her basic needs without being attacked in the litter box, kicked off the top of a cat condo, etc. I think that is the big take home message. When you have cats that do not love each other, why do we make it so hard for them? They should not have to share a food dish in the kitchen or one hooded litter box in the laundry room, through a cat flap! It is ridiculous the obstacles we humans make these cats cope with and then we get upset when they don’t comply!

Zinnia, taught me about what I now call Tarzan syndrome or only child syndrome. Cats learn the majority of their social skills with other cats by 9-12 weeks of age and if not around other cats during that formative time, they tend to be aggressive with their own species. Zinnia was defensively aggressive towards the other cats and often provoked the fights she was in due to her lack of confidence around them. She taught me that sometimes you have to adopt cats for your cats and not cats just because YOU want them. She taught me about providing an environment of plenty so we make successful avoidance feasible. Z is extremely senior now and my number one priority. No other animals will come into this house to stress her out. I am rooting for her to outlive just as many as she can so she can enjoy herself. She is a happy cat, but I think she could have been happier had I known then what I know now. Hindsight is always 20/20 isn’t it? I am better for it now and better equipped to help others with cats just like Zinnia who have found themselves in this situation. Thank you Z.

I quickly had to take a much deeper interest into how to properly meet the needs of a multi-cat household. This wasn’t about filling the food bowls and scooping boxes anymore. Thanks to Zinnia’s poor feline socialization skills and my overzealous need to save every cat on earth I developed a profound interest in environmental enrichment. This wasn’t really what I was hearing it be called at the time. Life became all about increasing the vertical space in our home to increase square footage and giving the cats lots of cool stuff to do. I later learned that was all called EE or Environmental enrichment!

A very senior lady, about 17, enjoying the fire.

Lynx

Lynx was Shadow's brother and my first experience with a "lynx point siamese" (mix). He was one crazy looking little kitten. I couldn't tell what he was going to turn into, he was kinda buff, kinda organgy, a black tail, I thought he was a little mess! Boy, was I wrong! He turned out to be such a handsome cat and now, I must say, that the lynx point color pattern has now become one of my absolute favorite coat patterns in cats.

Quite quickly our household of two boys became four boys. It was so easy! Now as a cat behaviorist I can appreciate why. Once we got some opinionated ladies in the mix that is when the trouble started.

When they were wee

Smaller than the shoe!

Would you look at him? SQUEE!

They slept this way their whole lives.

I just cannot get enough of these baby pics.

One of my favorite things that Lynx used to do was come up and "rabbit kick" our feet using his hind feet but in a standing position. He did this so very gently, like he was kicking the air, it was so freaking cute. I wish we had smart phones back then or I would absolutely have video of this behavior. I have yet to have another cat who does this behavior which is a reminder to capture all of the memories while you can.

Lynx was only 12 when he left us and as I shared when I told Shadow's story they were both diabetic, hyperthyroid and later developed liver disease, IBD and pancreatitis, triaditis. They acquired these diseases in a different order but they had all the same genetic issues. The benefit of adopting related cats is they are instant friends for life and have a playmate in each other, the downside is the host of medical issues and losing them close together.

This cat loved our hammock swing! Got "stuck" but not really, just playing.

All four of our 1st boys in "loaf" position.

Foraging, the early years.

My first food puzzles were old water bottles.

He too, had so many nicknames, Lynxy dinxy do's was one. I know, we are crazy. It should be noted that when I first implemented foraging toys we had 16 cats, Shadow and Lynx were the ONLY TWO cats that would use the toys, at first. They were my little super stars. They taught the rest of the crew how it is done, and my foraging crusade began. Lynx, thank you for the memories and for foraging. Your interest in food puzzles changed my whole world and I am so grateful to you boys for teaching me.

An old man long before his time.

Shortly before we said goodbye for the last time.

So handsome.

Shadow

A fave candid of us. He loved to ride on our shoulders.

This is Shadow. We adopted Shadow and his brother, Lynx when they were only one month old. Shadow weighed one pound and Lynx was only ¾ of a pound! It was my absolute dream to have “Siamese” cats and I quickly learned how easy it was to adopt cats with this “look” without having to buy and contribute to the homeless cat crisis.

Shadow was the love of my life (sorry, Jake, but he totally understands!) This cat was amazing, and we were very bonded. I loved how he would sit on my left hip and suckle on my ear lobe. He was like an infant and would ask to be picked up. His favorite toy was a lightweight jingly ball. He would bat them around everywhere and would carry them and call. He would leave them in my purse and in my shoes, so cute!

When they were wee

Squee, OMG!

They were naughty little tots (which we enjoyed)!

Q-tips and plastic milk jug rings were a hit with these two trouble makers as was toilet paper and "foraging" in the kitchen cabinets which quickly earned them child safety locks. These were the early years, before food puzzle toys.

His lanky teenage stage!

It is difficult to talk about those who were so special to you, it can be hard to summarize their life in a just a few paragraphs. I used to joke that I couldn’t have loved him more if I gave birth to him myself, now I feel that way about Hitch, but I suppose it is ok to share that feeling with others.

Shadow left us at only 14 years, not even close to long enough. He and his brother both were diabetic and hyperthyroid. They both also later developed liver disease, IBD and pancreatitis (otherwise known as “triaditis”). They acquired these diseases in a different order, but they had all the same genetic issues. The benefit of adopting related cats is they are instant friends for life and have a playmate in each other, the downside is the host of medical issues and losing them close together.

From our professional photo shoot. So glad he was still with us for this special day.

Always adopt littermates, keep family together, this is how cats thrive.

We used to call him Shadow Dancin’ after that 70’s song, which later morphed into “Deathwish Dancin’” because he did a lot of daredevil things and often injured himself! All of our pets have a ridiculous number of nicknames so far removed from their original name it only makes sense to us! We miss this boy so much, but it feels good to look back on who we have called family and all they have taught us.

We are the lucky ones.

Our first stroller. These two really enjoyed strollin'.

HIs signature. He could not get enogh of the left hip.

Jake tells me he was looking at me, "blowing bubble hearts" in this pic.

Look at those tootsies!

With all my heart.

Mercury

Complete with catnip froggy on his head.

First week home, 9 months old!

Mercury and Festus were brothers. It is always advised to adopt related cats and keep feline families together. This helps to ensure harmony and a bond. Re, as we often called him (or Re Re) was the more bold of the pair and I distinctly remember him playing with the strings on my backpack in the adoption room where we met.

Mercury was also the most insulted when I decided I was going to save the world, one cat at a time, and continue to grow our feline and canine family. Mercury was the very first cat in my personal life that started spraying! He even sprayed me once while I was sitting on the couch in my scrubs, needless to say I started changing immediately after arriving home after that. Behavior slowly became my focus, but initially it was so that I could better understand my own household.

Enjoying the nip. Mercury was a violent drunk on the nip.

Mercury very slowly became paralyzed his last year of life. We never got an official diagnosis but we managed his care and he became our SECOND paralyzed cat at the time requiring bladder expression as well as defecating help. These were the only two cats that never got to forage. I learned about that just after losing them. It’s sad the regrets one has of those who came earlier, before I knew as much as I do know, hoping I gave them a good enough life.

We love and miss you boys.