Spotlight on... ASHIA
I drafted this a while ago but feel it should be shared now...
With a string of champions, international champions and european champions in her pedigree, ASHIA can be justifiably proud of her heritage. This big, beautiful bouncy and bomb-proofed Wegie came to us from a wonderful breeder in North Yorkshire, who is active in the breed society and welfare.
NAME: Jhardufae 'Blossom of Snow' (ASHIA)
BREED: Norwegian Forest Cat (Classic Silver Tabby)
BORN: 9th August 2003, North Yorkshire
LIKES: People; Fish; Raw Chicken; catnip toy mice (especially if they're white and gerbil shaped); night-time cuddles; chirping 'bless you' if you cough or sneeze; exploring the back garden on sunny afternoons when we allow her out on supervised excursions; laying across the threshold of the backdoor when it's really cold outside; looking after her babies Arnie & Solo (when he comes to stay)and occasional tussles with Charlie the Wegie-cross (Arnie n Solo's dad); and clobbering Beauty for no apparent reason.
DISLIKES: Alfie when he is being too playful; being chased by the daft dobermutt who still thinks she's our old rabbit Thumper; being groomed (OK, she tolerates it); having her teeth cleaned (because she developed gingivo-stomatisis in 2003 and had to have a lot of teeth extracted); going to the vets.
BREED CHARACTERISTICS: A large, strong and rugged looking cat with a broad chest, robust muscular body and huge paws, with a distinct triangular shaped head and long straight-sided profile. Long wide straight nose, large wide set high-based ears with lynx-tufts, large oval eyes with a keen hunting look. The coat is semi-long-haired - a weather resistant dual coat with a silky top coat. The tail is thick, bushy and broad. Actually from Norway and originally bred as farm cats with a strong hunting instinct (which probably explains why Ash managed to mangle my previous gerbils when she came to join us in 2003), the breed is a relative newcomer to the cat world as it only achieved recognition during the 1980s.
TEMPERAMENT: Active, highly sociable and thrive on the company of other cats, dogs and people and playful into old age, Wegies are excellent climbers and hunters and will carry their toys around the house. Scatch posts are a must as they need to exercise and hone their strong claws. They make excellent draught excluders (as do MaineCoons).Strongly territorial, Wegies will protect their young from danger - as we have witnessed when the daft dobermutt got too close to Ashia's kittens when they were very young.
Ashia came to us by accident - when our first Wegie boy Raggy died aged just 6 months whilst under anasthetic, the breeder offered to pick another kitten from a later litter and when we drove to her home to view them, Ashia was the one who chose us.
Readers will be aware that Ash became a mum for the first (and we anticipate last) time late in 2007, when an accidental mating between her and Charlie the Wegie-cross we had recently adopted resulted in the birth of 4 beautiful kittens on 1st October 2007. Sadly one kitten died shortly afterwards but mum excelled in rearing her 3 surviving babies: Arnie, Solo and Kaboos.
A bit of a poser, Ashia became a calendar girl in 2007 when she was chosen by Your Cat magazine to feature as Miss January on their 2007 Calendar. Her photo also appeared in the magazine and has been published on several pet forums and pet websites since then - and rightly so - she is, after all, gorgeous!
Published Date:
04/03/2010
Modified Date:
04/03/2010
Do you want the good news or the bad news?
Aimee the wheelie-bin stray and Ashia our silver Norwegian Forest Cat went to the vets yesterday for dental treatment.
Aimee has been plagued with gum and tooth trouble since she first came to us at just 5wks of age. She was riddled with cat flu: very poorly and even then, the vet warned us she would always have problems with sore gums and infection. She's been on bimonthly anti biotic and anti- inflammatory shots ever since, but we decided it was time for her to have the full dental...
Ashia meanwhile had most of her teeth removed about 3 yrs ago and was left with just 5. We'd hoped she'd be able to keep those but one has become infected, so when she went for her annual checkup and vaccs, we were advised to bring her back with Aimee.
So, off they went yesterday. I was concerned because Ash had lost weight and has been drinking more than she normally does, so the vet decided to do blood tests before proceeding. And that's when we found out she has chronic kidney disease and (probably) only weeks left... She's only 6, hardly an age for renal failure, but that's what it looks like. Under the circumstances, she won't be having any dental work and all we can do now is make sure she is comfortable - and we're hoping we can get her to take to the renal care food she's now got to eat. She wasn't terribly impressed with the Royal Canin but seemed to be tucking into the Hills version tonight.
Seems wierd, our second wegie being snatched away from us before time, when our very first, Raggy, died very young...
There's still some chance she could make it but she's also very anaemic and that doesn't bode well. She's felt to either have polycystic kidney disease (PKD) which is genetic, or lymphoma of the kidneys.
She may look out of sorts, but she's still the fussy, friendly wegie she's always been...
Meanwhile, Aimee is making a strong recovery - and has been transformed from crotchety bad tempered mog to happy, bouncy, where's my food? feline. Hoovering up every food dish and demanding more, making up for lost time. She's back for a post-op check tomorrow and we'll be collecting Ashia's food. Fingers crossed it helps to make a difference.
Published Date:
04/03/2010
Modified Date:
04/03/2010
Alfie doing 'Keep Fit'
As promised, here's Alfie the barmy spotted dude, doing his daily keep fit regime
Not as clear as I would have liked, next time I'll do better!
Published Date:
19/02/2010
Modified Date:
19/02/2010
A bit of a rant about IKEA
nothing to do with the barmy bengal or our beasties except that Ailsa the dobermutt and new arrival Sadie are in the video for a split second....
I'm having a long running battle with IKEA over a sofa we had made to order in December.
I usually praise IKEA like crazy, but this time, I feel really let down by their lack of customer service and tardiness in getting this resolved, so in desperation, I put a brief video together to illustrate the problem.
You can view it on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDGs6QYEgJ0 and have a quick peak at the lovely Sadie who thinks the sofa belongs to her and Ailsa too!
Published Date:
18/02/2010
Modified Date:
18/02/2010
Alfie's New Year Resolution
He may be a little late setting his good intentions for 2010, but the barmy bengal has assured me he plans to stick to this one.
As soon as I can work out how to link to a Flip video (or I may put it on youtbe when I get a moment!), I'll share his latest antics with you...Finally, I've managed to film him on the treadmill, doing his stuff, keeping fit and still managing to clip the nearest cat whilst mid- trot!
And Ailsa the daft dobermutt very nearly became a superstar on the canine equivalent of the X Factor (called, dare I say it, the 'Rex' Factor!). Sky TV are launching a new animal show called Pet Nation and Ailsa was invited to audition for the canine talent show, seeing as she is such a star performer on YouTube with her Pink Floyd tribute. sadly, Pink Floyd or their record label refused to give permission to the show to broadcast the track (Shine on you crazy diamond), so Ailsa will have to forgo the stardom and stick to entertaining the youtube millions instead. Last time we checked, she'd had over 52000 hits. I wouldn't want it to go to her head though...
Oh and we have a new permanent 'lodger' here at the the Hunters Bar Zoo... We've been fostering Sadie, a lovely black and white domestic shorthaired female who was brought into the branch back in September. She had been living rough in someone's back garden and had already given birth to a litter of 5 kittens whilst still only a youngster herself. She's around a year old and when she first arrived her manners left a lot to be desired, but she did start to mellow as time went on and, by Christmas, when the weather turned so bitterly cold that her water bowl froze over, I decided enough was enough and there was no way she was staying outside. Evn though the catpen is heated, it was just too cold.
I wasn't sure what to expect when she came indoors - I fully intended to keep her separate from my mad mob as per the rules - but immediately she spotted our daft doberman, she had to go over and say hello.
Now, this was NOT what I'd expected at all. I honestly thought she was going over to rip ten bells out of the big scary devil-dog, but no, she wanted to say hello! She headbutted Ailsa in an affectionate way and after a swift WOOF (which I think was Ailsa's way of saying 'you're supposed to be scared of me but obviously it isn't working!'), that was that. Order was restored and ever since, Sadie has acted as if she has always lived here!
Of course, the felines have a different view to Ailsa and Alfie has done his share of sulking and protesting along the way - and can you blame him when Sadie thinks that EVERY treat, EVERY toy and EVERY comfy cushion is meant for her?
Still, she hasn't attempted to leave home and nor have the resident beasties, so they must be content, really.
(And whilst, according to the vet, it is at around 10 cats that you turn into the 'mad cat woman'... I may look like it at times, but I promise you, I'm not quite there yet!)
Meanwhile, back with the barmy bengal: I hope to upload his treadmill trek shortly - and, who knows, he could be launching his own keep-fit video soon!
Published Date:
18/02/2010
Modified Date:
18/02/2010
Just because its all gone quiet...
...doesn't necessarily mean there's nothing happening in the Katkin household - especially where barmy bengals and nutty norwegian forest cats are concerned!
Here at the house of fun, things are never 'quiet'.
There's always at least one houseplant being chomped into oblivion in the bathroom, (no matter how hard I try to keep the door shut, it seems bengals and NFCs are adept at breaking and entering...). Note to self- STOP BUYING PLANTS! They all end up going to work to recuperate, anyway.
Or a daft dobermutt decides it's 2:30am in the morning and she simply, positively, absolutely HAS to wake us up so she can go outside, sniff the cold night air, bark at nothing in the darkness then smugly trot back indoors, her work completed. Who needs sleep anyway?
Meanwhile, the 3 NFCs act out their grand- plan to overtake the bedroom, declaring it the new 'Principality of Norwegia' and banishing poor Beauty the rescue bengal to the hifi cupboard (which has its good points, always nice and toasty, if the music's on).
And Alfie, star of this very blog, does his best to wind up the dobermutt if she's spending too long squeaking her annoyingly annoying meowing kittens (yes, she has a veritable pack of them now- I blame it all on eBay). You'd think a dobe would object in the strongest terms to having its ears chomped or a bengal swinging from its neck. but no, Ailsa tolerates Alfie's rough love in a way she'd never put up with from the rest of the gang.
Up in the attic, Minty the sane and sensible senior moggie is enjoying her new surroundings, courtesy of IKEA's BESTA and BENNO flat-packs - being a cat of course, she doesn't care whether its solid wood or MDF - she's more engrossed in the cardboard packaging and wrapping paper anyway.
Aero the inscrutable Havana seems to have adopted both little Aimee the wheelie-bin stray and Beauty the recue Bengal - dealing out plenty of sandpaper-sloppy kisses, whenever she feels they need a bit of TLC. When she's not curled up in a tight little ball stealing someone else's heat, she's bouncing off the footstool to the new armchair downstairs- assuring us it won't look right and properly 'lived in' til it's got at least a half dozen scratches firmly bedded into the top layer of leather.
Mad MaineCoon Amber seems to have developed a whole new character since having her teeth descaled - no more the wall flower, she's often seen (and heard) hurtling up and down stairs chasing invisible 'stuff' We haven't the heart to tell her there's nothing (and nobody) there...
We wonder sometimes if baby NFC Arnie (the 'purrminator') needs counselling. He has some very odd ideas about what cats eat. If its a choice between chicken and green beans or garden peas, the vegetation usually gets the vote. Arnie is partial to his green veg - he'll sit patiently at the table, waiting to be offered a stray pea, but not too patiently - give it five minutes or so before a fat, furry paw hovers over the plate and fishes for the closest portion ... Completely ignoring the meat or fish!
Told you he was odd. He still has a bit of a thing for plastic cutlery too. It's got to the stage where if we're in a cafe and there's plastic cutlery about, we have to 'borrow' the odd spoon or fork to take home for Arnie. He loves to throw then down the stairs, chase them and play 'fetch'. His new nickname is 'Spoon-Bob Squarepants'
The daft dobermutt is 8 years old already - how time flies! This weekend, it will be exactly 8 years since we first brought her home, all paws and ears. All those sleepless nights, the cleaning up, getting up at the crack of daylight to walk her and learning all about the joys and woes of dog ownership...Was it all worth it? ABSOLUTELY. Even if she does drive us nuts at times and STILL gets us up at unearthly hours just to sniff the pavement...
Besides, who else could that barmiest of the bengals, Alfie, torment?
Published Date:
18/11/2009
Modified Date:
18/11/2009
cats are carnivores...aren't they?
Well, that's what I was brought upto understand. Dogs, they'll eat just aboout anything that comes along- meat, fish, veg, old twigs, the occasional duster, you name it, a dog somewhere has probably had a good old chew on it.
But cats... they're much more picky about what they chomp - alledgedly.
Whoever made that claim obviously never met our nutty norwegian forest cat Arnie. Arnie, you may recall is our baby wegie, product of an accidental union between Ashia (pure pedigree but never spayed because her half brother died whilst being neutered and we were worried the same fate could affect Ash - and besides which, she's a housecat and there's absolutely NO WAY she'll ever come into contact with an unneutered tom, right?
Wrong.
Enter: Charlie the rescue wegie who'd apparently 'never shown any interest in other females' but who took immediate advantage of the situation when introduced to Ashia, hence we now have Arnie: bear of little brain but the biggest, fluffiest tail you've ever seen on a cat and a whopping purrsonality.
But not much in the way of brain cells...
Arnie is the cat who chewed through my brand new laptop power cable and cost us another £30 for a replacement, bless his furry little snowshoes.
Arnie is the cat who steals the heavy plunger plug out of the bathroom sink and chews on razor blades- when he's not polishing his molars on my toothbrush.
Arnie is the cat with a curious obsession with plastic cutlery - happiest when he's carrying a plastic spoon around the house or tucking one away under the doormat for 'ron...
and Arnie is the cat who keeps wedging himself in the doorway of our latest project (a scale model of our tiny terraced house). It looks a bit like the 'attack of the 50foot forest cat' when he does it and I wince when I think what he must be doing to my miniature corbusier lounger...
There's no doubting - he is a bit of a pudding.
Especially when it comes to food.
His mum was 'brung up proper' and happily munches on fish, chicken, most cat foods and the occasionalbit of steak.
His dad has a more limited preference - cat food, cat food - or, just for a change: cat food.
Uncle Alfie the barmy bengal - he's partial to the trimmings from chicken or turkey- raw preferably.
and little feral moggie Aimee is grateful for ANYTHING as long as it contains protein.
But Arnie... he's just ...odd.
I mean - when given a choice - what kind of a cat turns its nose up at meat but makes straight for the green beans or cauliflower? Better still, the steamed broccolli!
That's just not right, is it? But to a bear of little brain, hooking a crafty left paw over a stray scrap of steamed veg is his idea of heaven.
Each to his own, I suppose.
Published Date:
11/08/2009
Modified Date:
11/08/2009
B*th...don't say that word...
Ailsa the daft dobermutt had a bath on Monday.
Shock, horror: hold the front page!
OK, maybe not all that newsworthy on first glance, but this was a special occasion, even if the dobermutt probably didn't appreciate it, at first.
I'd volunteered her services to give an up-n-coming new pet groomer the chance to pamper a larger than average pooch, after seeing her ad on the Sheffield Pets Forum http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=478566 and whilst I recognise the doberman is hardly what you might call ' labour intensive' when it comes to grooming compared with say, an Afghan or a Poodle, it's always handy to have experience of a range of dogs, since you never know what you're going to get once business hots up. I was also interested to see how the dobermutt would respond to being handled by another, more capable dog-lover - I knew she wouldn't be aggressive or fearful, but I did expect a bit of drama, particularly at the point the dreaded B*A*T*H appeared...
So, arrangements were made and in the hope that for once the weather forecasters might actually have got it right, we opted for an outdoor beauty parlour, seeing as our bathroom is barely wide enough to swing a cat (sorry Alfie), let alone a damp dog.
Anita arrived good and early on a lovely, sunny bank holiday morning (thanks mr weather man!) and set up stall in our backyard, observed by Alfie the barmy bengal who was first to meet and greet,followed dutifully by his daft dobe buddy. It was hard to say who was being the most noisy - yowls were definitely audible above the booming barks, but the dobermutt became strangely silent after the initial canine cocophony... Was this a good start or a warning of things to come?
As the doggie bath was being erected, Ailsa sniffed suspiciously at the grooming equipment and the interesting new person who was telling her how much she was going to enjoy her ordeal. Beauty the rescue bengal meanwhile had woken from her slumbers and suddenly sussed that the backdoor was a) open and b) not being policed by an over-exhuberant dobermutt for a change and saw this as her chance to make a bid for freedom.
Now, bengals may be bright but they're also incredibly noisy and someone needs to explain to our two that sneaking out of the backdoor whilst yowling at the top of their lungs is NOT going to be a great success, especially as neither of them has mastered the fine art of volume control, so even though she managed to make a swift exit, she didn't get very far. (Darn, curses, foiled again). Didn't stop her trying to repeat the trick about a dozen times though.
As for the rest of the feline crew, well, they weren't too far away. Alfie was determined to be outside and in the end it was easier just to let him out as long as I could see him (and hear him), I knew he wasn't going to get very far, unlike Beauty, who still has that insistent urge to explore farther afield. Then Aero demanded to join him and the ear-shattering howl encouraged me to let her, but strangely, all other feline life decided to stay tucked inside, once the bathwater appeared... One by one, the curious felines ventured downstairs to investigate what was going on outdoors, but stayed just far enough out of reach in case the wet stuff was intended for any of them. Maybe next time...
By now, the dobermutt had resigned herself to her fate, understanding full well that she was the intended victim, but happy to take the treat bribes the nice kind lady was offering to get her to hop into the bath.
She was having none of it though, as far as hopping in the bath was concerned. Everytime we gently persuaded her INTO it, she took two steps back and made darned sure she was OUT of it. Fair enough, it was a bit of a step up and in the absence of a ramp, we resorted to getting the other half to pick her up and place her in the bath. It took several attempts and we could barely keep hold of her for laughing, but finally, she found herself tethered and ready to be titivated. More treats, duly welcomed and the show began, watched by an audience of bengals (the inscutible havana was otherwise engaged chomping on next door's ornamental grasses, oops).
We were expecting drama, struggles or at least the usual shivering and dithering, but Anita's soothing manner and gentle massage techniques seemed to cast a spell over the dobermutt: she was actually enjoying it! The water, the soapy stuff, the fluffy white towels (especially the fluffy white towels!). It was amazing. Even Alfie was struck silent by the spectacle, for a whole few seconds, at least, then it was back to trying to climb into the recue cat pen to say hello to the latest resident, or some other such mischief.
Meanwhile, we were onto the hairdrying stage. Hmmm, knowing how Ailsa still runs a mile as soon as she sees the vacuum cleaner, I didn't think she was going to cope very well with this, but cope she did. In fact, THIS was going down rather well - she closed her eyes and made the most of the attention. I half expected her to start sighing.
After an aborted attempt at nail clipping (one thing the dobermutt won't tolerate)and a bout of ear cleaning (ahh bliss!), we were on to the final stretch: the smelly stuff. Baby powder cologne: the dobermutt had never smelled this good!
More treats for being a good girl, even a few kisses for the groomer (from Ailsa, I hasten to add) and it was time to step out of the grooming parlour and back inside. A job well done, a shiny, sleek and scented doberman and the least stressful bathing session I have ever witnessed. Anita had worked magic. OK, there's barely enough fur on a doberman to make for a miracle 'before and after' type transformation, but magic had definitely been made, in terms of how chilled out the dobermutt was from almost the moment she met her.
Definitely a job well done and I'm sure Anita will be a success in her new career. I'm very happy to recommend her services.
Knowing how much bengals love water, I'm surprised Alfie didn'try to get in the bath with Ailsa, not that he ever needs the grooming treatment. Amber, the mad mainecoon on the other hand...
Published Date:
27/05/2009
Modified Date:
27/05/2009