I'll be keeping my eye out for someone with a kitten to give away, or even sell cheap. As I mentioned earlier, I don't want to go through a shelter because I hate shelters. I'd rather do a private adoption. In a way, I'd like to consider an older cat because they have a much harder time finding a home, and I feel very bad for cats who are abandoned once they have grown past the cute kitten stage that most people are looking for. However, there are a few reasons that I'd rather have a kitten, and the cuteness of kittens has little to do with either of them. Ella put in her time being slapped around by Cutie and Lydia. She deserves to be the Alpha Cat, and I wouldn't feel good subjecting her to another cat who might also want to be the top cat. Older cats come as they are, so it's harder to have an effect on the characteristics or nature of an older cat. Related to the last item, there are also medical issues to consider. An older cat probably wouldn't have been fed the best foods and has probably been pumped full of poisons, in the way of vaccinations and flea-killing chemicals, so I may well get a cat who is old before her time. While I am certainly willing to pay the expense of necessary medical treatment, my practice of feeding them right and not pumping them full of poisons means that these expenses don't come into play until they are in their twenties. It would probably be cheaper for me to take in a kitten and raise her for twenty years than to take in a ten-year-old whose health is already deteriorated.
I haven't kept a tally but I suspect that Ella goes through more toilet paper than I do in the winter.
Ella finds a place she has never been, so she just had to experience what life was like on top of an old telephone. I have to give her points for coordination though. That's a pretty small target to hit on a leap up from the floor. There was a scramble involved though because the noise is what prompted me to go see what she was up to now.
Wow, that's quite a leap! And I can't believe that telephone... what a blast from the past! I had one exactly like that in the late 80's when I was into "old farmhouse" decorating. I bought it at Service Merchandise (oh how I miss that store!!) I dug it out of the attic and gave it to my daughter last year; she said she plugged it in and it still works fine.
I was feeling bad because I forgot to open a can of food for Ella this morning, then I realized that the only reason she's in the habit of getting canned food every day is that she was raised with two older cats who needed the wet food. Normally, I would reserve the canned food as a treat a few times a week. She has premium kibble available to her twenty-four hours a day, plus she gets treats. But, since she has gotten used to premium canned food twice a day, as well, she wouldn't understand if I deprived her of it now.
I know we're on the downside of winter. In the last couple of days, Ella has been staying outside for two hours or more at a time. She returns shaking her paws as if trying to restore circulation. That reminds me of myself when I'd be sledding a half-mile from home until I got too cold, and then have to walk home, carrying the sled. She has had a tough time being cooped up in the house this winter. In past years, she'd go out even in much colder weather than we've had this year but I think she's reached the age where she's not quite that stupid anymore.
It's a couple of degrees above freezing today, but Ella was outside for a couple of hours. I leave the door to our porch ajar for her, with a space heater so that she can warm up. That's actually kind of a safety valve in the event that I forget that she's outside or don't know it, because my wife might let her out the upstairs fire escape window sometimes too. Anyhow, she was out for a couple of hours and was on the other side of the yard when I checked on her. Near the back shed and compost pile, where there are probably critters that she can stalk. She came running when she saw me at the door. I went out to meet her and picked her up so that she didn't have to scramble through the soft snow. She was fine with that, but when I started to carry her into the house, she began to struggle as if her life depended on it. Then, I remembered. In the spring and summer, when she sometimes likes to wander and doesn't always answer my calls, if I have to come looking for her, I carry her into the house and she is grounded for the rest of that day and the next. While this might seem abstract for a cat, they recognize patterns well, and that seems to work. After being kept in the house for the rest of the day, and the next, she doesn't stray for quite a while, and makes a point of answering me immediately, usually even before I call for her. So she, no doubt, associates me carrying her into the house with being grounded, and she knows she came running even before I called for her. So, she wants to walk in that door on her own, confident that she will be able to go out again later. When she doesn't come when I call her, and I have to go find her, she doesn't resist. In this case, however, she knew that I hadn't even called her and she came on her own, and it just wasn't fair that I was going to ground her. I had to back out, set her down, and let her walk in on her own, assured that she was a good kitty.