Hey Friends,

I hope you don’t mind, but I want to deviate from our normal topic, Corel Painter 12.

I admit it.  I’m a “Dog Person.”  They are affectionate to a fault, love to snuggle, look in your eyes always, and seem to give unconditional love.  Cats are a little different.  You guys know that don’t you?  We don’t need to talk cats vs dogs; a cat person loves cats as much as a dog person loves dogs.

If you watch any of the Rose videos, you probably heard me trying to keep my cat off my tablet or out of my arms.  She is so insistent.   That’s right, this died in the wool, hard-nosed dog person has a cat.  How could that happen?  Well, I can tell you it wasn’t my idea.  So here is the story as I described it in one of the comments on the blog.

I had a few cats years ago in my college days, but have always been a dog person. Maggie decided to come live with us; it wasn’t our decision…well…maybe a little. My bird feeders attract the neighborhood and any feral cats. I have always worked on the premise that all creatures are welcome.  The cats and mice have a very stormy relationship as you can imagine.

One day I notice this rabbit hiding under a covered bridge in the side yard. Every time I would step on the bridge the rabbit would hop away very fast. I only caught a glimpse and didn’t see the rabbit very clearly.  Then one day, I saw the rabbit in an open area of the yard.  I know my eyes are not that bad, but the rabbit was not a rabbit. It was Maggie. She doesn’t have a tail, and when she runs she has a gate that looks like a rabbit hop. Poor thing was young, not a new kitten, but close, and she was so skinny. Terrified of me, she would hop away quickly when I came outside.  If I put food out, other critters would get it.  So, from an upstairs window, I could see her when she came to the feeder directly below. I usually have left over chicken or something in the house; I would drop it down to her. She would scatter, but within a few minutes would hop in and grab the loot. She caught on quickly and would come to the window and wait. Sometimes I didn’t have any left overs to drop.  I would open a can of tuna and drop the can to her. She loved that as long as I didn’t hit her.

It was time to meet person to cat.  I walked the food out to her calling “Kitty, Kitty.” By this time I was buying premium cat food in cans for her…expensive stuff for a feral kitty.  She kept her distance, but little by little I could get closer to her.  I could walk out at anytime during the day or night and call “Kitty, Kitty” and she would show up and wait for her food. One night, this was during the summer, I was sitting on the bridge at around midnight. I wondered about my little friend and went back inside for some food. I called and surprisingly she responded. I had the food beside me and was about to leave, but she kept coming toward me and jumped right up next to me and began eating. The action stunned me.  I stroked her and she didn’t mind. After eating, she got in my lap and purred so loudly I was afraid she was going to wake the neighbors. If I wasn’t attached already, I was now.

At this point, I only had one dog…usually have several. Sasha wasn’t all that enamored of cats, so I didn’t think I could bring my friend into the house. So I left Maggie outside; both of us were upset. From that point on, she would come up to see me when I went out. Outside cats do not live as long as inside cats, and I was smitten with this kitty. We did ask around the neighborhood if anyone knew her, but no one knew anything about her.  Convinced she belonged to some little girl confined to a wheel chair, I wanted to return Maggie.  The little girl missed her kitty so much.  Well…tough luck…too bad, I couldn’t stand it any longer and brought Maggie inside. She was very nervous and so was Sasha.

There was no turning back. Maggie, named for Saint Margaret, the Patron Saint of the homeless, doesn’t go outside anymore. She doesn’t ask to go out and will happily watch Sasha go on bathroom breaks from the door.  Of course she has been to the vet and we had a chip implanted. She is a tabby tortoise-shell with some interesting spots. We found out from the vet that the missing tail is natural. I decided that she had a lot of American Bobtail in her. But now I think I am wrong.

Maggie is extremely affectionate and is always with us. She purrs with different sounds…some are similar to a sort of chirp.  I love the funny bunny hop . I was looking at cats on the Web and discovered a Manx. Someone had suggested that she may have Manx in her, but I was still convinced that she was a Bobtail.  I looked up Manx anyway.

Guess what, Manx have different sounding purrs. The article mentioned the chirp. They have a cute bunny hop. And they are extremely affectionate. Maggie even comes when we call her. That was something else about a Manx…they can learn their name. So now I have decided that she has Manx in her. It doesn’t matter; this is the sweetest kitty I have ever met. Sasha and she have become friends. All is good. I guess I need to post her picture since some folks have mentioned her. Don’t I sound like a proud pop.

Maggie standing on the bridge’s bench.

Isn’t she cute!  I wish I had better pictures of her.  I have to work on that.  If you look closely, her right eye seems closed a little.  Well, poor Maggie has herpes in her eye, which has caused a few lesions on her third eyelid.  That did worry me; I wondered if she was contagious and could it be spread to humans or canines.  We took her to a Veterinarian Ophthalmologist in Atlanta.  Don’t y’all dare laugh.  I love Dr. King.  Anyway, she said that she didn’t think the lesions needed removal.  She suggested that we give Maggie Lysine, an amino acid that keeps the herpes virus in her eye dormant.  Some days it does seem to bother her and the eye will weep.  She has gotten used to us wiping her eye with a tissue.  No, I don’t lick it before I wipe her eye like a mother would do.   Don’t you folks laugh at me…I dote on my pets…shoot, I dote on the critters outside, too.

Now, Maggie is a house cat.  She loves the basement and my computer room.  The room doesn’t matter as long as one of us is in it.   Maggie particularly likes to sit on my Wacom Tablet and groom herself.  Or, she is fond of pushing my hand around with her head.  And she really loves to climb into my arms…well one arm.  I can let her curl up on my left arm and use the right for painting.

Comfortably lying nestled into my left arm, which I bend at the elbow and lay across my stomach.

Sorry for the picture quality; I took it with my iPhone.  It is hard to do that and hold Maggie, too.  BTW, she isn’t fat.  She looks fat, but an optical illusion caused by the camera puffs her up considerably.  Look at that sweet face.  How could I possibly make her get down.

She is cutest when she lies back and turns her little head up at me.  I melt.  She can tell me to do anything, and I hop right to it.  Wouldn’t you if you had this face looking up at you?

A face that would melt any heart!

Another iPhone shot that is less than desired.  That is my shirt in the bottom left corner and my arm in the top left corner.  She will turn over on her back wanting her belly rubbed and look up at me with that face.
There you have it; the story of Maggie, the cat that stole this dog person’s heart.

“You haven’t shown a picture of Sasha!  Typical, you forget about me and Sasha in favor of Maggie.”

“Good grief Kevin, you scared me.”  I hate it when he suddenly shows up from his rounds in the bowels of my computer.  Good computer viruses are a pain.

“Good, I’m glad.  Are you going to show Sasha or not.”

“Yes, I had planned to do it, before you rudely interrupted me.”

We got Sasha when she was about 8 weeks old.  It wasn’t planned.  I was doing foster care for one of the shelters in Atlanta.  Sasha and her brother had been found abandoned at a garbage dump.  She and her brother had both been adopted, but for some reason, Sasha’s new family returned her. The shelter sent her to me.  At the time we had two other homeless puppies.  Sasha was a little reserved compared to the other two.

On adoption days, we all “spruced-up”.  We wanted to make the best impression.  Sweet Sasha kept getting past over.  One day, she simply refused to go to adoption day.  She decided that she like it at our house.  I did too, so we kept her.  Then Folger arrived from the shelter.  He decided to stay, too.  So, there was Sasha, Folger, and four golden retrievers that I bred from my champion golden girl.  Unfortunately all are gone now and I think Sasha was very lonely.  Not anymore…she has Maggie as her new friend.

Here is Sasha.  She isn’t as pretty as I painted her and she worries about her looks.  So, I flattered her, which delighted her.

Sasha painter in Corel Painter 11

That’s it for this post.  Now you know the rest of the story of the cat who stole this dog person’s heart.

Good, Kevin didn’t show up; I guess I am really done.

Enjoy,

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