shelter rescue cat | Savannah's Paw Tracks

28 Jun 2012

Practicise, Practise, Practise…

I’ve been thinking, and I am gonna try to get ready to enter one of the upcoming Cat-O-Lympic events!! YES!! Gettin’ more and more confident!!

But I know, it will take Practice, Practice, Practice!!!

So I am not much of a jumper, I kind’a don’t like getting all 4 paws off the floor at one time. But I may try for that. The one I think I might be good at is the Smackdown Event, except I don’t know what that is…hmmmm…so I think that’s the one I’ll go for!

So, I follow Leader Otis’ blog, The Blog of Otis. And he and his Brothers Oliver and Henry are training for their own in-house catlympics which they do in October.

Leader Otis was very impressed with Mama Cat’s prowess (vocab builder)…so much so that he asked Mama Cat to train the limbo kitties for his Catlympics. I am so impressed with her training mantra, Watch, Anticipate, Act, that I had to try it myself.

Watch means to focus on the bird, know the bird; Anticipate means get ready for where it will go next; and Act means use the kill strike, smack it down, and also requires that you must have the appropriate ‘kill’ face on when you act.

That’s what I am working on now. Last night was my first workout with Mom handling the training Flying Bird.

I do my work mostly from the floor…but I get pretty good leverage given I have very well developed gluts (that’s butt muscle for the uninformed).

….now I am practicing WATCH…good eye focus on the bird…can ya see that???…

…now the bird moves and I ANTICIPATE where it is going and prepare my body for the next move…can ya see my ‘anticipation’???…(no, not the song sillies…the mood…)…and can ya see I’m startin’ to get my ‘kill’ look going too???

…ACT!!!! Check out that ‘KILL’ face!!! Nice, huh?!…except I missed the bird!!..OH MY CAT!!!…how embarrassing….

But…this was just my first training session, and like I said…Practice, Practice, Practice…

hhhmmmmmm…I wonder if I should find out what that Cat-O-Lympic event Smackdown really is???…maybe I need another training routine!!!

I guess I could at least enter the Competitive Napping…I do that one really good…hmmmm…off for Practice, Practice, Practice for that event now….zzzzzzzzzzz

Paw pats, Savannah

26 Apr 2012

11 Comments

A Cat is a Cat…And That is That!

Hiya everyone…I’ve been hesitant to talk about this subject but it is related to my recovery process…I have steps to work through and one of them is talking about my disappointment in how peeps project their peeps’ issues onto us shelter cats. There, I’ve said it.

So here’s what happened…I read something on Mom’s computer screen….oh, uumm no…she didn’t know I was behind her…

What??!! Oh, oh, I see…YOU didn’t even know I could read, huh?/!! Welllll…oh yee of little faith in the intelligence of us cats!!

Anyways…I read some stuff about what people had said about me when I was a shelter cat and it kind’a hurt my feelings.

Here is why. We are cats, not people. So it isn’t helpful when people see a cat being stand off’ish, hiding lots, growling, hissing…or whatever…and call that animal things like “grouchy, mean, nasty, unfriendly, etc.”. We don’t feel those emotions, people do…but if we are behaving anything less than approachable…it is for these reasons primarily…

1. We are terrified, scared, afraid

2. We are hurt, sick, uncomfortable physically

3. We are so stressed from too many changes in our circumstances we have become depressed and withdrawn

4. People taught us not to trust them

That’s it. We don’t get mad…we get scared and THEN become aggressive to protect ourselves from what we fear may harm us.

Just ‘cuz I had my ears kind’a flat…folks thought I was “mad”…are you kidding…I put my ears like that when I am waiting for Mom and Dad to pet me OR when I am thinkin’ if I want to be touched…but I am not “MAD”

I hid at the shelters ‘cuz I was scared and I was hurting lots of the time ‘cuz I had a bladder infection no one knew about…when I was finally with Mom and Dad, and an only cat, they discovered the truth about my health…and took care of it. But I was never “grumpy or mean”…I just hurt.

So I am just asking people to not assume that we cats feel their type of complex emotions. We are concerned with food, shelter, safety, health, no pain, trust. If you see a cat at a shelter who is standoffish, or even growling or hissing–don’t assume that cat is “unfriendly, mean, angry” (those are people emotions)

…it is probably terrified, hurt, sick. Or, it might be depressed at not having had a kind touch in a long time. Those of us who are not feral have known the kind touch of someone at sometime in our lives. And we are domesticated and so we miss being touched with love and kindness.

A Cat is a Cat…and we all hope for a “forever home” of our own…just sayin’…ya might wanna check out the Nine Deadly Sins my blog pal Otis, Cult of Otis, talks about on his blog. Especially when he talks about being able to experience the True Spirit of a cat.

Hope I didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings ‘cuz I was just trying to move through my recovery steps…thanks for the read. Paw Pats, Savannah

This was my intake photo at the county shelter…and no…I wasn’t “mad or ticked off”…I was terrififed…