Bootsie Boots Photos

Recent photos of Boots.

Boots squishing his face

Bootsie paws

Boots

Bootsie eyes

 

Fo’ shame

 

 

 

The Comfort of Paws

This morning, Boots awoke me at 4am meowing with crazies.  I got up and gave him some water drips from the bathroom tub faucet.  When I got back into bed, Icarus decided he wanted to bunny kick my hand.  And attack me every time I moved under my quilt.  I had difficulty falling back to sleep.

Icarus decided he wanted to wrap his front paws around my arm and give me more bunny kicks to my hand.  I started to pet his belly and head.  Seemed to work, because he settled down into a kitten slumber.  When Icarus fell asleep, his paws were still wrapped around my arm.

The multi-colored fleshy pads were cool against my skin.  We slept with the windows open last night, so the bedroom was cool around 4:30-5:00am.  A chilly breeze reminiscent of early October wafted through the screens.  It was the perfect sleeping weather.  And Icarus’ paws helped me fall back to sleep.

Maybe it’s just me.  There’s something about paws that relaxes me.  I love kitty paws (claws intact, thank you).  Sometimes cats get sensitive about people touching their paws, but I try to get in the habit of touching my cats paws daily.  The more familiar they are with me handling their “fingers” and “toes,” the easier it is for me to trim their claws!

Sometimes Castiel, Prometheus, or Ishtar put their paws in my hand and fall asleep that way (and sometimes I do, too).  I don’t know.  Something about holding a cat’s paw just relaxes me.

Boots Paw

Lazy Sunday

It is okay for my kitties to wake me up out of a dead sleep at 5:00Am to be fed.  But as soon as I try to wake them from a mid-afternoon slumber, I’m about to get my eyes clawed out.  My name is Colleen and I have fat, lazy cats.

Ishtar passed out

Prometheus stretched out on the bed

This is how Boots rolls – in the window sill.

 

 

New Friends

The past few weeks have been quite busy, and, regretfully, I have been unable to post.

My niece and nephew visited this week from Hawaii.  I hadn’t seen them in 4 years, so I was shocked to see how much they’ve grown.  Gorgeous children!  Three out of five of the cats they knew from their last visit have crossed the Rainbow Bridge.  Josie was quite sad.  However, she was delighted to make some new feline friends this week.

Boots

Tuesday evening Josie visited our kitties.  My sis is allergic to cats, so Josie can’t have a cat of her own.  So, she was able to get out some love for kitties she bottled up over the years.  Boots was the first to greet her.  I knew he would be.  He mewed at her and rubbed his head against her hand.  She was little nervous at first, but I gave her a quick lesson on feline body language and she relaxed.  At one point Boots rolled over and showed his belly.  Josie was so excited.  She said, “Aunt Colleen!  Look!  Boots loves me now!”

Castiel

Castiel ran back and forth a few times through the apartment.  When he saw there wasn’t anything to be nervous about, he relaxed around Josie.  Castiel kept giving her headbutts and rubbing against her leg, purring.  Once Josie and Castiel were friends, she moved on to the next cat.

Pandora loved Josie.  She rolled around on the bathroom rug begging Josie for bellyrubs.  Pandora is very affectionate with people, but not so much with other cats.  Josie gave her lots of pets and some water drips from the bathtub.  Pandora was in heaven!

Prometheus hid.  Yes, he hid.  Of all the cats, I thought he would be one of the outgoing ones.  Propro proved me wrong.  He saw her enter the living room and wobble-ran to the bedroom.  He stayed under there with Ishtar for most of the evening.

Orlox couldn’t really have been bothered.  He let her pet him, gave her a couple of headbutts, then walked away for a nap.

Josie – in kitty gear

Icarus was frightened at first.  However, once Josie got the laser pointer out, he was her best friend.  Prometheus came out a couple of times when he heard Icarus playing with Josie, but once he saw Josie, he went back under the bed.  Icarus let Josie hold him and sat on her lap for a while!

Ishtar stayed under the bed while Josie was around.  She seemed content there when I checked on her.  I knew she would be nervous.

The next couple of days, Josie came downstairs to our apartment to play with our cats.  They were used to her by yesterday (her last day in this area of NJ) and all of them except Ishtar came out to say hello to her.

Wednesday morning my mom, Josie, and Marquis came to the START II shelter to see the animals.  Jodi and I made sure that they were only interacting with very friendly cats and dogs.  Houdini absolutely loved Josie.  He put his paws on her shoulders and gave her kisses on her face!  He then tried to make himself cozy in her lap, but she wasn’t sitting correctly for optimal lap time.

I introduced Josie to Wobbles (April).  She said that Wobbles’ story was so sad.  Wobbles loved the attention from Josie.  She was flopping around in her cage, purring like a motorboat, and giving lots of kisses!  Josie said, “All she wants is to be loved.  You should adopt her, Aunt Colleen, because you would take good care of her.  You take really good care of your cats and you love your cats.  And she needs a good home and lots of love.”

During lunch yesterday, Josie told Ron what she said to me.  We’ll see if we have a new addition to the family in the coming weeks.

It’s All In The Details

I admit, I’ve got some silly looking cats.  Of course, they’re all beautiful to me, but I wasn’t attracted to their looks during adoption.  My cats won me over with their personality.  Over the years, I’ve found little details about their physical appearance that I absolutely love.  Next to their personality, theses are my favorite features.

Castiel:

Our monkey-faced cat, Castiel, is the happiest cat in the world.  On his front paws, he has tiny black spots, where the toes are.  I love this little detail in his coat.  He’s got some pretty big paws, so Castiel shows off the black spots quite nicely.

 

Ishtar:

Ishtar has a gorgeous brown and black marble pattern that has a serpentine appearance when she moves.  However, that’s not my favorite detail.  Ishtar has a splotch of white around her mouth and nose.  This is my favorite part of her coat.  She doesn’t have white anywhere else.  Only on her face.  It looks like she ate a powdered donut.

 

Orlox:

Orlox is a lean, mean, purring machine.  His coat is becoming flecked with gray hairs as he gets older.  I have never seen a cat’s nose shaped like Orlox’s, and that his my favorite feature about him.  His face reminds me of a bat, especially his muzzle.   I like to think that it is his own unique quality.

 

Pandora:

Pandora has the most extraordinary eyes.  Yes, they’re blue, and they work wonderfully with her coat.  If you get really close to her and have a staring contest, then you can observe the real beauty in her eyes.  The pattern of the iris is like marble at the bottom of a reflecting pool – light bouncing webs of light.  Stare too long and you can easily find yourself shipwrecked.

 

Boots:

In general, Boots is a beautiful cat.  His fiery coat and pattern remind me of solar flares.  His best feature is his huge head.  I’ve met a few big-headed cats in my time, but Boots’ head, well, it’s pretty large.  It is one of the first things you notice.  And comment on.  I remember seeing him come into the shelter for the first time.  I turned to the shelter manager and said, “My, oh my!  That cat’s got a big head!”  Ron and I tell him he has a head shaped like a boot… although I don’t quite understand what that means.

 

Prometheus:

Everything about Prometheus is “special.”  He’s got special eyes, walks with a special swagger, and has a special tail.  My favorite detail about Prometheus is the mark of white that runs from his lower lip into his neck.  It looks like he dribbled milk.  I think it’s the cutest thing.

 

Icarus:

Icarus’ face is especially silly looking to me.  So much so, that he doesn’t really look like a normal cat.  His face is skinny (he have fabulous cheek bones!) and his muzzle is long and boxy.   However, I love that he looks like he is wearing black eyeliner on his left eye.  But it’s a mish-mash job at best.  The black along the lower lid of Icarus’ eye only marks half the lid, while the other half is pink.