Reflections on Cat Personalities

In the 20 years I have been here on the farm we have had 3 cats: Matilda for 16 years, Smudge for almost 5 years and now Chica for just a month.

This was Matilda.  Her mom was a stray who had her kittens behind a stack of old tires in Gary's red building.

It was fun to watch Mama cat raise her kittens and teach them how to hunt.  She'd bring grasshoppers or frogs to them to teach them hunting skills.

We gave away Matilda's siblings and Mama disappeared, much to my heartbreak.  Matilda was about 3 months old when her mom disappeared, but she kept her early hunting lessons close to heart.  She was an outside cat at heart.  She spent much of her time in the hay barn curled up high on the hay bales.  In winter she became an inside cat and loved to curl up in my lap, but come warm spring days she'd be outside and not come in for days.  I'd feed her on the porch.  But often she wouldn't eat what I left out because she caught her own.  We rarely had any sort of rodent or rabbit trouble at all.  And she wouldn't bring her prey to the porch either.  On occasion we'd find a stray rat tail or the back end of a frog out near a path.  As she got older though, she quit hunting so much.

She was our only cat til she was about 15.  Then 2020 came with the pandemic and the shutdown.  Ellen was stuck at home and Gary and I decided a kitten would be a good distraction.

So here came Smudge:

We got her from a rescue just south of Buffalo.  I love this cat, but I will be much more selective of where I get my kittens from now on.  For one thing, she was raised strictly inside, so she has little hunting skills.  For another there were two ornery kids there.  Smudge does not like to be held and is very intolerant of even being petted much, she bites after just a pet or two.  It might be her personality, but I strongly suspect she was handled roughly by the kids.  

Smudge has also had numerous health issues.  At the moment she's on antibiotics for some sort of ulcers in her mouth.  She has had eye issues.  Her biggest issue now is her size.  All she wants to do is eat and sleep.  She goes outside, but does nothing more than wander around and then come back in and sleep.  I have rationed her food to 1/2 cup of kibble per day, plus a bit of canned food.  But even then she is growing and growing seems like.  She was up to 16 pounds in July.  

Yesterday at the vet's office she weighed 15, and her glucose was high.  The vet said stress can cause a high glucose reading.  But said she needs to lose weight any way due to risk of becoming type 2.  So we've got to get serious about cutting carbs and not giving treats.  

Now we have Chica.

She, obviously, is cut from a much different feline cloth than Smudge. This picture was taken here last week when she was on her second or 3rd outing.  She just fluffed up and took a flying run straight up the tree.  Haha.

We are not sure how old she is, I'm guessing she's close to 3 months now.  But she LOVES to be outside.  She BEGS to be let out when Smudge goes out.  I'd guess she was only a bit less than 2 months old when I found her abandoned in the hay shed.  I don't know if her mom had even started teaching them to hunt yet.  But Chica is a fervent fly hunter, just chatters her teeth at them and chases them all over the house.  I am hoping and praying she will be a good little hunter and will stay away from the road.  

I just found it so interesting that being raised outside even for her first couple of months formed her little personality to prefer the outdoors, to being a little hunter already.  

She's already a lap cat.  When she's through terrorizing the house with her zoomies, she will clamber up into the closest available lap, even Gary's, and settle down for a snooze. We've already become so attached to her.