Cardiac the Stray Kitten and Quicksilver the African Grey Parrot
This is Cardiac the stray kitten.
This is Quicksilver the African Grey deciding to go over on the bed near Cardiac the Stray Kitten. Note the feathers standing up. Note Cardiac's focus.
Cardiac made a slight jerk forward. Quicksilver made an almost simultaneous slight jerk forward in response. Cardiac desisted and to prove who was boss, Silver strutted behind her with his feathers puffed out looking LARGE.
Silver gambols back and they stare at each other. As you see, Cardiac is smaller than Silver, which won't be the case for long. Currently he could take her nose off, if she jumped him. She only has milk teeth and her nails though needle like wouldn't do much damage but as they could be coated with the bacteria from her mouth which can cause deadly infections in avian species, we want to develop a kind of no touching mutual respect between the two.
Interestingly Silver did not resort to his usual trick which he uses to cow grown cats. He walks up to them (flying would set off their hunting reflex) and makes a long drawn out angry meow an inch from their faces. The cats look both horrified and completely confused. They retreat to go think about it. Works every time.
Having given Cardiac the first lesson in parrot/kitten detente manners, Silver looks at me and says calmly, "Want up."
I put him on top of his cage where he helps himself to some Nutri-berries.
Being a kitten, Cardiac hasn't much of an attention span for nothing happening. She therefore rolls over and waggles her paws at me. Which as she's exposed her genitals, we'll talk about the conflicting sexing of this kitten. Given two kittens of opposite sexes, I can sex them. When faced with a single kitten
I don't feel completely competent. Therefore I asked a former farm girl
who said that she was female. I then asked a former Humane Society
worker who pronounced her male-- then a former
farm boy, who said female. I myself am leaning toward female. She
goes to the vet for her first visit tomorrow for the final proclamation.
In the meantime, here is a overexposed and enlarged picture of the area in question. Any kitten sexing mavins out there?
Why is kitten named Cardiac?
At times the white spot on her chest can look rather like a heart. And naming her Cupid just seemed completely vapid.
Of course the spot can also look like a fancy chicken- beak left, or alternately a running sheepdog who has just bitten through an electrical cord.
I'm still somewhat open to suggestions.
Back to our inter-species situation--I'd left the room to go eat some lunch and was just picking up my plate to take it to the sink when I heard something fall to the floor in the bedroom. I rushed in, plate and all.
Silver was standing on the dresser having just shoved a bottle of hand lotion off the edge. Cardiac was no where to be seen. My hope was Silver hadn't beaned her with the bottle. (Some of you will remember him sliding a drinking glass off the kitchen counter as an aerial bombardment aimed at Chekhov the Cat.) I sat the plate down on the bed and started looking. Under the bed, no. In the bathroom, no...back to the bedroom...
What should I find but Cardiac and Silver in a stand-off over the remnants of my lunch. Note Silver's expression.
Silver is now giving the cat one of his specie's "slitty eyed looks" which usually mean he's about to get aggressive. He's bullied many a person out of their kornkurls at lunch with that look. It is not working on kitten, though she is keeping an eye on him.
Horrified he watches Cardiac's tongue progress across the plate.
Silver walks over with purpose, crowds the camera, and says,"Mine!" We have a small discussion about shoving things off of furniture.
He isn't impressed and goes for a roll of paper towels on the other side of the bed and begins to tear them up with his beak. An episode of misplaced aggression.
Silver really would like to bite the kitten (or me) but he's been told she's a baby and in his favor when she cries, he does repeat in a very sweet voice, "It's okay. It's okay."
But that was before she appropriated the lunch plate.
Then it happens!
The activity has attracted the cat away from the plate.
Silver walks up close to me again.
Silver then walks away and the kitten has begun to play.
And Silver walks back over to me and says, "Want up".
What actually went on here?
Donegal Browne
Donna, I vote for male--my daughter got a black kitten, told by the owner than it was female--my daughter the long time vet tech believed her and named the cat Cassie. I was playing with her and immediately said--"this cat is a male"! No no Mom--females look like that--the cat's name was changed to Cassio! However, for the baby just learning to talk Cassie is much easier to say--so "he" is still Cassie.
ReplyDeleteIs Pyewacket still on the scene? I do hope so. Our electiojn went a little bad here in California--we lost big on Prop 37--to Label GM foods. Monsonto and Dow poured MILLIONS into a deceptive campaign. We are a big ag state and big Ag famers were really against it.
Betty Jo in CAlifornia
Betty Jo,
ReplyDeleteSounds like you are a dynamite kitten sex-er! I hope you're right. From previous experience with adult female cats, they're much happier when a male cat is introduced to their domain when another female arrives on the scene. Yes, Pywackit is still the Queen of the House and so far hasn't had any interaction with Cardiac. We're waiting for an introduction until Cardiac gets a clean bill of health. Which did not happen today after all as the vet had a farm emergency he had to attend to.
I hadn't heard that Prop 37 lost. That's bad for California and bad for the rest of us as well. As you well know, we have no way of knowing how those genetically modified foods will affect people down the line. People should at least be allowed the labeling information so they can choose for themselves. It's a shame that once more, big corporate money isn't allowing us to make our own decisions.
I saw the list of companies that funded the against Prop 37 ads. This is not complete: Monsanto, General Mills, Conagra, Cargill, Pepsico, Kraft, Coke, Post, Unilever, Ocean Spray, Nestle, Campbell Soup, Land O'Lakes, Dupont, Hershey's.
ReplyDeleteOcean Spray! Unbelievable. I guess I'm going to have to hope my lingonberry plants hurry up and produce berries. And I'm switching from Campbell's soups to Amy's.
I thhink we took the wrong approach on Prop 37--all the folks involved thought it would pass easily--after all this is California! However Monsanto and Big Ag poured probably close to $50 million into scaring people about food prices and the usual BS that it was poorly worded.
ReplyDeleteRight to know what is in our food is important the FDA labeling law accknowledges that. But GM is much much more than health--social, environmental and economic. We already know those costs. Monsanto has a Mission statement that they want to control 95% of the world's seeds by 2020 and they are well on their way--purchasing distressed small seed companies and dicontinuing Hierloom seeds.Comstoc and Ferre--the oldest operating seed company in the US (Conn.) recently went on the chopping block and was purchased by the fabulous Baker Seeds--thanks to a great seedsman--Jere Gettle.
BTW--a place where we bird has a pond and we have counted 12 Black Crowned Night Herons--so beautiful--many of them are juveniles
Betty Jo
I agree, male. See those two tiny bulges under that little round thing? I think those will be balls. With a girl, you just get a tiny slit under the anus. But I had a friend who had a hermaphrodite cat. THAT was interesting. Vet opened her up to spay, no uterus, but no male genitalia either. Very unusual to have such a birth defect in a cat.
ReplyDeleteThanks Anon! Wonderful description with info on kitten sexing. :)
ReplyDeleteNow you have me wondering just what the percentage of hermaphrodites is in various species, including humans.
Anyone up for a little research?