Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Meet Ash and Mist
They’re sisters, supposedly, but not in temperament. Here’s Mist, a cool cat who likes to hide in black plastic garbage bags:
Ash, on the other hand, hasn’t quite come to terms with being a kept kitty.
Jake calls her Vashj (a World of Warcraft character), but we’re calling her Ash, short for Ashtaroth, and also the name of Bruce Campbell’s character in the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movies. Ashtaroth is essentially Ishtar, without the connotation of “movie that bombed.” Look at the claws on this cat:
She has clawed Jake once. I picked her up and she extended her stilettos, drawing blood. An impressive show of force, I must admit.
I know, I know: how dare we rename Le Ogress’s precioussssses. Tough.
D.
Great pictures! Ash looks like she can do some damage with those claws. I recommend the Soft Paws nail covers. The nail covers may save some of Jake’s flesh and will definitely save your furniture.
Mist looks like our Midnight, and Ash looks a little like our Sparky. Tell Jake to pick her up supporting her bottom, not by the “armpits”. Bonnie has those nail covers on her cat; they don’t last and have to be replaced every so often (not sure how often), but they will save your being scratched and your furniture. Ash looks scared to death. Give them some time. Ash has nice markings. How old are they?
Soft Paws, eh? I’ll have to see if we have those around here.
I discovered that they demand their food moistened. I recalled Le Ogresse mentioning this, and tried it out on them this afternoon. Big success. They’re warming up . . . slowly.
To me, they look to be about six months old. According to Le Ogresse’s records, they were older, but she didn’t think the age sounded right.
It may be that Ash just doesn’t like being picked up. My Luna is 4 or 5, and still hates it – bites and growls when I do it. Brit, on the other hand, loves it – and she’s 13.
Trim those claws regularly and they’ll do less damage. 🙂
Stamper’s right – support her on the bottom with one hand while the other is under her chest or holding her against your chest and she’ll feel much more secure. It takes a few days for them to adjust.
I love the idea of those soft claws. If Perry hadn’t been declawed before she defected from next door I’d be investigating them too.
I had lots of cats growing up – now we’re a two dog family, lol. We live in a village with lots of car traffic, so a cat would be in constant danger, and I just can’t bear the thought of an indoor cat. I used to live on a farm, and that’s a nice place for cats. They were great ratters and I can’t believe the lady at the humans society equated mouse catching with work – cats Love to hunt!
Ash: Good, bad, she’s the one with the claws!
Pretty cats, Doug.
Nice pix. I like these names better, too. Is there a story behind “Mist” as well?
Ashtaroth makes me think of Bedknobs and Broomsticks rather than Evil Dead, but what do I know? 😉
noxcat: trim their claws? Maybe when they’re a bit less spooked. Or maybe we’ll let the vet do it 😉
Will do, Leslie. Jake got used to holding one of his cats that way (Tolerance, who was true to his name) but I’ll make sure he changes his ways.
Thanks, Mary Stella. Darla, I think “Mist” is another World of Warcraft name — I like it because it seems appropriate to her coloration, and it sounds nice, too.
Yes, it does. As long as you’re not speaking German, that is.
It’s really not hard to trim a cat’s claws. Just hold them securely in your lap, press on the pad of their paws to make the claws extend, and then clip off the sharp ends. You don’t need to cut them very short to make them much less sharp. But yeah, you probably wouldn’t want to do that the first week.
You mean Ash, right? I’m not familiar with a German pejorative that sounds like Mist.
We’ll try the claws when they calm down a bit.
[…] No good deed . . . By Walnut After hearing the diagnosis, I had a sit-down with Mist, our new black cat. I would have asked Ash, but I couldn’t get anything out of her but the F-bomb. […]
[…] Kitties (redux)! By Walnut As you may recall, we had Ash and Mist for all of about three days before we had to bring them into the vet for an herpetic eye infection. Since they wouldn’t let us medicate them (well, they would, but they each required a blood sacrifice from us prior to each dosage), we boarded them at our animal hospital and let them take the brunt of Kitty Wrath. […]