Raffles

I'm very pleased to be able to share Kass' progress reports on our pal Ronny:

Ronny aka "Raffles"  

April 24, 2012

Hello to both of you,

Elegant, Urbane Raffles

Just a progress report on the handsome cat.  He has absolutely blossomed in the last few days.  He is no longer bolting away when I come into the room, he actually leaves about half of his food for later consumption and is totally enamored of Mimi.  She is treating him like a pesty little brother, they do cuddle and the cat races commence around 5:30 am until 7:00 am and again at around 8:00 pm until bedtime.  He is just the most affectionate little guy and I am enjoying him very much.  He has amassed a healthy collection of tinfoil balls although I am not sure where he is stashing them, he has also realized that “they come from the kitchen” and if you sit and meow a new tinfoil ball is forthcoming from the magic drawer.  I have installed some sturdy netting around the patio so that he can’t wobble off the edge although he is not terribly interested in going outside, he has a quick look and comes right back in the house, perhaps over time he will relax a little and realize that no one will hurt him out there.  So, I hope that the girls are not missing him too much, I truly wish I could have taken all three of them together but Mimi just wouldn’t have made that big an adjustment, I am actually surprised at how far she has come in such a short time as she found the wobble a bit disconcerting at first but as she is also a very affectionate little being I am glad they are adjusting so well.

By the way, how is Leonard?  I also particularly enjoyed reading about “Lemon”!

Regards,

Kass

 

Raffles, the Gentleman Cat

Raffles the Gentleman Cat

April 27, 2012 

Hi,

I would post to your blog but I don't remember the login I set up.  A couple of pictures of the most handsome fellow and one of Mimi.   He has really settled in and he and Mimi are roaring around like maniacs!  The latest and best game is to hide under the couch and ambush whomever strolls by, Raffles (formerly Ronnie) has taken to peering under there every time he walks into the room, he is one smart boy but Mimi still gets him, she waits until he has looked, scoots under the other side and grabs him after he has confirmed a “no Mimi” sighting.  I thought they were going to bring the place down last night – downstairs neighbor is being very tolerant of thundering herds of cats hitting walls and knocking things over all at 130 MPH.  Raffles loves the footstool, he is particularly taken with the crystals as they make quite a good noise when you pull on them either one at a time or as a group (which you can do from the top or even better lying underneath, the fringe has the added benefit of being on all four sides so you can entertain yourself endlessly.  I can’t imagine life without him.

ps.  regards to Leonard

Kass 

Beautiful Big Sister, Mimi

 

 

 

 In the 1890's, author E.W. Hornung created the character of Arthur J. Raffles, as a response to the stories written by his brother-in-law, Arthur Conan Doyle about a consulting detective named Sherlock Holmes.

Raffles is a noted cricketer who has become popular in the higher circles of English society for his athletic prowess. This gains him many invitations to the homes and celebrations of the wealthy and important, who are unaware of Raffles' true sphere of interest - A.J. Raffles is also a cat burglar.

Clever, charming, quick of hand and sure of step, Raffles is an elegant rogue with his own peculiar code of ethics. He is an accomplished thief of hearts, loyalties and of other items of varying value. His stories were published in the collections, The Amateur Cracksman, The Black Mask, A Thief in the Night, and in the novel, Mr.Justice Raffles.

My buddy, Ronny the Rocket, has chosen "Raffles" as his new name. I think it suits him to a tee.

The New Ronny

Ronny has become a new cat in the last two months. He has been working out.

He and his sister Rena have discovered a new, favourite toy. It is a ball made of the foil lining from a package of cigarettes, and Ronny, in particular, will chase it until he is breathless and exhausted. I don't know when he started smoking.

When our friend Maria Soroski went out to Abbotsford to move him and his sisters, she complained about how much trouble it was catching the two fat ones. They had been habituating the parking lot of the McDonald's there, begging french fries from tender-hearted, soft-headed patrons of that franchise, and perhaps they were something other than svelte.

The best result of this new exercise programme is that they are no longer the fat ones. The meat on Rena's still slightly big bones has turned into hard, solid muscle, and Handsome Ronny has become a lean, mean, felleen machine. He is so pleased with himself that he has almost entirely forsaken wobbling in favour of a proud, leonine strut.

He will spend hours at a time, bounding down our long, carpeted hallway in pursuit of his magical, silver sphere. After each run, he will either return the ball to the person who threw it for him, or will carry it to Rena, so the two of them can enjoy a rousing game of Wobbly Cat Soccer together. When the game is finished, our good little lad always remembers to put their toy away in its traditional storage place...under the kitchen stove.

Their sister, Reba the Diva, was adopted last month by a very nice lady who has just emailed to inform us that her beautiful new cat has a bit of a hearing loss. In truth, we never noticed, but I'm pretty sure that Ronny's hearing is fine. It is certainly acute enough to summon him back from the parallel universe to which bored cats go whenever I creak and groan down onto the floor to peer under the stove with my flashlight.

My own hearing is acute enough to perceive his evil, little chuckle.

Ronny had his own date earlier this week. A lady named Kass came over to meet him to see if he would make a good companion for her eight year-old Mimi. I am protective of our foster cats, so I was determined to dislike her on first meeting. She stayed and she visited for about forty-five minutes. As much as I tried, and as critical as I wanted to be, I'm ashamed to say that I couldn't find anything wrong with her.

Kass has now paid the fee, signed the papers, and she will be coming to collect her big handsome kitten on Friday morning.

Ronny has been a joy to foster, and we will miss him. I think that Kass, and maybe even Mimi, will come to love the great, clumsy, good-hearted lug, and they will spoil him as rotten as he deserves. Kass is already telling her friends and neighbours about our beautiful Rena and la Bella Bianca, so they may follow him out our door soon.

Thank God we still have Leonard!

The Full Ronny

Eight and Fifty

Time, as I have observed previously, is just one thing after another. So it is for all things, and so it has been with me.

I am a lad from the wilds of East Vancouver; I have never travelled very far away, and have always been impatient to return. I am fifty-eight years old today.

When I grow up, I would like to be taller.

Places, events and people have taken up space in the files of my memory that might be better used otherwise, but the honest fact is that I've chosen to save them there because of what they mean or have meant to me. I don't know for certain that I would change a single one of them - well perhaps one or two...

When I'm feeling particularly ancient and cranky I'll tell the younger among you that you are spoiled; that when I was your age we didn't have the things that you have now. When I was a boy, we had fire and stone tools - and we had to make them ourselves! Then, I will inform you that my first computer was a flat rock and a burnt stick. In my day, I might say, matters of the heart were determined with a club, and I still get headaches.

Another honest fact is that this trip has not been particularly strange, nor does it seem especially long. It always amazes me to wake in the morning and see somebody who looks like our friend in the top left corner laughing back at me from the bathroom mirror. Who in the hell invited him to this party?

You, however, were invited today, and I will ask that you bring me gifts.

I will post a link to my FaceBook wall below. You may leave my presents there. Among the acceptable offerings are photos, quotes, stories and music. If you see a picture that reminds you of me, know of some words that might brighten our day, a tale that might gladden our hearts, or a song that will bring a tear to our collective cheek, please share them there.

If you can think of something that you believe I need to know, or if you feel that my arrogant, intrusive, yet strangely handsome nose needs a bit of a tweak, go for it. If you feel the need to go for it more than once, kicking me after I'm already down is perfectly acceptable today.

What I would like most from you is a day filled with the music that you like and think that I would enjoy too. Remember, though, that I still haven't forgiven Carly Simon for writing that song about me...

Please be extremely well.

Please click here to place your tributes

Big Stick Diplomacy

"Speak softly and carry a big stick;" advised Theodore Roosevelt, "you will go far."

Leonard has arrived. He is five months old, and he was trapped a few weeks ago at a Burnaby lumber yard. His left front paw had been injured, and was so badly damaged that it needed to be amputated. The amputation is pretty radical. His arm is gone from the mid-shaft of his humerus, and he holds his stump so tightly against his chest that it sometimes looks as if it is missing at the shoulder.


At the moment, he is living in a big cage on the floor of our living room, and he will remain there until he has grown a little more comfortable here. Leonard, you see, is frightened and angry. Mostly, I think, he is angry.

He's been through a great deal in his short, hard life, and he holds me personally responsible for all of the terrible things that have happened to him so far. I have given him my assurance that we are going to be best buddies one day, but he's not buying it yet. Leonard regards me as the face of his oppressor, and has given me fair warning that there's nothing that he would enjoy more than to tear that face away and feast upon the warm flesh beneath.

Although my proximity is not appreciated and my presence hasn't been invited, I am permitted to enter his room on occasion. I may straighten his bedding, police his litter box, and certainly, I am allowed to present his food four times a day.

Our five other cats get individual saucers overflowing with tinned cat food twice a day. Leonard gets tiny dollops of raw, ground meat for each of his four meals. Ronny and Bianca have noticed that he gets fed more frequently than they do, and have expressed their opinion that the system is flawed. While he accepts that it is not something that he can do for himself, Leonard comments on the quality of my service with hisses, spits and low, grownup growls.

I've been told that mealtimes are the best times to socialise feral cats...this is where the Big Stick comes in.

Over the years, the Tall Lady and I have bought numerous cat toys. Most of them are still in immaculate condition, since the cats prefer to play with empty cereal boxes, toilet paper tubes and Sheral's knitting. Some of those toys are attached to long, plastic wands. One morning, when Leonard was enjoying his breakfast of smashed beast, I tried to stroke him with one of those big sticks.

Quite understandably, Leonard was appalled, but he resumed his meal, underscoring his dinner music with throaty rumbles. I continued with this experiment for another couple of meals, until I thought it was safe to try something new.

Yesterday, I left the wand behind when I gave Leonard his dinner. When I thought he was settled and distracted enough, I reached in with my left hand, and began to pet him. At first, there was a loud, sharp report, like a kitten exploding. The angry growl came next, as the poor, startled, little cat tried to slap me with his missing left paw. Finally, he grabbed onto me with his right paw, and sank his sharp, little feline canines as deeply as they could go into my offending appendage, while calling me every dirty name he could remember, as well as a few that he'd just made up. He growled, he clawed, he scratched and he howled. While he never let down his defenses completely, he did relax a little, and he eventually returned to his meal, while I kept on stroking his back.

Note to the Tall Lady - we are going to need a new oven mitt...

Our friend Lilian has suggested that we change his menu to something a little less...macho. She has offered to make him little quiches, watercress sandwiches [without crusts], or fairy cakes with pink icing and candy sprinkles. I think it'll just take time for him to trust us.

Last night, my nephew Dave reminded me of the MacPherson Clan motto, which is this: "Touch Not the Cat Bot a Glove". "Bot" means "without". I've been getting the same message from our new foster kid.

Perhaps Leonard is already family.

Waiting for Leonard

Our apartment is in chaos tonight. The Flying Fellini Sisters, Bianca and the Weebles are racing in as many different directions as five cats can run, in a state of perfect terror...The Cage has returned!

Now, Ronny and Rena have never seen the cage before, but if it frightens Aunty Xena and Aunt Brie, that's enough to discourage them! And it does no good to explain to them that I'm just making up the spare room, because we are Waiting for Leonard.

The Tall Lady was busy packing for her trip to the Cabin when Mickey phoned us last night. Once again, Sheral tells us that she is going up to prune fruit trees and to check on the house, but the cats and I suspect that she's just going to eat quiche, drink zinfandel and watch chick flicks with her mom and sister.

Mickey is the foster manager for VOKRA, and she was calling to ask if we had room in the CatHouse for one more resident. We were, of course, perfectly free to say no. After two and a half years, Mickey has gotten to know us pretty well. WE DON'T SAY "NO"!

A few weeks ago, some of our volunteers trapped a very small black and white kitten at a Burnaby lumber yard. Because one of our old-timers, Leonard, had just died, the little fellow was named in his honour. The poor kitten is now known to all and sundry as "Baby Leonard"...uggh!. They noticed that one of his front paws was injured. In fact, it was so badly damaged, that it's had to be amputated. So, Baby...uggh!... Leonard has been living at Karen Duncan's House for the past month, wearing a lampshade, and getting analgesic injections in his skinny little cat butt.

Tonight, as if he hasn't been through enough already, he has returned to the vet, to have his stitches removed, and to be deprived of a couple of his other favourite body parts. Mickey tells us that he can be a little bit grumpy. If I'd gone through what he has, I think that I might tend to be a mite owly myself.

Leonard gets his parole at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, and will be moving into the halfway house soon afterwards. We'll have to keep him isolated until we've seen how the bigger cons treat him. Ronny is such a perfect gentleman, and Bianca has come to love every cat she's ever met. Rena is a wild card, and as for Xena and Brie - good luck, Leonard! I think that, once he learns to duck, he'll be fine.

After he's been with us for awhile, and before Sheral comes home, I was thinking that there should be some sort of a bonding ceremony in honour of ...uggh!...Baby Leonard. Maybe I'll put on some Pink Floyd, break out the catnip and a few cold ones, and all seven of us could get legless one evening.

What do you think?

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Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue Association,

please click here

Weebles

Ronny

 Little Mister Perfect, Schroeder the Rafter Kitten, didn't stay at our house for very long. He was here for ten days, and generated a long lineup of interested adopters vying for his favours. The couple who came to see him first rushed over to VOKRA Command Central, also known as Karen Duncan's House, signed his papers and returned to pick him up in less than an hour. The carrier that the four of us loaded him into still had its price tag and manufacturer's stickers attached to it. Our little, delightful thirteen-ball cat left us with no trouble, no complaint, and without so much as a backward glance...ungrateful little troll...


Before he came to live with us, there had been talk of us fostering three kittens who had been trapped at a busy McDonald's parking lot in Abbotsford, where they had been hustling french fries.

The three kittens are wobblers. Their mother was sick while she was carrying them, and it caused a condition called cerebellar hypoplasia in the three little ones, which also goes by the distasteful, and politically incorrect name of spastic cat syndrome.

We hesitated about fostering them. For one thing, they were already seven months old when we met them, and kittens that age are frequently very timid and hard to tame. Also, there are three of them, and one wobbly kitten takes a lot of attention sometimes.

Rena

 So, when Schroeder abandoned us [the little stinker], the Tall Lady and I reconsidered the Fry Guys. Maybe we could handle just one of them. We had, after all, provided a foster home for a CH kitten once before, and as you have read here previously, we have a soft spot still for the Remarkable Lemon. Yup, one wobbly cat would probably be just fine.

When you come to think about it though, two cats aren't a lot more trouble than one. Kittens tend to be a bit less shy when they bring a buddy to their new home, and these poor little waifs probably had enough to deal with already. Dropping one of them alone into unfamiliar territory would just be mean. We thought that we could handle two.

Of course, it wasn't that long ago that we had eleven cats here in our two-bedroom apartment. Two wobbly kittens couldn't possibly be the logistical nightmare that turned into! Why, even if we decided to foster all three of them...well, you see where I'm going with this, don't you?


Sheral brought all of them home fifteen days ago. As soon as the kennel door was open, one long, black and white streak made for the safety of the hollow behind our sofa. Wobbler he may be, but Runaround Ronny is a credible sprinter when circumstances demand it.

Ronny is our shy boy. He spent his first three days here hiding in the closet in our office, phoning out once in awhile for room service. His walk is the most compromised of the three. He stumbles and he staggers when he's distracted, and he can still be startled when you reach for him suddenly. With his magnificent black sideburns, he looks like Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, but he walks like a Slinky Dog.

Reba

His sister, Radiant Rena [ren-nah] has the best co-ordination of the three. Her back left leg is weaker than her right, and sometimes she tends to drift in that direction. Usually, though, her walk resembles a cat in stealth mode, because she keeps her body close to the floor. She runs, jumps, climbs and plays with no greater hesitancy than any cat her age. Sometimes, we mistake her for la Bella Bianca, whom she very much resembles.

Their other sister is Reba the Diva. Reba has a walk that is like Mae West's exaggerated bustle swing, and because her right leg is weaker, she steers slightly to starboard. If we zap-strapped her and Rena together, they would walk in a straight line. Most days, both of them would be okay with that.

Their previous foster mom, Jenny, nicknamed Reba "the Shadow". She loves people, and she follows us everywhere that she can. We took her to an adoption event three days after we got her, and her cage door was probably closed for only twenty minutes in the whole five hours that she was there. For the rest of the day, people were in the kennel, petting her, or she was out of the kennel petting them. She is a cuddler.

I fell asleep last night with her head on my shoulder, and when I woke up this morning, she was on the Tall Lady's pillow, warming the top of her head.

As usual, the Flying Fellini Sisters are displeased. Initially, Bianca was too, but her defenses appear to be crumbling, and I think that the Weebles will soon have a splendid big sister to play with.

Kitten season is upon us again - I know this because Maria Soroski put a post on FaceBook tonight asking for used blankets and towels. If it's like last year, it will be busy.

If you can adopt, foster, volunteer or donate to the Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue Association, your help is needed and will be very greatly appreciated. If you have a cat already, please make sure that your little babe is spayed, or your little buddy is neutered. Please check to ensure that your sillier friends and relatives have been too...

Please visit Bianca, Reba, Rena and Ronny on the VOKRA Adoption Page, and don't even bother looking at any of the other cats or kittens - they're not nearly as good our Weebles. They wobble, but they don't fall down.

The Full Ronny

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