The picture above is of her in her younger days though when I got Rookie from the Cats' Protection League in 2004 she was described as an old cat because she was 11. The woman from the Cats' Protection League said that not many people want to take on older cats, but it didn't bother me. Rookie needed a home because her owners were moving into rented accommodation and couldn't keep a cat on any more. Her original owners called her Tootsie but I just couldn't bring myself to call her that! I just kept thinking of Dustin Hoffman in drag. so I had to think up a name that sounded like Tootsie but meant something to me. In the end I chose Rookie because it was the name of a bar/coffee shop in Amsterdam that I liked!
Rookie is a very demonstrative, vocal and quite emotional cat. She's part Siamese like the cat I had previously Mr Shoo. (The tale of Mr Shoo is a sad one so I'll save that for another day, but no finer cat than Mr Shoo ever lived and he came to a very tragic end.) Rookie likes to talk and tell you what is on her mind, she has a rather hoarse guttural miaow which means feed me, a sharper miaow that means I'm here, a pitiful miaow or wale which means make a fuss of me, and even a delicate mew which means thank you for giving me a catnip toy. Rookie also has a host of little grumbling and murmuring noises which mean all sorts of strange and unfathomable feline things.Rookie likes being made a fuss of, tuna, cat nip, the sun, sleep, Whiskers supermeat, climbing in boxes and staring through windows. Rookie hates birds, dogs and other cats, with the exception of Oliver the cat below who she shared a house with for 3 years when she lived at my parents place. She didn't like Oliver at first but after she had bullied him into submission she tolerated him just fine. Now that Rookie has left to live with me again, Oliver is delighted. In the picture below he is doing a fine impression of hypno toad.
Rookie is quite old now at 17 and she has got very skinny, but if anything she has got more characterful as she has aged. She still treats the world with disdain, generally looking appalled by everything from the state of her food, to the weather outside. She is getting a bit senile I think and occasionally adds to her state of disgruntledness a measure of bewilderment. But every night with out fail she clambers up on to the settee to curl up between me and Jason to purr and snore. She's a very content cat who gets a lot of fuss and attention to a level that my Mum thinks is excessive but I do come from a family where my Great Aunt had individual hot water bottles for her cats. (And she lives in Australia!)
Rookie is quite old now at 17 and she has got very skinny, but if anything she has got more characterful as she has aged. She still treats the world with disdain, generally looking appalled by everything from the state of her food, to the weather outside. She is getting a bit senile I think and occasionally adds to her state of disgruntledness a measure of bewilderment. But every night with out fail she clambers up on to the settee to curl up between me and Jason to purr and snore. She's a very content cat who gets a lot of fuss and attention to a level that my Mum thinks is excessive but I do come from a family where my Great Aunt had individual hot water bottles for her cats. (And she lives in Australia!)
1 comment:
Nice post. (You can't go wrong with a cat story on t'internet.)
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