Susu's Journal

     

Learning how to Cat

I’m taking time to look back on pictures of Susu’s early years. We’ve been extremely lucky to have a really good month with her these past few weeks, especially since we had such a terrible scare and had to go to the cat hospital with her. I’m trying to reflect on her life from when she had just come into my life.

When we first got her, we kept her in my roommate’s room. It was there that she discovered rug. My roommate had a little wool rug that Susu loved playing with. My roommate never knew where the rug would end up at the end of the day. The little fuzzy one would go bananas whenever we played with her using it, biting and kicking it, tearing around the room with turbo zoomies, and generally being a menace to all rug-kind. It also wasn’t evident at this point just how fluffy she would become.

We also spent time with her trying to figure out what kinds of toys and treats she liked. She continued to love her catnip mouse, and showed no interest in lasers whatsoever. Likewise, she had no interest in toys with jingle bells or lights. It was evident from the beginning that she was an expert hunter. Her favorite was the Bird, a little feather lure on the end of a wand. We had three couches in the front room, and she would chase the bird from couch to couch endlessly, even to the point of panting. We had to hide the bird to stop her from playing with it.

It was her love of feathers that lead us to buy her a red collar with birds on it as her first once we got her rabies tags. The first time we put a collar on her, she was EXTREMELY confused. She feverishly tried to chomp on the microchip tag to pull off the collar, and was very confused at why she made a sudden mysterious jingling sound now when she walked. She was even less enthusiastic the first time we put a cat harness on her to see if we might be able to take her outside. She panicked and ran furiously around the apartment, trying to get free of the mysterious creature that had grabbed ahold of her. After a lot of running after her, we did eventually manage to get the harness off her, and didn’t try it again for years.

My roommate also tried to make friends with Susu by offering her fancy treats: cooked fish and scallops. The little Miss, being a cat of discerning tastes, completely dismissed the fancy offering. Her favorites were chicken and turkey, and she would not be convinced.

She was likewise confused when we first tried to brush her, which presented an issue given her fluffiness. What was this sensation? Wire brushes? Plastic bristles? Zoom groom? Oh wait, no, she liked the zoom groom, particularly for how fun it was to chew on. She also took a liking to metal combs, as well as the tines of bristle brushes, but never enjoyed wire deshedding brushes. It was through the use of brushing her that I later learned a terrible truth: Susu had fleas when she came to us, and my roommate, who was in charge of Susu’s care at the beginning, did not put flea medicine on her because Susu was an indoor only cat. But that’s a story for another time.

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