Leo's secret has always been what breed of mix of breeds he is. We never saw his parents or any other siblings when we found him, so we had no idea what he was other than soooo cute! But you never know what you might learn as a result of browsing craigslist! About a week ago, we were browsing the community section on our local craigslist when we saw an ad for a Silver Maine Coon mix up for adoption at one of the local rescue shelters. The ad includes a picture of the cat so we took a look...and don't you know we thought we were looking at Leo! We suspected when we adopted him that he might have some Maine Coon in him, after all, we were in Maine when we adopted him so there was a chance that one of his parents was at least part Maine Coon, but we had no way of knowing until he got older since his hair was very fine and short when he was just little tiny. However, his markings are very "coon" like. He has rings around his tail and swirls of grey and white along his sides and has he has gotten hod and bigger his hair is beginning to lengthen, to the point now where he sheds nearly constantly! Surprisingly and we think due to his raw diet, he doesn't have any hair balls issues. Anyway....we started googling for more pictures of Silver Maine Coon cats....and WOW! We are just feeling like we are so fortunate to have been able to adopt such a wonderful feline companion to begin with, but on top of it..he is likely to just continue getting even more wonderful as he grows and matures. Maine Coons are well known for their beautiful thick fur and gorgeous markings, but beyond that, the males can grow to be between 20-30 pounds and Leo, at just about 7 months old already tips the scales at over 10 pounds and all he eats is raw meat, eggs and a little bit of goats milk occasionally. He is already over 2 feet long from tip of his nose to the tip of his tail! In addition to all this, Maine Coons are also knowned for their high intelligence and insatiable curiosity. Boy does that fit Leo to a T! They are also known to bond deeply with their human companions and often follow them from one place to another. Leo, loves to go with us where ever we go. Whether it is out to the back of the barn to feed the rabbits and check on the other livestock or going for a ride in the car...he wants to go with us. He also really enjoys playing on the back yard on the dog run and chasing balls, the tennis ball is his favorite cause he can use his claws to get a grip on it and wrestle it and throw it up in the air and chase after it. He has always shown a picular dexterity in using his paws to handle things. He is also exceptionally friendly/affectionate to strangers, which we are very glad of. He moves like a raccoon, although I know there is no relation...but many times from the back he resmbles a raccoon and his nimble paw use is very raccoon like! Anyway, it is really kool to finally know that he is a Silver Maine Coon mix...we may never know what the mix part is, but the Maine Coon is definitely the predominant breed in him and we are thrilled. As soon as I get my computer issues resolved I will be posting lots of pictures of him. He is our little Puddah and we adore him endlessly. We consider ourselves "Puddists"....we worship our Puddah and he is the center of our existence!
We got a bit of a reminder of what real winter is like here in Raleigh, NC this past weekend as the weather brought us 3"+ in snow. Leo, asked to go out while the snow was still very light and fluffy and once he gained enough confidence to tread down the front steps of the motor home he had a blast frolicking in the snow that had fallen and chasing falling snow flakes. I wasn't able to take a pictures, since my camera batteries were not charged. So, the rest of the weekend Leo has spent experiencing the various forms of snow since the fluffy snow fell, since after that it rained and made the snow very crisp & crunchy. He really enjoyed being out on the dog run chasing across the back yard covered in snow. It was seriously cold last night, so cold that once we decided to go to bed at 3am after checking on the rabbits for the last time, Leo decided to sleep along side of me for 2 hours. He rarely chooses to sleep with us in the bed anymore. Most recently opting to sleep out on the end of the couch, and before that he was opting to sleep at the end of the bed, or in the bathroom in the sink, lol However this morning he slept with me for a couple of hours and it was so wonderful to have him snuggled up with me again for a while.
This week marks the 6th month anniversary of Leo's birthday. Well, we had to guess at when he was actually born, since his eyes were still cloudy and his ears hadn't poped yet when we first adopted him we supposed he was not yet 2 weeks old. That would have had him born sometime in the last week of July, 2009. He has become a treasured companion and family member to us in the 6 months we have been together. He has grown so much, now nearly 2 feet long from tip to tail and a good ten pounds in weight. I wish I could include a picture on this post, but my computer and digital camera are not compatible right now, though I am trying to remedy that. He is amazing & beautiful, majestic and silly. His personality is really developing as he matures. He loves to play, but is also very content to just sit on our laps and sleep. In the past couple of weeks he has taken to nursing on the ends of Ram's sweatshirt laces. At first he was trying to eat them, sometimes swallowing a good half a foot of them before we realized and reeled it out of his gullet! Yuck! So we took to tying knots big enough that he could not swallow them in all our sweatshirt laces. Now he decides that he is content to just suck on the ends up to the knot sort of like an infants "binky". It's really quite funny to hear him suck on it. It is his favored activity right before we get ready to go to bed for the night. He has his "Puddah Binky" time and them lays out on Ram's lap and falls alseep. Sometimes he has even fallen asleep with the binky in his mouth still! lol It's adorably cute. I ahd never heard of a cat doing this, but Ram says his mother had a cat that did this with his fleece blanket. Leo seems to enjoy a lot of comfort from it and it certainly increases his bonding with Ram, which is wonderful as well. He enjoys the pullets we have in the chicken tractor. He can't get to them of course, but he seems to enjoy stalking up to the caging and surprising the young chickens, which makes them jump and run! We got our first 3 breeding rabbits this past Saturday. We took him with us to pick them up as he likes to ride and we don't like to leave him home if we can take him with us. He has been introduced to each of them individually, so they will not be spooked and nervuos around him. Of course Leo is always on a leash when he is outside and the rabbits are always in their pen, but we may decide to harness them to allow them some time out on the lawn and we don't want Leo to harass them like he does the chickens. The other morning I awoke to find Leo sleeping in the bathroom sink. This was a first for him. In the past he has slept on the counter in the bathroom, on the counter top and stove top on the galley, on the dinette table, and couches, in the cockpit up front, in the bunk over the cockpit and of course occasionally he will grace us with his presence at the foot of the bed. I wanted so badly to take a picture of him in the sink, but my camera batteries were not charged...of course, is that not always the way! Ram says not to worry, he will be caught sleeping there again. He tells of a cat his sister had that used to sleep in the bathroom sink often. On the raw feeding diet front, Leo is managing his raw meat very well. Of course the primary reason we decided to raise meat rabbits is to provide Leo with a reliable, organic, healthy food resource, as well as ourselves, however the rabbits we have will not be ready to breed until early June, so until the first litter is born he has to be content with bulk chicken bought locally. He is getting the hang of eating bigger pieces, but seems a pit finicky at times about how much of the fat he is willing to eat. He got a real treat when our hostess got her new chicks after christmas. One of them did not survive the shipping experience and she donated it to Leo, still warm, put already passed. Since this was his first experience with whole prey we were not sure how he would react, but we worry no more. He played with it, throwing it up in the air and up and down the small hallway in the motor home for a full 20 minutes , until it resembled a chick bean ba, before he decided to actually eat it, but he finished every little bit of it, from beak to feet. Yayyyy! I was thrilled that he instinctively knew what to do withit since he did not have the benefit of a feline mother to show by example what he should do with it. He also has shown some odd food interests. For example, he likes potatoes & sourekraut, cooked pumpkin, peanutbutter & dry oatmeal. Not so surprising, he will also lick the butter off my bread. Of course he still is fond of parma cheese as well. HIs coat is really filling in very thickly and we are even more convinced that he may be part Maine Coon because of this and his markings. We have been gradually gettinghim used to be brushed with a flea comb, since he is outside very day and fleas are just a part of the deal. He doesn't have many thankfully and I atribute that to his raw diet and how healthy he is. His coat is so soft and he always smells so nice even though we never bath him. He gets a fresh egg once or twice a week and once the goats kid this spring he will also begin having access to goats milk if he wants it since he likes it. I know it is not necessary, but he likes it and the whey left over from my cheese making so I let him have it when he wants it. Our question of whether or not a cat can be raised/nurtured to adjust to our human wake/sleep cycles seems to be answered positively as he sleeps through the night most nights, getting up to eat occasionally or visit the potty. Despite the reality that he has access to the outside whenever he wants he will always opt to use the inside bathroom during the night. It is amazing how smart he is. We have not yet been able to transition him to use the potty without his letter tray inserted in it, but that really doesn't seem like the be all end all at this point. He uses it and has not had an accident in the motor home since we were in Maine last summer. I think that is exceptional! He is well behaved when we have company and well behaved when we take him out with us. He is smart and personable and a truly amazing feline companion. He has completely changed my perspective regarding cats and I could not be more grateful & appreciative of having adopted him back in Maine.
Today was the first day we have had to leave Leo alone for any length of time while we were both away. The weather is quickly turning cooler and with showers on and off, we had to get the bean plants pulled and brought down to the green house for hanging to finish the drying process. As a result, Leo had to be left in the motor home unsupervised for a longer while than just when we are working around the green house, because the weed growth is too high and dense now to take him to the garden while we are working, he would easily get lost in the jungle of weeds and we simply are not willing to risk his getting lost there. Twice tonight he has attempted to use the front entry way as a bathroom again, so we believe he probably did so while we were gone, without intervention/correction from us. Up until this point, he had been doing pretty well on his own, getting into the bathroom and up the ramp to the toilet on his own or occasionally with a gentle reminder from us when he woke up from a nap. So one step backwards on the potty training front today. His steps forward though well make up for the one back. He now will eat his egg raw, although too much if it will cause him to have a case of the squirts, so lessoned learned there! He is also getting better and better at eating his raw chicken, I will give him some more liver this weekend and next week I will start introducing him to egg shells. About a week ago, I put a clear bowl of fresh water down beside his meat bowl, to introduce him to drinking water out of a bowl. He is still on bottle fed milk, at 7 weeks old, and likely will continue his bottle feeding of milk for another few weeks as weaning doesn't normally occur until somewhere between 8-12 weeks of age, however, I wanted him to begin considering the bowl of water as well, knowing that it would take him at least a week to explore and try it out before he really got the hang of it...well today, he really got the hang of it! He sat there lapping up the water like a pro! So I know the weaning process has begun. His playfulness abounds and he is getting really "pouncey" in his playtime. He flips head over tail sometime in his enthusiasm, it is so much fun to watch. He has pretty much mastered the interior of the motor home, he can even manage to get up on the bed now if he wants to with some coaxing. Last night for the first time, he chose to sleep between Ram's legs on top of the comforter, rather than curling up in my shoulder/neck. He really seems to be taking the initiative sometimes to distance himself from us, he is getting more comfortable and confident and it is certainly becoming more and more obvious. I know it's a good thing, but I missed not having him curled up in my shoulder/neck last night. He's growing up so quickly.....he weighs 1.7lbs now and 16" long. Ram took him up in the cockpit yesterday morning when he started up the motor home. He wants him to get accustomed to the sound of it running, as we will be taking our leave and departing Maine in just a couple weeks now and we want him to be somewhat prepared for the changes he will encounter on the road, not the least of which is the sound of the Black Walnut running. He was visibly uneasy at first, but Ram held him and talked to him and soon he was sitting on his shoulder and then up on the back of his captains chair..shortly after that, he was exploring the front dash area. Ram intends to continue exposing him to the experience every week when he starts the motor home to let the engine warm and run. On an "Awwww, that is soooo damn cute note", Leo has found that one of his favorite places to sit and even sleep is in Ram's sweatshirt hood. He is a kitteh in the hood! Pictures will be forthcoming as soon as we have access to a computer that is compatble with our digital camera. Trust me, they are sooooo damn cute!
So Ram says that todays blog title makes Leo sound like a "wussy pussy". So just for the record.....Leo is actually getting tougher every day....actually, his bite is getting to be strong enough now that I don't want him biting my fingers and hands in play much anymore. His little teeth are quite sharp and he is getting quite the grip! The reason for the lavender, is because lavender, is reported to repel fleas, so again today, we had to give Leo another bath, to rid his coat of the fleas and after we finished with the soap and water, manual flea picking portion of the bath, I put a drop of lavender essential oil I had into 4 cups of warm water and rinsed his coat with it before drying him off. Not only does he smell like a lavender bouquet...which is lovely to me, but, I noticed that over the next hour or so, a few fleas that escaped the peril of drowning in the bath had made their way to the top of his coat and when I went after them they did not attempt to burrow back in under his fur, so maybe the lavender will actually repel fleas! That would be absolutely marvelous! Especially since the lemon & peppermint spray didn't seem to be very effective at doing anything except making him lick himself continuously after applying it. He is still scratching his ear....I cleaned them out pretty well with q-tips after his bath, but will continue to monitor them each day. Other than his bath, it has been a pretty uneventful day really. He went out and played in the green house for a while when I got back from the garden this morning and the rest of the day has been naps and bottle feedings interrupted by one meal of chicken. He is laying in my lap as I type this, batting a little at my arms as they move across the edge of the table/keyboard, but mostly he is just laying there resting.....ahhhh the life of a kitten! lol
This week marks the 6th month anniversary of Leo's birthday. Well, we had to guess at when he was actually born, since his eyes were still cloudy and his ears hadn't poped yet when we first adopted him we supposed he was not yet 2 weeks old. That would have had him born sometime in the last week of July, 2009. 
