Catroductions: Talisker

I’ve been blogging about all three of our new kittens a lot lately, with lots of photos of all of them piled up together, as if they were a conglomerate or a hive mind. The fact that all three like to play and snuggle together so much makes us ridiculously happy, and we have a tendency to reach for the camera whenever they do it. Which is about twenty times a day. We have a lot of cat pictures right now.

But I think the time is ripe to introduce each of them individually. And I’m going to start with Talisker.

Talisker is, I think, the easiest of the three to like. She’s bouncy and playful and mischievous, but never aggressive or bitey (well, hardly ever), and she switches from bouncy and playful to sweet and friendly in a nanosecond. Her sweet side is ridiculously sweet: she curls up into a tiny ball in your arms, or folds herself up with her paws stretched out and her chin resting on them, or settles down onto your chest and purrs into your face. She does have a restless side: when she sits in your lap, she has a decided tendency to shift positions twenty times, or to wander off and come back and wander off and come back and wander off and come back, before finally settling down. But when she settles and starts to snuggle you, you stay snuggled.

Her facial expression is in an almost permanent state of classic kitten cuteness. (Variation 12: Friendly And Inquisitive.) It’s as if she’s always saying “Oh hai” or “Baroo?” (See photo above.) Her fur is super soft and silky. And I love that just the tips of her paws are white. It’s like she has a French manicure.

She introduced herself to us at the adoption event by leaping onto Ingrid’s shoulders, and we knew immediately that we had to take her. She confirmed this decision by scampering and chasing and tussling with her sister Comet (a hobby they continue avidly), restlessly wandering back and forth from my lap to Ingrid’s, and finally settling on my lap and going to sleep.

Her favorite toy at the moment is a crumpled-up piece of paper. In addition to the standard “batting it around the apartment like a maniac” and “playing keep-away from her sister” crumpled-up piece of paper activities, she also carries it around in her mouth like it’s her kill. (We don’t have any pics of this yet, as she rarely holds still long enough for us to get a shot.) Our neighbor Patty, a retired vet tech, thinks we might be able to teach her to fetch.

The explanation of her name: She was named after the single-malt Scotch.

Here are eleventy billion photos.

Here she’s sitting on my lap helping me blog.

This is the day she discovered the bathroom sink. There are now pawprints all over it every day.

This is her belly on the leopard-print pillow. I love how you can’t quite tell which is which.

Here she’s on my lap at the adoption event, looking like Yoda. “Skritch, or skritch not. There is no try.”

Also at the adoption event. Looking very noble in Ingrid’s arms.

Do I have to even say anything at all?

And say it all together: AWWWWWWWWWWW!

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Catroductions: Talisker
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22 thoughts on “Catroductions: Talisker

  1. 2

    I had a cat named Gahz who would fetch. I was writing with a typewriter (yes I’m old) and it wasn’t going well; I crumpled up a sheet into a ball and chucked it in the general (but not the specific) direction of the wastepaper basket, and he leapt off my lap and brought it back. From then on every session of writing included at least one crumple and throw even if I made no mistakes!

  2. 4

    We’ve had more cats who would fetch than not. All of them self-taught. They love the game. Which reminds me I need to do some searching under the bed for the favorite little fuzzball of the current fetcher so she can play tomorrow — she’s at the vet today having some diagnostic work done and her teeth cleaned. We’re worried about her!

  3. 7

    You two are so totally gone, it’s funny. But well…kittens will do that to you!

    We lived in a quiet enough area that the cat we grew up with (who, long story short, actually belonged to a neighbor down the street, though she didn’t seem to know it) would “fetch” such things as…well, anything that couldn’t get away. I remember the day she dragged home a crow that wing-tip to wing-tip was longer than she was. We then started making bets on when she’d bring us a puppy.

  4. 8

    our cats starting fetching on their own with stealing our ponytail holders (the onesn without the metal thing on them). They would bring them and we were the ones who were trained to shoot them across the room.

  5. 10

    Alright Greta, everyone loves a cute cat pic (except maybe PZ). What I want to know about is the not-so-fun other side of being owned by a cat: Who cleans the boxes??

    I do 4 days a week and my wife does the other 3, yet somehow she forgets to clean it on her last day more often then not…

    I want to know how others divy up this responsibility in their homes!

  6. 11

    We had a cat who would fetch; she preferred the plastic caps of milk jugs. We had a long hall in our second apartment and we all loved whipping the cap a good twenty feet away and watching her charge after it.

    As far as litterboxes, hubby and I kept a tally sheet on the fridge to make sure the work was equally apportioned.

  7. 12

    My first cat on my own (that is, not the family cats) was an orange tabby named Butch. I also discovered accidentally that he liked to play fetch when I tossed a crumpled piece of paper across the room. To my surprise he chased after it and brought it back to my general vicinity (I never was able to get him to bring the fetch-object directly back to my hand). At the time I thought only dogs played fetch, as my three family cats never played fetch, nor did any of us think to try it. I’ve since learned that some cats do play fetch.

    I do hope Greta is not going to become so obsessed with the kittens that she’ll stop writing. Kittens are like sugar: too much cloys.

  8. 14

    My cats are all always on the sinks. We have to leave the sinks running, just a dribble, because the spoiled darlings are too good to drink water out of a bowl.
    Talisker’s little white toes are precious!

  9. 15

    @ Carol W

    You may want to look into a cat fountain if your kitties won’t drink out of a still bowl of water, it would let you turn off your sinks and save on your utilities.

  10. 17

    She introduced herself to us at the adoption event by leaping onto Ingrid’s shoulders, and we knew immediately that we had to take her

    That’s how we picked our cat too, who also turned out to be very friendly and social.

  11. 18

    “Here are eleventy billion photos.” That line cracked me up. Kittens are so much fun, I found some pictures of my cat when he was still a “tiny small little” and I thought I was going to die. I immediately forgave him for ravaging my toilet paper that week.

  12. 21

    I have had several cats who fetched; interestingly (or maybe just coincidentally), they were all females. I have not had a male who fetched. Most of them only did it in kittenhood, but two of them continued to do it well into adulthood. The first preferred bottle caps, the second wasn’t picky about the object.

    I mentioned this once to a fellow ailurophile, and she informed me that cats were first domesticated in Egypt partly because of this ability, and that they were sometimes used much as retriever dogs are (or were originally, anyway), i.e., to retrieve the results of a hunt.

    Don’t know if this is actually true or not, but it does make a good story. So, enjoy Talisker’s fetching ability and interest while you can, since it may not last.

  13. 22

    AWWWW – She looks exactly like a cat that we used to have. My daughter brought her home and named her Lady Diana – after both the princess and the goddess of the hunt. She was a fine cat.

    My hubby used to have a chocolate point Siamese named Bexar who would fetch, but only for him. He would chase his little soft ball down the hall and return it to “Daddy’s” feet.

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