Ding Ding goes for a walk

Dingers was visiting Lopez this weekend, and decided to accompany her people on a Sunday morning walk. I've never been on a walk with a cat before--but I suppose if it was going to happen, it's not surprising considering what I know about Ding Ding.

Rusty is now on a diet. Having ballooned from 11 lbs. to over 17 lbs. in just 3 months, drastic action seems called for. Rusty never met a morsel of Purina Cat Chow he wasn't willing eat. Dingers only eats a few at a time, and remains quite svelte. What to do? Dingers is now eating her dinner on a bookshelf, Rusty is on limited rations until he regains his youthful figure.

More Ding Ding, more Rusty

Rusty and Dingers are still coming to terms with each other. Rusters is becoming downright portly now that regular food is a part of his life. Last time we checked he weighed in at about 14 1/2 lbs--approximately twice as big as Ding Ding. We suspect he is heavier now.

I am also attaching a picture that will be hard to decipher, but it shows Ding Ding nose to nose with a young deer in our back yard this summer.

Detente???

Rusty has now been integrated into family life. He has virtues--he uses his litter box and he loves his scratching posts. He is very gentle, but we also believe he is a bit passive/aggressive. He seems to make a point to sleep in all Ding Ding's favorite places, and particularly problematic is that he sleeps on the bed with us. Nothing to be done about it unless we banish Dingers, too. We fall asleep; he insinuates himself. Things are relatively quiet--no hissing, a little swatting (Dingers not Rusty). All fingers crossed for a good outcome.

Introducing Rusty

With this posting Rusty Staub makes his official debut on the blat. You can see he's already shedding on the furniture, which had really not been an issue when Dingers was an only cat.

A little too big to be comfortable

When she was little Ding Ding loved to lie on my shoulders. As she got bigger this became less comfortable for both of us. Still, every once in a while she thinks she'd like to try those shoulders again. Here she is with Rog--who is none too pleased since he's trying to grade papers.

Ding Ding Returns!

Ding Ding regrets her long absence from the blogosphere, but she is a very busy cat--so just suck it up. Dingers finally met Henry over July 4th, and nothing horrible happened to either baby or cat. So that's good. But now a new challenge lurks in the form of Rusty Staub, an orange male cat who first arrived on the scene about two months ago as a pretty pathetic stray.

We began feeding him, because he was obviously hungry, and finally won his trust. At which point I lured him into a travel container, and we took him to the animal shelter. He's now back with us, minus some basic male equipment (although he doesn't seem to hold that against us). I am hoping this is not a gigantic mistake, but we are still in the getting to know you phase. Rusty lives in his fortress of solitude, otherwise known as the guest bedroom, while he acclimatizes to his new situation--and Ding Ding tries to wrap her brain around the fact that she is no longer an only cat. Pictures of Rusty and Ding Ding to follow. Dingers is complaining that this blat is beginning to look more like a blab, what with all the baby pictures.

Everyone's a Critic

Due to complaints about the infrequency of posts of the Ding Ding Chronicles I am moved to write, albeit not for long. Ding Ding's newest relation continues to grow. I believe he now weighs more than she does.

New Family Member

She doesn't know if yet, but there has been an addition to Ding Ding's family unit. Her humans have become grandparents. It's possible she will meet Henry this summer, and I hope she will be as accepting as Henry's cat Lola has been.

No boundaries

I've had complaints about the length of time I've left the dead rodent up on Ding DIng's blat. Tonight I will remedy that. Unfortunately I haven't been taking pictures of the Dingers lately. That doesn't mean she hasn't been busy--in fact she's been demonstrating new levels of fearlessness (or stupidity, depending on how you look at it). I just don't have photo documentation. Several weeks ago I saw DIng Ding stalking a raccoon across the neighbor's lawn. It was like she was herding it. More recently both Roger and I saw her tailing a possum. She lived to tell about both adventures, with no scars as far as I can seel--but I worry. She has no sense of her place in the universe. Since I don't have a new picture of her I am adding one from a previous visit to her island getaway.

Deadly Ding Ding

The rodent pictured here died this fall. We don't know that Dingers was the assassin, but we are suspicious!

3,000 miles apart, cat friends love shopping bags

Although they are separated by the width of the continent and almost a decade in age, Ding Ding and Lola prove in these pictures that cats will be cats--wherever they live, and however old they are.

Special places

Ding Ding enjoys placing herself artistically.

Where does Ding Ding go?

We have often wondered where Dingers goes when she is outside. Rog wanted to put a catcam on her, but we are both technologically lazy and inept, so that's not likely to happen. There was an article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer a few weeks ago about a couple who actually did that. They set the camera to take photos every few minutes. They found out the cat roamed much farther than they had imagined, and that it slept a lot. No surprises there. A prolonged period of snow last month gave me an opportunity to see where our cat actually does go.

Friends of Ding Ding

Dingers doesn't have a Facebook page, not is she on Catster--but that doesn't mean she doesn't have friends. She is now friends with Hercules, a carrot-loving Papillon who lives in Pennsylvania; Marlin the cat, who lives in Delaware; and Lola, who gave Dingers some very delicious freeze-dried salmon treats for Christmas. Although Lola loves the salmon treats very much, and I think she would probably have preferred to eat them herself. Lola lives in Boston, and she will soon have to share her apartment with a new baby.

Ding Ding Meets Her Match

In our ongoing effort to teach Ding Ding some basic manners we have come to depend upon this squirt bottle. We first tried the spray bottle we use for ironing, but it produces a mist. The mist didn't faze her. This bottle produces a much stronger stream of water, and she doesn't like it at all. All I have to do is pick it up, and she either doesn't jump up or if she's already up, she gets down. I guess this is progress--she knows she shouldn't be on the counters, and we have a way to enforce our wishes. But I'm pretty sure if we're not here she wouldn't hesitate to roam where ever she wanted.

The higher the better

Ding Ding is the first cat I've owned who loves to climb. She likes altitude both inside and outside, and the thinner the branch the more she enjoys "going out on a limb."