Hello everyone,

Hannah is doing wonderful. All three of the cats are getting along splendidly, not playing together yet, but touching noses for sure. She does however want to eat my birds (thank God she doesn’t have many teeth left lol).

Hannah has gained weight and her coat is improving; she loves being brushed and even gets a little frisky from time to time. She enjoys her catnip as well as her fresh grass to gnaw on and her favorite place to sleep is the cat bed on the chair in front of the sliding glass door.

She likes to chill with me either on the armrest where I sit or behind me on the back of the couch. She doesn’t seem to be a lap cat or a bed cat. She just may be respecting the space of my other two (the bedroom) or she is just not used to it, but she does purr all the time, follows me around and she loves to rub her nose all over my face. She knew as soon as I let her out of the cat carrier that she was home and she is happy and spoiled.

Love
Renatta, Hannah, Bella and Gracie

Hello,

I just wanted to write and send a picture as a follow up to my adopting one of your little ferals Jan 6th, Little Petra.

I call her Pickle. She’s coming along nicely. She doesn’t hid under or behind low furnishings any longer. She’s had the run of the house now for the past 2 weeks and although still understandably shy, doesn’t dart away as readily, and if so, not very far. I’m able now to walk up to her sleeping spot and she stays for a tummy rub or a chin scratch. She’s learning to trust. She purrs when you talk to her or, as soon as you touch her, she almost always and immediately plops down on her side for a tummy rub. That’s the favourite. She will sometimes stay for a cuddle and we’re working on that. She’s been excellent at using the litter box and has a great appetite. The picture I’m sending is her favourite sleeping spot. It’s a feather filled sofa pillow with the heat source behind and a view outside. How can one argue with that.

Although perhaps a little intimidated by my boys, what I’ll call enthusiasm, there have been no big fights or hissing – yet. His idea of playing is still a little too exuberant, he tends to dart in and take over the toys but I’m sure they’ll get there. Seems like she might be able to hold her own but I watch them. Having said that she worked up a little growl at him yesterday. He looked at me and gave a little meow as if to say, what the…?

Once I feel little Pickle is a little more settled perhaps I could help with socializing some of the other ferals. My little boy Cricket was a feral. So many of the kittens we’ve caught here have turned out to be an absolute treasure.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day: a celebration of red cats! Actually, true cat fanciers call them “red”, but most people refer to them as “orange” and that’s what I’m going to call them in this article. They may also be known as ginger, marmalade, auburn, cinnamon, yellow, or lemon. Whatever you want to call them, a cat of this colour stands out in a crowd of other-coloured cats, especially during these grey winter days. Orange cats have a reputation for having fun and quirky personalities, too – just look at Garfield, Morris, and Puss in Boots. Orange, all of them!

There are quite a few male orange cats at RAPS’ Cat Sanctuary, most with pretty distinctive personalities to go with their good looks. There’s veteran Andy, the senior ginger in the place, and certainly chief water bowl tester. We have long-haired orange Baby (a.k.a. Buster), who has to be confined to a cage during visiting hours to protect unsuspecting visitors from the effects of his ever-so-unpredictable temperament. Then there’s FIV-positive Randy, a big loveable guy with a face that only a true cat-lover could call cute. We also have Morrissey, Little Orange, Stubbs, Terry, Kevin, Patterson, Pickles, Gilbert, and Brady – all good-looking, ginger-haired boy cats. There are plenty more, too many for me to remember or list. You can see their photos and read more about most of them in The Neko Files.

What about orange females, you ask? Good question. As in people, X and Y chromosomes determine the sex of a cat. Females have two X chromosomes, males have an X and a Y. Mom and Dad each contribute one chromosome to each of their offspring. In cats, if there’s a gene for “orange-ness” in their genetic makeup, it’s on the X chromosome. A male kitten needs to get only one orange gene, from either mom or dad, to be orange, but the female kitten needs both genes to be orange. All this genetic mumbo-jumbo means that female orange cats are few and far between, a fact that is obvious when you consider how few of them there are at our cat sanctuary. I could only come up with Hannah, Marmie, Izzie, Orlean, Tricia and Vera, although there may be one or two more. Check The Neko Files for more about them too, and, if you are owned by an orange female cat, consider yourself among the privileged few.

Red cats, whether male or female: You gotta love’em, especially at this time of year.