VOLUME 3, ISSUE 1

Prev

When I heard that Merlot needed 30-days of foster care in a home without other cats, I raised my hand.  "I will foster Merlot," I told Folsom Feline Rescue's (FFR) co-founder, John Bennett.  "I'm newly retired and I can give him some TLC while he fights off the virus affecting his eye." 

You see, Merlot couldn't be left in the Bennett's kitten room because he was contagious to other kittens.  So Merlot would come to my household for 30 days of healthy rest and recuperation.  "It will be wonderful," I thought.  "I will have cat company."

Little did I know what I was getting into.  Merlot was an experience!

I discovered that Merlot "The Handsome" did not like to be away from the "action" of the Bennett household.  He missed the Bennett pets, especially Sonny.  Sonny had taught Merlot many useful kitty activities, like how to untie shoes. 
Merlot wanted activity  - - -  the more, the better.  He wanted children and dogs and

other cats to play with.  When my husband and I had people over, Merlot wanted to be introduced and he wanted to be noticed.  He wanted to be the center of attention.

When I transported Merlot to the FFR meeting so that his eye could be checked out, he  cried to be out of the carrier.  Once free of the temporary confinement, he pranced about the room as if to say, "I'm here and I'm beautiful.  Check me out."

While in my household, nothing was too great a challenge for Merlot.  He explored all the heights and all the ledges in the house.  He explored the nooks and the closets and everything he possibly could.  He even jumped from a countertop onto the top of the shower enclosure.  It wasn't very wide up there and he didn't stay long, but he got there!  He even tried his paw at flower arranging, by taking individual dried stems of babies breath out of an arrangement and distributing them about the room.

Merlot was always up for playtime.  I would swing a crinkly, plastic shopping bag about the room and Merlot delighted in chasing it and pouncing on it.  It was a great fun for him.  He loved the cat dancer;

also, the tiny, legless mice toys with the fur.  He would take a toy mouse in his mouth and fling his head back throwing it up into the air.  He would bat it and push it around and then trot around with it dangling from his mouth.  He played with the legless mice until they were damp with saliva.

Batting the ping-pong ball around on the floor was entertainment for Merlot, but batting it around inside the bathtub where the ball could roll up the sides of the tub and back down was even more fun.  Also, he found he could make a lot more noise by batting it in the tub!

Lisa James, who fosters kitties and runs adoption events every Saturday for FFR, described Merlot as having "More personality in one little paw than most cats have in their entire body!"  Dr. Sweet, the Veterinarian at Blue Ravine Animal Hospital, described him as "Intense."   I can certainly confirm these two descriptions of Merlot.  He is a unique, intelligent adolescent cat.

(Continued on page 9)