For the final day of February 2020 and the initial day of March 2020, our long-running weekend feature Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap focuses on a couple of Tabby cats.
One lives on the East Coast, the other on the Trinity Coast, er, near the Trinity River.
That East Coast Cat is the famous Chloe who shares the household on Indian Lake in Denville, N.J., with our East Coast Bureau Chief Andy Fisher and family, including Maxie the Dog.
That first photo shows Chloe at full snooze recently. Andy explains, “Chloe has been enjoying the morning sun and catching up on her sleep after a busy night of ghost-chasing.”
The second photo shows Chloe “after she rolled ‘snake eyes’ on a lottery ticket,” Andy explains. He also explains that photo of Maxie and Chloe with
this caption: “Breakfast makes our eyes light up, but we wish the old man would move a little faster preparing it.”
Both of them are rescues.
Andy writes of the Tabby girl: “Chloe was born on the street, so she knows survival, and that probably sensitized her to human suffering. She was most supportive as I coped with my broken ankle. She seems to know when I wake up during the night feeling stressed, snuggling down under the covers next to me, purring soothingly. She's an essential part of the household!"
Andy’s ankle is healed now. Chloe has done her job.
The no-where near a coast but close to the Trinity River Tabby is our own Dallas-born girl, Deputy Chief Kittie Leigh Johnson, named in honor of the Kyra Sedgwick police detective on The Closer.
This week I caught Her Tabbiness sleeping while stretching on the back of the couch in front of the TV. The thing about Tabbies is they have so many patterns and distinct “things,” that you discover them over a period of years — about 10 years for Kittie Leigh. That’s why I was stunned to see that she has one white toe. Then, that other photo shows her posing with me after her vet healed an odd and unusual condition that developed overnight in her left eye. In this photo you can see that eye is a little bit “crossed” — she’s been that way since infancy. When she came through the burglar bar cage on our old front porch in Oak Cliff, that was the first thing I saw! Possibly the cutest kitten ever born in Dallas County.
Yes, people who live with Tabby Cats have a magnificent an unimpeachable tendency toward hyperbole. See?
Now, what I did Friday, when I decided to praise two Tabbies in Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap, was go online and pull photos of Tabbies from area shelters.
This, I hope, will encourage people who don’t know the comfort of a purring, to adopt a Tabbilicious companion and learn that it is a good thing to make room in their homes and hearts for cats that are great around the house. If you can’t find a Tabby to adopt, adopt another kind of cat. Adopt a puppy, too, so the cat will have someone to train besides a human.
[LARRY FYI: That is Simon the Bottle-fed Kitten overlooking the slumbering former Dallas street dog Porche Noel. Neither is a Tabby.]
Here are only a few of the MANY Tabbies I found online in a brief search around dusk on Friday the 28th.
First up is Lupita (A1086998), Tabby at Dallas Animal Services. She’s been in DAS
care since Feb. 4 and is in a foster home. See her and other dogs and kittens and Wilbur (A10965990), a 6-month old tabby — wait, I’m sorry. Wilbur is a pig — a stray in Big D. He’s been at the shelter since Feb. 21. The link dallasanimalservices.org will take you to the adorable adoptables.
This 4 and1/2-year-old orange Tabby (note the M on the
forehead) is Fuseli, #41488827 at the SPCA of Texas’s McKinney facility. His bio says he loves “to be brushed. Specifically with a toothbrush.” Yes, another interesting Tabby. FYI: Freddy Spaghetti, who we’ve featured before, is at the Dallas SPCA facility. I guess this is a tribute to the Pasta Family Tabbytree.
That handsome orange Tabby is a Cowtown Cat, Sim (41706002), a 9-month old who came into the Fort Worth Animal Care & Control’s system on Feb. 23. He looks very huggable. For FWACC, click HERE.
This girl with the hint of a red collar above her white blaze is Genesis, a knows-how-to-pose Tabby girl currently at Arlington Animal Services. On her bio page HERE under “Personality Traits” the key word is “Cuddly.”
And from the word’s most successful high school animal rescue program, Trinity GAP Rescue, we present Diana, described as “a lovely silver-/grey Tabby girl with big beautiful eyes.” The year-old is at the Euless Animal Shelter and on the Trinity GAP Rescue page. Adoption fee? $5,000 — wait, I’m sorry. My fingers went
wild. You can actually adopt this girl for just $5. FIVE DOLLARS. She’s healthy, up-to-date on shots and house-trained. Ask about her by emailing latkinson@eulesstx.gov. We nearly got a napping photo of her, but I suspect the click on the camera woke her and she was wide awake before the sleeping image could get to the phone. Fast cat.
Many a cat has lived to take a catnap because of the GAP Rescue students. Here’s the official “about” line: “The Trinity GAP Club (Girls Awareness Program) is an all-girls club that functions through Trinity High School in Euless, TX.” We've been writing about this heroic mission for years. .
That’ s 9-month-old Axel from The Colony Animal Services. (He’s #43741630.) He came in on Groundhog Day — can’t remember if he saw his or anybody else’s shadow. Beautiful gray.
And we’ll close with Katy Purry (A168444) a 2-year-old who was surrendered by her owner. She “loves to play with hair ties and ping pong balls.” Katy Purry is in Plano’s McNatt Animal Services Shelter and Adoption Center.
[LARRY REMINDER: As you’ve seen, the readlarrypowell.com examination of Napping Cats Chloe of New Jersey and Deputy Chief Kittie Leigh Johnson, now of Cowtown, turned into a celebration of Tabby cats all over. Send us photos of your napping cats (any type will do) and sleeping dogs (any breed or variety — email the photos and bios to dallrp@aol.com and we’ll post them in our weekend feature, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cat Nap. Since May 4, 2005, going on 15 years, we’ve been publishing weekend tributes to slumbering animals and their people. We like to think the stories help people decide to adopt an animal. And we’re almost certain insomniacs are inspired by cats balancing on the backs of couches — they’ve already tried out the seating part of the couch and it didn’t work.]
--- To offer Tabbythoughts or Slumbertips, click on 'comment' below or email dallrp@aol.com. ---