The Personalities Of Ellen and Elvira

It has been a fascinating 7 months since we adopted the terrible twosome, Ellen and Elvira. They started out as so identical in appearance and behavior we could rarely tell them apart. Now with time Ellen has a white whisker that helps us to physically distinguish them. We really don't need that. though, because of their radically different personalities that have developed over time. Here is Ellen:

She is playful but a little bit shy. Ellen is a Daddy's girl and constantly follows me around squeaking to be petted.

And then there is her sister Elvira:

Elvira is an alpha cat in training. She raids the food shelves looking for treats, tossing everything out on the floor. Elvira is the adventuresome sister, leaping up on the refrigerator and on top of the cabinets. Our little Mistress Of The Dark has an almost spooky intelligence. You can see it in her eyes when she cocks her head and stares at you intently. This may be the brightest cat we have ever had. She is at least as intelligent as our former alpha cat Tommy and he was very bright. As you can guess, Elvira is a handful but extremely entertaining to watch.

It is really fascinating how animal personalities can develop so differently when raised in the same environment.

Elvira Strikes Again

Those of you who occasionally drop by my modest little blog know of the ball of kinetic energy we call our kitten Elvira. So far I've seen her toss cat food cans out of the cabinet so she could be fed, offer me a ball in trade for some treats, and I've even seen her dive into the bathtub while my wife was in there. (The screams could be heard a mile away!) Last night I went into the kitchen to rinse out my bowl after eating some vanilla ice cream when I spied a furtive black urchin doing something I had to look twice at to convince myself what I was seeing. I went back into the living room and said, "Honey, after you got us both ice cream what did you do with the carton?" She immediately grasped the significance of the question and ran into the kitchen to behold our little Elvira. She had knocked the ice cream carton off of the counter, dragged it to a corner of the room where she wouldn't be bothered, and had her head and a good portion of her body buried inside the container. We pulled the now-white Elvira out of the carton and spent the next half hour cleaning her up. Gotta love her!

Mixed Results For Next Year

I just got my tentative schedule for next year. The great news is that I am not scheduled to teach Chemistry! That is such a relief to me. The not-so-great news is that I have to move all my stuff to another room and I am slated for 4 preps. They have me teaching Biology I, Biology I Honors, Physical Science, and Anatomy/Physiology Honors. It's quite an assortment but considering the fact that our school is downsizing and we lost 4 science teachers I am not surprised at having to cover several subjects. I have taught all of these in the past and know I can handle it. The hardest part will probably be motivating the standard level classes. I hope they can be inspired to learn. Sometimes you get a standard group that is extremely low academically with a large percentage who are retaking the course. Memories of my "class from Hell" I taught a couple of years ago still send shivers down my spine. I will hope for the best and maybe I will be pleasantly surprised in that regard. Overall I feel I can deal with the schedule.

Addendum - They made a mistake about the room assignment number. I will apparently get to keep my room! Things are looking up.

Good news about the kitten Gabriella. The foster family who took her in fell in love with her and decided to adopt her! They say that Gabriella has quickly become an extreme "lap cat" who loves to snuggle. It's the first time the little gal has ever had a family who cared about her so she is really enjoying herself.

Photo of Gabriella

Here is the Gabriella I told about in the previous post. She came through the surgery fine. They amputated about half of her tail. She has never been handled before and is obviously pretty overwhelmed. My wife met her foster parent at the vet and took this photo. I think my student and her folks will actually wind up keeping Gabriella forever but the fostering will be a trial period. The foster mom really seemed to care about Gabriella and was very concerned about providing a wonderful indoor home for her. It's always so great when stories like this one has a happy ending!

Gabriella

I got a call from one of our deans this morning with an "interesting" problem. It seems that a student arrived at school and heard a cat crying under the engine hood. When he opened the hood a kitten sprang out and ran under another car. The dean and other staff members spent the next hour chasing this cat around the parking lot before finally catching it. They knew I did volunteer animal rescue work so he called me for assistance instead of our local "kill" animal shelter (thank goodness!).

I was teaching a class at the time so I called my wife and asked her to take off work and come get the cat. When class was over I hurried down and brought the kitten back to my room to evaluate it. The poor little gray tabby was scared to death and obviously had never been held by a human before. I immediately discovered the cat had a badly broken tail and was in pain so I put it back in the box quickly and put in towels and water. I didn't want to cause any further pain or panic so I couldn't find out the sex then. The cat calmed down a little bit after awhile and the wife came in about an hour to pick it up.

I told my wife to spare no expense since the cat may have other injuries so she took the little one to our personal vet, Dr. Russell, a great cat vet here. I called Karen later for an update. It seems that the cat is a female and about 5 weeks old. One of my students, Gabe, requested we name it after him. Since the kitten turned out to be a "she" we are calling her Gabriella. She weighs 1.1 pounds. Gabriella is in surgery now to amputate about a quarter of her tail. She was dewormed as well. Other than that she seems to be in good health. They will keep her overnight and we get her back tomorrow. I am not certain what we will do next. Several teachers at school have shown an interest in adopting Gabriella. She needs to be worked with a lot. She will also need vaccines and a spay. We are working with our rescue group Goliath and Bebe's World to find a foster parent and we will adopt her out to a good home that will keep her indoors as soon as she is ready. My group and their vet will give the necessary vaccinations and spay. I would take her myself but with 9 cats and a bunny in a mobile home we are maxed out. With her rough start in life I feel that I owe her a wonderful home so I will be very picky about selecting the home she will eventually be adopted to. She certainly deserves a little happiness after what she went through. We are waiving the adoption fee if we find a great home for Gabriella. I'll post photos soon.

Mistress Of The Dark

I was sitting in the living room watching the news this morning when I heard a kitchen cabinet opening. I looked just in time to see a black tail disappearing into the cabinet. A moment later cans of Fancy Feast started flying out of the cabinet onto the floor where two of our other guys were waiting. The wife Karen was puzzled why I was laughing my head off so she came in to see. Our Elvira was telling us she wanted to be fed! Here is the little scamp caught in the act when I opened the cabinet. I knew you all wouldn't believe this unless I provided visual proof.

And here is Elvira right after Karen grabbed her out of the cabinet to save the remaining cans of food from being deposited on the kitchen floor. I think she would have also opened the cans if she could have. Welcome to my world!

Cute Girl

We were cleaning out the water bowl and Ellen took advantage of it by hopping inside. I think I'm beginning to see a pattern in her behavior! It was a great photo op so I grabbed the camera.

Trash Can Kitty

We were changing liners in the trash can. Ellen took advantage of it to hop in. Little vixen!

Update On The Girls

Wow, what a difference a few days can make! Elvira and Ellen have really settled in here. When I come into the room they both come running up to me. Ellen likes to groom my arms and Elvira snuggles up next to me and nuzzles her head under my hand.

They found a folded massage cushion in the corner that they like to slip into at night like a bed. Here they are in it. Elvira is on the left and Ellen on the right.

Adoption Day!

We are home after another day of adopting out cats at Petco for our group Goliath and Bebe's World. We had a fairly successful day with 3 adoptions, but we also had 2 cats returned because of being incompatible with the households. (sigh) This is Maisey, one of our adoptions. Here is a picture of Maisey and her happy new owner, a local teacher.

It was a busy day doctoring the cats with upper respiratory vaccine, flea treatments, worm treatments, and snipping spay sutures. I only got scratched once while working with the cats, which is a good day for me!