cat obsession

Valentine is a funny little cat. She doesn't like to be held or cuddled too much, and she has very definite ideas about how much is too much. My husband and Secondo are her clear favorites and she seeks out, and tolerates, attention from them more than anyone else.

She is not too fond of the dog, especially because he has taken it upon himself to enforce the rules of the house as he perceives them, i.e., no scratching on the furniture and no cats on the table. She does love to bat at his tail as he goes by, which he pretends to ignore.

She is fascinated by but terrified of the rabbit. I will have to get a picture of them together sometime, with her seeking out contact but backing away from him at the same time. They got into a cage match in his digs in the basement a few weeks ago after she jumped in. We weren't sure at first who was the victor, but now we know: it was clearly Oreo.

She loves carrying around things in her mouth, especially things she brings up from the basement. Fleece, roving, my bras, socks... everything is fair game.

This represents a few of her favorite things, all together: wool cat toys, dryer balls, and the knee-highs I use to make them. She brings each of these things up on a regular basis. When I started production recently for the fiber festivals this fall? Her idea of nirvana, because now she could bring all three up at the same time if I leave them unattended. One night she was so persistent in bringing them up to our room that I had to go downstairs at 3 am to lock them all away in a tin where she couldn't get to them.

But her very, very favorite thing? Lamb jackets.

Unfortunately I have not been able to capture her on camera with one. She is pretending to ignore this one which she just deposited it in the middle of the room. Dusty would like to point out that he had nothing to do with it.

They are clean, at least according to our human standards, but they must have an irresistible lamby scent still about them because she finds them wherever I hide them and drags them upstairs. Her favorite maneuver is to bring them into our bed at 2 am, growling and mewling the entire time, and drop it on the pillow between us. I will admit that the first time she dropped a large, dark, fuzzy thing in the middle of our bed, I freaked out a little. I feel this was more than a little justified but my husband is still chuckling.

Edited to add: the minute I hit "publish" on this post, she meowed behind me, and I turned to find her dragging a lamb jacket into the middle of the room. I grabbed my iphone and hit the camera button, but it was too late... She was already claiming ignorance of how it got there.