Kip the cat

 When I was a little kid growing up my mother always taught me that cats were filthy, evil and bad animals.  I believed her, that is until I got my own cat.

 Kip is our cat that we have had for almost 9 years.  He is spotless, sweet and oh so helpful around the house.  I almost can't think of a better pet to have.  In fact, I don't think there is a better pet to have, than Kip.  

Kip has no claws.  

He scratched my leather sofa one time and that was one time too many.  So I had his claws removed.  You might think to yourself, "Julie, you are cruel.  You have broken all the rules PETA has laid out for humane cat ownership."  Then I would say to you, "You are mistaken.  My cat has not suffered in anyway, shape or form from being clawless.  He not only catches mice, but he also manages to trap (and eat) snakes, woodpeckers, gophers, and hummingbirds."  He has never once eaten any of our chickens.  All of the neighbors pets have eaten or maimed our chickens, but not Kip.  He knows his boundaries.  He can climb any tree he thinks needs to be climbed.  He is,  in fact, better off not having any claws because if he did have claws and was scratching our furniture, he would be dead.  So I should actually be the PETA chairman of how to humanely treat a cat.   

Kip is very mellow.  As you can see from the picture above, our darling dog is biting his ear.  Cookie attacks Kip on a regular basis and he calmly takes it.  When he has had enough he jumps up into his basket and goes to sleep.

 game over, time to snooze

Some people say the drawback to having a furry pet is the hair.  You know,  hair on your clothes.  Hair on your furniture.  Hair everywhere.   As you can see above, Kip does have hair.  A lot of hair.  Last spring I was brushing his fur and emptying out the brush as it got full.  I thought it would be interesting to see how many fur balls he would have if I kept brushing.  I got bored and stopped after about 16 of those bad boys.  I think he would have had 16 more if I kept going.  I am very particular about hair being everywhere, but Kip is so good that he mainly sleeps in his basket.  Problem solved.

Kip is a plain cat.  He is an orange cat.  But not really.  He has very plain features.  However, I do love his striped tail.  

He does not use a litter box.  EWW, those are nasty!  He lets me know when he needs to go outside by politely meowing at me until I let him out.

 God gives us so many things to make our lives pleasant and I do believe cats were one of those things.