Tabbies in Trees Tuesday

I first want to thank everyone for their well wishes regarding Smudge. As I write this, he is in for surgery. We won't know anything until 2:00pm MST. Once we know, I will post the news, good or bad. UPDATE: 12:00pm Smudge's surgery was cancelled. His levels are right back up and he has lost another 11 percent of his weight. Dr. Nick does not think that Smudge would survive the procedure. He has advised us to start looking at managing the remainder of Smudge's days as best we can. Who knows, Smudge might even surprise us.

Constantly writing about Smudge and his critical health issues is as depressing to me as it is to the readers of this blog. So in order to remind everyone that there are three other cats in our household who have been doing their darnest to bring levity and laughter to our lives, I present to you Tabbies in Trees:

Our Christmas tree went up last week to get everyone used to it. We always hope the novelty of the tree will wear off before the ornaments actually put on it. Every year, the cats lull us into thinking that is it now safe to begin the decorating. Now in previous years, we have tried to have a natural tree which by its sappy nature has a built in defense mechanism against overly inquisitive cats. This year, my wife wanted an easy to maintain artificial tree, a rotating artificial tree.

Can you see where this is going?

Now Bella being the oldest girl-cat in the house took it apon herself to begin the required exploration and investigation of the tree. Not too much of an issue as it was not rotating at this point in time.

This require some sniffing of the stand, chewing of the plastic leaves, and climbing up the center of the tree. We did not witness this, but one of the benefits of having four different coloured cats is that you do not need CSI to figure out whose fur you found on the branches five feet of the floor.

Dolce is a sponge. She learns very well from her siblings. She saw Bella pawing at the branches; she pawed at the branches. She saw Bella chewing on the plastic, she chewed on the plastic. She saw Bella climbing up the center of the tree, she climbed up the center of the tree. Just a second though, wasn't the tree stationary when Bella climbed it? That was one detail Dolce chose to overlook.


This is Dolce on one of her passes as she sat on the branches of the tree as it rotated around. Kind of like her own Christmas themed carousel. In our moment of worry and fear, these two took it apon themselves to bring a smile to our faces.

I shudder to think what will happen once there are ornaments on those branches.