Desti and Sax
When I came over to Canada from the UK I brought my two cats with me. It was
quite and interesting journey for them. They were locked up in their little carrying
case for almost 24 hours and in that whole time neither of them made a single mess!
I was both surprised and very impressed. But it may have backfired on them a bit
because Desti sometimes (and I have to say, very rarely) shows her disgust and annoyance
by doing things on the carpet that really shouldn't be done on the carpet. But now
I know that is it nothing to do with not being able to hold it, it is pure spite!
They are brother and sister (Sax is the male and Desti is the female). I got them
from a rescue shelter back in Wales, in December of 1996 when they were about six weeks
old. They are well traveled cats!
So this is Desti. She is a British Shorthaired black and
white cat. The patterning is called "Tuxedo" and I should hope it is
obvious why. She looks cute, right? Well if you ever met her in person she
would look ten times cuter: she has this habit of turning onto her back and putting
her paws in the air and looking at you with her pitiful eyes, begging you to rub her
tummy. She's cute and she knows it! And does she use this ability too look
adorable to get her own way? Of course she does! She exploits it every
opportunity she can! She has worked out that if she looks at someone in a certain
way she can get anything she wants... devious and cunning! Out of the two, she is
definitely the brains of the operation.
Sax on the other hand is really
stupid! And I mean that in the nicest way (if there is a nicest way!!!).
There's not a bad bone in his body, all he wants to do is have fun. He reminds me
very much of "Tigger" out of "Winnie the Pooh". You can just
imagine him jumping around shouting "Wanna play? Wanna play?". He's
a very vocal cat: I think that's the nicest way of putting it! His purr sounds
like a big engine tuned to perfection and you can have quite a conversation with
him. But as they always say, empty vessels make most noise! He is about twice
as big as Desti. but Desti is the boss. She will sometimes give him the impression
that he is in charge, but you can always tell that it's just a game she plays.
There are a lot of cats in Winnipeg:
at least there are a lot of cats in my area of Winnipeg. The strange thing is
though, I have not seen any of them climb trees or buildings. When Desti and Sax are
outside they spend most of their time either on a roof (See picture of Sax just about to
jump off my low roof) or up in trees. And we are not talking first limb here, we are
talking about 50 feet up a tree. But that's what they have always done and they are
quite comfortable up there. They both have excellent balance. So why do the
Winnipeg cats not climb? I don't know, but I find it interesting.
Anyway, there was a point to this: Desti like squirrels. She doesn't like
to chase them, she wants to make friends with them. There are quite a number of red
squirrels that live in the trees around the house. She will sit in the tree, or on
the roof sitting quietly looking up at them for hours. You can see she really wants
one to come down and play. And what do the squirrels do? They jump up and down
and chatter at her! It is definitely a one way love affair! Poor Desti.
I'm sure she thinks that are cats too.
