I have more involvement with the purple kitties than I do with the rest of the animals around here, which now number six.
Ditto is the queen of the house. An 11 year-old house cat, she predates me in Beck’s life, and she is the quintessential “I really don’t need much from you” cat.
Mabel is a basset hound going on four, and all the basset hound cliches apply to her.
Beyond that, we have a red-footed tortoise named Armor, a hamster named Very Hairy Fuzzball Claude Keenan, a guinea pig named Rex, and a goldfish named Candy.
All the other animals are taken care of by other members of the family, but if I don’t feed the purple kitties before I leave for work, chances are I might have to when I return.
Simon’s my back up man on this chore, but he’s six, and their bowls are outside, and feeding the kitties is never a paying gig, but just a favor I ask of him. Some gigs pay, which mean they can be turned into ice cream and fidget spinners; those chores take precedent. That’s just human nature.
But I do manage their food for the most part, and I’ve come to delineate between them by temperament, even if I can’t do it by sight.
The easiest way to do that is to wait until they’re all on the porch and then let Mabel out. No, I don’t see which one is Purple, which is Plum, or which is Violet; rather, the one who stays on the porch but softly begrudges the dog’s intrusion is the one who likes her about 80% of the time. The one who leaves the porch but slow enough to allow for a bit of back and forth is the one who tolerates her about 40% of the time. The one who hightails it to the barn is the one who never likes her, as she is a being other than he, and he doesn’t care for much of anyone or anything besides himself, unless they have something for him.
I give him food, so I am OK.
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