Dogs are new to me, but I have loved cats as long as I remember. We only have Gomez these days, so it was fun to be around all the cats in Oregon.
Gomez has started sleeping with us every night since we got back from Oregon. Ninja always slept at our feet and it has taken me months to not feel her still sleeping there. So it has been a little odd to get used to it again. Odd but nice.
He has also become very affectionate to me of late. I think he is missing Son of COG, who is working full time, plus taking a math class at Salem State, plus bird banding etc. This morning he stretched across the keyboard of my computer while I was trying to type. Shoved along, he stretched out right next to me, purring loudly and sweetly touched the side of my hand with his paw.
There are a couple of times of day when he has scheduled affection in his cat day timer. Dinner time, of course, but even when his dinner is put out, he still wants to cuddle for a while before he eats. Then, mid-way through the day he usually tracks me down for a brief cuddle. When he has had enough, he disappears.
Since it's warm here today, he is outside in the shade having a mid-afternoon nap. However, he allowed me to take his picture.
He's a mellow cat. Sociable, but not very demonstrative. He's also a one-person cat, or one and a half. James is his primary person, but I am his emergency back-up person. It's little difficult for him to get to me, with Sheba guarding me all the time. Like an overly interfering secretary, Sheba feels it's her mission to keep my time uninterrupted by others. Or perhaps it's Sheba's deeply buried herding instincts, trying to herd her away from me. Or her not deeply buried enough 'kill all cats' gene.
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Norwegian Forest Cats and Maine Coons are closely related, although the books I've read don't know how, exactly. Some believe that the Norwegian Cats were brought over by Leif Erickson and left kittens with the Native-American felines, who developed eventually into Maine Coons. This does seem very Viking-like, but also far-fetched, to me. (There was a bad movie last spring, which title I cannot remember, about something similar -- except it was about a blue-eyed, blond, Native American not a cat.)
Anyway, both cats tend to be one-person cats, sociable but not terribly cuddly, independent but friendly. Sounds like Gomez and Harry, on all counts.
Love the image of Sheba as over-eager secretary, BTW.
Yes, I think the Maine coons and the Norwegian Forest cats have a lot in common.
I like the Viking idea, though I don't believe it. I think I might choose to pretend I believe it.
If the Vikings brought cats to the new world, why does Minnesota not have any, eh? Have you thought about that?
I have some sense that Minnesota has more N.Forest Cats than other states, actually. I can't remember the details, but when I was learning about them, there was more of a concentration of breeders in the Upper Midwest than elsewhere.
They were only allowed into the American Cat Canon (whatever it's called, the feline equivalent of the American Kennel Assocation) in 1971, although they've been in the European canon since the 1920s. There aren't many breeders, relative to other cats.
And I note that I got one at the humane society -- not a full-breed, I'm sure, but definitely closely related. So that means there are lots tom-catting around in Minnesota.
sybbrig mentions that Harry is from the humane society and implies that he is the product of 'tom-catting'. .... would this be the feline equivalent of typical Viking behavior of looting, pillaging and raping the locals, then, moving in?
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