Hi, I'm Mary and I'm a cat-o-holic (and an ex-Catholic, but that's another story).

We lost our 21-year-old Siamese, Val, last spring. I'd had her since she was 10 weeks old, and deciding it was time to have her euthanized was the roughest choice I've ever had to make. Fortunately, a couple of my fellow folkies who are also owned by Siamese put me in touch with Siamese Rescue. In June, we adopted two fine, healthy 1 or 2 year old Siamese mix kitties who had been picked up as strays. Raffi and Nadia have quickly learned that being catered to by two adoring humans sure beats life on the streets, and we're learning what life with non-geriatric cats is like all over again.

As a result, I've mostly abandoned the Mudcat for the Siamese Internet Cat Club, http://www.meezer.net, a discussion forum that is well organized, moderated by volunteers and full of other people just as nuts about their cats as I am. There are separate subforums for General Chat, Health Questions, Adoptions, Geezers (care of geriatric cats), Games (the equivalent of Mudcat Tavern threads), etc., so the recurring arguments about "That's not appropriate on this forum" never come up. There is also a whole lot less flaming.

One of the stipulations in the shelter adoption contract was that the cats MUST be kept inside. Both my husband and I felt kind of ambivalent about this, but realized that there are very good reasons to do this, if the cats will tolerate it (which these two do...) Some of those reasons are for the protection of the cat, some are for your protection, and some are for the protection of others:

1. Cars and trucks will always win. (see "He's Nobody's Moggy Now")
2. Feline Leukemia Virus and Feline Infectious Peritonitis are incurable, deadly, and highly transmissable cat to cat.
3. Dogs, raccoons and coyotes frequently are bigger and/or more vicious, and can kill a cat.
4. Vet bills for bite wounds, abcesses, broken limbs, etc. are EXPENSIVE.
5. Cats bring things inside - mice, birds, fleas, dead squirrels, etc.
6. Cats are one of the biggest threats to migratory songbirds, killing millions annually (see reason 5). Domestic cats are not native to the natural environment. Therefore, migratory birds have not developed a defense strategy against cats.

So, Raffi and Nadia curl up happily in their heated home, with all the food they need, and the wonderful exercize of chasing each other over their sleeping humans at all hours...

Oh, and there is now a dry cat food formulated specifically for Indoor Cats, "Royal Canin Indoor 27", that has a lower fat content for sedentary beasts, and includes chicory as an additive to reduce farting - and it works!