Thursday 6 August 2009

Randall – The New Arrival

P1030537Everyone say ahhh! Randall has arrived and our house will never be the same again. Adding to our existing gang of adult cats comes this little bag of love. First of all some introductions are required:
Leo
Leo is our eldest, 9 and proud. Also quite aloof and generally stand-offish to all. That being said he is still loving, and to be quite honest, a bit of a doofus.
leo is snoopy
Pippy
Also known as Pippalinda and various other embarrassing aliases, invented by us human types. Pippy is a year younger, but really sees himself as the boss of the house. This is a delusion that he believes without question. My wife suffers a delusion that he is not fat, just stocky/big boned, this debate has been raging for years.
pippy is bossRandall
Unlike Pippy and Leo who are pedigree moggies, Randall has a real pedigree. Randall is a Scottish Fold, a very special breed as the wiki post will testify. Now I have had kittens before all of the above and several more when I was younger and they were all cute. Randall, however, is in a different class. He is already a hit on the interweb, check this cute overload posting if you don’t believe me.
So, you get the picture, Scottish Folds are not like moggies for a number of reasons. One, they can trace their ancestry, the original Scottish Fold was called Susie and was identified in Scotland in 1961. She was entered into a breeding program, which produced many kittens, the most important female being Snooks. All Scottish Folds can trace their ancestry to Susie and Snooks.
I read a book about a particular Scottish Fold called Norton, and this is what turned me on to the breed. If you are interested in the life of Norton and his owner then you should check out Peter Gethers, who has travelled with, suffered and loved Norton in equal bounds.
Meanwhile, my Scottish Fold, Randall has a two way relationship with the rest of the house. Leo screeches and consequently ignores him.
Pippy, on the other hand, tolerates him and occasionally loves him. In the interim he may fight, bite, claw and eviscerate him, but this is a relationship to be savoured.
Pippy loves/tolerates his baby brother and should be commended for that. The level of toleration sometimes amazes me. Randall will regularly bite his tail, attempt to bite his face off and generally annoy him in many ways. Pippy takes all of this in his stride up to a point and then will go for the throat, but in a nice way.
It seems that Pippy has take him under his paw and is going to look after him, so if any of you are worried about integrating a new cat into your house, don’t worry, because some cat will step up to the plate.