Cybelle's Saga: July 21, 2002
All photographs © Ian Lind, Kaaawa, Hawaii (ian@ilind.net)

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Well, Ms. Cybelle has raised her last litter. We dropped her off at VCA in Kaneohe on Wednesday night, and picked her up on Thursday evening, a new woman.

Her stomach is shaved, but she otherwise seems no worse for wear. In fact, she almost immediately started playing with Duke after getting back home. She has, however, learned something from the experience. Now she tries to disappear whenever we get ready to leave the house, just in case we might try to cart her back to the vet.

Mr. Duke will be 12 weeks old on Tuesday.

We're working on teaching him to come when he's called. A little bag of cat treats, dispensed literally on call, quickly does the trick. He'll now run the length of the house when his name is called.

We still haven't introduced Duke, or Cybelle for that matter, with the great outdoors. Not even the outdoor deck. This was supposed to be the big weekend, but it didn't work out yesteday for some reason, and today it's raining.

They are both making their wishes known, though, by running towards any open door.

Duke is still making overtures to the other cats. Here he's trying to lure Lindsey into a game of tag. I don't think he was successful, but at least Lindsey thought about it.

He's also increased his interactions with us, and how is likely to appear at your feet, or right in front of you at the table, any time you slow down. He's extremely polite about it, though.

He does have a presence (quite large) out of proportion with his size (still small).