Hello everyone! I'm new to the group but have been lurking for a couple years
& occasionally posting since last summer, so I decided it's past time to
formally introduce my cats & myself. I'm Mari, probably a little older than
many here, live in Canada & have had cats since 1970.  My present cats are
Coco who's now 5 & Little Devil, the trouble-making terror who I can't
believe will be 3 this fall. Coco is a very sweet gentle light beige-brown &
white bicolor DSH boy with amber eyes. Little Devil is a high-spirited
totally incorrigible but lovable black & white tuxedo boy with beautiful
golden eyes. He was a short-haired cat the first year here but his hair's
gradually been growing longer & now he's a medium, almost long-haired cat.
When I first brought him home as a maybe 3-4 month kitten, my family was
afraid of him (biting, scratching, hissing) & said he had "evil eyes" but he
settled down quickly - still very high-spirited, very curious, still always
into mischief or worse ("come here you little monster") but doesn't bite,
scratch or act aggressively towards us. I worked very hard the first couple
weeks to break that behavior & kept him separated from the other cats & us.
We still had Tigra, our elderly gray & black tabby girl who was 18-1/2 & not
doing well when Little Devil first came into the house but she perked up
after his arrival & lived another year before she was put to sleep in late
Sept 05. All of my cats have been rescues - some dramatic, some sad, one an
unauthorized removal from a research center, some I still can't understand
why they'd been abandoned.

I always enjoy reading about everyone's cats, & like others here, shake my
head in disgust when someone takes the time to post on the internet about
what to do in such & such a situation when it's pretty obvious they need to
get to a vet ASAP. So hello again to everybody.
M.