Friday Cat Blogging: Willowbean

Lady Wilhelmina Abigail, Willow for short, sister to Nickerdoodle; she is a hefty 18 pound blue mitted Ragdoll. She has always been her own cat, excuse me Wils, person. She has the longest attention span of any cat we have had; if she gets a notion in that little walnut sized brain it will never leave.

Ragdolls are supposed to be placid; if faced with attack they will flop down and become rather limp. Not Willow. Raised with four feisty Siamese she had to learn to defend herself and does so. She can sit up on her hind haunches and trade jabs and right crosses with the best the Siamese have to give. Never mind the fact that at her weight compared to theirs she could just flop on them and crush them to death.
Her favorite toy is a pipe cleaner, preferably a red one although any color will do. In Mississippi, we kept them in an endtable drawer in the den and she could hook her front paw under the pull, open the drawer and fish them out. Coil it up and she will meow until it is thrown. Then she plays with it a while, batting it around, stepping on one end and straightening it out. Before long she is heading out the cat door to the water fountain. There she drops it in, gets it good and wet, then fished it up with her paw into her mouth and drops it in the dry food bowl. She also does this with the thick hair bands.

Her cousin, Maggie (my parent's Ragdoll), is or rather was an only child. She would visit and hide in the bedroom with her "special" food and water bowls in the guest bathroom. Willow would find them, do her "dip and plop" act with the pipe cleaner and Maggie would find it when she went to eat. This sends Maggie into a frenzy, whining, yeowing she finds my dad, makes him follow her and he has to remove the obstacle from her bowl. Placated, Maggie eats and hides. Not five minutes later, here comes Willow, looks over the bowl and begins her hunt for the now hidden pipe cleaner. She will search for half an hour but usually finds it in less than two minutes, redips in water and places it back into the food bowl. Our other cats just eat around it when it shows up in their food, but Maggie is spoiled, dependent and extremely helpless. She has her nervous breakdown each time. Unfortunately for the Maggot, all her cousins now live with her. Poor Maggie. "Sigh" I guess Willowbean gets the last laugh after all, and now to relax and sleep...perchance to dream....of pipe cleaners, hair bands, toy mice and (he-he) Maggie. They do know how to relax, don't they?


For other pictures and stories of cats and dogs and squirrels...oh no! Be sure to visit Friday's Ark and Sunday's Carnival of the Cats, this week hosted by Running Scared.