Cat family :)

*click to enlarge

Winter is over down under, but in Sydney it's still quite cool at night and the cats love the heater. Particularly Natasha (middle cat) who is now officially 15. She even knows the word "heater" and comes over when we say that to her knowing that it'll be turning on. That's what happens to us old farts; we don't like being even remotely cold.

However she's still going strong, not at all sickly (unless she guts's herself on cat biscuits and coughs them up) and remains solid. She's still the cat matriarch and still rules with an iron paw. If Zac (right) or Casper get out of line for her she does this clobber on their heads with her paw (no claws). As she bought up Zac from a kitten he recognises her authority.  

Casper (left) has interacted more with Zac than Natasha, but Natasha loves him as he's got such a lovely nature. She's hardly ever bopped Casper as he's such a well behaved cat.

Zac is the rebel. He's the escape artist. We had to get pet screening on the back door and kitchen window as normal fly screen he'd rip to shreds and escape to the big outdoors. Not good when there's 7 lanes of traffic going back and forth right out the front door. But he's so determined. Obsessed! Seems to think it's his mission in life to escape! Never known a cat like him. 

His successful escapes have been nothing short of remarkable. One time I dared to open the kitchen window a touch when it had the screening he'd shredded to bits with his claws, thinking there's was no bloody way he'd get through that small gap. Next thing David and I know he's almost smiling at us outside the back door through the back door screening he'd butchered. 

Another time he escaped out one of the front windows that had solid anti-shredding screening on it for ages. We get a nice sea breeze through the front so I opened the window not much at all (opened from the bottom sliding up). However there was a gap in the screening in the middle just above where the sliding window gap ended. Zac ended up getting through the small gap of the open window, worked his way up between the narrow space between the solid screening, to the top where there was a small gap in the screen, and getting out yet again. We should have called him Houdini.

Zac attempts another excape from the kitchen window

Alas for Zac we now have the super duper pet screen on the back door and kitchen window ($26 a bloody metre!) which is indestructible and Zac proof. He hasn't given up though, refusing to admit that we've beaten him with it. He often climbs up the door screen, doing nothing more than bending the indestructible screen slightly in very small areas. He also has a go at the kitchen window but to no avail. *sheesh* David takes him out to the back yard bit daily to try and satisfy his escape missions.

Casper on the other hand is very much a house cat. But Zac and Casper have turned in to the best mates. They play with each other a lot. Chasing each other and tackling each other. They hide from each other and pounce when the other one goes past, triggering another episode of cat chasing. Sounds like a herd of elephants on these old wooden floors, ha ha. David has dubbed them The Boys :)

Very funny to watch. Earlier tonight Casper was hiding under this PC table out of sight, waiting for Zac to appear. Zac was near him looking for him. Was like hide and seek.

So happy these cats have worked themselves all together from different backgrounds and become a little cat family. Natasha David rescued long before he met me. She was living under a house as a kitten of a feral cat. Zac we got off a good friend of David's who would have been put down had we not taken him. Bought him home on the train and bus whilst he looked out the window; very typical of Zac. Casper we paid for from a litter of half "rag doll" cats (along with the late Cloe) who the owners let out all the time and the rest of them are dead now, including the parents.

Natasha and Zac the kitten - awwwwww :)