Looking Her Sunday Best - Skitt Gets a Buzz Job

Diva, Misty, Brownie, Be & Max (does not like cameras)

Well, we had planned on giving Skitt, our cat, her summer haircut this past Saturday, but our friends, Scott & Jean, were headed out of town, so we got their dogs, Max & Misty for the day. No sooner had they arrived - Brownie came by for a visit, so we ended up with 4 really big dogs in the house. We envisioned a totally freaked out cat with all the canine company, so we thought not a good day to give the cat a buzz job. So, after church, Skitt got her new doo on Sunday.

Skitt's Story

Shortly after we adopted Diva from the humane society, we observed a beautiful charcoal gray domestic longhair cat hanging around our house. She was quite wild and would not let us get near her when we approached. We discovered that she was living in the storm drains in our neighborhood, existing on scraps from trash cans and whatever small creatures she could catch. We bought some cans of cat food and started leaving portions in the pipe closest our home. We began moving the food closer to the house and after months of this procedure, she would come up onto our open side porch and eat. Winter was here and she still would not come in the house, so we left a heating pad inside a cardboard box and she was content to spend the night there, but would always retreat back to the drain pipes during the day and still would run away at our approach. Eventually, she began eating on our back porch, so we would close the door, not allowing her outside at night (still sleeping in the box with the heating pad) and open it in the morning, allowing her to come and go as she pleased during the day.

After months of feedings outside, she finally ventured inside, but still would not warm up to us. We would remark at how skittish she was, so she became known as 'Skitt". Then, after several more months of staying in the house (we really took our chances here, not knowing anything about her toileting - she adapted to a litter box easily) she allowed us to pick her up - it took her more than a year before we were granted permission to touch her - and we got a tremendous surprize - she was declawed! She had fended for herself for many months developing quite th survival instinct and sense of independence - no wonder she had no interest in us! We later heard that some woman in the neighborhood had moved out and left 5 or so cats behind and Skitt was one of them.

Now, 3 years later, Skitt is an official house cat. She is still deficient in the area of social graces and looks at cat toys like they're entirely offensive, spends the whole day under our bed and comes out at night and jumps up on one of our laps for her evening scratch & pet. She will stay there and purr and when she's done, she's done - she takes up her post at the front window on the back of the couch and stays there for the night. Although it is not easy to bond with Skitt, we're happy she's off the streets and we're glad that we exercised the patience needed to bring her to this point.

We are exercising the same patience for the arrival of Joanna, now about 5 months overdue according to the wait times in place when we began our adoption journey.

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In the pics below.....

Skitt seems to know what's comin'. We do the 'lion cut' on her - her head, legs and tail remain uncut. The rest of the body gets buzzed - it's really the same color as her head, it just has not fully grown in since her last cut.

.....and here she is after the buzz job. Her undercoat is almost white and we left a line of her charcoal gray fur down her back for the reverse skunk look, a popular style among felines.

We remarked that it looks like Leno's hair, somewhat and

we have invented a new cat breed - Mohawkus Domesticata.

Next event ------ the bath.