Introducing.....THE SMUDGE!!!

So I have mentioned but not specifically talked about my lovely, but mischievous cat Smudge.

I adopted him from the Tantramar Vet here in Sackville almost ten months ago, he is just over a year old now, after seeing a note in the window one night, saying that an abandoned cat needed a home. I had been wanting to get a kitten since I'd moved out to Sackville because I'm used to having cats around. My family has had at least one cat since before I was born. In fact there was one point where we had nine....but that's another story. The next day I went back to the vet's and saw this little black and white bundel of fur with huge green, almost crossed, eyes staring at me from the diplay window. This was Smudge, and he was adorable! Immediately, I filled out the paper work required to adopt him and was allowed to go and play with him for a while. He was playful and friendly and very very very cute. I went home knowing that I had to adopt that cat. A few days later I got a call that I had been approved and I could come soon to pick up my new friend.

Now Smudge is a very special cat, in a few ways, but mainly because he has to stay on a special diet. When he was abandoned he lived alone for quiet some time and had to find food for himself. He took to eating a lot of things that a cat shouldn't, like people food, sticks, leaves, garbage etc. Because of this he had a lot of scar tissue in his stomach that was removed by the vet when he was first brought in. He now can only eat small amounts of food at a time, and it has to be a specific cat food that is easy to digest.

He also has developed a complusion to get at any and all food he can find, probably because he still thinks it could be ages before he is fed again, even though he's fed plenty of food twice a day :P. He will eat anything, cat food, garbage, bread, vegetables, baked goods, and even raw ingredients like flour, as my roommate experience the other day when she had to give him a bath after he got into the flour and was a completely white cat. This complusion also leads him to be very very persistant. We have tried everything to try and get him to stop jumping on counters and sticking his face in your food as you try to eat it. The best thing we've found is a water spray bottle. Everytime he does something he's not supposed to, he gets a spray. Though it usually makes him stop what ever he's doing and runaway, it doesn't seem to keep him from trying again....and again....and again until we have a very wet cat on our hands.

But depsite all his mischievious ways, I absolutely love my cat. He can be very lovely, like when he sleeps right next to me underneath the covers all night. He also likes to give "kisses" by rubbing his face against yours. And everyday he greets me at the door when I come home. It's very adorable. He's provided me with some much needed animal companionship I've been missing since I left my cats back in Toronto. So expect more stories about Smudge soon, as he's always getting into some sort of trouble.

-Emily