Last Sunday, Sven-man and I went out and got a kitten. What we didn’t know is that our kitten (Sputnik) is the best kitten in the whole world.
Really. He is. He loves people. When we have visitors, he usually walks right up to them and falls asleep on their laps. He is rarely more than five feet away from one of us. Even when we take baths, he’ll perch on the rim of the bathtub just to be near. He sleeps under the covers with us. He loves us!
And he is playful. He has a little toy ball that he plays fetch with- just like a dog. Today he learned how to grab his feather-on-a-stick toy in his mouth and lay it at my feet so that I’ll play with him. He is so cute! I can’t even list all the cute things he does.
I can’t believe out of all the cats in the world, we got the best one. Here are a few photos of our new kitten. I am sooo proud of him!
He MAY grow out of the cuddliness, a bit. When we first got Misty, she had to lay on your chest, right under your chin, if you were reclining. Move her even an inch, and she’d move back up. She ALWAYS had to be in someone’s lap.
When she slept with someone-usually my dad-she slept right on your neck. It’s a good thing she stopped doing this-she’d suffocate my poor father! (She’s 10 pounds +)
So she’s not AS cuddly feely, but she still likes to sit on laps, be petted and sleep with someone (mostly by their heads or their feet), and she still loves company.
I had to turn down kittens TWICE this week. I was walking down Beford Avenue in Brooklyn, and a guy was giving out TINY all black kittens for free. He had about 5 of them. A stranger on the street (a cute girl), turned to me and said “They need homes!” almost begging me to help. Good thing I was running late, or I would have taken one (or 2 :gasp!:).
Then the other day a good friend offered me a kitten when I went to her house. He was a roughneck stray with a heart of gold and a tiny body. I agreed to take it if she could not find someone else. Luckily, she did. I think my Mac would be mad if I got another Cat. He takes all the attention he can get and can fetch a Bra in a pinch! So I like to keep him happy.
I just got a new pad all to myself with alot of room. I have the space, I just have a jealous tough guy here already who loves to get brushed. I think I’m dangerously close though, much to his chagrin.
A few pictures, even sven ? As Will Smith said in “Men in Black” This guy had a serious thing about his cat!"
But seriously, what a sweet kitty! He looks so much like my cat Baby did when he was a young kitty. Baby lives in kitty heaven now, but pictures like this make me smile. You will have to update us every so often!!!
It’s too bad kittens have to grow up. I think it was Ogden Nash who said “The trouble with a kitten is that/Eventually it becomes a cat.”
He’s a dead ringer for my cat Max. Max was in my lap just now as I was viewing the pics, and he was totally fascinated. I told him they were of him, just to stroke his little ego.
Max doesn’t have those big ears though. Looks like Sputnik has a bit of Abysynnian or Siamese or something exotic in him. I hope he stays affectionate – but be prepared for those “Difficult Teenage Years” they all go through.
He is so lovely! He looks so like my black cat Lail. I am getting more and more to the belief that black cats are somehow more intelligent than others.
Can I ask you people something? How do you manage to take pictures of cats without giving them Glowy Eye? Every snap I take of my kitties makes them look like they’re possessed by (very lazy) demons. Very annoying, especially since they always look right at the camera when I get it out.
That’s the light from your flash bouncing straight into your kitty’s eyes and then straight out into your camera.
To avoid this, use a camera that permits you to move the flash a few feet away from the camera. That way the light which bounces in and out of your kitty’s eyes will not be the light hitting the camera.
It’s that old angle i equals angle r stuff from public school.
Here is a nice page by wildlife photographer Nigel Dennis that discusses the problem of red eye when photographing wee beasties:
“It is important to remember that if a flash is used on the camera hot shoe there is a good chance of getting pictures with the dreaded ‘red eye’. Red eye is often seen on family portraits when using the little pop up flash built into many ‘point and shoot’ cameras. In bird photography the large eyes of nocturnal species are particularly susceptible to this. The only way to avoid red eye is to use a dedicated connecting cable and move the flash a meter or so either side of the camera. This prevents the light from the flash entering the subject’s eye and reflecting directly back through the camera lens. Using off-camera flash is easy when working from a vehicle. I generally photograph from the front and simply point the flash out of the back window. However in a small hide off-camera flash becomes rather cumbersome as it is necessary to set up a separate tripod just outside the hide to hold the flash.”
Hmmm… a separate flash. Hadn’t thought of that. I’ve been meaning to take up photography as a hobby anyway-- this looks like the excuse I’ve been waiting for to spend the money! Thanks for the advice.
His face reminds me of our Toby kitten - only Toby has tons of fur. prrt Sputnik!