The Story of Caira
Caira is a very photographed cat, probably because 1) She's so very cute,
and 2) Because there are always things for Travis to try fiddling with his
cameras.
This page is a repository of pictures of her growing up and of some of her exploits.
One of the first things Travis did when his offer to buy the house was accepted was go out and look for a cat to fill it. After looking through the wonderful cat book that I have, he decided that he was going to have an Egyptian Mau. Why do you want that one, I asked. Their temperment, Travis read from the book "Egyptian Maus are active, colorful cats, curious about everything, yet reserved. They love to lap sit or ride on their owner's shoulders.... When the Mau is happy, it may wag its tail like a dog... Maus make delightful pets." I didn't have the enthusiasm to tell him that each breed in the book was described as being the ideal pet. After doing a search on the web, though, it turned out that there were about four Mau breeders in the country. Luckily for us, one of them was in San Diego County (a little over an hour's drive)! They had kittens that would be available in October, which was right when we moved into the house. So, about a month before we moved in, we decided to visit the cattery and see if any of their Mau-lings appealed to Travis. We went to the breeder's home in Delzura. The kittens were all so cute! Travis wanted the most active of the female kittens. Although they didn't react to us much, Travis found a little girl, and after giving the breeder a check for some amount of money, the breeder used a Sharpie to mark the claws of the kitten that was "ours"! (I'm skeptical of whether we got the cat that we picked out, but Travis isn't.) The cat would be old enough to come home with us the week after we moved into our house. :-) During the month that we had to wait before receiving her, Travis decided on the name Caira for her (like Cairo, but with an -a because she's a she).
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The breeder dropped off our little kitten on the Thursday after we moved
into the house, and Travis and I were just sitting down to eat Santa Maria
Style Tri-Tip when they arrived. One of her litter-mates had soiled both
of them on the way over to our house (the breeder was taking the other to
the airport), so the breeder gave her a quick bath in the sink before we
really got to see her. So in addition to the stress of having been taken
away from her home and family, we received a wet kitten. She howled and cried
miserably, and didn't really want to be held or pet at all - until we offered
her some Tri-Tip, that is.
She stopped crying at that point, at least. |
Caira looking at her new surroundings
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After dinner, Travis did manage
to snuggle with her for a little bit. He also took the next day off of work
so that he could bond with his little precious. Travis reminisces that her first few months, she'd sleep in bed above his head on the pillow. She still often sleeps on the bed, but it's more likely to be near the foot of the bed. |
| Like any doting parent, Travis bought lots of toys and supplies for taking
care of his little girl. We would also take her for walks around the block
(on a leash, of course! Papa's not letting his little girl go wild!), but
she didn't enjoy that as much as we thought she would. If you look in background, you can see the lightswitch next to the entertainment center that Caira later learned to turn off. We still hadn't gotten everything unpacked and set up! |
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Caira and the Aquarium Screen Saver |
Computers are a big part of family activity, and Caira quickly learned to
be a part. Now she often just rests on top of my monitor where she can
keep an eye on us (and I occassionally play with her). She has lost interest in screen savers, and now prefers "knock the bottle caps" off of the top of the monitor or desk. She'll play that with Tara for a good long while, until Tara's attention span wanders. |
| For Christmas (2001) we thought it would be cute if we could take pictures
of her in the holiday spirit. Attempt #1: Wouldn't she be cute sitting in
a Santa Claus hat? That didn't work so well. (Click here for a fun animated gif of the attempts). Then, when I was out with Joanie, I got the idea to make some antlers out of pipe cleaners. She has always been extremely pliant when it comes to doing things to/with her, but unfortunately the antlers wouldn't stay up. We did learn though that she prefered the pipe cleaners to any other toy we had bought for her so far (and they were far cheaper!). |
Here, we had given up, and debris was strewn across the hall. |
Caira patiently letting us try to put the antlers on her.
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How to make antlers for your cat: 1) Fold 2 pipe cleaners into antler-like shapes. 2) Attach antlers to white or other "blending" color to make a collar. 3) Attach to cat so that antlers will stand upright. 4) Offer cat other pipe cleaner to play with. 5) Don't let her chew the antlers instead of the designated toy-pipe cleaner. |
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Caira's first couple months were pretty uneventful, but then on January 19th,
2002, the unthinkable happened. She was used to us coming and going, but
on this particular day, when we came back, we brought a little sheltie brother
for her. From her point of view, this was not a good thing at all. For about
a week, she'd torment and hiss at him, but then she got used to him, and
decided he wasn't as bad as she thought. We had gotten new toys for Joshua,
and she seemed pleased that we had gotten them for her (seeing her with a
big puppy fetch-toy is pretty amusing). Sometimes when she's being pesky, we'll threaten her that if she's not good, we'll leave and come back to the house with another brother for her. |
"What in the heck is that?"
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They only didn't get along for about a week,
and then for a while, they were companions. Here are Caira and Joshua sleeping
together in early February of 2002. They never sleep like this anymore, or
at least while we're around. Of course, Josh fills his entire dog bed now... |
Josh and Caira would get baths on the same day. Neither really enjoyed the experience, although Caira likes joining Papa in the shower once he turns off the water... |
Caira loves straws. |
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One Saturday in May of 2002, we took Joshua to a dog beach. When we came
back, we had found evidence of toilet paper destruction on the upstairs bathroom
floor. Not seeing anything wrong with her actions, when I asked her about
it, she demonstrated how she went about doing it. It was so cute that we
couldn't really scold her, and she posed for pictures. She hasn't repeated this activity more than twice, and those were times when she was put into the downstairs bathroom so that Travis and I could sleep. (She would usually be put in if she insisted that we get up before 6am.) |
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She is really turning off the light switch here. (This was before we got the new TV which takes up that space) Although she turns up her nose at all of my cooking (except Tri-Tip), she is an extremely food-motivated cat. Using dog treats as bait, we taught her to jump from an end table to my shoulder, and to on cue (and some warm-up), jump on the entertainment center, turn off the patio light, and run back to the end-table for a treat. If I call the animals to me (and I have treats), they will both come and sit in front of me, which just goes to show that cats don't have any more dignity than dogs do if you've found out what motivates them. |
We think she's cute when she sits up.
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For his birthday in 2003, Travis bought himself a SLR digital camera, which he needed to take lots of pictures with to find out how it worked. This meant photo studio time for the animals, and in my room because that's where the best light in the house was.
Here's Caira posing with my wedding veil. |
Caira as Macbeth, or Hamlet. She really enjoys the attention she gets, and is always willing to play photo studio. |
