Mike and Ashes

Mike is pictured with Zippy in the side bar.  He is the cat closest to the front.  Mike is our smart cat.  My brother-in-law  rescued him and his sister from a ditch in Indiana as tiny kittens.  They had been abandoned as coyote food since there was no way they were going to survive.  He and his wife bottle fed them and cared for them, however when their baby was born they did not feel like they could keep them and they came to live with us.
It was the same summer we were catching feral cats and they brought our numbers up to six cats living in the house right then.
When Mike and Ashes came to us, they still were not full grown -- sort of in their teen years.  One day when I went in the kitchen, Ashes was laying under the table, and she looked a little odd.  I leaned down to look at her and realized there was a mouse between her paws.  When she sat up the mouse walked around her in a circle, stopped back in front of her, stood on its hind legs and stretched up to her.  She tipped  her head and touched noses with it, laid back down, and the mouse curled up between her paws.
Now don't get me wrong, I thought this little scene was lovely -- but not in my kitchen.  So I went and got Valiant who was about 8 inches long at this point.  But since he was raised by a wild mama cat, not a human with a bottle he knew exactly what to do with the mouse and was very eager to give Ashes pointers.  Being an intelligent -- although inexperienced -- kitty, she learned quickly.
Ashes eventually went to live with a neighbor, but Mike has stayed on.  He is by far the most intellegent of our crew -- and he knows it.  He is obviously disdainful of the other cats.  He listens -- and I do mean LISTENS -- to classical music and responds to it.  There is one piece by Schoenberg that he has an obvious distaste for.  He believes something lives in the printer and scanner.  He knows what the door knob is for.  He watches television.  He knows he is not allowed in my room, but that the foster animals are.  He sits at the door and looks in at them if we have it open for a moment, although the other cats never even realize anybody is in there. 

In the summer we block off the living room with blankets and put a window air conditioner in the room.  There may or may not be a gate behind the blanket depending on if the ferret is out.   Zippy and Dart act as though it is always there and jump up on the couch to go over it even when it is not there. Jack just runs into the gate.  Mike will carefully pull the cover aside every time and check.

Mike has a very soft purr. You almost have to lay your ear against his body to hear it. But he is very relaxed and affectionate -- loves to rub his chin and head on your arm. He doesn't mind if you are not petting him, he will rub his head on your hand or arm and pet yourself.