Our first little stray cat Chloe has come with us on our evening dog walks for a long time. Sylvester has been running along with us for a while, too. He’s always entertaining. And now Zoe has started walking with us. This is a fairly typical scene for cats on a walk.

Cats on a walk

Zoe is kind of out of shape. He’s the only one of the cats that pants.

Zoe panting

You can hear him. It’s kind of funny in a way, and kind of sad, too. We think he might be training for race walking, because his gait is pretty funny. Mark says he’s doing a steam engine impression — choo-choo-choo. At least he’s trying. He seems to have a better disposition now. He’s on arthritis medication and something for his kitty IBS (lots of throwing up and diarrhea in the not-too-distant past; he feels better and so do we). He’s also on some expensive glaucoma medication, but we don’t think he actually feels any better because of it.

Once back at the house, it takes him a while to recover.

This floor is cool

Eyedroppin’

Zoe has been surprisingly cooperative when I give him his glaucoma eyedrops. The vet says glaucoma could lead eventually to blindness if not treated, and we think we can already tell that he is not seeing very well. We are not sure what to do, since the drops are not cheap, and it’s hard to give him just a single drop per eye twice a day.

Mark here: Leah doesn’t like to manhandle (cathandle?) Zoe, and that’s pretty much what it takes to get the drops into his eyes. I’m surprised at how well he takes this, though.

Zoe used to spend a lot of time sleeping in the bathtub. After a while he found new places to sleep. But recently he found the tub again.

Found him

Look at the long hair between the pads on his feet

He didn’t like being disturbed.

It’s rude to stick your tongue out like that

He had had enough.

I’ll just go find someplace else since it’s getting so crowded in here

Chloe sometimes comes in at night and sleeps on our bed. She gets affectionate right at bedtime. She jumps up on the bed and starts purring and kneading the blanket.

She likes her head rubbed

Mmmm. Feels good.

Smokey puts up with a lot

Smokey puts up with a lot, and he seems to love it. He actually seems to enjoy some pretty vigorous brushing to get the knots out of his fur. None of the other cats are anywhere as even tempered as him.