And I shall call him Leonard and he shall be mine

I was going to wait to see how his per­son­al­i­ty devel­oped before set­tling on a name, and for a while I was call­ing him Serge (after Gainsbourg) cause he was almost over­ly affec­tion­ate, con­stant­ly paw­ing me and rub­bing my face with his. Eventually, I real­ized it’d be impos­si­ble for a cat to live up to such name­sakes, so I went with my first choice, which was Leonard. It has Leo in it, which is per­fect for any­thing from the fel­i­dae fam­i­ly. I could nev­er call him Lenny though cause “Lenny Cohen” sounds so wrong to me.

Leonard the cat on Dolly

 

I love cats with goofy faces, and I can tell Leonard has a bit of one already from the way his cheeks puff out. I also like my cats fat cause there’s more to hold when they decide to crawl into the cov­ers. As nov­el as it is to see how tiny Leonard is in com­par­i­son to Dolly, I’m look­ing for­ward to see him putting on some more weight.

Unfortunately, Dolly’s per­son­al­i­ty has changed. She’s a bit less affec­tion­ate, less vocal, and more sick­ly; I’ve been deal­ing with per­pet­u­al res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tions and eye abscess­es ever since I brought Leonard home. I’m won­der­ing if she asso­ciates being mis­er­ably sick with the arrival of the new kit­ten. Her mater­nal instincts seem to kick in when he lies next to her, and she’ll try to lick and groom him, but he does­n’t seem to like it much and they end up fight­ing. Hopefully, he’ll grow into the habit.

2 comments

  1. Leonard! <>
    Lenny indeed.

    You know, docs usu­al­ly tell you to take weight off your cat because it can affect their health same as it would ours. Dolly’s not fat enough that that might be con­tribut­ing?. Just won­der­ing.

    With dogs I know more cud­dling makes them health­i­er, espe­cial­ly if there’s a ter­ri­to­r­i­al issue. But I don’t know about a sick kit­ty. They get pret­ty crab­by. Maybe just extra scritch­es.

    • Actually, Dolly’s plen­ty fat already…just slight­ly obese. I was told to feed her less, and I try to fol­low that advice faith­ful­ly so she’ll be with me as long as pos­si­ble, but it’s hard cause I just love me a plump cat!

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