110226_183806_15628 Lucy The Jungle Cat – First Contact (Sat 26 Feb 11)
The Illawarra, NSW
"Let meh be blunt. Ah does not trust teh hoominoidz. Especially teh one with teh black click-box. Unless they bringz me fuud."
Lucy, a.k.a. Jungle Cat, regards me with a certain amount of suspicion. She knows that I'm more of a dog person, and Boxers at that. This is unforgivable, but may be temporarily pardoned in exchange for lamb.
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Edit December 2023: This essentially became Lucy's definitive portrait. If I recall correctly it was taken on the day that I first met her. (Well, officially. She may have been bravely protecting the underside of the bed on some previous occasions.) When she first saw me on this day, she was being held so that she couldn't bolt but had an expression on her face of sheer horror that "a 'truder!!!" is present in her home. When she was put onto the floor, she ran to protect the underside of the bed again. But then I went into the bedroom. "Oh no! I'm trapped!!!", she thought before darting between my legs to run into the lounge room, which had escape routes. So when I came out to photograph her there, she had her eyes locked intensely on me.
Of course it wasn't long until she figured out "Wait, you aren't a threat to me, and you know how to get food and open doors. Hmm. You can be of use to me... "
After that she was so comfortable with me that she would never again look straight into my lens (no matter how much I asked her to), as you can see from other shots of her in these albums.
Come February it will be 12 years since it was taken. As of the time of writing Lucy is still with us, having had her 18th birthday last October.
She is, however, quite a different cat from the one we see here. She was once quite a large cat, reaching over 8kg at her zenith (it may have been 9, actually), though I don't think she was quite that at this time. Her size didn't stop her from leaping over fences to harass the neighbouring cats though. She used the railings on our side to leap over the fence. We sometimes needed to mount rescue missions to get her back.
She has lost a lot of weight, and is down to around 5 to 6kg. She has a surfeit of medical issues now. Many of her teeth had become infected over the years and had to be removed, and I'll bet you didn't know that when cats reach a certain (very advanced age) some of them start being reabsorbed into their jaw, did you? Neither did I, given that most people don't see cats which are old enough to do that. She has arthritis which means no more climbing or jumping and which requires a twice daily dose of medicine in her food, plus a monthly injection. She's been diabetic for years and requires two shots of insulin along with a cream inserted into her ears to help with thyroid imbalances. She's becoming blind; I often have to gesture to the food so that the movement of my hand can lead what sight she has left toward the bowl, but since she has lived here all her life and can still see shapes she can still find her way around her home and can still see large objects (including the neighbours' cat who came in to raid her food bowl a few months back); it's smaller things like bowls that she has to be guided to. And she has become very vocal (and possibly a bit senile), sometimes meowing demandingly for food and sometimes meowing demandingly for... I know not what. Nor, it seems, does she.
The down side is that having such a high maintenance pet makes travel functionally impossible. The up side is... she's still with us. Having lost her canine companion earlier this year I'm well aware that the time for that is ticking down... but not yet. Not yet.
Edit 17 May 2025: Not then... but now. My PESO shot from 17 May 2025 shows her only a couple of hours before she left the world. It was the one shot, just one (out of 27 that I took that morning) which has her looking straight into the camera. For the first time since this day... and the last time. Addio Lucy, 10 October 2005 to 17 May 2025.
110226_183806_15628 Lucy The Jungle Cat – First Contact (Sat 26 Feb 11)
The Illawarra, NSW
"Let meh be blunt. Ah does not trust teh hoominoidz. Especially teh one with teh black click-box. Unless they bringz me fuud."
Lucy, a.k.a. Jungle Cat, regards me with a certain amount of suspicion. She knows that I'm more of a dog person, and Boxers at that. This is unforgivable, but may be temporarily pardoned in exchange for lamb.
-----
Edit December 2023: This essentially became Lucy's definitive portrait. If I recall correctly it was taken on the day that I first met her. (Well, officially. She may have been bravely protecting the underside of the bed on some previous occasions.) When she first saw me on this day, she was being held so that she couldn't bolt but had an expression on her face of sheer horror that "a 'truder!!!" is present in her home. When she was put onto the floor, she ran to protect the underside of the bed again. But then I went into the bedroom. "Oh no! I'm trapped!!!", she thought before darting between my legs to run into the lounge room, which had escape routes. So when I came out to photograph her there, she had her eyes locked intensely on me.
Of course it wasn't long until she figured out "Wait, you aren't a threat to me, and you know how to get food and open doors. Hmm. You can be of use to me... "
After that she was so comfortable with me that she would never again look straight into my lens (no matter how much I asked her to), as you can see from other shots of her in these albums.
Come February it will be 12 years since it was taken. As of the time of writing Lucy is still with us, having had her 18th birthday last October.
She is, however, quite a different cat from the one we see here. She was once quite a large cat, reaching over 8kg at her zenith (it may have been 9, actually), though I don't think she was quite that at this time. Her size didn't stop her from leaping over fences to harass the neighbouring cats though. She used the railings on our side to leap over the fence. We sometimes needed to mount rescue missions to get her back.
She has lost a lot of weight, and is down to around 5 to 6kg. She has a surfeit of medical issues now. Many of her teeth had become infected over the years and had to be removed, and I'll bet you didn't know that when cats reach a certain (very advanced age) some of them start being reabsorbed into their jaw, did you? Neither did I, given that most people don't see cats which are old enough to do that. She has arthritis which means no more climbing or jumping and which requires a twice daily dose of medicine in her food, plus a monthly injection. She's been diabetic for years and requires two shots of insulin along with a cream inserted into her ears to help with thyroid imbalances. She's becoming blind; I often have to gesture to the food so that the movement of my hand can lead what sight she has left toward the bowl, but since she has lived here all her life and can still see shapes she can still find her way around her home and can still see large objects (including the neighbours' cat who came in to raid her food bowl a few months back); it's smaller things like bowls that she has to be guided to. And she has become very vocal (and possibly a bit senile), sometimes meowing demandingly for food and sometimes meowing demandingly for... I know not what. Nor, it seems, does she.
The down side is that having such a high maintenance pet makes travel functionally impossible. The up side is... she's still with us. Having lost her canine companion earlier this year I'm well aware that the time for that is ticking down... but not yet. Not yet.
Edit 17 May 2025: Not then... but now. My PESO shot from 17 May 2025 shows her only a couple of hours before she left the world. It was the one shot, just one (out of 27 that I took that morning) which has her looking straight into the camera. For the first time since this day... and the last time. Addio Lucy, 10 October 2005 to 17 May 2025.