Dear Carrot friends,

Carrot has taken to climbing volunteers this month!

One of our volunteers learned this when she recently went into Suite B. She pet Carrot, then started petting another cat in the room. Suddenly she felt something stretching up her leg, all the way to her waist. She looked down, and it was Carrot. He wanted attention, and he wanted it now! As she bent down to pet him, Carrot stretched himself further up the volunteer, reaching over her shoulder. She started to lose her balance, and tried to sit on the ground. Still, Carrot kept pushing himself up and onto the volunteer until she was flat on the ground with Carrot laying on top of her. Once Carrot had her completely flat on the ground, and paying attention only to him, he was very happy indeed. Carrot and the volunteer stayed like this for some time, just enjoying each other’s attention.

It always makes me smile, the lengths to which volunteers will go for our cats. Most people wouldn’t be too thrilled if you asked them to climb a ladder and wedge themselves onto a small ramp to clean up very disgusting things, or to sit in one of the solaria on a freezing cold day because one of the cats wants company, but doesn’t want to come inside. Or, for that matter, to just lay down in the middle of the suite because Carrot requests to lay on you. But one thing I’ve learned is that the cats are totally in charge around here, and the staff and volunteers will do anything, and I do mean anything, for the cats.

Tabby’s Place’s two newest staff members are gauging their success as staff on if they can express a bladder. This is probably the hardest skill to learn. The biggest test is whether or not they can express Carrot’s bladder; his is the hardest to do. (The only sort-of exception is Olive. It’s not that Olive’s bladder is harder to express; the problem is Olive is trying to kill you while you do it.)

The new staff mastered expressing Pepita‘s bladder first (she’s the easiest of all the incontinent cats). Then they moved onto Adam. At this point, they still have to come and get a more experienced staff member for Carrot. However, one of them ran up to me the other day, sooooooo excited, because she had managed to express a little bit out of Carrot’s bladder (we sure do celebrate weird things around here). I think in a few more weeks they’ll be ready for Olive!

I am happy to report there have been no further reports of Carrot bullying Sweet Pea, so I’m hoping our little chat worked. It’s so unusual for Carrot to be a bully. I think he’s been hanging around the hotheads in his room too much!

Carrot is still enjoying time in the solarium, even with the colder weather, but he is inside more often these days. Even die-hard solarium dweller Steve has been inside at least some of the time lately. I’m sure they are all looking forward to spring, so they can be outside again most of the time.

That’s all the Carrot news for now. As always, thank you so much for your continued support of Carrot. Because of you, Carrot has everything he needs, a safe place to call home, and volunteers who will literally let him walk all over them.