Since the topic came up, I decided to make a thread for it.
Even before I kept fish I had a cat, my lovely little
Poesie.
I had her since I was 5 years old actually. She was the kitten of a feral cat that had made a nest in my dad's garage.
As violent and agressive as her mother was, so was she docile and sweet. Compared to other cats in the neighborhood she was also unusually small. She was always extreemly skittish, it took her a few years to come into our kitchen of free will, and even longer to go into living room. She never got used to closed doors and remained an outdoor cat for all her life.
She was a bit human phobic, and whenever people would come over she would hide or just go away. She would also stay away for weeks sometimes just to avoid any guest that was sleeping over, or people who were working the house. As she got older she got less skittish, most probably because she would have more trouble hunting and was more dependant on us for food.
Despite this she was increadably good natured. I have never had a bite or scratch from her, even when I took to bathing her when she got too old to clean herself properly. She would complain louly each month and yowl pitifully, but after trying to run the first few times and failing she would just sit there and bare with it.
She was also very gentle to the other creatures around the house.
Though she would normally never accept another cat in her theretory there was an instant when a large red tom came begging for food at our house.
It was the exotic shorthair of our late neighbours.
When they moved into the house next to us they had taken the then young kitten with them from america. The cat had been pampered all its life, but when they moved back to the States they left the cat behind.
The poor cat obviously was no match for the hardened feral cats, as was seen by the large ammounts of infected wounds and his shabby fur.
For some reason beyond me Poesie would not chace him away like she did with all the other cats that would come into our yard, so we decided to take him in and call him Crookshanks.
I then began the hellish task of cleaning him and try to nurse him back to health. I mannaged to get most all dirt off and out of him, and his fur sarted filling back, but he had a severe ear infection that just would not heal. It had already deformed his entire ear.
We brought him to the vet to do something about that wound, and also get him nutered, but after a blood test we were sadly informed that he had FIV (the cat version of HIV) and had to be put down.
Poesie's gentle attitude also extended to my fish, though I'm not sure she was ever aware that they were live beings and possibly eddible to begin with.
My first tank was kept on the porch outside, and she soon figured out how to open the lid of the tank. At first I was quite anxious, afraid she might like my fish as more then just decoration. But all she seemed to be interested in was drinking the water.
This was quite a relief to us, since she was an extreemly finicky cat. She would only drink rainwater and refused to drink any form of tap or bottled water. We were forced to collect rainwater for her and store it since there were times that it would not rain for months.
I also worried that she might drink spoiled or poisoned water when roaming around.
Later we decided to get a pond. Again I was worried for my new fish, since goldfish are much larger and appealing. But again she was absolutely interested in nothing but drinking from it.
This cause quite some amusing situations, like the fish trying to nibble at her mouth when she was trying to drink.
She did not like that at all, but never took it out on the fish, she just moved to a more planted part where the fish were less likely to swim.
The pond also was one of her standard lounging places, which was extreemly helpfull with keeping a small green herron, that had taken an interest in our fish, away.
tl;dr
Many of you have cats, lets talk about them and how they cohabit (or not) with your fisha and other pets.
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