Nin and the Dogs

Picture taken March 2010 - Gemini, Loki (both who are at the rainbow bridge) and Nin

The above picture is not a posed picture, it is how they were all lying on the couch. Nin has always been the more tolerant cat with the dogs. Baggy HATED Loki and lived in the basement when he was alive. [In fairness Loki always tried to chase him and hump him. Baggy has become more tolerant of the dogs as the years have gone by].

Nin has always looked for ways to get along with the dogs, even if he has always been humped by them. First it was Loki who humped him (in fairness Loki would have humped anything - he was a really humpy dog - which makes us really laugh as he ended up with hepatitis). When Loki died Gemi started humping him (Gemi was nasty and violent and it was disturbing), and when Gemi died Hailey took over the job. 

It is usually after a humping that Lee will play with him as shown in yesterday's post. We don't worry about Nin clawing eyes out because he doesn't have front claws. Yes Blogville, we are the evil people who had our cats declawed. It wasn't our plan to do this. We tried everything we could think of (it was 17 years ago, we didn't have the internet to help us) and Nin continued to scratch everything. He scratched the couch down to the wood. He scratched the carpet. He would scratch your bag if you left it on the floor. My favourite - he would scratch the mirror (that is a horrible sound by the way). 

After he had destroyed everything but the scratching post, we talked to our vet and decided declawing was the only way to go. Because we were declawing him, we also declawed Baggy (who was not such a scratcher). I would like to say that declawing never stopped Nin from scratching. Up until old age caught up with him, he scratched and scratched and scratched. The day after he was declawed, he was scratching (and then he would look at his paw like "this isn't right" and scratch some more). He clear is/was an obsessive scratcher. So he is a clawless obsessive scratcher. 

Nin's obsessive behaviour has been a blessing in some ways, because it forced us to get him declawed. Because he is declawed we have to worry less about him and the dogs. So it has all worked out and they have lived together fairly peacefully for 13 years. 

Have a great Saturday!