Darby will be 2 years old in September. I have shared my life with him since March 12, 2009. He is a
polydactyl cat (many toed) with 7 toes on each front paw and an extra claw on each of his rear heals.
I adopted him at a local pet store where they have adoptions every weekend. It seems that not only the unusual toe configuration, but his black color were obstacles to his being adopted. Neither of these bothered me. I picked him up and he purred the whole time I held him, even though there were lots of people around and dogs barking, etc.
I purchased a new cat carrier and paid the required fees and brought him home.
I put him in the den where I could close the door and let him get adjusted outside of the carrier. When I went back a short time later, I couldn't find him! I looked all over, under the couch and chairs, on top of the book cases - there's not too many places for an animal to hide in that small room. I finally found him on top of the books in the bottom shelf of the bookcase, behind the rocking chair. Being black and sitting up under the overhang of the upper shelf, he was "invisible".
For the next 3 months I rarely saw Darby. I knew he was in the house, as the litter box needed changing and the food disappeared shortly after I placed it in the bowl. His second favorite spot to spend the day, after the book case, was under my bed. Again, being black I only was able to see his eyes. If they were shut, I couldn't find him.
I thought about getting him a collar that had lights. I found one, but it only lit up when the wearer moved. I needed something to tell me where he was when he wasn't moving!
The first several weeks, I sat in the den with him and read out loud, so that he would get used to my voice. I didn't force him to sit with me - I could rarely touch him, let alone hold him.
In May I had an episode with my back, that basically left me bedridden for over a week. Darby sensed something different and would sit on the end of the bed, or the couch, when I was laying down. I even got to pet him once with the tip of my fingers.
Well, Darby came out of his shell after that and began his antics to spice up my life. First hobby was climbing the curtain on the dining room window, or the curtains in the den. After getting him to accept that this was not an approved activity, he started communicating by banging cupboard doors. Those extra toes make it so much easier to grab the edge of a kitchen cupboard and let it bang back. I learned to get up and feed him when this happened. I have tried to limit my pavlovian response to specific times of day and basically we have agreed on 4-5 am and 4-5 pm for feedings.
I eventually put latches on all cat reachable doors so that I don't have a heart attack at 3 am (or even 3 pm) on an explosive bang from the kitchen. So no banging doors for a while. Recently Darb has been able to open one of the doors held by a magnet latch, and he can get a soft bang from the pan drawer door that is "latched" with velcro strips. His current alarm to get me up is to knock books off of the shelves in the den.
At first this was accidental when he jumped up to the top of the 5 foot shelf - his rear feet probably landed on the books on the top shelf. When he realized this would wake me up, he began doing it on purpose. I have watched him jump on top of the 3 foot bookcase and pull books out individually from between the book ends, so that they bang down onto the floor.
Well, after 16 months, we are pretty much adapted to each other. Every morning, while I have breakfast in the rocker by the living room window, with my feet up on the footrest, Darby comes voluntarily to lay with his rump near my knees and his head on my ankles. This is fine until he gets so relaxed that he begins to slide off of my legs and the footrest and trys to grab hold with all 14 claws to keep from sliding. Usually this is on my bare legs! He lands in a pool on the floor and wakes up, then climbs back up and goes back to sleep.
He rarely sits with me at any other time of the day, although, he will sometimes come and sit in the window when I am on the computer. Usually he just communicates his dismay at being ignored by knocking pens, letter openers, calculators, etc off of the desk to get my attention. A friend tells me that as he gets older, he will "settle" down. Either that, or he will grow up and be able to knock over bigger objects!
Well if you have a polydactyl cat in your life, you might be interested in
these items I found in the Zazzle Market place .
Having spent quite a bit of time in the yard this year, I've been noticing the insect populations. I had my first close encounter with bees and pollination while I was taking closeup photos of my sunflowers. I noticed the flecks of pollen leaves beneath the object flower (so had to take a photo - at right). Then I noticed the bees and tried to get some closeups of them (really need to get a better camera for that).
