Gypsy, my 12 year old Kitten

I received a package today. What it was isn't important. The important thing, at least to my Gypsy is what it was packed in. Bunches of crinkled up paper. Right at the moment she is inside the box with nothing but her ears showing and the most delicious paper rattling sounds are emanating from within. The other cats are coming around, but they're not interfering. You see, Gypsy rules the roost in this house. That wouldn't be amusing except Gypsy is only eight pounds. She's less than two-thirds the size of the male and half the size of the Maine Coon cat. Robin isn't pure blooded Maine Coon, so she only weighs about seventeen pounds, not the thirty a pure blood can grow to. Still, she's a big cat and although she'll haul off and slug Gypsy occasionally, all and all, she lets Gypsy be the boss.

I put out a tuna can a few weeks ago and they all came running. Toby and Robin stood quietly and waited for Gypsy to get done before crowding in to share what was left. I don't know how she does it. She just seems to be a take charge kind of kitty cat.

Although most of our animals are shelter adoptions or we found them dumped on the side of the road, Gypsy is a purebred Bengal. I fell in love with the breed reading about it on line and wanted one so badly that we broke down and contacted a breeder. I've never regretted it. Gypsy is my baby. I  still call her my kitten, even though she's twelve. She's been amazingly healthy and she has the sweetest personality. The only problem she has is she uses her claws if she gets startled. I get scratched a lot. I tell people it's because she's still part wildcat. I don't know, maybe it's true.

The Bengal is a cross between the Asian Leopard Cat, a small wildcat native (obviously) to Asia, and the American Domestic Shorthair. Hunters would poach the leopard cat females for their fur and sell the cubs as kittens in pet stores. Not surprisingly, this didn't work out well for the cubs or the people who adopted them. In the seventies, a woman decided to try to cross them with the American Domestic. She succeeded in breeding a cat with the coloring of the Asian Leopard Cat and the disposition of the domestic. The breed was recognized in the 1980s.  They have several different types, Gypsy is simply spotted.

We'd had her about a year and our son was about eight when we took him to a wild cat exhibition at the Pacific Science  Center. Along with lots of pictures and information about  different cats they had some that had died naturally and been taxidermied. One of them was an Asian Leopard Cat and it looked for all the world like a slightly larger Gypsy. Our son was a little distressed by this.  His eyes were huge.

When Gypsy isn't playing with paper, she is trying to get herself locked in closets. She locked herself in the linen closet this morning. Okay, she ran in and I didn't see her and closed her in. I got home this afternoon and heard her meowing and had to track her down. I knew she was either in the linen closet or my bedroom closet. I was hoping for my bedroom closet, she doesn't do any damage in there. Unfortunately, she was in the linen closet, which means I have to refold every towel, sheet and tablecloth that was in there because she climbed the shelves and dumped them all on the floor. Fortunately, I only have to rewash the ones on the bottom.

Now as I finish this up, she's tired of playing in the box. She's come over and curled up on my arm and hand, making it extremely difficult to type. I guess it could be worse, it could be Robin.