Animal Planet lovers, you’ve probably at least seen previews for episodes of the series My Cat From Hell with Jackson Galaxy aka the cat whisperer. Well, thankfully we don’t have one of those, but we do have a cat that seems to be from outer space. His name is Orion, or Little O as we call him.
I didn’t grow up with cats but I was around enough of them to get the gist of the way they operate. While cats can be very affectionate and cuddly, they can also be incredibly sneaky and aloof creatures. I got Piper when I was 16 and she is what I would say embodies a stereotypical feline. She rubs on our legs and purrs in our laps as we pet the top of her head but she can also be moody and broody and put off if you give the wrong look in her general direction. She’s very much a diva and likes things her way. Occasionally she’s a plate licker or chicken nibbler but overall human food is pretty safe around her. And she never cared too much for dogs, or any other creatures for that matter. Her behavior is what I had come to expect from a cat. And then I met O.
O was about 4 months old when I rescued his little orange butt from SAAP. I was told he was born into foster care and spent those first months of his life with several other foster animals, mostly dogs and even some rats! It was immediately clear he was extremely people friendly, even with strangers as he came right to me the day I went to check him out (okay I knew the whole time he was coming home with me). His first night in his new home went very well but I was pretty surprised that the first thing he did was march right up to Chaos and introduce himself. He was obviously quite comfortable with dogs and didn’t mind in the least when Ares play bowed and hopped on him seconds after they said hello. But Piper, that was another story.
I knew we needed to take it slower with Pipes since he was a young male cat and she was used to being not only the sole cat in the house, but the alpha female. He was cautious around her at first, and she ignored him. But slowly they started to figure each other out. These days he irritates the crap out of her on a daily basis being the rambunctious 2 year old that he is and she does not hesitate to let him know how she feels. Girlfriend is very vocal when she’s pissed. But the next minute they are grooming each other and sharing the couch. Sibling rivalry.
Over the year and half or so that Little O has lived with us we’ve come to learn that not only is he extremely different than Piper, he is quite odd compared to our experience with other cats. He’s never encountered a human he was afraid of or didn’t want to meet. If you come into our house, stranger or not, be prepared for him to come say hello. He plays with the dogs, often like dogs play together as opposed to a cat playing with a dog. If I am throwing a toy for Ares (Chaos isn’t big on fetch) O will sometimes join in the game running with Ares to get the toy and then following him to bring it back to me. He even snuggles up with the dogs with no fear of being eaten in his sleep. One time I was letting Ares out to potty and that little stinker somehow got past me standing in the doorway and promptly lifted his leg to pee, just like his doggie brother. We don’t normally let the cats outside so I’m not sure if he would ever do it again but it was pretty shocking to say the least. Little O is also not very graceful. Piper can sneak up like nobody’s business and scare the living daylights of you. You can hear or see O coming pretty much all the time. No one is ever going to call him graceful. He get is from his mama. And you cannot leave food out…any kind of food. He does not care if it’s dog food, strawberries, a chocolate chip cookie or salad. This cat will eat anything and everything. We also have to be careful with any kind of wires. Since O has Pica, an incurable disorder that makes him chew things that aren’t food, we have to make sure we don’t leave the computer charger within his reach or similar cords. He has not only one, but twice chomped right through my laptop charger cord, which costs about $80 to replace.
He drives us insane half the time with his antics but then he turns around and climbs up on my lap to snuggle into my chest and I just don’t care what else he did that day. He’s definitely not your typical cat, and probably not even in the normal range for cat behavior, but we love him anyway. He’s our cat from outer space.
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