He’s A Feline.

With me back east to help with Mom’s health concerns, Earl and Truman posed for a photo that made me smile and tear up a little.

Truman has always enjoyed building forts in pillows and blankets. He can occasionally be found buried in the blankets of the bed enjoying a nice quiet nap away from the world. I can relate.

This week during lunch he decided to start rearranging the throw pillows on the bench around the kitchen table. When he noticed that we noticed his activity, he decided to start acting innocent and instead join the conversation.

Truman stands next to the food machine, hoping it will start making noise. I’ve shown him in this area before because he’s there a lot, waiting for more food to fall.

This week we celebrated the fourth anniversary of Truman’s gotcha day.

I’m assuming there’s a bird perched near the window out of view in this photo. Truman has been in this position for five minutes, never moving, never wavering. There hasn’t even been a twitch of the tail. He is as still as a statue.

He seems to be in good spirits today, even making a rare appearance on our bed this morning for some scritches and pets. When he does decide to engage in this behavior he starts with a visit on the bed, receives some pets for about 10 seconds and the nips at my hand, steps away for a bit and then comes back for the real thing. I think he gets overwhelmed or overstimulated with the initial scritches and doesn’t know what to do with himself but then decides everything is just fine and comes back for a second round with no nips at my hand.

His purrs are loud.

He had his annual visit to the vet yesterday and for six years old is in great health. I occasional hear comments about him being such a “big kitty” but he actually lost 2.4 pounds since this last visit. He could stand to lose another 1.5 pounds but he’s doing the right things and his adult cat diet kibble seems to be doing his some good. Making his way around the dogs is probably keeping him on his toes as well. The vet had no disparaging things to see, so that was encouraging.

Truman has been wanting to get outside so we occasionally let him out on the roof over the garage for some fresh air. The space is surrounded by a railing that he can’t get through, so I’m not worried about him jumping off the roof.

However, he has discovered he can climb up to a higher roof for a better bird’s eye view. So he does not go outside without human supervision.

Truman has had an active week. I’m blaming this on the full moon. He’s decided to start ripping at the weatherstripping around the door to the garage. He shot out the back door when the dogs were going out to do their thing, and when I went to retrieve him he went running as fast as he could do into the wash behind the house. He was gone for about an hour before I was able to retrieve him from a thicket of brush he had position himself under. I believe he decided to go here after he realized he couldn’t climb a saguaro cactus in the back lawn. He’s been yelling and meowing loudly a lot.

I think he’s found a new sense of adventure or something. Either that or he knows his annual vet visit is this month.

When all is said and done he settles into his favorite cat bed and takes a nap.

Truman has been hanging out in the “public” spaces of our home a little more since our return from back east earlier this month. He’s getting along well with Lucky and Jinx these days. There has been nose-to-nose sniffing without hysterics, though once in a while the dogs will go tearing through the house when Truman decided to jump over the dog gate that separates our upstairs area from the rest of our home.

Here he’s posing in the kitchen, standing next to the shelf that has been deemed as “safe”. The dogs do not bother him when he’s on a cat on a shelf.

Here’s Truman, looking like he’s investigating his shadow on the roof on Friday afternoon.