Meet Rufus – Ragdoll Cat of the Week

Rufus…what can I say. After your Rags soulmate article, I became more interested in letting you know you are not alone in your soulmated-ness with your furbaby. Rufus was maybe not born into being mine, but has definitely grown into the role, as have I.

He has matured from a premature separation (in my mind, at least) from his mother and siblings at 7 weeks/6 days. (born 2/23/15) So, ok, I didn’t have to take him then, but my family had never had any issues with kittens even when acquiring them as young as 6 weeks of age (all Siamese back then; acquired from a family friend, not a breeder). Rufus came from a breeder. At the time, I had no knowledge of Floppycats.com, so I was unaware of any pitfalls with them.

So, Rufus, now at the ripe old age of 3 years/2 months, started out on the wrong paw with me. He was a relentless biter … and still gives in on occasion to his inner lion. I believe this is due to not staying with his Mom and siblings long enough to have been bitten back by them, or at least paw-swatted as counterattack methods. At this writing, I have no bite marks since I’ve learned to walk away at the right time … finally!

Rufus came to me at a very unhappy time. I had just lost Saki, a wonderful and very happy shelter kitty with traditional seal point Siamese markings along with some Ragdoll traits, and an inkie girl, Allie, at very young ages within months of each other, (Allie and I met on a visit to my veterinarian, an unwanted and caged baby. She reached out for me at the front window and it was love at first sight.

I don’t remember why I was looking at eBay, but I was … and holy cats! Imagine my surprise at seeing Saki’s replica in an ad. I called the breeder and made arrangements to go get Rufus that day! It was not a mistake, he is my soulmate and teaches me every day to be patient and more loving than any human ever has.

He’s a cuddler on his terms…evenings on my chest watching tv with me, nights wrapped around under my arm curled up, then stretched full length beside me. At 5:20am, he’s making sure I wake up to feed him by pawing at pictures on the wall to rattle, knocking over things on my dresser to the floor, or trying to get behind the wooden blinds to watch the sparrows in the awning. Relentless! On the rare occasion that I wake up before him, he’s usually curled up next to me at a safe distance from my snoring. LOL

His newest biting technique is more like chewing the skin on my hands very lightly with his tiny little upper and lower teeth, a blessing over his major biting problem! He only has two upper ‘fangs,’ which I accuse the vet of removing the lower two, unbeknownst to me, which they deny even though they are fully aware of his early biting issue.

The other things that I cherish about Rufus, (his breeder named him and it stuck), is his inimitable ‘talking’ with me. And, true cat lady that I am, of course I ‘talk’ back, like we know exactly what each other is saying. Then when sound asleep, he makes little ‘humming’ sounds which I mimic to urge him on. I am fairly certain he is dreaming when he does this…with a little twitch of fur at times. It sounds like ‘mm’ or ‘hm’ or something on that order. They make me happy because he sounds like he’s happy, too!

His fur is silky soft and it’s hard to resist touching him at any time he allows. He has a wonderful billowy tail which takes training not to step on. Yikes! He knows how to scream when that has happened…only twice that I know of. Now he knows to step aside when I get tooooo close. Ha!

Well, I believe I am going overboard now on telling our story. Now to figure out which photos to use. I just got a canvas print of him to bat in the bedroom. Such a character he is!

Have a wonderful day and hope you and your furfriends are all happy and healthy, too!

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