PERFECT PAWS – a poem by Jozef
Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats
Poster by Ruth aka Kattaddorra
PERFECT PAWS
I’d like to share my little ditty
About the claws upon this kitty.
How they’re anchored in my toes
And real important, like my nose.
I use them many times each day
From where they’re neatly tucked away.
I need my claws to keep me fit,
To walk and groom and play a bit.
To climb and balance up above,
To hold a finger and show my love.
Ten at the front and eight at the back,
They are sometimes needed to attack.
Self defence is their role you see
When something hurts or threatens me.
Countries where vets take cats claws
Must have no pet welfare laws.
By Jozef the feline poet
(With the help of Ruth aka Kattaddorra)
Does anyone else have a feline Poet who cares about every cats claws? See some more cat poems.
Ruth aka Kattaddorra
Useful tag. Click to see the articles: Cat behavior
Loved the poem Jozef you are so clever!! A cat with many talents indeed!! A wonderful amusing way to illustrate a very important subject though. Nice work 🙂
I really enjoyed this page – sadly after the fact. I try to spend my whole weekend away from the computer and with the cats, especially Gigi. This is helped by the fact my keyboard at home is awful so I couldn’t type a long comment anyway. It’s working, Gigi seems to be getting a little better.
It’s more important to spend time with Gigi, I’m so glad she’s a bit better.
I’m so lucky to be retired and have time to spend on PoC as well as lots of quality time with our boyz. It was very difficult in the past when I was at work long hours so I do sympathise with you.
Thanks Ruth and Michael – if only people around me understood that lol. Yes Gigi right now is my priority during the time I have available to me outside of work.
I can tell you that Monday morning is always a bit sad – I don’t like to leave after having a nice weekend with them. Sometimes I think I should just call in sick and enjoy another day with them 🙂
I agree with Ruth. We love to have you around but Gigi and your cats come first, of course. I am going to guess that you can write poetry 😉
Monty is more tolerant of my typing on the computer now that he can sit right above me while I’m doing it. The other day he dropped his stuffed penguin on my head while I was working at the computer.
It sounds like Monty is loving his new high rise furniture 🙂
Sometimes he won’t allow us to be in a different room. He meows to call us into the back room with him. He wants to be up there but he doesn’t want to be alone. Yesterday he was racing around up there, he actually startled me while I was entering grades in the computer. I kind of forgot he was up there. All the hardware seems to be holding up well, and I like that Jeff added an extra safety cable under all the bridges just in case. He really races around up there sometimes!
Perhaps that is a bit of excitement showing.
That and he’s tired of being stuck inside. It’s crazy cold out again. I know he can’t tolerate it so I won’t even let him try it out there.
Oh that is funny Ruth – make sure he doesn’t take anything hard or heavy up there though!
Just hope that he himself doesn’t land on your head. I had a cat one time that rolled of the headcoard of my bed while we were both asleep. She landed right on my face. I had a black eye for a while.
I was worried about that the other day– he had that gleam in his eye as I passed under him. But so far he hasn’t pounced on anyone’s head. He did jump from his bridge onto the top of the computer desk, explored a bit there, and jumped back up to his bridge.
Ofcourse your cats take priority.
You are always missed when gone, but many of us know what it’s like to juggle a job and life with cats. Very tough.
Thanks Dee 🙂 – Sadly I work until 6 or 630 usually and I go to bed early so I haven’t much time with them. I wish I finished at 5 on the dot because that extra hour and a half would really help. As it is I don’t get home til 7 and I am in bed at around 9 or 930.
….and that’s why I feel I must really spend the whole weekend with Gigi these days – because during the week there’s no way near enough time to work with her issues. I’m trying my best 🙂 I look forward to getting home in a few hours to play with them.
What wonderful poems, I am of course very proud of Jozef and Walter’s efforts and that they care about other cats claws as well as their own and to read everyone else’s poems too is lovely because they are all so good.
PoC Poetry Corner has been born 🙂
Is it true that there is a poet in every cat? 😉 You just have to find it.
Monty’s Poem
Feed me now,
Meow, meow!
I mean RIGHT NOW,
Again meow,
Meow, MEOW!
No food for me,
Well, we shall see:
Staring, staring right at you,
I’m telling you just what to do:
Say the word I want to hear,
The one that means a meal is near,
Say, “Treat!”
Get on your feet!
You lazy human,
Don’t you see,
What your reluctance does to me?
I’m so weak and hungry,
Just a starving baby kitty…
Don’t you hear my faint meow,
Barely like a whisper now?
Just say, “Treat”
Then we can eat!
I’m sure that you are hungry too
For just a little bite or two…
Let’s eat!
Say, “Treat!”
Right now!
Meow!
By Monty
Sorry, all he ever thinks about is food.
Brilliant! Monty is a genius and has obviously got his head screwed on the right way. Does he waste food like our two reprobates do or does he eat it all up?
He eats all of whatever is put out for him, even if it’s too much. I have to be very careful with portion sizes. He will beg like he’s starving when he’s full and eat only to barf it up because there’s no room in his belly. I think it all stems from that once, not so long ago, he was a starving baby kitten, and he’s never forgotten that.
I think it’s quite unusual for a cat to eat to excess isn’t it. Monty is funny I had to laugh at the thought of him stuffing himself then bringing it back up, I’m a bit greedy that way myself but I don’t bring it back, I hang on to it and grow bigger LOL, but it’s true that what they learn as kittens stays with them all through their lives even when they should know that they are safe and well fed they just don’t seem to be able to forget, we think that’s why Walter is the way he is, a bit of a bully and very over-anxious, he can’t stand change and hates it when anyone comes, if he’s upstairs and hears a strange voice he hides behind my bedhead, but he did have an awful start, like your Monty. Jozef still tries to cover up food, his own leavings and Walter’s as well, he’ll use anything to hand, sometimes he even tries to manhandle the cat scratch sofa across to cover food so we leave a bit of kitchen roll handy for him. I wish we could explain to them that they never need to worry anymore.
Phew and wow….that really engaged me. It is a very fast moving, dynamic poem which captures the urgency of Monty’s desires for food. I can understand that completely. Great poem. Well done Ruth.
Thanks, Michael! I had a great inspiration. He had just awakened me wanting his breakfast at three a.m.
LOL! Great poem.
That Monty takes the kibble! He’s even more demanding and U-R-G-E-N-T than my Cora (Me,me,me).
I’ll never graduate this boot camp with honors.
Take my claws
From my paws
why would you do that?
Like my fur
And my purr
They’re what makes me a cat
USA
Got to say
Glad we don’t live there
Make some laws
Save cats’ claws
Make them treat cat fair
Love Walter x
Wow Walter. A really, really nice poem.
Thank you Uncle Michael, I did my best but really I’m more of a practical cat than a writer, I took time out from watching my neighbourhood though because cats claws are so very important. Love Walter again x
Nice job, Walter! I like the picture of you also.
If Monty wrote a poem it would just be about food.
Great poem too.
Wonderful poem, Jozef! Monty’s paws are perfect too.
What a creative bunch you all are!
DAMON’S SONG
I was such a tiny boy
when she took me from the woods
I clutched her shoulder with my claws
because it felt so good
She never flinched
She didn’t mind
I held on oh so tight.
I never knew my little claws
would never need to fight
She told me I was perfect
and kissed each little paw
She nuzzled both my ears
the best she ever saw
She promised I would never hurt
if she could help at all
She knew that it would cripple me
to butcher all my claws
I’m grown up now
But I remember
how it used to be
My claws are used for fun today
And she lets me be me.
I know that I can do some things
that cause her so much grief
But she never shouts
Or makes me scared
It’s such a good relief
I can shred most anything
and spread it everywhere
Sometime she’ll laugh
Sometimes she’ll sigh
but doesn’t really care
She loves my claws
the way they are
She’ll look at them in awe
And still plant those sweet kisses
on each and every paw
Beautiful Dee! Beautiful?
That wasn’t supposed to be a question mark. It is gorgeous. All of the above poems are lovely.
Really good, Dee! You have a gift for writing rhyming poetry. My grandpa had it and my sister and I can write rhyming poetry too. It skipped a generation, so when my Aunt Dianne needed to write a poem for a school assignment her father wrote it for her. He wrote such a good poem for her that Pastor quoted it in his sermon on Sunday, attributing it to Dianne. The whole family sat there waiting for lightning to strike their church pew!
We’ll done Dee. Loved it.
That is lovely, you do have a talent.
Super poems, Guys.
Should make a book of poems.
Thanks Dee.
Here is a third:
So, you don’t like claws
I don’t like shiny floors
You want to have a cat
I want to go outdoors
We all want something
I hope you can see
that we have to accept somethings
So let my claws be.
Oh Charlie you are a poet too and how right that you couldn’t be you any more without claws, what a very deep and clever thought that is. Our claws make us purrfect.
Charlie woke up and said it was time to be creative…but first…he said “Where is the chicken and the ham?”.. 😉
Walter said he wanted to write a poem this morning, but like Charlie he needed his brekkie first, so after a bit of Felix, some Vitacat, a tad of Bob Martins gravy and some Hilife tuna he got down to it. He, Jozef and the kitchen bin have all had good breakfasts (Jo managed some chicken as well).
Here is another one:
My claws are sharp and strong
They have to be
But don’t let them grow too long
Trim them gently
Make them suited to my life with you
But never remove them
Because they are a part of me.
Perhaps it could be attached to the first one 😉
Here is something:
My claws: they are part of me
My paws: they, too, are part of me
Everything that is me, is part of me
They make me whole.
Remove one part and you will see
That I can no longer be me.
This one is profound, Michael. I find myself often thinking that if Monty had been declawed he wouldn’t be the same cat. He wouldn’t be happy. How could he be? Dealing with that loss of a part of himself would be all consuming. In some ways it would kill him to declaw him, and I don’t mean because it would take away his natural defenses.
Did you like it, Ruth?
Absolutely loved it, Michael! You gave Charlie a voice, gave a voice to all cats who would say their claws are part of them, what makes them who they are.
Good, I am pleased. When a part of a cat or a person is removed it must change the cat or person psychologically. If something is added that too must have a psychological impact. This is excluding all the issues about function. It is just that we expect to be what we are meant to me.
It’s true though and Charlie is very clever to have thought of it from that angle, taking something away from the whole does change it, even subtly, it is never the same again. The same must apply to cats losing a vital part of themselves, like any amputee they must grieve for their lost parts.
Walter is very stressed out, he is trying to think of a poem so that his brother doesn’t put him to shame. meanwhile great poem Jozef, you’re a clever lad and you know how important those claws are to all cats everywhere.
Lovely poem Jozef. That puts a bit of pressure on me (Charles) to come up with something today that is half-decent 😉 It’s going to be tough.