Three Years With Furby

By Elisa Black-Taylor

This weekend marks three years with Furby. November 3, 2009 is Furby’ official “gotcha” date and I want to share more of his life with the readers here.

My friends here all know of how I ran out of  the funeral home prior to the service being held for my ex. A little voice in my head told me to go home and to take an alternate route home, where Furby would be waiting to cross the road in front of my car. Furby enjoys telling the story of my finding him in his own words. Here’s his story along with a list of all of his stories written for pictures-of-cats.org. He’s quite well known these days.

I was shocked a few years ago when I attended a funeral held for my cousin. I was having a conversation with one of his relatives I’d never met, and Furby came up. The lady I was talking to couldn’t believe I’m “Furby’s mama.”

Furby even because involved in some declawing controversy a few years back with this video he posted on Facebook of him getting his claws done with a Pedipaw type device. Someone turned the video in as offensive. I take it declawing vets didn’t like Furby showing an alternative to declawing. Furby doesn’t mind having his claws filed down. We’ve done this to him since he was a little kitten. Here’s the link to the story that ran along with the video.

Furby’s also the mascot for the pictures-of-cats group page on Facebook. This site was originally started to increase readership for this webpage, but has turned in to so much more. The group currently boasts over 2200 members who have made the page their own by posting their favorite cat photos. It’s a positive influence for cat lovers who love looking a beautiful photos of cats. I still haven’t “trained” Michael (PoC) in networking, but I’m trying….

A lot of people who’ve never met Furby picture him as a sweet, attentive lap cat who lounges around all day being petted. Nothing could be further from the truth! (FYI, Mandy’s the lap cat) First, Furby isn’t a lap cat unless he’s very ill. If he ever spends the night in the bed with me, it means a vet visit the next day because he’s REALLY sick. Furby sleeps on the cat table where all of the special beds and food and water are. Or he sleeps on the dryer so he can do some bird watching out the back door. He also still stays close to his adoptive mother Lola, who took to him immediately by sharing her food with him.

It may be partially my fault that Furby isn’t a bed buddy. During his first few weeks, I either cried on him over the loss of my friend, or I was lifting him straight up off the bed during the middle of the night to be sure he was still alive. He had a serious neck injury caused by a fly larvae and was held 24/7 the first few weeks with us. We were worried he wouldn’t survive, even though he was on antibiotics and the injury was being treated.

Furbys not the most graceful of cats either. I’m convinced his favorite past-time is knocking things off with his paw and watching them hit the floor. He has to be a master in yoga to have accomplished breaking things in out of reach places. He also tends to sleep on things against a wall. Any other surface he’s surely to roll off in his sleep. So far he’s rolled off the tv, microwave and kitchen counter.

Furby only becomes a lap cat when he’s feeling well if there’s food involved. He loves green vegetables such as lettuce, spinach and broccoli. He’ll attack over bits of lettuce in a salad. Once his treat is eaten, he moves on to other activities.

One of his favorite activities is joining in a game of “ambush” with the other cats. I’m not sure whether he plays willingly or has to run to stay out of the way of the other cats and our cat-dog Cujo. All I know is I’ve seen Furby coming straight at my head with those outstretched claws and had to cover my head with both hands. Furby’s been known to use the top of my head as a launching pad onto the back of the couch. He’s also drawn blood a time or two. When Furby plays, he plays hard.

Furby has to take a lot of the credit for Laura and I getting into cat rescue. Without Furby, as well as PoC, we never would have known so many cats were in danger of being euthanised for lack of a rescuer. Furby took his rescue work seriously by washing up any new kittens in need of a bath. Now that we’ve stopped taking in more cats, Furby enjoys curling up with his cat mama Lola and enjoying his celebrity status.

At this moment, Furby is sitting on the feeding bar meowing up at himself in the ceiling mirror. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not. He’s always been fascinated by mirrors. Oops, I have to run. Furby just rolled off the counter and hit the floor. He looked at me, then he ran in the opposite direction. Silly cat!

Furby and I would like to thank everyone for supporting him over the years.

Elisa