Taffy-Ta

Taffy knows who she is. When you see her golden face and eyes surrounded by substantial ruff of soft orange fur you know who she is too; likely descended from the legendary big cats in Africa. Her name, Taffy-Ta denotes her softer side, but her more recent name Tuffy Taffy describes her other side. Because of her early kitten experiences she does not hesitate to use her claws once in a while. Most of the time it has to do with getting her way, more petting, another treat…you know the type. She has long fur but not so that it gets in her way. Her’s is the sort that doesn’t shed. I found out very early on she does not like to be brushed with a shedding brush. I almost always have several little curved claw marks on the back of my hands. She only will tolerate the soft wire brush. Okey Dokey.
She ‘s my conversationalist. Letting me know when she is hungry, upset, scared, wanting some water in her food dish or even some petting. She is not a snuggler, not yet, but she is the one who comes in the house each afternoon for her nap without being coaxed, and then finds the most comfortable chair in the living room after dinner while we read or watch T.V. Her purr sometimes sounds like a croak. Every once in a while I wonder if she has a cat upper respitary thing. She has grown the biggest of my three house cats but she really is a bit of a marshmallow. In the morning she will run around the bed till she is sure Lily, the boss has jumped down. Then if she can she crouches in the shadow and takes a swipe as Lily goes by. She never backs down when Lily hisses at her, she just lays there ignoring her. Ho hum. She gets her morning moments with Mom pretty early, letting me know when the sun is about to come up over the horizon.
Of the three cats she is the one who spends most time in the enclosed outdoor cat yard, mostly at night, catching moths and flies, depending on the season. I hear the click-clack of the cat door in the middle of the night and I know she is in for a while. When she is outside (supervised) she is one busy cat. The other day when she was out in our yard guarding it so that our barn cats could not come into her domain, she flew off the fence where she had been balancing. She was determined to chase Polka Dot out of her yard. Polka Dot had strayed past some unknown boundary known only to Taffy-Ta. She disappeared for a while and I noticed later she was peeking out behind some of the tall grass by the fence, just waiting to pounce, her favorite game.
Lately I’ve tried to entice her to become more of a lap cat by a bit of nose (hers) to finger(mine) touches rewarded by a scrumptious dehydrated chicken strip. It seems to be beginning to work. I got close enough to doctor an abscess that had appeared on her tail the other day. She even has become one of the winners in the nightly, “who gets to sleep with Mom” contest that is played out between her, her sister Cookie-dough and the ‘boss cat’ Lily Lou. Sigh, I hope someday they can all get along.