MSI Press Blog

  In last week's Caturday post, I shared our death watch over Happy Cat . At 11:52 pm, I updated the watch. At that time, we lost Happy Cat. He had been dozing on the bed beside my paraplegic daughter, Fawn. Suddenly, he urgently scrambled to get into her arms. Then, with two big, agonizing gulps of air and a shudder, he crossed the Rainbow Bridge while cuddled in Fawn's arms. We hope he is now cavorting with his pals Snyezhka,  Bobolink ,  Intrepid , and  Murjan  who crossed before him. Happy Cat taught us some important in his last days, some important for cats and some important as well for humans: Near the very end, cats sense when they are going to die, and they prepare by looking for dark places. Happy Cat would go into cubbies that he was never interested in before. (It's a tip-off for owners.)  Near the end, owners sometimes are allowed a sense that their journey to the Rainbow Bridge is reaching its goal. I felt an otherworldly presence the day bef...

  Question: What is a precerpt? Answer: A precerpt is a brief excerpt or preview of a book (or other text), used to give readers a taste of the content before they read the full piece. It's like a sneak peek that hooks the reader's interest (or at least, we hope it will hook yours).  This Friday's precerpt is from  Raising Happy Cat Families  by Luna Norwood --  GAINING A CAT'S CONFIDENCE (part 2) So, how did Boulder became Bobolink? How did I gain the confidence of this scared baby? In the following ways that can be generalized to a number of scaredy cats:   LEAVE THE INITIATIVE TO THE CAT; RESPECT THE CAT’S SPACE. I left the initiative to Bobolink. He could join the rest of the family when he was ready and was not forced to do so before he was ready. Bobolink’s cubby on the cat tree was there as his protective fortress; I did not disturb him there—did not feed him there, did not try to pet him there, removed him from there only once a day for his so...

  On precerpt Fridays, we share excerpts from forthcoming books. Today, we are sharing an excerpt from Raising Happy Cat Families: the introduction to the chapter, "Alpha, Beta, and Everyone Else." Not all families will have both an alpha (dominating) and a beta (nurturing) cat. We did for many years, and that may have made it easier to keep the family together, bonded, and a receptive place when a new cat came along. Now, all four males—gentle souls all of them—take on the responsibility of welcoming the new cats. A cat rescuer, bringing our latest, Moo, to us, commented, “Your male cats are so gentle and welcoming!” They are, indeed. We expect them to be that way, and we raise them to be that way. Only Happy Cat is a beta cat. Now, because of blindness, he cannot fulfill that role. It seems as if the other three males understand that they are needed to help out, and they do step up to the plate. As a result, Moo was integrated by Bear, but Jack mentors him, as does Happy Ca...

  Happy Cat in one of his dark places Happy Cat's days of valiantly fighting his brain tumor are drawing to an end. We are now on death watch for him as he valiantly trues to stave off death even though he knows it is hovering over him, calling. Happy Cat was one of those cats who never asked for anything, not even for a home. He was an alley cat, and he would wait until all the other street cats had finished their turn at the handouts from local residents, including us, before he would approach and finish up the remnants. We got to know Happy Cat from afar, seeing him every day hunkered down under the juniper bush, watching the other cats eat. (One of those cats was Snyezhka , his pal, whom we captured and adopted.) He would only come eat after they were done and he thought we were gone. Then, he became very ill. Something prompted him to trust us to help, and we found him spread-eagled outside our second-story entrance door one morning as we were departing for work. Cat lifted i...