MSI Press Blog

  Our beloved cat, Murjan, died three months ago tomorrow.  We still miss him! The emergency room vet who received him in his last few minutes of life kindly made a contribution to the  Birchbark Foundation  in his name. That was comforting -- as is the grief counseling that the BBF conducts.  Click on the link to learn more about the BBF and its great work.

 For a few decades, we have rescued feral cats. In fact, with only one exception, our "domestic" cats have been ferals that we brought inside to join other ferals, already domesticated, as part of a bonded cat family. Right now, we have five cats (alas, Murjan , the single non-feral cat we had, died from cancer last fall), all of whom get along pretty fabulously. Of course, all of that is easier said than done, and the bonding took time -- lots of it. Here are some of the things we did to create our cat family, some of which is not at all typical of what others have done, but it has worked for us. We don't trap the feral cats at all; we win them over and invite them in. We do this by feeding them a distance from the house and walking away, then moving the dish closer and closer to the house and walking less and less far away, until they are eating at our feet, at which point they will usually let us scooch or kneel beside them. To get to this point may take weeks. Getting

  The Christmas season has become a mixed set of emotions for us. My grandson was born Christmas Day 20 years ago -- extra annual joy! The brother of a young man we took for 6 years died Christmas eve this year of covid. This is the first year that our family is observing the holidays without our patriarch, Carl , and Murjan , our beloved cat. So, for sure, grief has wrapped itself around our holiday activities. Here, then, is an excerpt from Julie Potter's book, Harnessing the Power of Grief , that we have found insightful... Beginning to adjust You are not a stranger to this process. There are many times during your life when you have to adjust to and make your way in a new world: the first day of school, going away to college, getting a new job, marrying, moving to a new neighborhood, retiring and living in a new world with no colleagues and no 9-to-5 schedule, becoming ill or disabled at any age and living in a slower world with people surging on ahead of you, emigrating to a n

  Murjan at the pet hospital, scouting out the area As an owner of older cats , I am aware that all kinds of things can happen with them, just like all kinds of things happen with people. In addition to various illness and cancers, our oldest cat, Simone , has gone blind . We are learning how to help her and manage her environment to make it more manageable for her. Older cats, I have learned recently (though not through personal experience) can also develop dementia. I found this article quite helpful (should any of our cats start showing symptoms): Cat Dementia: Signs, Causes and Treatment Options (msn.com) For more Caturday posts, click  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Planning on self-publishing and don't know where to start? Our  author au pair  services will mentor you through the process. Interested

  Rescuing cats can be take skill and patience in large quantity. For the skill part, we refer you to our earlier post, Rescuing/Adopting Street Cats . Intrepid, shown here, was rescued when his street mother died and he was still a very tiny kitten; his young age made adjustment easier for him than for an older cat. One of the older cats in our house adopted him and raised him, and they remained father and son until Intrepid met an early death as an 11-year-old from cancer three years ago. To this day, his "father" Murjan mourns him. For more posts on cats, cat books, and things feline, click HERE .

  Probably everyone has a little video in mind as to how they would like to spend their last few minutes on earth, i.e. how they would like to die. Far from all experience their imagined scenario. Carl was fortunate to die surrounded by family and cats. Even though nothing was said, it seemed like everyone understood that Sunday night would be Carl's last (he died early Monday morning). No one retired. Carl slept in his favorite lazy boy lounger in the living room -- did not want to be taken to his bedroom. I slept in the lounger next to him and leaned up against him. It was much more comfortable than it may sound. Our sons were on the living room couches, and our daughter was in a matching lounger right behind Carl and me. Carl slept with his legs elevated, as always, and his beloved Happy Cat and Snyezhka slept under the footrest. Another four cats, including Murjan , himself dying of cancer and in what turned out to be the last month of his life, were scattered around the livi

  Excerpt A Real Home and Food For the first time, Intrepid had a limitless supply of food and water. He understood that he could eat whatever and however much he wanted. He did not understand the limitlessness of the supply. So, he hunkered down beside the cat food bowl in the kitchen, never leaving it except to use the litter box.   How he knew to use the litter box was an enigma. Perhaps he saw the other cats using it. Perhaps something about it came to him instinctively. From the very first day, he was always a clean cat.  Ultimately, after a number of weeks, he realized that the food would not disappear, and he ventured out to explore our other rooms, all of them very large: two bathrooms, three bedrooms, a dining room, a living room, and a closed-in sunroom. One by one, he explored them all.  In the living room, he discovered tall plants. Somehow, he discovered that though the plants were five and six feet tall, if he could get a running start, he could take a kamikaze

In honor of Caturday, we are sharing photos of the cats who own MSI Press authors, starting with Sula, pictured above, who is herself an MSI Press author. Click HERE  to see Sula's works. Simon is owned by Joanna Charnas, author of chronic illness support books and A Movie Lover's Search for  Romance , who says he is her "foster failure." Click HERE to see Joanna's works. Jeremy Feig was owned by Shelly. He wrote a book about her, How My Cat Made Me a Better Man , that won a book of the year award. Click HERE   to read about Shelly, including excerpts from the book. Carl and Betty Lou Leaver are owned by Intrepid about whom they wrote a book, stuffed with illustrations, and five other cats. Click HERE to see Intrepid . In the picture, Happy (black & white) and Murjan (red & white) share a cat bed. Cindy McKinley Alder is owned by Watson, shown here wrapped in a ribbon. So cute! Click HERE to see Cindy's contributions to the field of teaching, parenting

(photo of Murjan ) All too often, when pet owners die, their pets end up trotting over the rainbow bridge behind them. Not by desire but because kin and neighbors turn the pets into kill shelters, and, indeed, like many other older animals, they are euthanized. It is important, therefore, that people include their pets in their post-mortem plans (wills, trusts, powers of attorney, or simple agreements with family members) and make sure their kin are ready to follow through. Following through does not include dumping pets at shelters that will kill them. No-kill shelters can be an option, but not IMHO the best one. Imagine being caged for most of your life. My daughter has promised to take my cats. She has several cats of her own and takes good care of them. I can rest easy that my cats will have a good home when I can no longer give them one. We have a cat angel in our town. She brings in the street cats and finds homes for them. It is amazing how many people will adopt a neighbor'

I came across this very interesting post recently:   The most common annoying cat behaviors, explained (msn.com) . Seemed like a good topic for a Caturday. For sure, these are the kinds of things we all wish cats would not do -- scratching furniture, peeing outside the litter box, and escaping to the outdoors, among others. Good explanation and advice in the article. A couple pieces of advice missing, though, that I have found helpful for those escape artists: (1) build a catio (it is an alternative outdoors and, for most of our cats, it suffices, and (2) leash the cat and go for a walk (our Murjan was simply impelled to the outside and so loved to go for a walk that he would sit in front of the drawer with his leash and demand "mwout" over and over until he got his leash and the door opened -- and then he was off exploring. He wanted "mwout" the day before he died -- and spent his leash time looking for dark places where he could lay down for his final rest. (No, w

  This is a series of Caturday posts on the topic of taking in  feral cats .  General information (from pervious posts): For a few decades, we have rescued feral cats. In fact, with only one exception, our "domestic" cats have been ferals that we brought inside to join other ferals, already domesticated, as part of a bonded cat family. Right now, we have five cats (alas,  Murjan , the single non-feral cat we had, died from cancer last fall), all of whom get along pretty fabulously. Of course, all of that is easier said than done, and the bonding took time -- lots of it. Here are some of the things we did to create our cat family, some of which is not at all typical of what others have done, but it has worked for us. We don't trap the feral cats at all; we win them over and invite them in. We do this by feeding them a distance from the house and walking away, then moving the dish closer and closer to the house and walking less and less far away, until they are eating at ou

  When Carl first died, a friend sent me a little book, wonderful in its pragmatism and understanding of the immediate-after-death emotions and psyche. That book pointed out that widows (or widowers) have a tendency to turn the former spouse into an icon. (Well, some of them do, anyway, and that, according to the little booklet, makes it difficult to move on or even to maintain a normal range of sanity. I realize that I was doing just that -- not wanting to change anything in the house or how anything. I also put a picture in every room. Reading that booklet, I realized that I was indeed iconizing Carl. In an opposite manner, some people, perhaps many people, completely change their life and lifestyles after the death of a spouse. This was clearly expected of me. I cannot begin to count the number of real estate agents who contacted me for the first weeks and months after Carl died, offering to sell the house for me. I guess that would be a form of minimization. I had no desire to sell