The Reality of Romeo

As you know, I wrote about our cat, Romeo, on my former post. Some of my friends told me that he does not look so chubby.. well, even though actually HE IS. Therefore, I decided to show you his reality. Here he is;


Pregnant!? / Turkey!?
* Romeo is a male cat.
His fat goes limp like something melting down slowly when he goes into sleep. It is like Daifuku (大福), a Japanese traditional sweet, is made from rice cake and some stuffing (traditional one has red bean paste inside). Compare with the picture above ("Romeo in pregnancy")!! I am sure touching his tummy exactly feels like touching Daifuku! Mmmm, I want to bite! XD

Not only his chubbiness, you can also take a look at his "boooo (thumb's down) face" when my camera accidentally flashes.



↓　↓　Zooming in..　↓　↓


Booooo face..

Although the time saving system here gave us one hour of extra sleeping time on November 2nd, Romeo's stomach does not understand that the feeding time for him has been changed. He had woken us up at 5:30 before, and because his little brain does not recognize human winter time, of course, the alarm time of his satiety center automatically orders him to start meowing - oh my gosh - at 4:30 in every morning! As I wrote, once he understands that we are not going to get up just by his meowing, he starts to jump up onto us with his 17.5bl of weight!!! We have to change our posture as lying on our tummy to protect our organs from Romeo to crash! I know he does not mean to kill us (I hope); however, we still have to keep being in patience until the clock tells 7am, time to feed him.

Some people who owns a cat would say that we can just leave some dry food while we are sleeping. I know it works for SOME cats. For Romeo? NO. He'd eat off EVERYTHING in a bowl AS SOON AS he finds them. Also the doctor's (vet) order we've got from Yasuko, an agent of adaption agency, ties our little desire which we wish that we could feed him as much as he wants.

The flyer of Romeo we got from Yasuko recently says; "He needs someone with an iron will to make his diet stick. Cuddles and laughter will be your reward and a guarantee you'll never be bored." This fryer was spread last January for seeking out the nice foster family for him, and oh man, the picture of him is much chubbier than him now. I am so glad that the former family and Yasuko took great care of him. On the other hand, I wonder how hard it was..

In addition, my younger female cousin, Mika, emailed me a picture of her baby boy from Japan and said, "Romeo's weight as 8kg (= 17.5lb) is exactly the same as his, my 7 months old boy." Oooookkkkaaayy, I guess now I understand why my shoulders have been so sore in these days.. I feel like I became a mother of 7 months baby all the sudden.. hum, indeed, he meows for milk too.

Anyway, here is the picture of her baby boy, Kensuke. Soooooo cuuuute, isn't he??? I actually met him in May 2008 when I went back to Japan for HOLIDAYS. Time flies so fast.. at that time, he was just a little tiny baby though.

While his owners are in such great suffer from his health concern, he fell into a deep sleep as soon as he finished off his wet can food in 30 seconds. I bet a speed-eater ends up gaining lots of flabby too..


One of his sleeping style with his eyes are open..
(Don't worry, he is alive.)

A New Family Member

6:00am. Something really heavy comes up on my belly and passes over, and comes back up again. I try to go back to sleep, but it wouldn't let me; my chin touches something textured and this "textured" thing starts to go around all over my face.

"Meow (Wake up!)"

OK, get up me, time to feed him.

Our "little" guy was arrived on October 10, which was also our 4 years marriage anniversary. He is 4 years and a half old male cat (same old as me if he were human), and has been called by this name "Romeo," since the original owner had him. Plus, he is a chubby heavy little boy. Well, "little boy"? No, no, no, he is CHUBBY boy as 8 kg = 17.5 lb weight ..very chubby as a cat; therefore, he has been on diet by having diet cat food.

A week ago, we went Markham (suburb) for this blind date to Yasuko's house, who is his temporary foster mother and volunteering for Animal Service at the town of Markham. She owns 5 cats including the 18 years old one who came from Japan with her and her husband. (The house they live now is the 9th house for this cat. Her husband's business made them move often.) I don't know how other 4 cats got her place; however, what surprised me was that 2 of them (brothers) understand Russian language, and Yasuko sometimes talks to them in Russian.

There were 7 cats including Romeo in her house. 6th one was a little, "actually little" male kitten "Red," who is looking for foster family. Many people prefer baby one than adult animal; however, it would be good for me as a newbie to own a cat, since we don't have to teach where they have to have their businesses or sleep. I've heard those disciplines are sometimes hard to teach, even if the owner had some experience. Romeo is well trained and mature so we did not have to do anything to teach him. In addition, his front claws were removed by the original owner (he got a surgery for it) which one thing we would never do though, so we didn't have to worry about him clime up everywhere and drop anything off or make scratch on some furniture, for good or bad.

But, those "easy to care" parts are not the only the reasons we adopted Romeo. He is, as you see, very chubby. He needs being on diet and exercise, but he is also super lazy and does not want to move his bum even an inch. When Yasuko threw his favorite toy ball to him which makes some crinkle noise, he tried to catch it with the posture lying on tummy at the stairs, and failed. I made more crinkle noise by crashing and touching the ball to encourage him to get it, but he did not move his bum from that step. The only one thing he did was to extend his left forefoot to one step down, moreover, he stopped trying as soon as he understood that his left forefoot can not reach the ball from the position he was. I see that he cares about this ball, really does. But he looks at me and expect me to bring it just in front of his face, so he can chew. What a lazy cat!!!

His chubbiness is also very obvious from his figure which Yasuko calls "seal." Not only when he sleeps, he stomps; walks with heavy steps (or pound) to get food (only for food). Moreover, his figure especially when he eats, reminds me "Tsuchinoko," legendary snake-like cryptid animal (Wikipedia, "Tsuchinoko").
Compare Romeo with Tsuchinoko!!


Tsuchinoko


Romeo / Egg Plant

Also, when he sits, his fatty part hides his hind legs. It probably makes his legs tired and numb, he usually can not keep this posture long. Few minutes after he sits, his body would be dropped on his belly. Then the heaviest part of him lands on the floor peacefully.

Anyway, once we saw Romeo, we just instantly fell in love with his those unique atmosphere. Fortunately, our decision of adoption made Yasuko very happy too. (She also thinks that Romeo and Luke are very alike, not only the attitudes, their looks and faces are similar. I strongly agree!) Finally he moved us with many "trousseau" : his bed, his mat for a nap, his litter box with sand and a scoop, his toys, his food bowl, and diet food which other cats hate and wouldn't even go near.. he loves them.

Adopting him made our anniversary and Thanksgiving holiday really happier. We hope that he finds comfort in his new home here and recognizes us as his family.