Poor Pitiful Puddycat

Puddycat looks rough these days. Real rough. Most of this is because she won't stand for grooming assistance and she won't groom herself as fastidiously as most cats. Now her winter mats have been coming off of her in clumps--she often comes to me with a tuft of hair handing from her mouth. At first this process created what I facetiously called racing stripes (forgive me if I'm repeating myself). The horizontal bald patch across her sides showed a pale fleshtone line amid her black fur. Now most of the original stripes are growing enough hair to appear sleek and black, with fleshtone patches and knotted tufts of fur appearing around the new hair.

Not only does she look rough, she's also enduring persecution at her food bowl. On Friday I caught the red hen approaching while Puddycat noshed on the food in her bowl. Then a few minutes later when I passed by that door again, I looked out to see both the red hen and Pretty Boy on the porch; the Puddycat was nowhere to be seen. Poor thing.

Perhaps our neighbor's name for her is more fitting: Sissibelle. Our neighbor feeds a number of local cats and when she first encountered Puddycat in her yard, she called her a "sissy cat with a sissy bell." All taunts aside, I prefer to keep the cat belled because this helps me to locate her by sound, and may save the lives of a few birds, too.