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| Name: |
Jazz, Dr. Zaius
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Age: |
One and a half years,
Six months old
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| Gender: |
Female, Male
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Breed: |
Siamese
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| Home: |
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
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My
cats are Jazz (on the left) and Dr. Zaius (on the right). Jazz is
one and a half years old and Dr. Zaius is six months. They are
"appleface" Siamese. We all live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. These
guys are the greatest. They are always waiting for us when we get
home and are always ready to play fetch, ball or tag. They love to be
held, cuddled and pet all over. Naptime always means you have a
couple of warm kitties either on you or next to you. They seem to
love each other as much as we love them. Jazz is a champion
bath-giver and Dr. Zaius is a champion bath recipient... We love life
with Jazz and Dr. Zaius.
Appleface Siamese is the traditional head shape of the Siamese cat.
Applefaces are not show cats anymore because the show look for the
Siamese is now the really thin angular head and face. Siamese cats in
past movies (i.e., "Bell, Book and Candle" and "That Darn Cat" have
applefaces, so that super-thin look has come along in the last 25
years or so (along with Kate Moss and the Supermodels!). Jazz is a
girl and Dr. Zaius (pronounced "Zay-us") is a boy. It is hard to
pronounce when you are just reading it. The vet assistant always
calls him "Doctor Zeus". :-) The name came from The Planet Of The
Apes movie - Dr. Zaius was the wise orangutan doctor with the
red hair...
My husband had a Siamese cat when he was growing up so that sort of
prompted our choice. These cats are our first pets together (we're
married three years). We decided to get them because we knew we wanted a
cat and I acted impulsively and drove us out to a farm one day about
an hour from where we live to look at a litter of kittens. Siamese
are quite white when they're born and these kittens were really young
(and spastic!). Nick (my husband) at one point held the whole litter
in his arms and was just looking like he couldn't believe it. They
were little white puffballs with blue-blue eyes. We put a down
payment on a female and due to circumstances (work and travel) we
returned back around the time when Jazz was eight weeks of age to collect
her. By then all her siblings were gone and it was just her and her
mom. We think Jazz wasn't held a lot as a kitten and therefore wasn't
too well socialized to people. She was almost unpleasant as a
kitten, she never calmed down or cuddled or liked to he held.
She seemed kind of unhappy too, so we decided to get her a friend. I
called the breeder back and they were expecting another litter by a
separate mother and father (they had two breeding pairs), so we had out
names put down for a male this time. When Dr. Zaius was born there
was a terrible ice storm in this region (Ottawa) which knocked out
the power in some places for five weeks. The breeder's farm was one of
those places. For that reason the litter was born in the family's
upstairs bathroom (actually in the tub! no water in it at the time
;-) ) instead of out in the office where the cats were normally kept
(because there was no power or heat anywhere except in the house
where they had a wood burning furnace). So these kittens were
handled a lot by the family's children. We think for this reason Dr.
Zaius is such a friendly, cuddly fellow. When we brought the new guy
home it took Jazz about 24 hours to accept him. The first night we
took Zaius to bed with us and Jazz happened to jump up on the bed.
She didn't see Zaius and he didn't see her for a few minutes. They
finally caught sight of each other at exactly the same time (as I was
holding Zaius up in one hand). She let out a combination growl/howl
that scared him so badly he peed! We could not stop laughing - the
poor little guy. Luckily, it was easy to clean up. After that they
fell in love with each other and now play all day long. When not
eating or playing you can usually find them sleeping together. Jazz,
by the way, has a lovely personality now. Very huggy and affectionate
and adores being held. We think the change is due to the fact that we
brought her home a little friend to love.
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