Happy 10th Birthday, Chiggy!

Happy 10th Birthday to my Chiggy!

As I type this, I am sitting in my papasan chair and Trigg is across from me on the couch, sleeping peacefully.

I starred at him for awhile before I began to type this and really can’t believe he is 10. I can believe it with Charlie, but not Chiggy. Chiggy is just so young at heart – yet, I do think he has arthritis, whereas Charlie does not.  That’s the only thing about him that reminds me he is a senior kitty.

His official name is Trigg. My sister named him. I was dating a guy who was a high school calculus teacher, and my sister came up with the name because of trigonometry.

As you know, I rarely call him Trigg, though – it’s mostly Chiggy, with a “Tink, Tink”, or “Gauy” mixed in. Think I have a few more nicknames for him, but cannot think of them at the moment. I often say, “There he is” to him – but it comes out more like, “Der he is!” He knows and responds to all of my nicknames for him.

Chiggy is an easy cat.  I mean, EASY.  He always eats what is served to him, he doesn’t bother me unless he is hungry…or if he wants to snuggle in the morning.  He causes little to no trouble, rarely demands my attention and is genuinely happy and independent.  He’s just an easy cat.

It’s funny, my family will always joke with me, if they come over or if we’re at my parents’ lake house and say, “Don’t you have 2 cats?”  Chiggy is slow to trust people.  So he usually hides.  He also hides with dogs.  He loves my mom and me.  He also loved by ex-boyfriend tremendously and grieved when we broke up years ago.  He loves my mom because he spent 2 weeks at her house when he was a kitten – if I have even been with my mom and hugged her (and have her perfume on me as a result), he will want to smell me because of it.   He also likes my sister and her husband.  But that’s about the limit to the folks’ he trusts – oh yes, our cat sitter too =).  But that took some time – I still remember getting a text from her in England telling me that Chiggy let her pet him.

I always chuckle when people from the Internet ask me if they can come meet Chiggy – you guys see the Chiggy that’s with me, or my sister or my mom…you don’t see the Chiggy you’d see if you came to visit him – he’d be hiding for hours before he came out.  He’s a scaredy cat in a lot of ways – but then not a scaredy cat about ceiling fans and vacuums like Charlie is.  I love, though, that you guys know the real Chiggy – as so many people don’t get to see the real Chiggy.

He’s also a very funny cat – but come to think of it, he hasn’t been all that funny lately.  However, he still manages to always make me smile on a daily basis – this morning was his sweet little meows.  He has a mouse squeak sounding meow.  He is very quirky, and that’s what usually makes me laugh daily – whether it’s sliding himself off the couch, or awkwardly twisting his head as he gets up from sleeping, he is quirky and funny.  I often tell him I want to visit Chiggy’s world – seems like a happy, peaceful and fun place…and he doesn’t like when I interrupt Chiggy in Chiggy’s world…

Chiggy has mastered the teenage girl evil eye – seriously.  I am pretty sure he was a teenage girl in a past life.  I coach middle school and high school girls’ field hockey, and believe me, some of his looks would give my field hockey girls a run for their money.

Chiggy loves to snuggle in the mornings or late at night, always on his terms. It’s random and unexpected. It’s wonderful, as you can see. I sleep with a fan on and when I turn off my fan in the morning, I will usually grab my phone and check my email before I get up to start my day. My cats DO NOT wake me up for breakfast – so they wait until I get up for the day. And Chiggy waits for me to turn off the fan, and then random mornings, he will leap (LEAP!) onto the bed and walk right up to me and stick his little face between my shoulder and my head and start purring and kneading into my pillow. I usually position his body on top of me, equally. He’s in some sort of euphoria, so he doesn’t care what I do with his body.  I’ve never had a cat do this – and he only started doing it to me when he was like 3 or 4 or maybe later – I don’t recall exactly.

My childhood cat, Rags, and Trigg are related.  When my Rags was diagnosed with 2 weeks to live (he lived 3 months), I began to seriously search for my next cats in 2009.  I only knew who Rags’ father was – when we adopted Rags and his 1/2 brother, Cosby, the breeder didn’t know which kitten came from which mom – but they both had the same Dad, so we only knew for sure who Rags’ Dad was.  So I took Rags’ Dad’s name, Ragnaroks Thor, and began to search for breeding cats that had Thor in their lineage.  There were 5-6 breeders that I found that had breeding cats with Rags’ Dad’s lineage.  So, I started to watch their websites for kittens.  I am not good about putting down a deposit – I usually have to see the kitten to know in my gut if it’s mine or not.  However, with Trigg, I didn’t care – I only knew I wanted a male related to Rags.

So, when Charlie’s little face was starring back at me one night on the computer screen, I knew which breeder I would be getting Trigg from.  Trigg was in a different litter than Charlie, born to different parents.  In his litter, there were two available males – his brother who was a blue lynx colorpoint and Trigg who was blue lynx mitted.  I didn’t know those color patterns well at the time and remember Googling them to see what Trigg would look like.  I told the breeder that I didn’t have preference as to whether or not he was mitted or not.  So the other person who had a deposit down chose Trigg’s brother, and I got Chiggy…and boy, am I am glad I did.  I love his mitts.

Trigg loves sweets.  They say cats don’t have taste receptors for tasting sweet…not sure if Chiggy applies to that.  He LOVES ice cream, and I just discovered he also loves marshmallows.

I mentioned earlier that Chiggy is an easy cat – that includes when we go outside.  Like my Rags, he will find one of his favorite spots and sit and watch the birds, insects and more.  Whereas, Charlie is constantly walking the perimeter of the yard.  Chiggy also pees outside on occasion which amuses me.

Chiggy has a great coat – and it stays about the same the entire year.  Charlie has a very distinctive winter and summer coat, but Chiggy does not.  Chiggy’s coat is most similar to what my Rags had – but he has more flat hairs on his back towards his tail than my Rags did.  He also has delicious, fancy pantaloons.  His coat has a lot more oil in it than Charlie’s and consequently doesn’t mat like Charlie’s.

Speaking of fancy, Chiggy is a very fancy cat.  He rubs against everything and arches his back when he does so.  My mom recently said, “Jenny, all he does is rub everything.”  Ha ha.   He’s very much a cat – he’s the most true cat I have had…does a lot of cat-stereotypical things like arching his back and rubbing things.

Chiggy is on his second German Shepherd – my parents’ 2-year old, Parker.  Previously he knew my parents’ Napa, RIP.  Charlie instantly knew how to deal with dogs – there was nothing to be done.  Chiggy, however, wasn’t a dog fan – and he likes to show them how big and important he is, by showing them his side and arching his back.  If he lived with Parker, he would be friends with him.  He is very curious about dogs.  I won’t ever get a dog, unless a significant other wants one, so not sure if Chiggy will ever get that chance fully.

Everyone in my family thinks Chiggy is a stunning – we have never had a blue lynx mitted in my family (my mom’s side has 11 Ragdolls currently and we have had over 19 overall).  My mom always says how gorgeous he is.  My sister always tells him that he did a great job doing his make-up this morning and his white eye-liner really works well for him.  I agree that he is gorgeous – inside and out.

Chiggy has taught me a lot about cats in his 10 years of life, and I suspect he will teach me even more.

Happy 10th Birthday to my wonderful, Chiggy!  I hope we have at least 10 more.

Jenny Dean

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Hi, I’m Jenny Dean, creator of Floppycats! Ever since my Aunt got the first Ragdoll cat in our family, I have loved the breed. Inspired by my childhood Ragdoll cat, Rags, I created Floppycats to connect, share and inspire other Ragdoll cat lovers around the world,

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