Introducing Ember

This is my cat Ember.

I adopted her from the local humane society about 5 years ago. When I was visiting the shelter to pick out a cat, I specifically looked for a cat that had a lot of confidence. In the end, I narrowed it down to two: Ember, who was called Duchess at the time, and a younger male named Bearclaw. I decided to take Ember because she was already 5 years old and I figured less adoptable than the younger cat.

When I brought her home, I had to integrate her into a household with three sight hounds. Fortunately, the canine crew had all lived among cats at one time in their lives. However, it had been 4 years since they had any sort of civil interactions with cats and they had, in fact, been chasing cats for the last 4 years.


I kept Ember in a cat cage behind an X-pen for the first couple weeks. I gave her the run of the place when I wasn't home and left the dogs locked up. When I was home, I had one dog at a time out with her while she was behind her safety barriers. Any barking, lunging, staring or pacing earned the dog a prize (a free trip outside alone for a few minutes, a horrible fate for any hound). I moved to letting Ember choose to come out of her cage while one dog was in the room. The same rules for the dogs applied. Eventually, I realized that I had gotten very lucky with Ember. She was very good at interpreting the situation and responded accordingly. I was quickly able to move up to having two dogs out with her and then all three.

To be honest, Tigger was never a problem. Once he was reminded that this was "our" kitty he treated it as such. He has always had impeccable manners around smaller critters in the house.

The other two took a tad longer but eventually complied. It helped that Ember was willing to punish investigating noses with a well placed paw and occasionally, a claw.


Ember has shown herself to be a good judge of the character of visiting dogs too. She also discovered the dog door and how to use it. I used to really worry about it but noticed that she rarely left my back yard and then only to prowl in the neighbors back yard.

She is a very friendly cat with a lot of character. I clicker train her along side the dogs and often put her in the sit stay line up for kicks. Recently I discovered that she thinks Salami is the primo cat treat!

She is also very photogenic and is always dressed in fall colors!