Zaria entered my life as a stray mother with four beautiful kittens in early September 1999. She was estimated to be 14 months old at that time so I have arbitrarily assigned her a birthday of July 4, 1998. She is a very striking cat with brillant blue eyes, a basic seal point coloration that has an overlay of white markings (one of which is a stripe dividing her nose in half), tabby markings on the face and tail, and tortoise-shell markings on the trunk. Given her basic coloration, eye color, and vocalization tendencies I believe she has a good deal of Siamese in her background. Two of her kittens are colored like her but with more white and the other two kittens are grey and white. The kittens found new homes very quickly but I was drawn to the mother cat and so in mid-September I spayed her and brought her home. She very quickly let my Akita, Zen, know that she was not to be intimidated by him and he had better be on his best behavior with her.
She loves to have her belly rubbed and is very affectionate. Dogs do not bother her in the least, and, although she has the sense to not pick any fights, neither does she back down from a challenge. And she is one of those cats that is a born mother to any and everything. One of the funnier manifestations of this is her drive to discipline my two dogs. Zen, my Akita, loves his plush squeaky toys and likes to lay in the bed with one or two nearby. One night Zaria was on the bed getting belly rubs from me and was stretching out. In the process of stretching, her paw brushed one of Zen's toys. Well, Zen responds by grabbing his toy and giving a rather rude "Rwoof!" which in dog language means don't you dare touch my toy again. Zaria responds by sitting right in front of Zen's face, looking him straight in the eye, very softly hitting him on the nose with her paw, and then calmly walking off. She told him in no uncertain terms that he was being rude, he knew full she did not mean to touch his toy, and that he needed to grow up. It was a very bewildered look that appeared on his face -- after all she is 6 pounds soaking wet and he is over 100 lbs -- after that reproof. I don't think Zen agrees that he needs her guidance but Zaria is determined to turn him into a well-mannered "cat". Zaria also loves to visit my parent's house and help take care of any Lab puppies that are there (my mother raises Labrador Retrievers).
She is a very unique cat and I am thrilled that fate brought us together.
