Welcome to my site. My name is Satin and I am a black cat with white socks and bib. I was born on 25/4/99 along with my sister Lace, who also lives here. I also had two bothers Louis and Vincent. Lace is grey, but has the same white socks and bib.

We share the house with Sheba, who has just turned 20. She is very much the boss. She hated us when we first came to live here, she used to hiss and growl at us mainly. Now I think she has mellowed, and only bats me occasionally. We like to copy her, she seems to know the best places to sleep. 

They say that I'm not very bright, but it's just that I am very friendly; I just want to be friends with everyone and don't really understand why some cats want to fight. 

We were 9 weeks old when we came to our new home. We were well socialised with people and were not at all frightened. We made ourselves at home right away. We weren't sure what miniature schnauzers were so we hissed and arched our backs as soon as we met them. Luckily on our first day here Lace found a book all about them. We had our claws clipped before we came to the new house, but I'm not sure why as we are very good at retracting our claws, especially as we pat their backs from the top of our scratching post.  

My favourite thing is climbing trees, but when it's raining we like to sit on top of the wall units in the kitchen, or better still inside a box. 

These are up to date pictures of Lace.  

As you can see, we've really grown up, but we think we are still beautiful!

My (almost) friend Sheba pictured here,  had a difficult start in life and was not properly weaned. This means that she has difficulty in digesting food and has to eat special food for older cats. We were brought up on a selection of special kitten food, dried and tinned, and were given lots of flavours to prevent us from becoming fussy eaters. It didn't work though because of the tinned foods they give us, we only like one brand and it has to be chunks in jelly. We also have some fresh poultry & fish, this is especially nice for us as we live with vegetarian humans. We have j discovered mice too! We find these in the garden, but when we bring one into the house as a present, I don't think it's  really appreciated. 

Sheba does not come from a strong line. She is doing well at 20 and has long long out-lived her littermates that we know of. Whilst her coat is glossy and she seems fit she does have a few problems. She has poor teeth and so we give her senior biscuits. She has also had ear irritation which causes her to scratch her head, sometimes breaking the skin. Basically the problem is a build up of wax, periodically her ears are overproducing wax. She has had her ears cleaned, but this is a temporary measure only. Although effective for a time, we were concerned that this treatment requires a general anesthetic. Sheba is not getting any younger, and it is possible that she will also require further dental surgery, again requiring a general anesthetic. Ear cleaning can also be effective in the short term, but, as I'm sure anyone who has had to administer ear drops will know, this can stress both cat and owner! As Sheba's ear canal is now thickened, it is possible to operate to alleviate the problem. We considered this, but are leaving it as a last resort. In the short term we have successfully used a homeopathic remedy. We used Hepar sulfuris 6c to reduce the inflammation and pain, followed by Psorinum 30c to help cut down on the waxy discharge,. For the past 4 years we have given her tablets for a couple of weeks whenever the tell tale scratching appears.  This seems to be working and luckily she will accept the small tablet with food.