Please share stories and photos of your pets with us.

Here are my two cats, Boris and Natasha. The black and white is Boris. I got him at the San Jose Shelter in late 2005, when he was little more than a kitten. His hobbies include walking in front of me in a serpentine fashion to control my movement through out the apartment. He may have been a sheepherder in a former life.

He sleeps less than any other cat I have ever know. He is always watching. I believe he works for the NSA and has been tracking my communications for years. The only time he wants affection is when I'm typing at the keyboard. He comes up and plops himself down on my hands while I am typing, or tries to climb onto my chest.

If he needs to take medication, it is a big fight. But if I should drop one of my pills on the floor, he will swoop in and try and eat it before I can get to it. I thought I could use this in the future by dropping one of his pills on the floor, hoping he would take the bait and think it was one of mine. He didn't fall for it. He just gave me his "what do you think I'm stupid look?" The upside is that I can blame him for my many typos.





This is my little, loving Maine Coon Natasha. I got her in early 2007 from the Unconditional Love pet rescue operation in San Jose. Since I am away from the apartment working 12 hours a night, or perhaps 24 hours or more on fishing trips, I though it best to get Boris a pal. The Unconditional Love people go into other shelters and take cats that are scheduled to be euthanized, placing them them in homes. Unconditioned Love saves hundreds of cat a year. Back then I volunteered my photography skills to photograph rescued cats. Later it was just easier for them to do it themselves with the advent of better digital cameras. I will post some of those photos below soon.

Natasha hobbies include sleeping on my lap when I'm watching TV. Sometimes we have contests to see who can sleep longer; she usually wins. The first one is when she was just a kitten:





Here are a few of them together:



The photo below were taken a few days after getting Natasha. She still lacked hair from her spaying operation. The ones below were not taken with my professional photography equipment. I used my point-and-shoot. Sometimes Boris and Natasha refuse to give me the time to setup my equipment before presenting "cuteness." As an old photographer once told me, the best camera is the one you have with you at the time.





This next photo is one of my favorites. It didn't take long for Natasha to find Boris' weak spot.



-Mark-