ILONA ANDREWS

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Camille the Troublemaker

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By popular demand, we bring you Minou Camille, also known as Meow Meow. Fun fact about Meow Meow: she has 7 digits on her front paws. Normally polydactyls come with random numbers of toes, but she has exactly seven on both front paws.

Camille has claimed the entire Kid 2’s house as her domain.

She also has a great fashion sense.

Camille is very attached to her humans. We get a lot of random candid shots of Camille when we facetime.

No worries though. Camille is safe as Kid 2 runs a tight household.

Camille is a sensible cat who knows kibble doesn’t grow on trees, so sometimes she helps Kid 2 with important work.

Sometimes she doesn’t.

We had a bit of a scare before Christmas because Camille was scheduled to be spayed, but her bloodwork showed a possible clotting disorder. But it turned out to be a false positive, so all is good.

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Comments

    • Oh my goodness — tomorrow is Friday!!! I’d forgotten how significant that is when times are normal. 😀

      Thank you in advance for that, House Andrews.

      Many thanks also to Kid 2 for sharing videos of her little darling. I miss having cats so much, but Mr. Wife’s allergies have gotten worse over the years — though not as bad as they would have been without allergy shots — and the same for trailing daughter #1, so there it is.

  4. Most adorable kitty ever. . . I am extremely allergic to cat but absolutely love them. I sometimes sneak pets of the barn cats where I board my horse then have to run to the bathroom to wash my hands. Thanks for the kitty videos.

    • Carina – I am also deathly allergic to cats. My son is, of course, madly in love with cats. He mentioned this in front of our neighbor, who immediately drug us to her house to meet her hypoallergenic cat. He is a Siberian Forest cat. I didn’t react at all. We now have two.
      These cats have a low enzyme level in their saliva, which is what most people react to.
      Our breeder invited us to her cattery to see if I reacted. 8 cats and kittens and I didn’t sniffle once.
      Check them out if you decide you want a cat. They are awesome.

    • You might also consider Begals, or Savanah cats. They also have minimal enzyme levels. We have three, no problems

  7. Being owned by a cat is one of the most wonderful things about being human. Hiccup (my rescue cat) rules the house and all that is in it. This includes any and all visitors.

    • Oh yeah! My household is run for the convenience of three spoiled cats, and I couldn’t be happier about the situation!

  14. I lost Spaz (a rescue kitty) right at the beginning of the pandemic due to old age. I love all my cats but she’s the only cat that paid her own rent. My landlord had issues with spiders on this property. This particular cat absolutely would not tolerate anything in her home or space that moved without her approval and would hunt the buggers down. $50 off the rent bill every time they would ask me to take my kitty to vacant apartment XYZ and she would attack the wall where a nest was located inside.

    Her specialty – brown recluse!!!!

    • I’d take more than $50 off your rent for a brown recluse hunter. I’d doubt I would ever sleep easy with brown recluses lurking about. (shudder)

    • So sorry for your loss of an amazing kitty! My 4 rescues can’t manage to kill a fly much less hunt down spiders, they just look sort of bewildered when I tell them they aren’t keeping up their side of the agreement. ????

  19. Ohhh… she is *sooo* sweet! I’d love to have a cat with extra toes… *__* But mine a fine, just as they are… <3

    Thank you for sharing! <3

  25. In Finland we call polydactyl cats Ship’s Cats. Apparently they are good for being on fishing boats and don’t fall overboard easily. It is also my pen name! (small ad).

  26. She is going to be a handful. Actually, I guess, that she is a handful. Thank you for sharing the cuteness.

  28. She’s adorable. Her miaowing at the blinds sounded like my part Siamese cat (now passed), he was very talkative at times yet stealthily silent at others.

  34. Thank you for the kitty videos!
    I’m struck by intensity of Camille’s gaze ;
    those penetrating golden eyes are gorgeous.

  37. I had my polydactyl Humane Society Special for 17 years and lost him last March. I will miss him forever.

  40. Hurray! I am the 47th poster!

    We have a cat who used to lunge herself at the blinds which are made from horizontal slats. She had good reason. There is a shelf outside the window and when the blinds were open she sat where she could observe the outside events. Occasionally a neighborhood cat jumped on the outside shelf. Our cat took great offense at such action and hurled herself at the offender, never mind that the blinds and window were in the way. She did this with such force that one time it broke a couple slats on the blinds and made a loud, booming noise, which startled us all. After that we made sure the blinds were raised high enough so that her lunges missed them.

  42. What a darling! And I love her markings.

    Over the summer, Ember Meadow Serrano became my rescue fail. She had kittens before she was a year old, and then when they were weaned took in orphaned kittens. When she showed up here with her adopted kittens, she was tiny and way too skinny – and it’s really hard to get weight on a nursing mother! She’s also incredible sweet and personable… and a total bundle of mischief with the other cats. So, once the kittens were placed and she was fixed I adopted her.

    Cricket (aka Queen Cricket) still clearly the dominant cat, but Ember spends a lot of time starting shit with her just because she’s bored. Cricket is *really* not into it. Cricket has her own space on a large ledge in my room, and Ember keeps climbing up there to bait her. Keanu, whom I got at the same time as Cricket, has recently decided that it’s his job to chase Ember down when she’s up there without permission. (He’s close to both girl kitties.) It’s behavior that’s so easy to anthropomorphize – I wish I knew what was in his head!

    (It does seem to help with keeping the peace?)

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CYGG7QWhTgW/

    • Serrano…any relation to the Fleet family? Also, tortie…Mischief is their middle name. Keanu is probably just trying to keep the peace.

      • Serrano because she is a spicy little girl.

        I think Keanu has been a little sad because Cricket has been a bit antisocial with all the punking she’s been getting from Ember. But his body language says that he thinks he’s playing when he chases her down, and is generally having a great time. (Ember puts her ears flat against her skull and spits and swipes.)

  43. Thank you for sharing! We lost our beloved 4 year old rescue tortie-Miss Emma- this morning due to congestive heart failure. Your pictures made me happy on what has otherwise been a horrible day.

  44. Thanks for the big Camille update! She is such a lively character, ha ha.

    Please send updates on the rest of the Andrews menagerie ????

  45. Artha and Quincy are obviously the “woofs” in that one clip, but who is the “yip” counterpoint?

    Camille is so cute!! And a very good administrative assistant!! Checking on all the projects to see where she can help out!

    • I believe it’s Jerry- the cockatiel ????

      Edit: I was wrong. It is Quincy, who yips like he is part coyote hehe.

      • Is Jerry imitating the two small dogs at the HA homestead? (I think a shih tzu and the small dark haired dog who is the model for Catalina’s dog.)

    • Not Camille, but Jupiter, our last foster, was marvelously polydactyl, as well as being a sociable lap hog. (He was incredibly easy to place, and his current people treat him like a king. All the cuddles. And they’d noticed how much he liked my screened in porch, so they are screening in one of theirs – and got him a catio for the interim, so he can get his outdoor time in.)

  53. Oh my! Miss Camille will grow into her ears and toes someday and you will look at these photos remembering how ‘small’ she was…

  55. My first thought was that Camille wanted Kid 2 to open the blinds (There Is Nothing There) so that she could see what was going on, even if it was nothing.

  56. She’s such a lovely kitty, and I’m jealous of Kid 2’s ability to make all of the animals be quiet, that never works in my household! Thank you for sharing!

  59. So sweet! I’m very glad she doesn’t have the clotting disorder that would complicate things. A clotting disorder makes me think more of shapeshifters and werewolves…

  60. She looks very like the kitty that got dumped at the top of our drive in the summer. We gave her to my son and she’s wreaking havoc in his house. She got spayed last week.

  61. My last cat passed on good Friday and I really miss her…

    Have you heard via the grape vine how that little dog you rescued is doing? I am coming up on 80 and do not think I can properly care for a pet now.

  62. Happy to meet Minou ???? My cat Lady Penelope has seven toes with full claws on each front foot, too. Hers are in two different arrangements. One is mitten-like. The other is four toes facing forward and three running up the side. Polydactyl cats are fun!

  63. Yes we all have cats that own us. Mine Squishy or mel Mel. She who tells me her food bowel isn’t full. Sits where you have to move her but she looks at you to say but I’m comfortable. And she only interacts with me my son and husband as she hides from everyone else. We love her.

  64. I think that Miss Camille Meow Meow was watching a ghost in video 1. There was a ghost hiding behind the blinds playing peekaboo with Camille which is why she was so focused on those blinds. I hear cats can do that – see ghosts. It explains a lot.

  65. She is adorable, and sounds like she would make a good character in your books……my middle name is Camille, born the same year as the hurricane hit the coast/ gulf in Georgia ????

  67. Love the pictures and videos. Camille is a little doll. I lost my polydactyl last summer to heart disease and I miss him a lot. So gentle and kind he was. With him, I had to keep an eye on the claws in between the extra toes because he could not keep them in control by scratching like the regular ones. So, if this is your first experience with a poly cat, inspect those claws because they can get ingrown. Thanks for the lovely post!

  69. Camille and my Boo are so much alike in behavior and petsonalities. They both have same # of toes on their front paws. Boo likes to put her paws on my face look in my eyes.

  70. Sindy Lou Who sends you a high seven from her place in the PNW Heaven. She is a polydactyl Mackerel Tabby. Sevens I the front and five on th hinds.
    Hello from Washington State.

  71. Next time open the blinds so the kitty can look outside. That’s what she wanted. It’s in their nature to be curious and look outside especially if they are indoor cats.

  73. Dear House Andrews,

    Thank you so very much for the joy & happiness your books & blogs have given me this last year. May you & your family have a very Happy New Year.

  78. We adopted a male recue kitty in August. Skippy was just weaned and was an active, mischievous
    little bundle of energy. He is now a large bundle of energy with an unfortunate need to explore trash cans. We have had to hang all our bedroom trash cans on the wall! Luckily, he has no interest in the kitchen ones! He does, however, love to lay in the kitchen sink and look out of the large window into the woods next to the house. I have asked hubby to put up a place for him to rest in a large window in the room next to the kitchen where he will have the same view. How that works! He is now sitting on my head purring like a freight train and suggesting I come play. See you later!

  79. I had a cat that was polydactyl when I was a kid. Every paw had 1 extra toe, and it didn’t seem random at all. The wandering tom cat that was his father had the same extra toes and coloring. They were farm/barn cats so none were fixed.

  80. Good thing you included video evidence; otherwise no one would believe that cutie got into so much trouble!

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