aka: Smally—the Abduls named her that, and she is really small, Ouba

 (eventually to be Maliouba Alexander)

Born: Mayish 2002

Moved In: Fall 2002

Likes: 

• hunting

• outside (she sometimes forgets to come in to eat for a day or two--every summer she drops down to about 5.5lbs.)

• baby’s changing table

• Abdul Raheem

• Sasha (our exchange student)

• Decky (our cat lady neighbor)

Dislikes: 

• Wendy

• Craig

• loud noises

• being confined to the house (like her mom)

Talents: 

• She is an incredible huntress. Two Passovers ago, she brought a mouse through her new cat door, jumped down to the basement floor, and carried the mouse up to liberate him in our living room. We spent two hours tearing the house apart trying to catch the mouse so we could take him back outside. We found a dead mouse under the stove, but couldn’t find the live one. We went to school hoping his death would be swift and painless. Twelve hours later, we returned home after our Temple’s seder to find an uninjured mouse sitting in our front hallway surrounded by cats. His fur was wet as if someone had been licking him. We carried him far away outside and released him with a dish of food and water.

• Chewing through wires. Maliouba successfully destroyed Craig's Nintendo 64, two phone cords, an iron and countless earphones. Craig got pretty good at repairing cords. If you call us when we are in the basement, though, the connection is a little tenuous as it was one of Craig's early repairs involving duct tape rather than appropriate tools.

Adoption Story: If you’ve read Mama Kitty’s story, you pretty much know Maliouba’s. She moved in with her mom and never moved out. We tried to make her an indoor cat, but she never quite adjusted. Now she is allowed to go out whenever she wants—something for which the other cats greatly envy her. Maliouba also never quite adjusted to family living. She views our house as her pad. We are the housekeepers who feed her and work the door, at her will of course, otherwise she’ll take a dump on the rug. We installed a cat door for her a few years ago that was operated with a little magnetic key (think expensive for the door, expensive for the keys). After losing two keys, Maliouba decided she'd had enough of our door. Today we have it set so anyone can come in and no one can go out--no $15 key required. Sox, Balin, and Kinsa will use it (Orion is too fat, he got stuck and pulled the entire door out of the wall), but not Maliouba.

Someday, she will move in with our neighbor Decky whom she likes way better than us.

Maliouba (left) sharing a basket with her little sis KInsa.