It is September now and the temperature has gone below 90 degrees a few times. Cat energy levels are increasing at our house and we are really looking forward to finally enjoying our new yard (supervised, of course).

Scooter relaxing in new found breeze.

Scooter, our newest addition and former street cat, has no problem claiming her domain.

Self appointed Queen of the Hill.

I see the squirrel but I am not giving up my throne.

As for me, I still get upset when the winds blow up my skirt. Scooter wins!

Your friend,
Fisher

Just ask Fisher

Dear friends and readers of my newspaper column,

My column in the tbt*, St. Petersburg Times, will no longer appear due to a change in format. In other words, I am temporarily unemployed. Things change, as we all know. It happens. I view my early retirement as temporary because I am not giving up, nor will I discontinue responding to your letters and giving helpful advice. The difference is your letters will now appear on my blog.

I had the rare luxury of a terrific editor right out of the box.
Jay Cridlin, editor of the weekend Out There section, was always very supportive of my mission to offer help to those family pets with pressing issues. I could not have asked for more.

So, I offer a heartfelt thank you to Jay and his staff, and to all my readers who kept me in noms for over 2 years. Not bad for one small cat! Not bad at all.

I invite you cats and dogs, ferrets, birds, rabbits and others to still feel free to write to me. You can send your letters via my contact page on this blog or directly through my email, askfisher@gmail.com. All your friends who are not on the internet can still send letters and photos to Fisher Harris, 200 2nd Ave S 123, St. Petersburg, FL 33701. Photos will be returned along with a copy of the blog.

Your friend,
Fisher

We love it here. Lots of things for kitties to explore – multiple rooms and although it is still a little confusing, we have much to do!

Wart is our self-appointed protector. He sits at the front window and fends off the outdoor cats who are just curious and I am sure would like to get to know us.
Others have come around, or so he says:

Do you believe him?

Your friend,
Fisher

Dear Friends,

I am supposed to be the calm one here. My main job is to keep Wart out of the boxes so he does not get himself taped in and moved before we cats get our royal introduction to the new place. We have listened in to all the “moving talk” for the last 3 months.

This is where it all started and what it has come to:

1. A bigger condo – now a house!
2. Terrace with a water view – now a yard!
3. “you will love it” – “you will love it”
4. Out of the city – West side of the city
5. “you will love it” – “you will love it!”

My office is slowly disappearing through the door and down the elevator. Internet will close down soon, but I am trusting it will come back up.

My people are acting all happy, so I must believe them. It has been a long time since I have lived on the ground. But, yes, I will get calm and enjoy the ride. I always do.

As for little brother Wart, I am here for you buddy. Not right now, but pretty soon.

Any suggestions for helping Wart?

Your friend,
Fisher

What a remarkable day this is. I am yawning and laughing at the same time. Looking back over the last two years – where we started and where we got to – can be pretty darn tiring and completely exhilarating all at once.
We have had fits and frustrations over the why’s and wherefore’s of keeping up a web site. We are still trying to get it all sorted out. But today. we forget about the tears and only remember the laughter. We are motivated and excited. Most of all, we are having fun. This adventure will not come to an end anytime soon!
Thank you to our readers and all the wonderful critters who write to Ask Fisher for advice. Thanks to my editor and his staff, my advice column continues to publish in the tbt* Tampa Bay Times. Without you all, we would surely lose momentum.
Just for kicks and with a slight bit of embarrassment, I thought it would be fun to re-post (without re-editing) my very first blog. The only difference is we added a photo to show how intimidated I really was. tee hee

Hello world!

Hello!
My name is Fisher.
This is my fist blog and I am very excited to talk with you. I decided to start this blog in order for us “pets” to discuss matters that are important to us in our world. To me, the idea of getting advice is to get another perspective on things that concern us.
What qualifies me to give advice, you might ask? I have been a cat for at least 6 lifetimes now, and have seen some pretty interesting stuff, met some interesting people, and been in some strange situations. For some reason, through all this, I have developed an ability to tune in to other beings. I suppose you could call me a kitty psychic, but you can just about imagine what the talk shows would do with that one! I don’t think your humans would be happy about that at all! Some of them don’t realize how much we think about things and have opinions about things, and oh yeah – have reasons for our actions.
We love our humans an awful awful lot and most of us are really really happy with them, but sometimes we just want to express ourselves without them suddenly up and changing our cat food because we are acting a little weird that day.
This blog is all about community – you might want to tell a funny story about your human, or your sibling, or the other pets in your household. You might want to whine a little. Admit it – we all do that at some time or other. You might want to ask your new community why your human insists on putting bows in hair, or whose idea was it to decide that you are Irish on St Paddy’s day anyway?? Why not go where you can really share with others of like mind. Your humans do it. You can too. Just ask.

Your friend,
Fisher