This is Blaze, who loves to stay outside on "his" deck during good weather, napping and enjoying the outdoors.  You can tell by his expression how pleased he is at us waking him up for some silly picture to put on a web page!  Blaze is a true "indoor - outdoor" cat; if the weather is good, he will be outside (sometimes disappearing for days, in spite of being neutered; worrying us to death!), but once the weather turns sour, he will fly inside and find a warm spot to nap, hopefully out of the way of the other cats.  One of the most amusing quirks he has is that he will ask out to "go potty" by going to the door and meowing.  You then open the door to wind and rain (or worse: snow!) and he hunkers down, backs away, and finds another door to ask out from, hoping that there will be better weather at another door!  This will go on and on for awhile until finally, in exasperation, he will squint hard, hunker down and scoot outside to do his business.  The weather has to be particularly harsh for him to lower himself to using a litter box like those "other" cats!

Blaze has not had it easy.  He was hit by a car on our road and broke his pelvis: he is lucky to even still be with us.  But, we followed the direction of our vet for his care and he recovered remarkably.  The only lasting evidence of that traumatic incident is his well-deserved fear of the road and a "hop" to his running style that is only noticeable if you are watching carefully.

He is known here as the "Big Boy", as he is a rather large cat, weighing in at about 15 pounds, and not fat, as you can see.  Loveable as can be, he does not like for any animal "strangers" to enter our yard and will escort them off the property!  But, when my son lost his pet cat, Bruiser, Blaze did an extraordinary thing:  He "found" another cat, since named "Curious" and literally brought him home and presented him to my son as a substitute.  And people call them "Dumb Animals"???