Pointless Cat Conversation

[keltin]

We totally agree Katie. We’ve had our share of losses, and it rocks you to the very core. Very, very disturbing and moving to lose a baby.

It’s only DW and I, and without the furry babies, this place would be an empty mausoleum. They are there for us every day, they do things on their own that entertain us, they are an integral part of the family. We have routines, and if I sit in a certain chair (reading chair) the eldest will come running every time for a rub. Clank a bowl a certain way, and the sound triggers treat time. When they play and “stampede”, all we do is watch and enjoy.

I was talking to DW the other day about this, and spoke of “how long” do we have? Then she showed me an article in “Cat Fancy”, a mag she subscribes to, that showed cats at 36 years of age. Our eldest is only 7. so I figure we got a ways to go (crosses fingers!).

 

[keltin]

Katie, DW wanted me to ask, do you let your indoor babies sleep with you? She insists our babies have a place in the bed (just not on my feet!). How about you?

 

[Katie H]

Yes. Those who want to are allowed. At one time, our Cutie Cat (long gone) used to love sleeping on Buck's hip. Although, most of the time, our "children" prefer to sleep on their sofa, recliner and top of the refrigerator places.

As they get older, they don't find mommy and daddy very comfy at night. All they look for is a cushy place that is softened with an old blanket or afghan. We've learned that, over the years, they lose the attraction to us. They just want to be warm and comfy.

This is our experience after nearly 30 years of pets.

 

[keltin]

DW has a special wicker basket that the girls tend to love at night. DW keeps it close to the bed for them. Blade is a no-holds-barred always in the bed type of kitty. He’s getting on 5 years old, but every night he has to be tucked up next to mom. They follow her more than me. When we go to bed, they all come in the bedroom and find a place somewhere, but if she gets up before me, they all leave and follow her. Real Momma’s kitties!

 

[buckytom]

small taters, k.t.e.? hiss - spit!!!! lol.
i'm definitely giving those racoons and opossums i found on the jersey turnpike last summer better directions next time, and spending money to boot!

we've been on both sides of the children and pets fence, also. before our human child, we had our pet children. ya know, the kind that makes people with human kids sickened by how much we talk about them and love them like kids.

so far, we've only had to go through the loss of our first 2 cats over the years. once from old age, the other from a veterinarian's negligence.
i physically had to restrain dw from kicking the vet's butt when we went to pick his corpse up from the office.

my birds will hopefully live as long as me, or even longer. one is 20, and has 30 more to go, on average. and my molluccan is 13, with 60 or more to go.

yup, there's 7 cats, jkath, but 3 are outdoor cats that could be claimed by us or 2 other neighbors. they spend much of their days in our yard, but will go under our neighbor's porch during really bad weather. i drove home in a blizzard once just to help dig them out from a huge, icy snowdrift. then i drove back to work! my wife and the little old lady next door thought they couldn't breathe. they did give a weird meow of thanks when we opened an egress and gave them food, though.

our indoor cats: doodie - the alpha female, calico; hercules - a gentle giant purebred maine coon; bean bean - a stray grey tabby we took in at 2 weeks old. dw bottle fed her snuggled up in her hair for the first few months; and stinky - another stray grey tabby we took in as a kitten. had lots of gastrointestinal problems for her first year.

outdoor cats are: morris, who looks like the tv cat, and sylvester 1, and sylvester 2. we didn't realize at first that there were 2 nearly identical tuxedo cats until they both showed up together one day. hence, the names.

 

[Katie H]

Yep, we know about the "momma's kitties" thing. My Ashley (my avatar) is very possessive. He will "bonk" anyone out of his way to be petted by me. Then there's the "brush" thing. It's when Buck and I brush them (any of them) with one of my old hairbrushes. Ashley, Tween, Tiggie, and Torie think they are the only one we are going to brush. Any one of them pushes the other one out of the way to be the "only" one to be brushed. What spoiled children they are!!!

Can you tell we are indulgent parents?

Still, our house would be empty without them.

P.S. You MUST read Paul Gallico's book, The Silent Maiow." It explains everything.

 

[Katie H]

Good for you, bucky. You have as soft a heart as Buck and I do.

Go kitties!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

]

small taters, k.t.e.? hiss - spit!!!! lol.
i'm definitely giving those racoons and opossums i found on the jersey turnpike last summer better directions next time, and spending money to boot!

we've been on both sides of the children and pets fence, also. before our human child, we had our pet children. ya know, the kind that makes people with human kids sickened by how much we talk about them and love them like kids.

so far, we've only had to go through the loss of our first 2 cats over the years. once from old age, the other from a veterinarian's negligence.
i physically had to restrain dw from kicking the vet's butt when we went to pick his corpse up from the office.

my birds will hopefully live as long as me, or even longer. one is 20, and has 30 more to go, on average. and my molluccan is 13, with 60 or more to go.

yup, there's 7 cats, jkath, but 3 are outdoor cats that could be claimed by us or 2 other neighbors. they spend much of their days in our yard, but will go under our neighbor's porch during really bad weather. i drove home in a blizzard once just to help dig them out from a huge, icy snowdrift. then i drove back to work! my wife and the little old lady next door thought they couldn't breathe. they did give a weird meow of thanks when we opened an egress and gave them food, though.

our indoor cats: doodie - the alpha female, calico; hercules - a gentle giant purebred maine coon; bean bean - a stray grey tabby we took in at 2 weeks old. dw bottle fed her snuggled up in her hair for the first few months; and stinky - another stray grey tabby we took in as a kitten. had lots of gastrointestinal problems for her first year.

outdoor cats are: morris, who looks like the tv cat, and sylvester 1, and sylvester 2. we didn't realize at first that there were 2 nearly identical tuxedo cats until they both showed up together one day. hence, the names.

 

[Bilby]

I have half a dozen now but the most I had inside was eight. I used to have several "outside" cats but they only came for dinner and went on their merry way again. The last stray I took in decided (before he came inside) that the front garden was his and chased all the other diners away. All apart from my eldest have been strays or left their (somewhat neglectful) homes to move in with me. My eldest turns 21 in a month. She is the last daughter of the second cat I ever had. When I moved to this house, I had Souska (the mother) and two of her daughters (Tequila and Tamalyn) but the house came with two toms, Ginnee and Greizie. Tam and Ginnee are the only ones left from that group now. I've also acquired K'Tan, Marmee, Kimba and Tabitha.

I can't say any of mine talk like that video, thank goodness!! Tabitha is the most vocal and can wake up the whole house because she is lonely or bored. Ginnee doesn't purr more than once or twice a year, otherwise they all do heaps of purring or very tiny meows. Kimba is very much like Blade, Keltin. Kimmy has to go to sleep touching me. It's only a problem when he rolls over onto my face! Tammy gave up sleeping in my room after Greizie died - they were like husband and wife. She now has the lounge by the heater. My electric bill was huge this winter cos I had to leave the heater on for her when it was very cold (by Perth's standards).

 

[buckytom]

Good for you, bucky. You have as soft a heart as Buck and I do.

Go kitties!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

]

when i get the vet and food bills, i think my head is the soft part!

bilby, 8 indoor cats? how many litterboxes did you have? how many times did they have to be cleaned?

same question for keltin and k.t.e..

we have 3 boxes, cleaned once a day.

 

[Katie H]

Bilby, I love you. You are an angel. You understand what we do to take care of our furry "children." Bless you.

I'm worrying about my outside babies tonight because it's supposed to be the first "frost" of the season. I've made a shelter for them and I hope they learn how to get to it.

Life is good...with pets.

 

[Katie H]

when i get the vet and food bills, i think my head is the soft part!

bilby, 8 indoor cats? how many litterboxes did you have? how many times did they have to be cleaned?

same question for keltin and k.t.e..

we have 3 boxes, cleaned once a day.

Litter boxes...Two.

One of them, I clean on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The other one, Buck cleans on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

The rest of the time we scoop really well and add litter as necessary. So far, so good. This has worked for almost 14 years.

 

[Bilby]

I have pretty much "trained" the boys and Tammy to go before they come in for the night. Tammy and Ginny, the two eldest, prefer the trays to the outside esp in winter. Otherwise Kimba and Tabitha are the main users of the trays. I am lucky in that I have two bathrooms and only need to use one so I have three trays in there plus one in the laundry. I have a patio attached to the house that I have had roller shutters put on the open side so they get shut at night and then the patio gets used as the feline funroom - filled with their beds and toys and another tray. I got told that you should have one tray per cat and an extra one but I didn't have the room for that - only got a small house! They get scooped daily and the newspaper that they sit on changed as necessary but otherwise I only change/clean them once a week. They can go a fortnight in summer though. I also use different litter fill in two of them so those two can sometimes go even longer in summer. A lot depends on the weather, how I feel and their general state. Pretty much it is "as required". There is only me to do them so there are days that I need to be "inspired" to do them. Mondays or the weekends are my preferred days as our bins are emptied on a Monday morning.

When I used to have outside cats, I used to keep baskets under the aircon in my carport and one on the bonnet of my car. The carport is completely open and when it rains there is only a small island under the aircon that doesn't get wet. I had a kennel there as well but only my neighbour's cats ever used it. I always have a bowl of water out there and at night a bowl of biscuits, just in case there is a stray or two. I suspect though that most have homes judging by the jingling of bells during the night! Some of them go through my backyard searching out the meat that I have put out for the maggies and butcher birds.

 

[keltin]

when i get the vet and food bills, i think my head is the soft part!

bilby, 8 indoor cats? how many litterboxes did you have? how many times did they have to be cleaned?

same question for keltin and k.t.e..

we have 3 boxes, cleaned once a day.

We’ve got two boxes and use multi-cat scoopable litter. DW is a clean freak (bless her heart!) and scoops both boxes at least once a day (sometimes twice), and does a complete dump and wash every 1-2 weeks.

Speaking of cleaning the litter boxes, do your cats immediately come running the minute you clean them?!?!? It’s as if they have to be the first to mark the freshly cleaned box or something!

 

[Bilby]

It's a race in my pack!! Sometimes I cheat and smooth the top of the litter again and spray it with Nil-Odour just to confuse them!! At least with five boxes, no one cat can be the first to mark them all. If one of them did, I'm sure they know I would be taking them down to the vet which is half an hour away and most of them don't like cars and they all hate the cages!

The thing I really can't stand is they rip up the newspaper that I put under the trays in case of accidents. They just stand there ripping the paper to shreds and always, always in the middle of the night!

 

[keltin]

My eldest has a plastic fetish that the others seem to be picking up on. Any kind of plastic, let’s say the plastic bag bread comes in, he loves to chew on. Just chew, chew, chew. No idea why. If you get a piece of plastic, especially stiff and noisy plastic, he’ll come running and try to get at it. Way back when, we used to keep bread out on the counter, but no more. He destroyed three loaves in a row before we finally had to buy a big bread box!

The youngest has a thing with paper (especially receipts), and will chew it up. She also steals money out of the change bowl and will occasionally be caught carrying a coin around the house. She ate a 5 dollar bill once, so we hide all money and try to keep paper away from her.

And of course, they all, at one time or another, loved to unroll the bathroom tissue or the paper towels! I can’t tell you how many rolls we’ve lost to that little trick!

 

[Bilby]

Gee Keltin, I will go around to all my cats tonight and tell them how wonderful they are!! One cat likes to use my shoes as scratching posts so I have to turn them all upside down to protect them. He loves rubber thongs (for the feet). He also has a licking fetish - fellow cats, me, the (computer) mouse, etc. Out of all the cats I have ever owned I only have had to cat-proof my house for one of 'em, just like I had a toddler. No glass or knives left out, no naked flames, handles pointed away, washing machines checked before use, etc. And he was run-over twice before I got him, so he has a bit of brain damage. That's it. That's the worse of it. Pretty lucky I think!!

Have you thought that your youngest was a tax cheat in a previous life?

 

[Buck]

Speaking of brain damage.......

Our indoor President cat, Torie isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. She sits in a corner all day staring at the air. Occasionally we have to remind her to breathe.

But we love her anyway.

 

[Callisto in NC]

My eldest has a plastic fetish that the others seem to be picking up on. Any kind of plastic, let’s say the plastic bag bread comes in, he loves to chew on. Just chew, chew, chew. No idea why. If you get a piece of plastic, especially stiff and noisy plastic, he’ll come running and try to get at it. Way back when, we used to keep bread out on the counter, but no more. He destroyed three loaves in a row before we finally had to buy a big bread box!

The youngest has a thing with paper (especially receipts), and will chew it up. She also steals money out of the change bowl and will occasionally be caught carrying a coin around the house. She ate a 5 dollar bill once, so we hide all money and try to keep paper away from her.

And of course, they all, at one time or another, loved to unroll the bathroom tissue or the paper towels! I can’t tell you how many rolls we’ve lost to that little trick!

I have a cat that started eating plastic lately too. I wonder what it is about a Wal-Mart bag that is so tasty to her.

 

[expatgirl]

We had a cat once (Kitty to be exact) that we could NOT keep from chewing on our house plants. My husband and I were struggling college students at the time and it was very upsetting to have what few plants that we did mangled. Then one day I was excited to find a beautifully sprouted onion with 3 stalks and placed it in a jar with toothpicks and water. Gorgeous on the window sill. Came home from classes a few days later to discover one stalk bent nearly 180 degrees. Yep, crime analysis revealed one neat puncture wound. From then on out Kitty (bless his little brain cells that made the connection) left ALL plants alone.

 

[Bilby]

Speaking of brain damage.......

Our indoor President cat, Torie isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. She sits in a corner all day staring at the air. Occasionally we have to remind her to breathe.

But we love her anyway.

Why do they do that???? All the boys just sit and stare at the fence. Nothing moves - not them or lizards or insects. Nothing. The birds will be walking behind them and they will just stare at the fence. Bizarre!