Did Stefan snap at Arya at all? He seems like such a mellow guy.
He’s such a good guy, and he doesn’t snap at the kittens at all. Occasionally he’ll get a little overzealous and the kittens will get all screamy (he never ever hurts them, but sometimes he wants to play and they don’t), which is when I make him go out onto the side stoop and think about what he’s done. He will sit out there and stare off into space and get a handle on himself, then go over the fence and come back inside when he’s ready to behave.
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I got this banner today: “Barrett, Sad Eyes, Smitty, and Little Cal” Adorable, but who the heck are they? I had to go look it up (instead of heading out to work). Barrett became Tom Cullen and Sad Eyes became Sugarbutt! Somehow I feel as though I’ve peered through the mists of time!
(Click on the banner to see the full-sized version.)
I didn’t actually name the litter, just so y’all know – they’re one of the few litters who came to me already named. They were our third litter, and oh BOY was Sugarbutt a hot mess. Impacted anal glands, diarrhea, giardia, coccidia, I thought I was NEVER going to get him healthy. The day the litter was set to go off to Petsmart, Tommy started limping, so we opted to keep him home an extra day ’til he was over it. By the next morning, I’d talked Fred into keeping Tommy (which wasn’t hard to do). And then a few days later Sugarbutt was returned by the person who’d adopted him, and I brought him home ’til he was done with the medication he needed. Then Fred got attached to him, too.
Adopting Tommy and Sugarbutt is why we didn’t foster for most of 2006, because when Fred agreed that we should keep the boys (in late 2005), he stipulated that we’d take time off from fostering, and we took almost a year off.
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Cats in tiny handmade hats! I feel you must show this to Hodor as he seems he’d enjoy a good hat.
I LOVE Books of Adam, and those tiny hats have been cracking me up! If I had the skills to make tiny handmade hats, I would totally be doing that. I think Hodor needs a fascinator.
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Is Norbert your wallpaper? Is that why he looks so smug?
Norbert was my wallpaper – and then my new computer arrived, and in the course of switching computers I lost track of that picture (I’ve still got it, I just didn’t get around to searching for it), so went back to this picture of Puff.
My wallpaper changes every so often – usually when I’m looking at a picture in Windows Photo Viewer and accidentally click on “Set as Desktop Background.” š
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I wanted to ask if you’d tried out the Precious Cat litter yet. I decided to try a bag of the Precious Cat Ultra because of the cloud of dust that comes with every bag of Fresh Step. It’s definitely less dusty, it clumps really well, and the cats seem to like it OK. However, the odor control is TERRIBLE. I scoop the boxes at least once a day, so they aren’t sitting around full for very long. I was curious if you had noticed that as well (maybe I just have really stinky cats), or if the activated charcoal you had mentioned had helped at all with odor.
For now, it’s looking like I’m going to stick with Arm & Hammer. It’s less dusty than Fresh Step (though not as good as the PC). It’s more expensive and odor control isn’t as good, but both are still better than Precious Cat (for me at least). Let us know if the charcoal helps…I may try that out with the A&H.
I havenāt tried the Precious Cat yet, mostly because when I stocked up on Cat Attract, I STOCKED UP in a big way on it. Iām still not even close to being out of it yet, but I will do my very best to mention whether I have any issues when I do give it a try. I plan to keep on with the activated charcoal (I have a hard time not calling it āCarbonated Charcoalā for some reason!), because so far itās working well for us.
I lament having to stop using Fresh Step, though ā it was so inexpensive and worked so well for so long for us, but my lungs finally begged me to give it a rest! Grrr, Fresh Step!
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Say, I have a question that I know is frequently asked, so my apologies ahead of time (ever think about doing a FAQ on cat care, Robyn, with input on best practices from readers? š ). A colleague (“K”) has three cats. For a while she had a fourth, whom she had taken in when another colleague became very ill. Both the other colleague and the cat have since passed away, but one of her permanent residents has, ever since the fourth cat’s arrival, been peeing in various places where it shouldn’t. She’s had him/her (not sure) checked out by a vet, who found some evidence of crystals in the urine, but it’s not a serious issue and is being treated with diet. The problem seems to be behavioral. She asked me what I would suggest doing, and I mentioned a few things:
1) Getting a third litterbox (K has two for the three cats).
2) Adding Cat Attract to the litterboxes.
3) Using Nature’s Miracle to get rid of the pee smell.
4) Using a Feliway plug-in (I figure it can’t hurt).
5) Re-training the cat to use the litterbox through isolation.
My question(s): Has anyone successfully done #5? What steps worked for you? Does anyone have any other suggestions? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!
I haven’t retrained a cat who was peeing outside the litter box, but I have retrained a kitten who was pooping outside the litter box, and it worked really well for me. I mentioned it in a post at some point in the past, and recently I went and put that section of the post on a page by itself. Did I link to anywhere? Well, I haven’t gotten that far yet (eventually I’m going to have a list of links to pages under the heading “More than you wanted to know about…”, but obviously haven’t done that yet). But anyway, this is the page, and that’s how I did the retraining with the outside-the-litter-box-pooper. I think that’s probably the way to do it with peeing, too.
Also, I’d like to suggest that K talk to her vet about Prozac (for the cat, that is). I’ll write it about it at length at some point in the future, but long story short, we solved a YEARS-long spraying issue with two cats by putting them on Prozac earlier this year. The vet said that some cats need to stay on Prozac for the long-term, but other cats can stay on the Prozac for a couple of months, be weaned off, and never have the issue again. As it turns out, it looks like one of our cats will need to stay on Prozac, but the other will be able to go without. Fingers crossed!
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Iām having a problem with a 12-week old bottle baby Iāve raised. Heās a biter and I donāt know how to stop him from that. Before he learned that soft paws are good, I felt like a pincushion. My arms and legs were shredded. He finally got control of the claws and is good about not scratching people, but heās the mouthiest cat Iāve ever been around. Even when heās asleep across my arm, he wants his mouth open on my skin. Heās not ornery, heās grabby. Weāve been working on āno biteā and he seems to know what it means, his bites are more like pinches now. Iāve tried flicking him on the nose, that just makes him hang on harder. Itās so frustrating. Heāll want to cuddle against my neck and heāll lay there and purr for a minute, then he has my chin or my ear in his mouth. Heās not sucking, heās not mad or defensive, heās just there. Of course when I go to move him, he closes down and pinches. I was hoping to find him a home, but even I find him annoying and I donāt want someone else booting him out on the street when he wears out his welcome. Any ideas?
Kelly said: I have found that most animals HATE when you blow in their noses. They will jerk their heads away from the breeze rather quickly. Perhaps it would give you enough time to move him and simultaneously teach him not to latch on?
Leonore said: Have you tried scruffing him? It mimics the way mother cats discipline the kittens. Maybe when he starts, just scruff him (not too hard but firm enough that it doesnāt feel like petting) and say whatever phrase you want to use that will eventually become the signal. I used a simple āNo!ā with my girls when they were about the same age. Once he lets go and closes his mouth, then let go and start petting. Hopefully it wonāt be too long that he gets the idea that biting gets him scruffed but not biting gets him pettings. After a while, then just the same phrase you use (be consistent) should be enough without the scruffing.
This was something I read in a cat behavior book when I first got kittens (which Iād never dealt with up until that point). It worked pretty great for me and Iāve also known other people with cats who use scruffing from time to time for discipline or behavioral training. Itās all about mimicking the cat mama.
And Connie said: They do it because it gets a reaction out of you. They want to play, you are giving that to him.
Kittens who play with each other bite ALL THE TIME.. when they bite their sibling too hard they cry out with an āowā meow and stop playing. The one who bit will then stop, and lick his victim with an āIām sorryā lick.
You can mimic that by saying āowā in a high pitched meow like tone, and stop all movement. If the kitty doesnāt immediately lick you, put him on the ground away from you. Heāll run right back and start playing again and that is fine, but the minute he bites you again say the āowā and repeat as necessary.
Heāll learn that he canāt bite you as hard as he has, and will bite with less force. You need to decide what you will tolerate. For the worst offenders I donāt tolerate ANY biting and will keep it up until he starts playing nice. For those that donāt bite all that often I save it for those bites that hurt.
I know most people will tell you not to hand play with kittens, but I think it is essential when done right. At some point in this catās life there is a darn good chance that someone is going to do something to him that he is going to feel needs a warning bite. If he does not know how hard a warning bite is, he could do some serious damage. The Hand Monster/ Hand Play.
I didn’t even have to weigh in on this one, because my commenters are THE BEST! Thanks, Kelly, Leonore and Connie!
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Norbie in the pillows.. my new favorite photo.. you so need that on canvas!!
Isn’t he the cutest? He always looks amazed by everything!
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Not sure how long it’s been like this, but I just noticed the border around Hodor’s picture in the sidebar. I truly have no idea what his only saying “Hodor” means, but it’s adorable in a kitten š
I cracked myself up when I did that and I love it that every couple of days someone notices it. Hodor, the character from Game of Thrones, only says “hodor”, so that’s what they call him (his actual name is Walder.)
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I like that shorter (blue) cat condo/scratcher… it reminds me of an office inbox, FOR KITTEHS!
I actually bought it (from Overstock), because I thought Corbie might like to use it to get up on the bigger cat tree, or he could hang out on the top platform. As it turns out, he seems to prefer curling up and sleeping on the middle level. It’s certainly been a hit with all the other cats, too. We’ve practically had to draw up a schedule so everyone can have some time on it.
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And SO MUCH LAUGHTER on the bag thing. Iāve had a cat or two do that and you feel so bad for the cat because you know theyāre terrified, the poor dears, but itās sooo funny.
This reminds me of an incident from years ago, back when we lived in our first house in Madison (for those who don’t know, we lived in our first house in Madison for 4 1/2 years, then we sold that and bought our second house in Madison and lived there for 5 1/2 years; then we sold that house and bought the one where we currently live, where we’ve been for 6 1/2 years).
So anyway, Fred was walking toward the kitchen and I was putting laundry away in the bedroom, and Fred said something to me. I looked up to see what he wanted, and saw a plastic grocery bag at ground level, flying toward me. For some reason, I got it in my head that he’d tossed the bag at me, and as I watched, the bag picked up speed and flew in a curve as it headed for the bed. All I could think was “How did he get it to CURVE like that?!” Finally (once the bag went under the bed), I realized that it was caught around poor Spanky’s neck and he was TERRIFIED. (But I laughed and laughed and laaaaaaughed as I was removing it from him. Poor Spanky!)
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Robyn – thought your community would like to know of this, if they haven’t seen it already.
This is the description for anyone who doesn’t want to click on the link; it’s an automatic feeder:
*Convenient infrared feeder easily, automatically makes your cat’s food accessible only to her
*Feeder opens and closes with the accompanying lightweight infrared key, which your cat simply wears on her collar
*Smooth, quiet, battery-powered automatic feeder ideal for cats on special diets, or for use in multiple-pet homes
Very cool!
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Arya, showing off her pretty colors.
And Brandon, showing off his pretty spots.
Jon Snow, in the sun.
Smug Hodor.
Brandon and Hodor like to live dangerously.
Jon Snow in the sun, again.
Jon Snow has the giggles.
Hodor has such a serious little face.
Mr. Innocent. No one is fooled by that face, Jon Snow. NO ONE.
“Hodor,” he said seriously.
First, Hodor bites…
And then he licks. Awwww, sweet boy.
And then Jon Snow has had enough of THAT.
Arya, sharpening her claws.
::thlurrrp::
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Corbie snoozing on the patio in the back yard. MOST BEAUTIFUL BOY EVERRRRRRRRR.
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Previously
2012: Then they were all like āHmph. We aināt skeered.ā
2011: āCanāt they TELL what an awesome kitten she is?!ā he says.
2010: No entry.
2009: Hoyt registers a complaint with the management.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: And licks and licks and licks.