As for old man Spanky, he does indeed look good. The first cat late hubby & I ever had lived to be 20, Punkin. We got her the first year we were married, so you can imagine how hard it was to lose her — just old age health problems. I was 40 by then, and had several other cats too, but still. Punkin was almost completely deaf, and she had lost most of her teeth. I guess her eyesight was poor too. I’d have to gently shake her awake, since she could barely hear — sometimes I’d clap my hands over her, and she’d wake up. I’ve never had a cat live that long before, and maybe Spanky will set a new record for a long life. Does he have any health problems as of now?
Spanky has no health problems, amazingly enough! He moves with no problems, his senior bloodwork panel came back good. He’s crazy healthy for such an old guy, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him still walking around howling in five years.
Speaking of Spanky howling, this is from years and years ago (when we lived in Madison, so it may have been 7 or 8 years ago), and still my favorite Spanky movie, even though the quality is terrible:
The movie cracked me up – Elwood MAY have a higher jump than George Costanza, but just barely! 🙂
and
Elwood is pretty slick on his feet for a big fella ay? He doesn’t get much vertical in his leap though does he?
Hey, that kind of mass will only move so far off the ground!
Robyn, have you seen these? Chilli Willy. You should grow some next year, just for the giggles. Also, you could’ve had a Willy Peppers!
I totally should! (And Willy Peppers would have been an excellent name!)
As a looooong time reader, Miz Poo and Spanky are my favorites by default (Okay, mainly Miz Poo) and I must have missed the original post with the cat chart because now I am heartbroken that Miz Poo gets no kitty love. So very sad. And probably entirely her fault, but still, I like to picture her as the “cat who oversees all” that the other cats come to. And on that note, I’ve obviously spent too much time imagining your cats interacting. LOL
Do not cry for Miz Poo, the reason she gets no kitty love at all (except when she’s sound asleep and a kitten climbs into the bed with her) is because she has NO USE for other cats. She doesn’t want them in her space, she doesn’t want them head-butting her, she doesn’t want them snuggling with her, and she will whip out the Paw o’ Doom in no time flat if they invade the bubble. However, she canNOT get enough love from any human who crosses her path. Woe betide anyone who steps through the door and doesn’t pay attention to her, because she will NOT be ignored. I’ve always said that if I put her in a baby carrier and strapped her to me 24/7, she’d be SO happy.
I mean, she’s pretty happy anyway – I’ve never known another cat who purrs constantly the way she does. I go to sleep with her purring in my face and wake up the same way. No wonder I sleep so well!
The kittens playing with lightsabers were cute, but have you seen the leopard cub who thinks s/he IS a lightsaber?
Actually, I had not. That is seriously CUTE!
Ok…so are you taking all these action shots by yourself?? or is Fred assisting?? They are just awesome!!!
The action shots I posted this week of the big Peppers, I had Fred assisting – same with the pictures/ video of Buster, Elwood and Alice. The pictures I took of Charlie in action yesterday, I took alone. It’s easier to get pictures when Fred’s running the feather teaser, but if pressed I can get some fairly decent shots on my own.
Will Charlie have to have his damaged tooth pulled or is it a kitten tooth?
It’s a kitten tooth – but even if it was a permanent, I don’t think he’d need to have it pulled. It’s just the very tip that chipped off, and it doesn’t interfere with his eating and doesn’t cause him pain. It kind of gives him a jaunty air, actually – I’ll have to see if I can get a picture of it.
and WHEN are you going to get those poor kittens a few toys!!
I know, isn’t it disgusting? I’d tell y’all that I’ll take pictures of all the cat toys in the house AND the ones I have secreted away in my closet, but I’m too afraid you’d call the people at Hoarders on me!
Seeing the photos of Miz Poo brings back memories. She looks very much like our Sunshine, who passed away in 2001. Sunshine was a ‘talker’. She had a very distinct trill-like meow that she would raise or lower depending on what she was trying to say. She mostly ‘talked’ only when spoken to, and ALWAYS had to have the last word. Just curious if Miz Poo happens to be a talker as well.
Usually Miz Poo does most of her talking when she’s trying to soothe me. If I yell or laugh really hard or get mad, Miz Poo decides that I’m in distress and she must soothe me, and she rubs against me and trills softly at me. If she walks into the room and I greet her, she’ll brighten up and usually responds to me with a trill. For the most part she’s pretty quiet, though.
She’ll go through stages, though, where she finds a toy and decides it’s her “kill” and drags it through the house, keening the entire time. She’s fond of doing that in the middle of the night, and she doesn’t just do it for, oh, ten feet or so. No, she appears to find the toy at the farthest possible point in the house and then drags or carries it through the house, keening as loudly as possible, the entire way to my room where I’m usually yelling “Oh my god, Poo, please stop!!!”
Here’s a video I shot years ago showing what it sounds like (I posted it on YouTube in 2008, but I made the video when we lived in the house in Madison, so it would have been before 2007).
She is SO PROUD of herself!
Anyone in the NW Virginia area want a very friendly, very purry tortoiseshell kitty who likes belly rubs?
Mrowbecca, send me some pictures, I’ll post ’em!
My lady cat says that ladies NEVER FART. In a book by Anne Perry, a Victorian lady was said to make a “personal noise”, which cracked my DH up, so now we say that our ladycat makes a “pawsonal noise”. She also reckons that tabby brudders are ALL HORRIBLE*. I must explain that while not suffering from farting, she does suffer from a tabby brother.
*this opinion is not shared by the author of this comment.
How much do I love the phrase “personal noise”? SO. VERY. MUCH.
(Also, Miz Poo suffers from tabby brudders, and she agrees that it’s pretty horrible.)
What pretty blue eyes the Buster Man has. Or is that just the camera angle?
They’re green, actually – and very pretty, the way they’re dark green in around the pupil and then lighter around the outside.. All of the Bookworms have really really pretty eyes. What’s that, you say? You need proof of that? Well, if I MUST.
Buster (about a year ago) :
Reacher (in February, right before Kathy came and stole him away) :
Corbie in February:
Rhyme, last October:
Robyn, you *need* one of these! Think of the photo opportunities!!!
That is HILARIOUS!
How old are the chicks, relatively? Small children, tweens? Never had any, so I’m curious!
At this age – a week to ten days old – I’d call them preschoolers, they still stick pretty close to their mothers. In a couple of weeks they’ll be a little taller and a bit ratty looking as their feathers start to come in, and I’d call them maybe middle-schoolers. I’ll try to remember to get pictures of them as they grow so you can see the various stages!
Please link the fountain again? Or just give me the name. Does it have ‘pool’ at the top and then cascade down? Is it easy to clean? I am sorry I have not paid attention to it before…
The ceramic fountain that someone else mentioned in my comments was this one, the Pioneer Big Max. It is very very easy to clean, and after you put it together the first time, it’s very easy to take apart, clean, and put back together.
HOWEVER, someone who is a klutz, was cleaning our Big Max a month ago, and dropped the top piece, and it broke. Grrrr.
I did have an extra fountain on hand, the Cat Mate fountain, so I set that up where the Big Max had been, and the cats like it just fine. My cats seem to prefer the fountains where there’s a pool at the top and then the water cascades down over the ones where the water pours out into the bowl at the bottom, so both the Big Max and the Cat Mate are fine with them.
My only issue with the Big Max is that the hum of the motor was loud enough that when I put it in the bathroom across the hall from my bedroom, I could hear the motor through the ear plugs that I wear at night, so it didn’t work for me. At the moment, I’ve got Cat Mate fountains in the laundry room, upstairs in the bathroom, and in both kitten rooms. I like how quiet they are, and I like that they can go in the dishwasher (I run each of them through the dishwasher once a week). They aren’t the prettiest fountains on earth but, well, you’ve seen my house. It’s not like they detract from our fabulous decor!
On a side note, reviews of the Cat Mate fountain on Amazon have pointed out that the pump doesn’t last, and that the company doesn’t sell a replacement for it. My fountains are working okay so far, but I’ll report back when/ if the pumps break!
I was wondering, if a person has catnip tea, if that person is then found rolling on the floor in delirium?
I spent a little while reading about catnip for humans yesterday, and it appears that catnip has the exact opposite effect on humans. It relieves anxiety, helps with insomnia, and with nightmares. There are a whole list of things catnip helps with. It’s a miracle drug!
My coworker and I both have kitties who scratch at the door jams. My sweet girl has all but engraved a novel on three door jams around my house and her kitty has one that she is set on destroying. Is there something all natural we can spray on the door jams to get them to stop or is there a commercial spray available that works?
The only thing I can think of to suggest is to try putting double-sided tape on the door jam – cats don’t like the feel of tape on their paws, and they’ll avoid scratching there. I don’t know of any natural cat repellents – that is, I’m sure they’re out there, I just don’t know of them! Anyone out there have suggestions of repellents or other ways to keep cats from scratching on door jams? Please share!
“OH, scratching post, you are so big and strong!”
::kiss::kiss::kiss::kiss::
(Like YOU never kissed your pillow when you were a kid!)
“Stop kissing the scratching post, WEIRDO, I’ve got places to go!”
“Four o’clock and all is well!”
::fume:: “I was NOT kissing the scratching post. We were having a deep, meaningful conversation!”
So, one thing that Lucy Peppers does that I have been completely unable to capture on video, is that when you’re petting her, if you start scratching her back, she humps up her back, then she does this very dramatic looking thing where she straightens her legs completely, and she slow-motion flops onto her side. It’s hilarious and impossible to accurately describe, but SO funny.
Fred says she looks very much like Nature Boy Ric Flair when he flops. I didn’t know what he meant (I’m not a wrestling fan), so he sent me the link to this video and I have to say that yeah, she totally does.
I tried for the zillionth time yesterday to get her flop on video, but didn’t really have any luck. I did get a video of all the Peppers milling around, purring their heads off. Crank the sound and ignore the idiot (me) who occasionally says something. It’s a purrapalooza!
She does kind of do a modified flop in the last ten seconds of the video. I’m going to keep trying to get it on video, though!
Molly and Everett watching something. Probably the rest of the litter running around like goofballs.
“What?”
I used too much flash here, but you can see Sally’s stripes, which is neat.
Playing on (and around) the Ham-mick.
“Hey! Where’d everybody go?”
It’s FRIIIIIIIIIDAY.
And you know what that means!
MORE BEAUTIFUL BOOKWORM BOYS!
Buster, on one of the cat walkways in the kitchen, keeping an eye on… who knows? One of the other cats, I’m sure.
Corbie wondering why, once again, my collapsible laundry basket is sitting under the tree. (Answer: because Tommy dragged it there!)
Buster, investigating.
Corbie and the ears of semi-annoyance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Previously
2010: VERY MUCH do Kara, Sugarbutt and Tommy disapprove when we have the nerve to leave the back yard. Look at the judgmental faces on those three!
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: I almost died from the cuteness.
Maybe you had a wonky motor on the Big Max? Or maybe you have supersonic hearing…
The only time I actually make note of the hum of the motor on the Big Max is when it’s time to change the filter (about every 3 weeks or so). My cats love the pool on the top and the larger pool on the bottom. Kate is my kitteh who loves the water out of the faucets in the house, the pump on the Big Max bubbles the water a little bit in the top pool and she’s in heaven.
Both of those are entirely possible! It’s also possible that if I’d just dealt with it for a few nights, I would have gotten used to the sound. 🙂
Charlie and Patty are looking DELICIOUSLY healthy now; proper bouncy kittens, bless’em.
The bigger Peppers are looking huge; how old are they now?
And the tabby brudders…sigh…little darlins I have loved from their youth…happy day.
My ladycat’s little tabby brudder is not well; he’s been off colour and off his food, didn’t greet us when we came home late yesterday evening, so he went to the vet this morning. Vet says he can’t find anything, it may be an infected bite or a virus. So he’s had a long acting antibiotic injection and has liquid medicine to bring down his temperature. In just 3 hours, he’s brightened somewhat, has had a snackette and is now having a snooze. Poor darlin boy (that’s me saying that, not Her Highness!).
On October 12th, they’ll be 4 months old, believe it or not! They’re at their peak of cuteness, I hope there’s room for them at Petsmart soon! (I mean, not that I want them to go, but they’re so perfectly cute right now that I bet they’d get snatched up immediately!)
Harlan would sneak his way into my heart in two seconds flat and whichever black bro or sister that wanted to come too would just squeeze in as well.
Years and years ago I had a non-cat fountain that the cats started using that had its pump wear out and I was able to find a replacement motor at Home Depot. These days you might be able to find a replacement on the web. You would have to be careful that the size and where it shoots the water matches your fountain.
“Four o’clock and all’s well!” LMAO
Those Bookworms are so beautiful. Those Peppers are so squirmy, purry, and cute. Those Peppers v 2.0 are so so so lucky.
citrus. Cats do not like the smell of citrus so if you get a non toxic citrus spray (or rub orange rinds on the door jams) it SHOULD work.. they also make spray repellants at the major pet stores that might help, but I’ve always been leery of chemicals..
Catnip tea usually works as a mild sedative in humans, but not for all of us… the one time I tried it I was up half the night! Wonky (or feline?) body chemistry for the lose.
Perhaps Patty has discovered that the scratching post tastes like chicken. Like Dorothy’s chicken chair…that post just cracked me up! Now anytime Jinx or Trixie chomp on the furniture, I holler “That’s NOT a chicken chair!!”
I love Miz Poo’s trilling! Trixie started doing that recently with the bouncy rubber golf balls she and Jinx love, and yes, always in the middle of the night! I didn’t even think about that being her displaying of “prey”, but it explains why I wake up with golf balls in the bed. But better that than a dead palmetto bug!
I love it. 🙂
One of these days when I visit you’re going to be distracted and Miz Poo and I are going to make a run for it! She’s such a sweetie. I wonder how she’d get along with my Scully. Scully doesn’t have much use for the other cats, but she’s not adverse to snuggling next to one.
LOVE the Spanky movie! I’ve always thought of him as just “creepy cousin Spanky” stalking Joe Bob(?), so it’s good to see that he’s just a cat. I do think it’s funny that he sees the need to raise his head up for every meow!
Thanks for another great post. I just ordered a Pioneer Max because of you (and my cat’s CRF) because I like that it’s ceramic. It’s also sleek and black and will fit in with my fabulous decor!
Onward and upward!
Oh, the joy of the hunt! My cat, Gus, is a mighty, mighty hunter. He is always preening and bringing me his prey. Recently, he has started “burying” his food bowls. At first, I thought it was because he did not like the smell of a new food I tried. I switched back to the old food and he’s still burying it every night. I’m starting to wonder if he is part grizzly bear since they bury their uneaten prey to save for later.
That’s interesting, I have a cat named Gus that does it too, and always has.
LOL charlie peppers on top of the scratcher LOL
oh those bookworm boys they are just so darned handsome!
Oh my word I laughed at little Patty Peppers “kiss-kiss-kissing” the scratching post. So funny!
And how tiny were charlie and Patty when you got them if they still have blue eyes? You got them more than a month ago, yeah? and their eyes start to change colour at 6 weeks so…man, you had teeny-tiny Peppers V2.0!
re: doorjambs — Sorry to be late to the party …
We use a mild vinegar solution (~25% vinegar, 75% water) in the NO! spray-bottle. If you zap the misbehaving cat, s/he smells like Easter eggs for a few moments, and it tastes nasty to them, but it’s harmless. Once the kittens exhibit learning behavior*, I spray the NO places: sofa, door jambs, convex corners &c.
Unfortunately, once the habit is set and the damage is visible, correcting it is much harder than right at the start.
A lot of people advocate canned air for a NO! bottle. I want my kittens to tolerate the hair dryer (frequent baths, due to my allergies) so the vinegar-water seems to be the better solution. No pun intended. As above, the vinegar works great even if you’re not Right There with the sprayer.
*”Exhibit learning behavior” is a phrase that amuses me WAY too much. It’s longer than the kitten! (snicker)