Thanks, everyone who posted suggestions to Jennifer (and to Turnip’s mama, Laurie) in yesterday’s comments. Hopefully Jennifer and Laurie can find something that will help them out.
It’s actually pretty rare that the cats wake me up during the night. Partially because I sleep with ear plugs in – though I should add that ear plugs only muffle the noise, they don’t cancel them. I wore ear plugs when Danielle was a baby, and I never had any problem hearing her when she woke up in the middle of the night. But mostly, I think, the permanent residents have learned that you don’t mess with Mama when she’s sleeping. I sleep with a can of compressed air on my bedside table and on the (now-rare, thankfully) occasions that two cats fight on the bed, or a cat attacks my feet or what have you, all I have to do is pick up the can and they see it and stop pretty much immediately.
Considering how many permanent residents we have, a fairly low number of them sleep in my room during the night. Miz Poo’s always there, and Tommy and Elwood start out the night with me. Alice likes to sleep in the Ikea doll bed in a corner of the room, and Corbie is fond of starting out the night under my bed. Everyone else, though, tends to sleep downstairs. Things are usually pretty quiet around here at night, thankfully.
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Logie in the sun, her favorite place to be!
Newbery on the Ham-mick. This boy spends a LOT of time chasing, grabbing, and biting his tail. (Ignore all the fur behind him on the Ham-mick. Cat laundry gets done around here once a month whether it needs it or not! Ha.)
“Newt, get closer to Newbery and act like you LIKE him!” That long-suffering look on Newt’s face cracks me up.
“He’s just jealous ’cause I’m so cute.”
Newbery watching bugs through the window.
There’s a spider up in that corner of the window that all the kittens like to watch (on the outside of the window, I should add).
She must have gotten a nice, juicy fly. Newbery’s become quite the fly hunter in the last few weeks. He can hear them from three rooms away, and he always comes running and makes short work of them. He also takes care of disposal. Blegh.
Do you see the wide-eyed, oh-so-innocent look on Razzie’s face? She’s like “Just sitting on the printer pushing buttons and making paper come out. Why you ask?”
Rough life, ain’t it?
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Tom Cullen would like you to know…
… that he fits in that basket just fine, thank you. He is NOT too big for it. Also, don’t look at all the junk on the table that his messy Mama left there (it’s since been cleaned up. I swear!)
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Previously
2011: “But *I* wanna watch those wacky Real Housewives!” says Dorothy.
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: She was howling, she was screaming, she was hissing, she was spitting.
I have a cat that also cried at the top of his lungs all night long. Locking him up didn’t work and we thought he was lonely and got another cat and he still cries. He will cry right at your face and he is LOUD. I guess it’s his thing.
What we did was close the bedroom door at night, buy a fan for each side of the bed (especially nice in the summer) to help drown him out and we changed his canned food feeding time (he gets one can a day and grazes on dry throughoug the day) to night time. Before he would start scratching at our door crying nonstop at 5-6am daily and just wanting his food. But since we feed him right before we go to bed, he has something to look forward to and eats, bathes, and naps for a big portion of the night. He is still annoying and cries all the time but since he has gotten into this routine, he’s much less annoying.
Hope you find something that works for you. Maybe a laser toy that is programmed to come on randomly to keep hin entertained? Ours LOVED it.
I’m going to need more information about this laser toy, Rachael! Or maybe I’ll just go search for it. This sounds like something we’ve gotta have, ASAP! 🙂
Glad to know that I’m not the only one who takes adorable pictures of my cats only to discover later that they are surrounded by clutter!
Oh, yes. Hubby has been so embarrassed by some of the cute pictures I’ve posted of the cats, because every single piece of lint on the dark carpet is clearly visible.
Maggie came through her spay surgery with flying colors. My husband set up an isolation ward for her in a large dog crate, with bedding, food, litter and water, and she can watch the world go by but no one messes with her. Last night, she was purring and kneading her bed, and this morning, she was VERY vocal and seemingly chipper. She took her pain meds with no complaint, but I think she’ll be getting lonely before long, so I am trying to pay as much attention to her as possible while she’s in her cage.
So glad Maggie’s doing well!
Thanks for all the ideas everyone. Really appreciated!! The laser toy would be great except the 65 pound dog loves it and will knock down the foundation to get to it. That would be even more drama at 3 or 4 or 5 in the morning!! And no Tom, that basket does not make your butt look big!
HA – I love the idea of getting out the laser and hearing the sound of a big dog running for it. 😀
My 80-pound chocolate lab Charlie LOVES the laser light to the point of obsession. The cats have given up participating in that game unless we lock Chuckles in another room.
Boy, do I need Newbery’s bug catching service. The senior cats in this house either don’t see the random insect interloper or they don’t care enough to get up and catch them. The dog would love to catch them, but seems a bit incompetent in that regard.
And Razzie is just the cutest little office assistant ever! She’s just honing up her skills for this rough job market. Perhaps a prospective adopter should know she can run office equipment?
Indeed. I look at my desk and I see no kitten, and I am sad.
I’m definitely going to put her printer skills in her description. She’d make an excellent assistant. 🙂
My husband and I live in an open loft-style apartment — no bedroom doors and a good amount of light in the morning can be a recipe for disaster in terms of wake-up calls by one of our cats. We each keep a small squirt gun on our respective nightstands. When Buddy (and it’s always Buddy, never Gravy) starts pestering us at 5:30am for food, he gets a quick squirt. Its usually drives him away long enough for us to wake up to our alarms, and at this point if he even sees us reaching for the guns he flees.
This doesn’t solve our other problem, i.e. Gravy’s yowling in the middle of the night over her “prey” (usually a stuffed Phillie Phanatic toy). Normally we just call out to her if she wakes us up and let her know that she’s a good girl (if a slightly crazy one) — that usually quiets her down.
Probably none of this is particularly helpful, but, hey, sharing is fun.
Alexandra, Buddy’s choice of Phillie Phanatic toy is superior. Full disclosure – I’m a HUGE Phillies phanatic — I was born and raised (until age 14) in South Philly. Go Buddy!!!!
I too was born and raised (well, from 1-3, then from 9-13, and then college and grad school) in the Philly area! My family’s love for the Phils runs deep. But this year they’ve got me tearing my hair out…
Alexandra, I understand — Phillies are not playing well thus far. Even my husband’s “lowly” Mets are playing better. BTW, I attended all three Phillies vs. Diamondbacks games last month here in Arizona. Fortunately, Phillies won 2 games.
SOrry, I was thinking that the laser came on but it has a 15-minute timer and it shuts off. I must have been thinking of this: you set the “away” mode and it will come on every 10 min or so to entertain your cat…. ALL NIGHT LONG.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/moms/eaca/#tabs
Or you can build your own laser
http://www.instructables.com/id/CatBot-Automated-Cat-Laser/
Thanks, Rachael!!!
We also have a rather nocturnal cat. And our Buster (aged 14) is like Miz Poo, he’s got a couple of fuzzballs that he carries around keening at the top of his lungs. Then he drops them and chases them around sounding like a herd of elephants (how does a 10lb cat make *that* much noise?!?). So we make a sweep of the house for all fuzzballs at the beginning of the evening and hope we got them all. But sometimes he still wanders around meowing (almost like he’s checking to see if we’re all here or something) and when that happens I get up and bring him to bed with us. This is that “Corporal Cuddling” that others were talking about. He hates it! So all I have to do is give him super lovings and snuggle him close to me under the covers for about 2 minutes and he doesn’t bother us for the rest of the night. Hee hee.
Thankfully Daisy, our 13 yo who LOVES to snuggle, also loves to sleep, so she’s good all night.
Hey Robyn and other L&H fans! There seems to be a GREAT deal of knowledge here and I need to tap into it.
When you bathe babies – how do you do it? Do you put water in the sink? if so – how much? Do you just wet a wash cloth? What kind of soap? do you only use baby wipes instead of soap and water? Huh? Huh? What do you do?! 🙂 The 4 babies I’ve got are starting to smell and they keep tracking through their poo in the litter box. I’ve been wiping off feet as I catch it happening, but still. 2 of them like to snuggle under my chin and the smell is starting to annoy!!
The kind of bath I give the babies depends on how dirty they are. If they’re just a little dirty, baby wipes work okay, but if they’re stinky, then you need to get water involved. This is how I do it: I put the stopper in the sink, then put a couple of inches of warm water in the bottom of the sink. Leaving the water running (slowly), I put the kitten in the water (scruffing them if they struggle or freak out), get the offending areas wet, scrub them down with pet shampoo, and then rinse them under the faucet.
I got the pet shampoo at Petsmart, I believe, though I’m sure you can find it elsewhere. And in a pinch, Dawn (the dishwashing soap) will work, though I wouldn’t use Dawn too often, because I think it’ll dry out their skin.
For the two babies I’ve raised from very wee kittenhood, I’d concur with Robyn: it depends on how dirty they are. Maggie was a desperately dirty little thing when we got her (her mother abandoned her), so she had to have the careful immersion up to her neck in a sinkful of warm soapy water, but she got by with periodic cleanings with the baby wipes after that, until she learned to wash herself.
My Charlie likes to get up on a dresser and bat a calendar I have hanging on the wall. He will do that, looking at me, until I get a toy from my nightstand and throw it into the other room. He’ll go after it, then will get into bed with me. Along with two other cats. And sometimes those two cats like to get into fistfights right by my head. 🙂
Kitten heads with big ears and small necks are the cutest thing. I want to snorgle them!
Also, it’s quite appropriate that Alice sleeps in a doll bed, considering what a doll she is!
How do you clean a bed that the cats PEED on, and I have an elderly cat that has started pooping on the carpet. (yea! so much fun)