97 posts tagged “kitty”

Everything has been moved to our new place, except for our television, cable box, and modem.  We don't get cable/internet at the new place until the first weekend of February, so we are currently at our old place to watch the season premiere of Lost.  Of course now they are playing a silly recap, so I thought I would take time to update on the move.  (Aside: do they really think that people are going to start watching Lost for the first time NOW, so much that they need to recap all the previous seasons?)

The cats are pretty well adjusted to the new place, although Jiblets is still skittish at the sound of new noises.  The first day he was scared and hid in the litter box and then under a low table after we carried him upstairs.  Thankfully his strong need to cover Simba's litter box waste pulled him from his hiding spot.  When he heard Simba scratching in the litter, he left his hiding place to go do his covering duty.

Simba has been the bravest cat, as I knew he would be.  This is the fourth time that he has moved with me, so this is not very traumatizing to him.  As soon as we let him out of his carrier at the base of the stairs, he flew up them and began exploring, rubbing his face on every surface.

Eggy has been in between the too, a bit scared, but not so much that she is hiding all the time.  She and Jiblets have been enjoying the cat condo, as I am sure they were happy to see it again (we moved it a week ahead of them).

Here a couple of pre-move photos.  As we took away more and more furniture, they had to resort to new place to lay.

I recorded some video of their first day at the new place.  I will post it once I get it edited/uploaded. 

The favorite sleeping spots of the cats (top of dresser, cat condo, etc) have been moved to the new place.  Thus, all three cats could be found on the bed together.  Which is a rare occurrence indeed.

All of my cats are strange in their own way.  I do not think that I have detailed their individual neuroses all in one post, so I thought I would lay them all out here.  Who knows, maybe your cats do some of these things too.  Or maybe my cats are just weird.

Simba: He does not like the feel of cat litter on his paws.  We surmise it is because he has long hair, but really we have no idea.  Rather than cover up his waste in the pan with the sand litter, he will scratch around the pan.  He has scratched walls, newspaper under the pan, etc.  He does this every time he uses the litter.  About seven years ago, I tried to please him by switching to a non-sand litter made from wood chips.  He promptly pooped in the bathtub.

He also scratches near other things when he does not like the smell.  For example, if Prince E is eating something with a strong scent, the cat will go over and scratch near him.

He only likes two toys that we have.  One is a squeaky rat (that is not so strange) and the other one is a wire that used to have a mouse on the end that has long since fallen off.  Simba was never interested in the toy when it had the mouse on the end, but he loves the empty wire.  He will jump up and try to grab it with two paws and frolicks like a kitten.

He loves catnip (not strange), but only likes to eat it when it is in neat piles. If it is spread about, he will stop eating it.  If I gather back into a small pile, he will resume eating it.

He has one sound.  A meow that sounds likes this, "MEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW."  And it is loud.  He will do this sound even if he has a plate full of food, fresh water, and has been brushed and played with.  Still trying to figure this one out.  Since he often does it when I am on the telephone, I think it means, "Pay attention to me!"  And then if I do, he promptly lays down for a nap.

If I ignore his meowing (like when I am sleeping), he will gently tap my arm with his paw to nudge me awake.  He will also do this when sitting next to me on the couch if he wants to be pet.  Although he loves being pet, he has never once willingly climbed into my lap.

He does not like it when I close the bathroom door and will meow and bang on the door.  Although I guess that is not that strange because Eggy does it too.

Jiblets: He is a very shy kitty and runs and hides anyone comes to visit.  He stayed huddled under the couch covering on the floor under Prince E's legs for most of the weekend that Kiki and her family spent with us.  He did manage to come out and let my mom pet him, but it took a lot of work and quietness to get that to happen.  Luckily he is very comfortable with us now, but still will run if we make a loud noise.  We have learned that we can walk past him while he is laying in the hallway and have him not flee, provided we don't look directly at him.

He does not really like for us to pet him very much, except when we are in our bed.  This means that most of his cuddling happens at night or in the morning.  However, often when we come home from work he will look at us and run onto the bed to say, "Hey! Come pet me!"  If one of the other cats is already on the bed or if a cat comes up on the bed while he is there, however, he will run away. 

His most bizarre behavior, however, is his nightly kneading.  When we get ready to go to bed, he will jump into the bed to be pet and scratched.  After being pet by us, he will start kneading the bed.  Specifically he likes to knead my blue Vellux blanket.  I imagine this is some hold-over from his nursing days.  Perhaps he was weaned to young?  If he really gets into the kneading, he will start to drool, although I think it comes from his nose, rather than his mouth.  If I am laying down when he begins kneading, he will stand with his back legs on some part of my body (legs, thighs, stomach, rear end if I am laying on my stomach).  If I move away from him he will also move and climb back onto me.  This can go on for 20 minutes sometimes.  Most of the time I enjoy the Jiblets massage, provided he does not deploy his claws. 

He has several different meows, but the funniest is when he chirps like a bird when he gets quite excited.  Neither of the other cats make this sound.

He is quite helpful and will cover up the other cats' poo or pee in the litter box when they don't cover it on their own.  Sometimes if Eggy is in the room with the litter box, Jiblets will wait patiently at the door and then will go in when she comes out to cover up for her.

Eggy:  When we first got her, she was still a kitten and had no meow.  This may be because she is somewhat hearing impaired.  She now has a meow, but it makes rare appearances, usually when she wants a treat or food.  I am still surprised if I hear her walking around meowing because it is so infrequent.  Her meow is as cute and small as she is.

She eats things that she should not.  She once ate, and threw up, a pen cap.  She also begs for "people food," which I do not accomodate, but her daddy sometimes does.  Over the weekend I have been working on a Christmas gift that included labels.  I printed out the labels on Friday night and had them on my craft table.  Saturday morning I found two on the floor chewed up and a third on her food plate.

She carries weird things to her food plate, like the aforementioned lables.  We have several toys that are little mice at the end of strings or wires.  She carries them in her mouth by the mouse all the way to her food plate and drops them there.  Perhaps she is sharing her "kill" with the other cats?

One day Prince E was eating food in a chair in the living room and set some napkins on the floor.  Eggy started tearing them up with her claws, making a little nest, which she then promptly took a nap upon.  We have since left her little piles of napkins occassionally to make nests.

Eggy loves a wide variety of toys like most cats, including chasing after a string and following the laser pointer.  Ther is one toy, however, that makes her go insane.  She turns from her sweet precious little kitty self into a beast.  She will hiss at us and the other cats if we get near her when she has that toy.  We now keep it hidden away and Prince E only brings it out once in awhile.  When that happens, I leave the room.  I have no idea what about it makes her so crazy.  It is similar to other toys we have: a little mouse on a string.  It must have some kind of catnip or other substance inside to have such a profound effect on her.

Like Simba, she does not always cover her waste in the litter.  Luckily Jiblets does it for her.

What about your pets?  Do they do anything weird?

I started this post initially writing how proud I was of myself for not talking about the cats once in the first 15 days of NaBloPoMo, but then I double-checked and saw that I posted a picture of Eggy.  Oh, well.  Only two cat posts in 15 days is also pretty good.

Fortunately Prince E and I have prescription coverage with our health insurance which saves us a lot of money.  Unfortunately, though, that coverage does not cover our three furry feline children.

When Jiblets was recently diagnosed with a virus whose name I cannot remember (we have called it Lou Pinella disease because that's what the name reminded us of), we learned that his medication would cost over $150. The medication would have to be purchased from a human pharmacy because it is heavy duty stuff.

The lovely folks at Walgreens told our veterinarian to suggest that we join the Walgreens prescription savings club.  The plan, which covers unisured humans, can be used for pet medication as well.  The employee calcuated for us whether joining the program would be worth the cost (there is a yearly fee to join) and when we learned we would save over $80, I signed all three cats up on the spot.

Fast forward to today when my permanent card for the program came in the mail . . . addressed to "Jiblets Cat (Our Last Name)."  I am sure that the mailman got a good chuckle over that one.  I am not sure why they did not address it to me at the cat parent.  When I opened the envelope I got another good laugh because Jiblets name is on the card as well. 

We are still trying to figure out how to get Jibets to sign the "authorized signature" line on the back of the card.

Here are some random photos.

Simba inspecting the painting that I won of him, done by Leanne Wildermuth at Intricate Art.  I love it!

My little Eggatha is no longer a kitten, as today she turns one year old.  Where has the time gone?  She started as a tiny four pound little baby and has grown into a beautiful, elegant cat.  She has become the best of friends with Simba and fighting partners with Jiblets.  Her meow has transformed from a sound almost inaudible to one loud enough to wake me up (unforuntately).  Although we were told at the time we adopted her that she was deaf, she has the ability to hear, especially higher pitched sounds.  Sometimes when she is doing something wrong she pretends she can't hear, though.  She likes to watch television, but sometimes gets scared if the images move too quickly on the screen.  Of all the cats she remains the most likely to crawl into your lap, although she still hasn't figured out gravity and sometimes nearly rolls out of that lap in hopes of getting her belly scratched.

Happy Birthday pretty girl.  I am so glad those other people didn't get you.

Here are some photos of her over the time that she has been with us.

When she arrived at our home, November 4, 2007:

November 9, 2007:

December 2007:

January 2, 2008:

March 16, 2008:

March 17, 2008:

Today, May 25, 2008

One of my prizes for winning the Project Blog competition earlier this year was a pet portrait by Leanne Wildermuth of Artist by Nature.  I submitted several photographs of Simba and she is creating an oil painting of him.

She tracks her work on her blog and has a sketch of Simba already posted (toward the middle of the blog entry, the third cat shown).  Notice that she called him "stunning."