damn cats.
actually I like cats, I had a beautiful white long-haired named Courtney. The little hussy ran of with a stray, I warned her about that dirty old tom cat, but she took off anyway.
If your head is wax, don’t walk in the sun.
-Benjamin Franklin
Well, as intimated in the OP, Patches did suffer a brushing, although it got put off until yesterday (and she got a cat treat for putting up with it, so it wasn’t a dead loss for her). The amazing thing, though, is the amount of hair brushed out: “Good heavens,” I exclaimed when my wife showed the wad of hair that she’d extracted, “there’s enough fur there to make another cat!” (Whether cats have or need any ingredient besides fur is left as an exercise for the student.)
The brushing, incidentally, took place on more or less) her towel, which is on the end of the bed. The results are:
[list=1][li]We now have a cat with much less loose fur on it; and[/li][li]The comforter is now full of cat hair[/list=1][/li]I’ve decided not to tell my wife the next time that Patches walks across her pillows :).
My parents have 1 cat and 1 dog. The dog will run around the house (he can run in a circle from room to room)the cat will sit and watch him from a chair. The suddenly as the dog passes the chair the cat will jump on his back and around and around they go.
Either that or the cat will smack the dog in the face when he goes by…either way they are hillarious to watch play!! 
We adopted a stray several years ago by the tried and true method of feeding him. Being feral, it took a couple of months before we managed to catch him and get him to the vet. He remained an outside kitty for a couple of years.
During this time we lived in a duplex that shared a lot with a large house that had been subdivided into five apartments. The cat, Buster, began leaving bird and mouse remains on our neighbors’ doorsteps while continuing to patronize the supper dish we provided. Perhaps Michelle can shed some light on this, as the explanation offered by the vet was one you’d like to believe, but…
The vet opined that, since we fed him, Buster figured we must be good hunters who had enough to share, while those who didn’t (couldn’t?) feed him obviously needed some help on the foraging front, thus the neighbors got the birds. If this was the case, I notice Buster had his preferences; he wasn’t eating the birds and dragging the supperbowl over to the neighbors’ doorsteps.
100 Pounds of Dog Versus 11 Pounds of Cat
Tragedy was narrowly averted Saturday… All cats and the dog were out of the house, and I was staring into the television, somewhat hypnotized, when I became aware of barking, lots of barking, coming from the backyard. I got up and went to investigate. My dog, my very own good dog who is so fond of cats, and the two homeless neighborhood mutt hounds that should be shot were triangulated around my precious Francesca, barking at her, biting her fur, and generally terrorizing her. I ran around to break it up. The mutt hounds ran off, but my own dog just stood there wagging his stupid tail and looking proud. Poor Frances was lying on the ground panting, eyes dilated, fur damp, matted, and full of leaves, and when I picked her up she made a horrible growly sound with every breath. (It wasn’t a respiratory distress sound, but a fear sound.) I held her close as I took her in, felt around her for any obvious signs of injury, and decided to wait it out a bit and see how she does. She is fine, completely uninjured. A little spooked about going out, but who wouldn’t be?
My goal for this week is to capture the two mutt hounds and take them to the pound, where they will be left with recommendation for immediate euthenasia as they are menaces. If I can catch the bitch mutt hound’s puppies, I’ll take them too. (They’re under my neighbor’s shed, he tells me. Maybe he’ll help me get them out if I’ll cart them off.)
Anyone want a mutt hound or 7?
More stupid pet tricks 
:
The usual morning routine around here is: I get up (sometime early in the morning). Patches gets up with me, and usually heads for the bedroom door (sometimes, she lies on the study floor in her “nursing the kittens” position, which means: “Scratch my tummy”). I let her in to the kitchen, closing the bedroom door (thus limiting the amount of smoke and noise that might awaken my wife). Whilst I’m making the coffee, Patches cries at the back door until I say, “All right, you want to see how really miserable it is out there?”, and open the door, allowing her to see how really miserable it is outside, thereby changing what passes for her mind about going out.
This morning, however, I got out of the bedroom before Patches was fully awake. When she realized that she was on the wrong side of the bedroom door, she sat down by it and cried, waking my wife, who let her out to go bother Dad. Since I was grinding the coffee beans, I missed all of this; the first I knew of it was her sitting by the back door crying, at which piteous sight I exclaimed, “How did you get loose?”
She spent a couple of hours sleeping in the kitchen, until I was ready to leave, and she back in the bedroom with her food, etc.
“Kings die, and leave their crowns to their sons. Shmuel HaKatan took all the treasures in the world, and went away.”
More bizzarre cat behavior:
My parent’s cat, Simba, eats his food with his paws. He’ll dip his paw into the food, and carry the food to his mouth.
Okay, that’s not so weird, I guess.
But what is weird is that when my mother (who is right handed) feeds him, he eats with his right paw; and when my father (who is left handed) feeds him, he eats with his left paw. This has been documented by neutral observers (my sisters).
JMCJ
This could be YOUR sig line! For just five cents a post, JMCJ Enterprises will place YOUR sig line at the bottom of each message!
Yet more bizarre cat behavior:
We had to take to closing the door tightly in the bathroom when we go. If it’s not latched tightly, Snowdog (yes, I know, stupid cat name, what can I say?) will come in, sit on the throw rug, and stare at you. Extremely disconcerting.
Snowdog also sneers at any cat toy offered and prefers bottle caps.
Still trying to think of something witty to say here
I think most cats enjoy helping their owners in the bathroom. All four of my cats have to be in there with me, whether I am on the toilet, brushing my teeth, or taking a bath. My cat Angel will sit on the ledge of the tub and bite at the water as the shower sprays down on him. Annie likes to swish her tail around in my bathwater.
Very true, Michelle. Patches will invariably come in to “help” (there’s nothing like sitting on the throne and having a cat rub up against your bare legs to really open up those orifices, I always say).
All right.
I have tried, through dint of reasoned (hopefully), intelligent (hopefully) postings to show this community how calm, smart, and generally all-around together I am.
I now destroy this carefully-crafted image.
I adopted Ozzie eleven years ago. I had just moved into this house… my furniture consisted of a bean-nag chair. That was it. It was raining, I heard a distressed miaouing sound, opened the door, and in comes a small, neat, black and white kitten (in retrospect, perhaps I should have named her Jellicle). She walks in like she owns the place, comes over to the beanbag chair, and I guess it felt like kitty litter to her…
Well, suffice to say that in spite of that introduction, I kept her. I did put up “Found Kitten” posters, but no one ever claimed her. (May they knew about the bean-bag thing).
She’s always been an indoor/outdoor cat. I let her out, she forages around, comes back, scratches at the door, I let her in. No problem. But two years ago, a new cat moved into town… and Ozzie lost some ferocious battles, whereupon I decided that she should stay inside.
She tolerated this for about three days… then started a very annoying I Wanna Go OUT campaign, which consisted of sitting at the door and making pitiful sounds, much like Bill Clinton does during press conferences. I was unmoved (also true of Clinton’s press conferences!) and the door stayed shut.
Then… I’m in the living room… and I hear scratching at the door. Sonovabitch! She got out somehow. I go to the door, open it… and she streaks out from the hall closet, where she had been hiding, and through the front door to freedom.
She came back in a few hours, pleased as punch.
The inescapable conclusion: my cat is smarter than I am.
I await your richly-deserved derision.
I love this thread.
I miss my kitty, and want to get a new one. Damn these adult onsetting cat alergies. I wonder if they’ve figured out how to immunize them yet?
Rick, I’d say your conclusion is dead on.
I don’t know why some pets are more stand-offish than others. One of my fur-persons, Kirby, does NOT like having her back scratched (although she will let you pet her back). For the first 1.5 yrs of her life, she rarely wanted to cuddle, and just wasn’t the lovey, “Aren’t I cute?” “I need attention NOW,” kind of cat that her step-brother Derwood is. However, in the last few months, Kirby’s become more and sweet, asking for attention and affection regularly. I don’t have any answer as to why this is, I’m not treating her any differently than I ever have…
StoryTyler
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.”
I Spy Ty.
"Hi, I’m Troy McClure! You may remember me from such medical films as “Alice Doesn’t Live Anymore” and “Mommy, What’s Wrong with That Man’s Face?”
Bricker, have you had the cat spayed?
As for the needle thing, well, I think it just looks like a toy to a cat. Especially if there is a string at the end of it. I caught my cat Happy trying to pull pushpins out of my corkboard once. Cats like strange things!
Orion and Squeaky like to help out in the bathroom, too. I don’t have grab bars so I use an old kitchen chair to help myself stand up, and it does become a catch-all for clothes clean enough to wear one more time (c’mon, you rewear clothes too, admit it) which makes it an especially nice place for kitties to curl up while you’re doing you business. Squeaky practically lives in the bathroom because it is one of the rooms of the house that the dog is never, ever allowed in (the cat boxes are in the bathrooms and Jimmy is enjoys “kitty treats,” as we coyly call them). However, Squeaky doesn’t like to be shut in there if you’re not paying attention to him. I mean, he’ll stay in there fine all day with the door open, and he won’t complain if you close the door to use the facilities as long as you pet him. But as soon as you get in the shower or brush your hair or just do anything that doesn’t involve him, he’ll sit by the door until you let him out. Sometimes he’ll open the cupboard doors and let them slam shut to get your attention. The doors bounce a little when hit so you hear “SLAM! thump thump SLAM! thump thump” until you let him out. He also uses this trick to get us to let him outside at 3:00 AM if yowling hasn’t already worked. (Yes, I tried to make him an indoor only cat, but even a saint would toss a yowling, door slamming cat outside at 3 AM.)
Orion is more congenial. We have open shelves in the bathroom for our towels, and when I’m in the shower, he curls up on the towels and washclothes and waits for me. So, yes, I begin my day covered in cat hair. I wear it, I sleep in it, I towel off with it, I probably inhale and eat it. Somedays I’m not sure if I forgot to shave my legs or if they’re just covered with cat hair. Oh, who am I kidding, I don’t shave my legs.
Anyhoo, Orion is much more patient about waiting for me, but maybe he just hasn’t learned the cupboard door trick yet. We’ve had moderately more success making him an indoor only cat, but only in that he we don’t let him outside, he just sneaks out. His four feet are much faster than my husband’s and my combined four feet. Sometimes he’ll come right back in if it’s raining or otherwise inclement, but if it’s at all nice, he switches into feral cat mode and we don’t see him again until he’s hungry. Inside the house he’s my sweet little kitty head-butting angel, but outside he’s Orion, mighty jungle cat, untamed by no man. I used to send the neighbor kids out to beat the brush looking for him, but now I just try to remain confident that he’s not that dumb, he’ll find his way home, and thank God we don’t live on such a busy road any more. (I’d say visit my Pets page and see my cute little animals, but for each animal that has died I felt compelled to explain how they died which is probably really morbid and stupid; especially since a majority of them were squished on a busy gravel road or the adjoining highway. But what are you supposed to do when your farm-raised parents insist four footed critters don’t belong in the house and while it’s their house they make the rules? Now I’m frustrated because I have my own house and my own rules and I still can’t keep the damn critters in the house!)
Anyway, that’s life in the Kat house
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
Yes, she is spayed… her interest in the outdoors is not amorous encounters… she just believs it is her duty to defend the homestead against other feline interlopers…
My Hannah is 14 years old and has recently begun to avoid the litter box for bm’s. She still uses it to pee. She also seems to have trouble with her hind legs; she is now very slow to walk down the stairs. Climbing the stairs seems to be less painful for her.
I’m wondering if crouching in the litter box is in some way painful for her.
Has anyone encountered this problem?
renee
brook, my 18 yo kitty, RIP, had trouble with her hind legs as well. Our vet basically blamed arthritis, same as old age in people. He didn’t offer any options other than watching to see that she didn’t get to suffering too much. It was sad, but it didn’t seem to inhibit her too much except for those trips up and down stairs. It seems like a reasonable idea that she has trouble squating, but I wonder how different urinating is.
My 18 year old cat, B.W., just started having serious trouble with her hind legs on Monday. She couldn’t walk more than a few steps without falling over or jump up on the couch like she used to. I rushed her to the vet on Tuesday, who said it might be a blood clot (she has heart murmurs) or some spinal thing. Her blood tests checked out fine, and the Xrays didn’t show any serious enlarging of the heart. I’m going to take her for a sonogram to see if it really is blood clots (I was supposed to go tonight but got horribly lost; long story). If it’s blood clots the vet says she should go on blood thinners to prevent a stroke.
So far she’s improving amazingly. As of tonight, she can jump up on the couch and walk normally, although I still think something’s a little bit “off”. I’m hoping it was just a neuromuscular thing that has pretty much cleared up, but I still want her checked for blood clots.
She’s still using the litter box normally, brooklyn, so I don’t know if my experiences are much help. B.W. did avoid the litter box when I was still at my other place that had two other cats; do you have other cats? B.W.'s been just fine now that I’ve got her by herself.