Month: July 2012

Trask, on the rocking chair, was grooming himself working on a paw. Nibble, bite, lick, lick, lick. Repeating this process a few times. Cadet was on the floor behind the rocking chair in a typical suggestive pose on his back, hind legs wide open and he was grooming a paw as well. Nibble, lick, lick, nibble, lick, lick on and on.

The next moment, Trask jumps off the rocker, to the floor and then on to Cadet. Right out of the Geo Channel programs Trask goes for a neck death grip. Cadet struggles, gathers his senses and courage and starts bucking with his rear legs. This fight is between two brothers, its evenly matched by weight and build and I have every expectation that it’s really just play for them. I, perfectly calm, enjoy watching the bout as the two of them toussel here and there. Neck bites change from Trask with the upper hand to Cadet with the upper hand. Barbara watches and says, “Cadet usually winds up on top” and you know she’s right. Trask started this but Cadet may finish it.

Morel : Be prepared even when your grooming yourself, you never know whose going to give you a toussel.

 

 

Addie is one of those rare youngsters that we as fosters’ get, a kitten at an early age that is happy. She was only 4 weeks old when we got her and almost from the start she didn’t fear us, she engaged us and rolled over for belly rubs early on and most importantly she purred. This last litter of four consisted of two kittens nearly frozen with fear, one that was confident but aloof and this little girl. Her personality from the get go made up for the difficulties the other three presented.

Addie has been with us for nearly 6 weeks, her initial weigh in was 1’1oz. A week ago when neutered she was 1’15 and 3/4oz but she’s lost nearly 1oz in the interim. Her body looked frail and her appetite was waining. When we fed her we thinned out her canned food to a slightly soupy consistency as we did for all the kittens under the theory that we’d be increasing their liquid intake and they’d like the easily lapped up mixture. I noticed when she was eating once that what she lapped up from the plate was more liquid than solid food and I suspected that was trouble brewing. I think we were wrong for thinning out the food and have been working to avoid thinning it out altogether.

One more thing, we have liquid vitamin gel and we started giving her that too before or after feedings. I cannot speak to highly about vitiamins added too Addie’s diet, in two days she went from listless to a bit more active and she readily eats now the food that we give her.

 

I know of many people who are resigned to their cats jumping up on their tables and kitchen counters but we’re not those people. We’ve tried putting aluminum foil on those surfaces, sticky tape and vigilance to use a squirt bottle. All to know avail. What are we suppose to do? Scat Mat maybe?

So, I ordered a 30×16 scat mat from Safe Pet Products and we’re in process of seeing if it works. It came neatly rolled up in a box with a booklet of instructions. It’s all but obvious what you have to do to use it. Unroll it, grab a 9v battery and install it in the control unit, attached the control unit to the mat and turn the unit on. The only reason I read the directions was to understand how the on/off/setting switched worked – very simple.

Of course using the mat effectively is what we need to do and there’s no guidance for this other than trial and error. My house, my cats and my wife and I are unique and we need to solve our problems. We can easily learn from others but this appears to be a simple task with need for some means to determine success.

We have put the mat on a kitchen counter at night and the kitchen table and island during the day. My wife joked we may need more mats to cover all the areas on the kitchen we want the cats to learn to stay away from. Time will tell as we investigate how well this one mat works.

This is a close up of the mat and you can see the conductive rings embedded in the mat. When pussy touches these the controller senses a connection and gives a brief jolt. When set to low, the jolt is truely low level.

What is success?

Beyond keeping our cats off the counters and tables in the kitchen which is obvious is how do we know that the cats are staying off? One answer is to put things on these surfaces that if moved indicate the cats have been there. Another is to put up a video camera and record activity in the kitchen for later review. Perhaps there are others ways.

We’ve opted for the camera technique because I have what I need to do this. I’ll post the results later after I have them.

To be continued.

I took Mattie to the Petco Sunday adoption event and amidst quite a few kitten of various colors and kinds Mattie, our full black 8 week old kitten got adopted by a very nice family with dog and a child.

I spelled Barbara who normally takes in these events with Mattie and Tildie. There had to be fifteen kittens and a few adults that day. I spend time chatting up suspects and it was no different for the woman and her college age daughter. They had a cat but had to put it down recently and we looking for a new cat and thought a kitten would be good but wanted one that would accept a dog in the house.

I didn’t know if Mattie or Tildie were naturally able to handle a dog but at Petco big dogs came and went that morning barking away and both my kitties didn’t flinch. So I mentioned that to the woman and her daughter. They looked over kitties and I offered them to come and pick up Mattie and/or Tildie and they did. The daughter kvelled over Mattie who was just a doll at the event. Tildie was not coming out of her shell but Mattie was all sunshine and brightness.

Long story short they did take Mattie, I shared feeding and acclimation information with them and off they went.

Finn, Tildie and Mattie came to us and after we worked with all three…

A couple and their 3 kids saw  Finn on PetFinder and came specifically to Petco to see see him. They arrived at Petco at 6pm and the rest is history. Very easy and quick.