What pets do you have? Feel free to post pics!

[Riki]

Note to self:  Close lid and shut off power on my printer/copier when I leave the house.  It will save both power and ink.

My Rocky did something similar!      

Tech savvy cats - we're in trouble when they figure out how to run the can opener!

Yep.. cuz then they won't need us anymore... it's their next step in the plan for world domination...

[Chris]

Tech savy cats are like drunk people at an office party xeroxing their naked butts!

[CebuShan]

Tech savy cats are like drunk people at an office party xeroxing their naked butts!

Except the cats have cuter butts!         

[chefmagnus]

Hi everyone,

I am out of the hospital again.

We have four pets. Two rescue cats and two Pembroke Welsh Corgis. They are all guys and completely spoiled. Blue the oldest corgi is trained as a SAR K9 officer as well as being trained for hypo awareness. He works faster than the machine and doesn't have to have 3/4" sensor jabbed into my flesh...The younger corgi Sparx-E is still a puppy. I don't know if he will ever slow down or grow up...The older cat is a orange tabby. His name is Tiger cause we went to get him a name tag and found one for Tiger in the machine but it was a dog bone shape and huge. It was blank on the back so they reloaded it and we got it for free. He has been dieting and is now 19# down from 26#. He is a super mellow fellow... Our youngest pet is Stormy "F5", and yes he is a tornado. We got him from a farmer and even though his barn cat roots show through. He loves living with us and is afraid of the outside...No to see if I can post picture of all of us...

Chef

[CebuShan]

Hi everyone,

I am out of the hospital again.

We have four pets. Two rescue cats and two Pembroke Welsh Corgis. They are all guys and completely spoiled. Blue the oldest corgi is trained as a SAR K9 officer as well as being trained for hypo awareness. He works faster than the machine and doesn't have to have 3/4" sensor jabbed into my flesh...The younger corgi Sparx-E is still a puppy. I don't know if he will ever slow down or grow up...The older cat is a orange tabby. His name is Tiger cause we went to get him a name tag and found one for Tiger in the machine but it was a dog bone shape and huge. It was blank on the back so they reloaded it and we got it for free. He has been dieting and is now 19# down from 26#. He is a super mellow fellow... Our youngest pet is Stormy "F5", and yes he is a tornado. We got him from a farmer and even though his barn cat roots show through. He loves living with us and is afraid of the outside...No to see if I can post picture of all of us...

Chef

Great photo!   

[Lexxtech18]

Hi everyone,

I am out of the hospital again.

We have four pets. Two rescue cats and two Pembroke Welsh Corgis. They are all guys and completely spoiled. Blue the oldest corgi is trained as a SAR K9 officer as well as being trained for hypo awareness. He works faster than the machine and doesn't have to have 3/4" sensor jabbed into my flesh...The younger corgi Sparx-E is still a puppy. I don't know if he will ever slow down or grow up...The older cat is a orange tabby. His name is Tiger cause we went to get him a name tag and found one for Tiger in the machine but it was a dog bone shape and huge. It was blank on the back so they reloaded it and we got it for free. He has been dieting and is now 19# down from 26#. He is a super mellow fellow... Our youngest pet is Stormy "F5", and yes he is a tornado. We got him from a farmer and even though his barn cat roots show through. He loves living with us and is afraid of the outside...No to see if I can post picture of all of us...

Chef

Oh my goodness! Tiger looks like he loves cuddles! hahaha  What a beautiful family you have there. I have a jack russell/corgi mix and he is just the most hyper little thing, jumping off the walls!

[Riki]

Nice family.. so many furbabies!  I love it!  I always wanted to have a house full, but my mother would never let me.. *G*

[gothiclovemonkey]

Introducing Sir Rotti Nibblesworth the III
No idea why we decided on the "III" part... just sounded awesome i guess lol
total attention monger
likes to nibble, thus the name...
snores and grunts like a piggy and oft attacks the blankets, and tries to "dig" at whatever may be underneath...

[cariad]

Aw, GLM, what a darling! Love the name! I think I have my boys convinced we should get a cat - an exotic to be precise - and I love those overly pretentious names like Mr. Bigglesworth from Austin Powers. We have been discussing names for the day that we are able to get a pet and one that we're considering is Fflwfflyd (may not have spelled that quite right). It just means fluffy in Welsh, but it's almost hypnotic in its dizzying array of consonants. Plus it's pronounced something like 'flooo-flid' which for some reason I enjoy saying.

I look forward to following the adventures of Sir Rotti Nibblesworth III!

[gothiclovemonkey]

he likes to pounce mah feets!! i came home from D and I was cold, so I grabbed my blanket (ohhh,nooo,  his nemisis, The Blanket!) and he attacked my feet accordingly.
And HE KICKS! he will turn his rear end toward you, and kick you! its hilarious, I fully intend on trying to get video of this.

[Riki]

A friend of mine has 2 cats, and a little Maltese... I love her "Roxy" stories.. a favorite is how one day, she was in the kitchen, and she rattled the treat bag.. all three came running, but Roxy must have decided she was winning the race cuz she hip checked one of the cats down the basement stairs.. the cat was ok.. just rolled down a couple of steps and was back up running... she said it was the funniest thing she ever saw

[Lexxtech18]

A friend of mine has 2 cats, and a little Maltese... I love her "Roxy" stories.. a favorite is how one day, she was in the kitchen, and she rattled the treat bag.. all three came running, but Roxy must have decided she was winning the race cuz she hip checked one of the cats down the basement stairs.. the cat was ok.. just rolled down a couple of steps and was back up running... she said it was the funniest thing she ever saw

That made me LOL in real life! 

[gothiclovemonkey]

LOL

[Kitty Cat]

Here's a funny kitty story. I posted a picture of my Rocky a couple of months ago, he's part Russian Blue and I'm fairly certain, Siamese. He can talk longer than any other being I've come across. He talks to let me know he's looking for me, to let me know that he's jumping up on whatever and just to hear himself.

I had found a bag of dog food on sale. I picked it up because it is the one food my dog (Abbey) will eat without fail. Did I mention that it was 40 pounds of dog food??? The problem we've had is Abbey eating the cat food as soon as I leave the house in the morning, Rocky thought the solution was to open the bag of dog food so that Abbey could eat dog food whenever she was hungry and stay away from the cat food. Rocky chewed and clawed a hole in the bag in a crease where I couldn't see it at first.

Abbey was having tummy distress and needed to be put out an awful lot. I was really considering calling my vet to get her in there until the morning I heard crunching from the hallway. I then saw my problem. I slapped a piece of duct tape over the hole, lo and behold, Abbey's tummy problems cleared up immediately. So again, 2 weeks later it happens again, Rocky had chewed/clawed through the duct tape!!!! I give him credit for thinking the way he does, I couldn't put the dog food in the closet because there was an  unopened bag of cat food that Rocky would open.

My new trick is to give Abbey a cookie when I come home from work and the cat food is still in the bowl. If I come home and no food, then no cookie. She's starting to catch on so I'm truly hoping this works!!!

It amazes me how clearly fur babies can think!!!

[kitkatz]

My housekeeper, who knows our dogs and loves them, turns to me as she is walking into my bedroom today, and says: "I have never seen her do that before!"  I turned around and there was Trinket on top of our bed looking up at where the cat had jumped to get away from her. She knows better than to get on our bed! I hollered at her to get the "Hell" off my bed and threatened her with a beating if I ever caught her up there again.  She looked so cute up there and was being such a bad dog.

[Chris]

   are worth a 1000 words.

[CebuShan]

Aw, GLM, what a darling! Love the name! I think I have my boys convinced we should get a cat - an exotic to be precise - and I love those overly pretentious names like Mr. Bigglesworth from Austin Powers. We have been discussing names for the day that we are able to get a pet and one that we're considering is Fflwfflyd (may not have spelled that quite right). It just means fluffy in Welsh, but it's almost hypnotic in its dizzying array of consonants. Plus it's pronounced something like 'flooo-flid' which for some reason I enjoy saying.

I look forward to following the adventures of Sir Rotti Nibblesworth III!

There's always "Tiddles" from "Are You Being Served?"   
One of our barn cats had a litter of 4: 2 males & 2 females. They were: Mr. Humphries, Mr. Lucas, Miss Brahms and Mrs. Slocombe!

[Poppylicious]

(This is longer than I thought it would be ... feel free to not read it!)

My neighbour is trying to steal my cat.

*gasp*

We have this older couple near us and I'm sure the wife is a tad doolally.  They leave cat food outside their front door for the hedgehogs and then act surpised that my Dora always heads for their house after leaving mine in the mornings.  When we had Mog they tried to steal him too. *sigh*

Anyhoo, it's been a tad snowy and cold (hovering around the freezing mark) in these parts for the last few days.  On Friday I let Dora out at 1pm.  I then called her approximately every twenty to thirty minutes but she wasn't coming in.  I start getting worried, because she's my baby and it's cold.  I KNEW she was at the neighbour's house and I can see their front door from my bedroom window so I had a shower and dried my hair at the window.  It worked ... she came over, in the snow, to give me back my cat. She wasn't even halfway over when Dora jumped from her arms, scratching her in the process.  "Look!" she said to me, "He didn't want to come home!" I kindly asked her not to let Dora in her house anymore because I worry when she doesn't come home and I had been calling out for her.  "Even though you know he's safe?" Grrr ...

So yesterday we let Dora out at about 11am.  She'd been in all night and it hadn't started snowing; she wanted some fresh air and the loo. In the next forty minutes I called her about three times because we were going out.  She didn't come back and we went out, but I worried the whole time we were away.  We were out about four hours and I spent the next two hours calling her periodlically. At about six there's a knock on the door.

"Can you come and get your cat?"

What the *insert expletive*!?

"No," I said. "Let her out and she'll come home; you don't need to get your shoes and coat on and come out in this weather, just kick her out.  We tried calling her before we went out earlier but she was obviously in your house and couldn't come home. This is why we need you to not let her in."

I don't think I'm a bad cat owner.  Both my babies are insured and microchipped and they get their booster shots each year.  They have a continuous supply of fresh water and have oodles to eat.  They get cuddles, more or less have the run of the house and we play with them.  They have lots of toys and we have two litter trays in the house and they are both trained to use them.  Both of them stay in every night because I can't sleep if they're out. But Dora is a cat who likes going out and I'm not going to deny her this.  I am however, going to call her every so often when it's cold or snowy or wet; I'm not just going to dump her outside and then not check up every twenty or so minutes when the weather is like this. That would make me heartless.

The cat stealing couple are making me feel like a bad owner, and that really grates on me.  What irks even more is them continuing to let her in when I've asked them not to.  I know I can't do much to physically stop them (and in a way I'm pleased she has someone else looking out for her) but if we have a vet appointment or are going away and need her in why should I be put out by having to go to their house to ask for my cat back?  I know cats are fickle; they leave food out which enticed her and then they offered her a warm cosy radiator to lie near. Of course she's going to go back to them!

I'm at home today because the college where I work is closed (Snow Day, yay!) so I'm going to try my hardest to keep Dora in, but it will be hard and I don't like upsetting her (she'll squeal like a baby if I don't let her out!) but I refuse to let these people steal my cat!! Qyzy isn't particularly fussed about being outside; he likes it but he's not so used to it yet that it's a big deal if he doesn't go out.  I'm tempted to keep it that way in case they decide to steal him too!

Sorry, this is just a vent because they're making me angry and I don't know how many times I can ask them not to do something before they get the message! I'm making the assumption that she doesn't actually listen to me because she keeps calling Dora "he" and I keep correcting her with no positive results.

But am I a bad owner?

 

[Chris]

So your cat is not an indoor cat? You may need to have a kitty litter box so that you do not have to worry where she is or have to worry when she doesn't come when you call her when you need to run out. Here in the states it is different I guess. If there is a cat loose and it's the same cat, animal control will be taking that cat or dog, well any animal back to the pound. We have a fenced in yard, but our male cat has now figured a way around it or through it after 5 years, but he goes to the front door or into the garage and bang on the door to be let in. I have come home and caught him just hanging out on the front porch laying there. I go in and have to ask my mom where is Patches, proceeding to opening the front door to let him in.

[Poppylicious]

Yep, we let our cats run wild over here!  It's generally okay, her being outside.  It's just this weather which is the problem, but she didn't go out till 7.30pm this evening and she came back at 8.30pm and is now sleeping on top of the printer.  At least the pesky neighbours didn't let her in.

(Oh, we have TWO litter trays in the house. She prefers to go outside though.)

 

Hope this link works ... it's a cat meeting snow for the first time (not my cat unfortunately ... I missed Qyzy's first snow experience!) So cute! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW1j7lzX0dw

[MaryD]

We have had two cats at different times who had to move from being allowed outside to permanently inside cats.  They both made the transition without too much hassle.  It seemed to take only a week or so before my current cat, Ed, (the best cat ever) got the message, although he would have periods where he would sometimes casually lie in wait at the door and try to make a dash for it.  The other cat belonged to my daughter and was so traumatised at her move in with us that I think she forgot there was an outside.  We lived on a busy road at the time.

Years ago we had a cat (who had never learned to purr) who kept putting on weight for no obvious reason.  One morning I had to go in to the next-door-but-one elderly neighbour (96 years old) to see if I could unblock her sink.  There in her kitchen sat Leisl, in front of three bowls of food, one bowl of milk and one of water.  No wonder she was fat.  The little old neighbour adored her, and I didn't have the heart to take her away.  I maintained the veterinary side of Leisl's care, and the neighbour, with instructions on diet, looked after the food side of things.  Two years later Leisl eventually died of kidney complications and a couple of months the neighbour died, too.

Poppylicious, you sound like a good cat mother.  If you have asked your neighbour to not let your cat in, they shouldn't let your cat in.

[CebuShan]

Poppy, does anyone have a kitten they want to give away? Maybe if your neighbor had a cat of their own they wouldn't be so inclined to try to take yours!

[jbeany]

The latest tubthumping noise is now explained. There are tiny pompoms in multitude below the wooden cold air return grate in the office. There are tooth marks in the grate. Dora has been trying to lift it up to get them free, but it's bigger than she is, and the edge is partially tucked under the rug.  She yanks it up, it catches and drops back into place, level with the floor.

[Riki]

I had neighbors like that too, Poppy.. I had a cat named Red, who'd been a stray.  He came out of the woods behind the house of a friend of my dad's, and they just brought him to me, cuz they knew I wanted a cat. *L*  Anyway, Red was a big cat, at least 20lbs.  I'm sure he had pain in his little legs from carrying that weight around.  I tried everything I could think of to get him to lose the weight.  I put him on diet food, and only gave him one dish full a day.  I played with him, I cut out his treats, but what I didn't know, was that when he went outside, he was wandering through the back yard to the neighbor's house, who'd feed him steak and potatoes.  I feared them taking him, and they already had 2 cats of their own.  We only knew that he was going down there because the man of the house had told my dad that Red was coming around to visit.  They stopped feeding him after that, but he still came around for little visits.. Red was a very social cat.  Red died on April 1st, 2005.  When my bro went down to tell them that he'd died, they didn't believe him at first, but Red had died in his arms, so it didn't take long for them to realize that he wasn't joking.

[Poppylicious]

Poppy, does anyone have a kitten they want to give away? Maybe if your neighbor had a cat of their own they wouldn't be so inclined to try to take yours!

Oh, they already have two of their own!! And a dog!

I think it's fair to say after reading these stories that no cat is ever owned; they just go where the food is ...

Today Dora chewed through my wool whilst I was knitting. *sigh* (Bless her chewy little teeth.)