Tuesday, November 30, 2004

What Ladies Do Behind Closed Doors

Lady Emily is, in fact, still part kitten. 

Monday night we booted both boys out of her bedroom, closed the door, and invited her to play with the feather cat teaser on the broad expanse of the bed. We tuned the play for her, keeping the teaser less active and often just crawling along the far end of the bed. 

She took nicely to it, stalking and pouncing. She doesn't latch on like the Mighty Hunter does (a good thing), but rather tends to abandon the teaser when it's pinned under her paws and it turns out not to be edible. She does returns to the hunt after the teaser "wakes up" again, and shows proper feline moves for chasing it down. 
She does tire sooner than the boys, of course, but it held her attention as long as any play toy we've had in the house. 

Target Rich Environment

We bought more teasers over the weekend, specifically a replacement feather teaser and a pom-pom teaser. Both passed.

An interesting use for two teasers is that when Billy the Mighty Hunter pounces on one teaser, the second teaser can be used to retrieve the first teaser. Basically, he doesn't know his own limits -- he can't keep two prey trapped at once, but tries anyway.

Unfortunately, Billy still seems too agressive with the teasers; I am cutting him off. He will still get to attack the ribbon teaser, which he doesn't seem too violent with.

Friday, November 26, 2004

Photo Friday - A Portrait of the Might Hunter

One of the many things we have taught the cats that we will regret at some future date is hopping up on the stairway newel post. In this case, Billy is studying an off-camera feather with great intent.

Billy-Post-2004-11.jpg

Thursday, November 25, 2004

Turkey Day Recap

My charges were lonely. The cat sitter came, but she didn't bring Turkey or Tuna or Chocolate (we plush cats have a different diet) or anything. So the self-propelled ones got their usual diet, but fewer snuggles.

I'm sure the humans will share kitty treats when they come home though! (Tosci's Bear, in Syracuse with the humans, says they miss the kids already.)

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Guardian Kitty to the Rescue

The humans went to visit family at Thanksgiving, and left me Sasha in charge!

Okay, so they also hired a cat sitter.

(We plush creatures have always been a computer literate bunch.)

Anyway, the boys want me to order a pizza with extra anchovies (hold the cheese) for them. But I don't think we are in their delivery area and Dominoes doesn't let you order online. And how do we pay the delivery guy?

p.s. Don't tell the folks I was posting!

Daily Stench

Someone with four paws sprayed the wall next to the hallway litterbox. No suspects have been named, although CSI is trying to determine if the same someone left the lake in the closet earlier this week.

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Farewell my Feathered Friend

Billy killed the feather teaser this morning.

The feathers themselves have been sickly the past couple of days, but that's not the part Billy did in. Rather, he and I got into one of our many tug of wars with the teaser, and the cap holding the string to the rod popped off.

The entire assembly has been given a proper burial, much to the mighty hunter's unhappiness -- he wasn't done hunting it, and later was heard meowing as he looked for it.

(We'll buy a new teaser this weekend.)

Yet another comments change

Due to the problems with comment spam, we now require commenters to register with TypeKey before commenting. We would have required this before, but until a recent software upgrade we couldn't get the [expletive] authentication to work.

At least this change does allow us to drop the dummy password prompt for read access to existing comments and the like. This makes reading our little blog via RSS much easier.

Monday, November 22, 2004

Stomp, stomp, stomp on little cat feet

All three cats were curious about the chicken Katherine cooked for dinner. This led Emily to actually visit the dining room and kitchen with the boys actively prancing about.

Emily does not share space well.

At one point she walked around the border of the dining room, shoulders down, as near as I could tell trying to stomp. Of course, seven pounds of cat doesn't make much of a stomp on a 115 year old hardwood floor, but she tried.

Sunday, November 21, 2004

Weekend Stench

Someone left a lake in the door of the bedroom closet which holds the litterbox. Odd. Does that box need cleaning as well?

Valet Service

The hall litterbox is fully cleaned and refreshed, by Katherine.

Meanwhile, I used the bath tub to clean various retired litterbox lids, spare litterboxes, and an empty litter pail. We had left it all outside until we could hose them down, but the weather turned cooler, then leaves fell, then it snowed, then the snow melted, then we got sick ... the stuff had been out there three months by now.

Oh yeah, the tub itself got a free plunging.

Busy useful humans.

Officemate

As I noted last week, I had an officemate while I was home sick.

Whitey-Nap-2004-11.jpg

Saturday, November 20, 2004

Justice Under the Covers

Whitey was under the blankets working on a pounce again this morning when suddenly the world opened up just enough for the Mist Of Doom descended upon him.

In other words, I lifted up the head end of the blanket and shot him.

I bet he didn't know the Mist could do that.

Thursday, November 18, 2004

My Precious

I got more feathers for the cat teaser. Billy is as dedicated with the new ones as the original. It takes longer to get it away from him every time he catches it, he must be getting better at pinning it.

I actually may have teased him a little too long this evening, we try to pace him, but he was panting quite a bit by the time "the bird" went away.

At least he does let Whitey chase it too.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Rules are for humans

As previously noted, Whitey likes to burrow under blankets. Usually this is cute. It's not so cute when you're half awake, move your feet away from a warm kitten lump, and feel needle-like claws raking your ankle as he pounces. Owww!

Pouncing is against the rules, of course, but Whitey has a history of considering rules as merely guidelines. This morning I heard a sad and lonely meow coming from downstairs. "Won't someone please play with me?" I went down to investigate and found Whitey sitting on the dining room table, which is also against the rules. I think he was actually saying, "Won't someone help me climb on the chandelier?"

Meanwhile, the "breakfast at 8:00" rule is strictly enforced.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Feline Friends

We haven't been posting much because we have both been sick with 10 day colds from hell. The cats, while computer litterate, consider actual typing to be a clerk's job. (They may have something there.)

At the same time, the cats do have priorities, like actively being family.

It seems every time I take a nap to fight the cold, a tiger cat or even two appears to keep me company, trying to nestle of up to my legs in a mixed species creature pile. Because I am a restless sleeper this doesn't work, but the boys are accommodating of my human limitations, moving out of the way but still sticking close.

When the bedroom door has been shut for noise control, Billy even mews and scratches at it to be let in so he can look after me. (Katherine now has instructions to prop the door open for him.)

As I type this in my office, I can see my roll-away printer stand (sans printer) which mostly acquires junk. One item on it today is a semi-wadded up sweatshirt, and that sweatshirt has now acquired a napping Whitey. And that's not junk at all.

The Mighty Hunter

Billy, the master of the chow line, has found something more important than food.


Someone online mentioned of a
Feather Cat Teaser
as the one true cat toy for his cat, and so when we were getting kitty litter I picked one up. Net result:



Emily

Is interested in it, a little scared of it at times. At her age, she tires easily, which may be a factor.

Whitey

Spider-cat acrobatics in full glory as he leaps up and after it. He thinks it's darn near as good as a kitty treat (see below).

Billy

12 pounds of Sabertooth tiger; this isn't pleasure, it's business. He makes Whitey seem disinterested, and when Billy latches on to the feather, it takes 30 seconds to a minute of working the line just get it loose again. And he will growl defending it.


Billy is so focused on the feather that even literally dropping cat treats in front of his nose doesn't make him let go of it. (Whitey will dispose of the treat for him, if needed.) When we put the feather away, Billy lies quietly on sentry duty looking at the place he thinks it roosted, waiting for it to take flight again.


And we do put it away, because Billy would chase it until he collapsed.


Nice to know Billy is on our side.

Tuesday, November 9, 2004

The Daily Mess

Knowing there are those hang on every purr of the cats ...

Emily threw up today for no appearent reason.

Saturday, November 6, 2004

Go, go Catzilla!

This is mostly posted because I named a big fast computer I test on at work after Catzilla, and I need an accessible picture for its web server.

Billy-Catzilla-Chair-2004-09.jpg

Penthouse Rumble

Sometimes the boys play nice. Sometimes it gets a little purrsonal, like the left hook Whitey delivered to his brother.

(Pardon the focus and quality, shooting action shots with flash is not our forte).

Cat-Fu-2004-08-09-a.jpg     Cat-Fu-2004-08-09-b.jpg

Friday, November 5, 2004

Back by popular demand

Eek! We've got an actual audience, hanging on our every post! (See comment to previous entry.)

We've actually spent most of the last week dealing with human concerns: baseball, elections, and the lack of productivity inspired by both. The feline contingent has been pretty well-behaved through all this. After all, awake humans are more willing to play than sleeping humans.

Today, both boys reminded me that the distinction between human furniture and cat furniture is purely artificial. Billy decided to hop up on the dining room table to help me put together a grocery list. He was very annoyed that he not only didn't persuade me to buy more kitty treats, but also got smited by the Mist of Doom for being where he didn't belong. Not to be outdone, Whitey decided that the bunch of bananas I brought back from the store was too heavy for me, and decided to help me put them on the banana hook. Tsk tsk tsk.