Photo Extra: Mouser Leads with his Nose

The newest development between the Mouser and the Catzilla brothers is not good; I think was Billy who put a bloody scratch on the nose of our gray overlord. Minor, really, but it doesn't show things improving between the boys and the new arrival.



It may be time to look for a new home for the Mouser. He will not go to a shelter. We'd keep the Mouser here under supervised quarantine first, and it has yet to be even near that state of affairs. But it is a quality of life issue for all concerned, human and feline.

Leaps Tall Railing in Single Bound

I screwed up. I threw a kitty treat from over the hall railing down to the landing when Billy was at the landing end of the hall.

He leaped up to the railing ... looked down ... measured the distance ... and dove head first seven feet straight down in pursuit of the treat.

Then again, he hit, snarfed the treat, and bounded back of up the stairs for another one, so his genetics (not mention four years of practice) are not for naught.

The Dawn Patrol: TGM Edition

The Gray Mouser has decided the preferred place to sleep at night is between Katherine and me. This provides snuggles and protection from the Catzilla Brothers.

Originally, he would come to be bed minutes after me or not at all. Now however, he sees to prefer joining us (or me, for this week) in the early morning, often about 4 AM.

This didn't work well this morning, because for reasons unknown to me Whitey was camped out half way between the bed and door. And this wasn't a napping kitten -- this a wide awake sitting up Quiet Hunter.

I know all this because the audio exchange was quite emphatic. No blows were exchanged, at least.

The Mouser ended up not joining me.

Photo Extra: Flight Safety

We generally never post bear pictures (this is not a bear blog), but this does serves as an announcement that the inmates will once again be running the place for the next five days while Katherine does her annual summer trip to San Francisco.

In any case, John Harvard Bear is packed for the trip in a four point harness as about secure as you can get if you're only eight inches high.



John Harvard Bear was bought for 1994 edition of this same trip. He's mostly retired now due to wear and tear, but he always insists going on the trip that he joined us for.

Photo Friday: Rubber Kitten at the Vet

From the Mouser's first visit to the Vet, we have him stoically hanging loose waiting for his lab results to come back. For a cat that just got poked and prodded, he's chilled right out. No escape attempts, and he had his usual supply of purrs for when pettted.



(That's not a depressed cat, it's a bored cat.)

The Wrath of Mouser

The Gray Mouser differs from the Catzilla brothers in one very important way: he's not much of a climber. He'll scramble up onto a sofa or bed if he's invited, but he doesn't jump and he certainly doesn't come close to Whitey's acrobatics.

Perhaps because he himself doesn't climb much, he doesn't seem to think in three dimensions. He'll let the boys get much closer vertically than horizontally. This two-dimensional thinking clearly manifested itself this afternoon.

The Mouser was lounging on the floor in the library, between the end table and the library cat tower. Whitey was sitting on the end table, more or less directly above the Mouser. He reached a paw carefully downward, but retreated when the Mouser glared at him. So he adjusted his position, judged the distance, and leaped from the end table to the top of the cat tower, a straight line distance of more than four feet. The Mouser didn't flinch, even when the tower rocked and rattled the window blinds.

I was especially impressed by Whitey's respect for the air rights over the Mouser. He could have cut the distance in half by jumping straight across, from the end table to a lower level of the tower, but that would have carried him through the Mouser's personal bubble. Instead he went for the much more difficult vertical leap. Clearly, our SpiderCat still has it.