Catzilla-in-Training Indeed

As has been previously noted on these pages, we play with the boys regularly in the evening, especially having Billy chase wanded toys up cat towers. Oscar and Whitey will join in, but both pretty much stay on the floor or the bed, and don't focus on the prey nearly as well.

But last night, while I'm flicking a feather up a cat tower, who should appear but ... Oscar. And not just awkward clamber up the tree, but a bound from floor to crow's nest so fast I thought it was Billy. And he was focused enough to chomp down the the cat toy and try to take it with him. He succeeded taking the prey down to the floor at least a couple of times, just like a big boy.

Repeatedly.

Someone has clearly been studying how Billy hunts (and likes feathers in the manner that Billy prefers pom-pom prey.)

We need to encourage this.

How Cats Drink

From the New York Times...

It has taken four highly qualified engineers and a bunch of integral equations to figure it out, but we now know how cats drink. The answer is: very elegantly, and not at all the way you might suppose.

Almost The Next Best Thing

Whitey was back on his pillow this morning, but after the mid-afternoon kitty treat break, Oscar took a shift. This made Whitey sad when he hopped up on my desk and saw his pillow in use.

However, we made him happy. I cleared off the other end of the desk, and Katherine fetched the mate to the desk pillow from where it normally lives in the library as a window pillow. Now, at both of the extreme left and right edges of my desk, I have a relaxing serene cat each on his own pillow.

And to round it all out, Billy is on the Black Kitty Warmer behind me.

What was Old is New Again

The blue office chair that Whitey prefers for his office naps has been loaned out to help with a temporary housing issue.

Whitey will survive. In fact, as Uber Napper (AKA chief bum), he has exercised his rights and reclaimed the desk pillow that Oscar also takes shifts on.

Looking to my left, this morning's shift is ALL Whitey's. Sleep well, oh Uber Napper.

Laundry Day

Once again, Billy inspected the laundry as it come out of the dryer. Only he got bored, jumped up on the dryer ... and fell off the back of it.

Being the brother of the Spider-cat, he recovered, not that he didn't look panicked doing it.

He did settle down and invoke his right for a ride upstairs in the laundry basket.

Good kitty!

A quick pointer to Christopher, a cat who watches over the feline patients of a clinic in Redwood CA

Cause and effect

Billy appears to have figured out how the dryer works. More precisely, he appears to have figured out the correlation between "dryer stopped running" and "warm fresh laundry available."

He was meowing mournfully downstairs this afternoon. Sometimes, that means he wants me to work in the living room so that he can curl up on the sofa with me. So I took a pad of paper and the article I was working on, and took them downstairs.

Nope, still sad. Inconsolable, even. Maybe there's a problem with the litter box? No, I checked and it was fine, but while I was in the laundry room -- where the litter box sits -- Billy pranced around in front of the dryer, Happy Tail held high. I'd run a load a little earlier that must have finished within the last 30 minutes or so.

So I unloaded the clothes into a basket. Billy climbed in, happily rode in the basket to the foot of the stairs, and promptly fell asleep. He was still there when I left, three hours later.

This is the cat who shoves objects off my office table when he wants to play, and who figured out how to disassemble a water fountain. I guess I shouldn't be surprised...