Cat Tales -Post yours
 

Problem:

Two cats. The 9 year old male nibbles a little amount all day long. The other female cat is about 4 years old. She eats like a horse. She will eat until there is nothing left. She eats three times what he does. I try rationing. I tried separating them. She just keeps getting fatter.

skysidhe - I have no advice for you.

This is our cat Tony
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c1...y/IMG_1431.jpg

I think he must be related to ours (picture's off a phone so quality not so good...):

.

we have a similar problem, skyhi.....

have 5 cats, 3 like little and often, 1 likes 2 good square meals a day....

we call the other one 'hoover'.....

It's ok seakdivers. I was really just creating diversions more than anything. :)
great picture cyclefrance!

JayMcGee, I think I'll call her 'little hoover' haha

These are pictures of the big male. Maincoon. The first picture is an artistic rendering.

mmmmm..... you're lucky I' m on the bedroom laptop .... my main PC has zillions of cat-pics ready to flood the board with.....

Here we all are.
Adults.
Posting about our cats.

OOooooh god nooooo!!! I've become my worst nightmare!!

* chuckling*

hehehehe, we can talk about cooking or gardening too. I've already made peace with those kind of things. :P


@ Jay, I wish I was unlucky then :)

awfull, ain't it Sealdiver..... we become our parents....... pass me ma slippers, ma.....

You guys are sure good for a chuckle :)


I'm saving my hollering when I start saving empty margarine containers or started wearing one of those rain bonnets that look like plastic vegtable bags.;)

It must be in the genetic makeup of Maine Coon males to turn into hoovers if you keep them indoors. Here's a recent one of our Coons, Rocky Raccoon (a.k.a. The Rock) has been gaining a pound about every 6 months.

beautiful cats

I've always been interested in Maine Coons. Do either of yours swim?

I was never a cat person until my roommate moved in with her cat, Kitty. That cat literally makes me laugh EVERYDAY. Now when my roommate and I separate, I will probably have to get my own cat. Better be as funny as Kitty!

I havn't had to test whether they swim? I am assumming it is something they can genitically do if needed? * shrug *

Just one is a main coon. He has an interesting story. He came to us as a feral kitten. He and his siblings were captured but the mom got away. The lady brought a bunch of these kittens to the vet and plunked down some money. She told the vet to distroy them! and walked away. Of couse he didn't and we got a very beautiful guy. :)


Maybe a google search can tell you more about maincoons? I don't know really, just that they are wonderful and beautiful.

Great Pictures...

Here's a cat that swallowed Viagra.

For a short time last year we had the kittens from hell - Milly and Molly. They arrived as a result of my younger son wanting a (I repeat 'a') kitten and Mrs CF deciding to become involved. Consequence? She found him two (not the specified 'one', but two) adorable looking girl kittens.

Leaving aside the fact that the Saturday concerned my wife dedicated to picking up the kittens, buying baskets, toys, food and other paraphernalia, and transporting said kittens to my sons apartment in central London, this turned out to be the mistake of the decade.

No sooner had my wife returned home from my son's place after another gruelling 2 hours in the car than my son phoned to say that he hadn't stopped sneezing since their arrival and concluded that he was allergic to them. Could we please come and collect them, as at that moment he had them shut in the bathroom being the most distant location he could find to separate himself from them. Even so, he was still sneezing.

We prepared to undertake the journey again to retrieve the kittens, and the phone went again. My son. His flat-mate, Dan, had let the kittens out and one of them, Milly, had explored the spiral staircase that leads down some 15 feet or so to their cellar kitchen (the flat was a conversion of an old pub). Milly had lost her balance and fallen into the kitchen from the top of the stairway. How was she? Dazed and a bit quiet....

That sets the scene for the life we had with the kittens which we decided to home ourselves (much to the annoyance of Calvin - the cat in the picture earlier and to Oscar, our tollerant dog, whose lives turned to turmoil as the kittens jumped on them, over them, ate their food and generally poked their combined noses into anything the other two tried to do).

We eventually found them a home elsewhere. It's not like us, but we had to. I posted the story below as an example of just one typical day in our lives in their company - think it warrants a second airing in this thread - it was a Tuesday, I think...:

++

Phone call from wife at 11.15 am. 'I don't know what to do, something really terrible's happened!' Imagine wife standing next to charred remains of house.
'What????'

'One of the kittens has managed to get on top of the tall kitchen unit for the first time...' (this is terrible news???) '....and fallen down the space at the back - she's stuck behind the oven - I've tried to reach her but I can't get my arm down there it's too narrow. You'll have to come home!!' (This IS terrible news!)

Somewhat relieved that the vision of charred property remains is vanishing rapidly, I unawarely say 'yes, OK'. Then realise I've cycled to work that morning (45 minutes). Don't fancy the prospect of cycling back as temperature has now climbed up to high 80's. Secretary offers to loan me her car (thankfully - and earns big brownie points), so off I go. Twenty minutes later, I'm climbing a step-ladder to assess gap at back of unit - Jesus, it's all of two inches wide.

A pair of yellow eyes greet me, and a miaowing that is certainly saying 'for f***s sake get me out of here!' Go down ladder, and inspect front of oven - no sign of any screws. Gently prise at trim with end of screwdriver accompanied by brief argument with wife who figures I'm about to ruin it for life. Maintain confident smile while still prising, and trim comes away suddenly, so suddenly that confidence almost wanes (could hear wife about to say 'told you so') but then I see there are four screws.

Screws removed. Securing additional trim removed. Can see cooker is raised and resting on two bits of wood (that's pofessional installation for you!) - two yellow eyes now looking under cooker, but they don't look any the happier. Pull at cooker - doesn't move. Notice years of grime around feet (cooker's feet, not mine). Pull again, only much harder and it comes forward all of a sudden, and, guess what, it's really heavy. Manage to grab on to it and just about take the weight. Helpful comment from wife: 'be careful there's wiring attached at the back!' Understanding reply from me, of course (given I'm balancing half a ton of cooker against my chest) and wife goes off in huff - but comes back when realises kitten is now accessible.

Kitten is freed!! Cooker is heavy, correction, heavier! And I've now got to get it back up on to those two bits of wood. First try, zero result. Second try, ditto. Notice arms are beginning to feel weak. Wife notices grimace on face (or was it a look of despair) and also adds an arm to the job in hand, acquiring deep gash in thumb as a result. One last effort and.... no?? ....well..., actually..., YES! Cooker heaved back in place.

Job done I feel: 'Can I leave the rest to you, dear as I need to get back...' 'Can't you spare a minute???' Decide I had better and so set to replacing trim and finding bit of wood to cover gap at back of top of unit. All done (even wife agrees). Check watch. Only taken twenty minutes, feels like an hour, Back to work then. Interesting things, pets....

++

It was like a cloud had lifted when they left, and I'm sure the temperature rose significantly - you know, as it normally does when something from the dark side departs. They have a nice home (well it was nice when we dropped them off - new owners are/were friends of my older son) - we left just as Milly discovered the top of their kitchen cabinets....

Photo of the demonic pair below:


.

The only breed of cat who regularly swims is the Turkish Van. I have several friends in Turkey who assure me it is absolutely true, they are known to hunt ducks and fish while swimming in the reedy shallows of the lake which give them their name.

The Rock and Sascha do not swim that we know of. Maybe they would but there is no place where they would get the chance since they live with the momster. But T'Pau, Queen of the Universe, is another story. She will try to climb into anything with more than a cup of water in it, and her habit of furiously digging in her water bowl and only drinking water from the top of her paw nearly destroyed my kitchen floor before I moved her bowl into the bath tub. I did not know this was a Maine Coon trait until I read the cover story on them in Cat Fancy a few months ago. I always assumed she was a Norwegian, but now I know. I lie there at night, listening to her romping in the water bowl and playing in the tub. There are paw prints from the water all over the wooden floors of my house.

Years ago we used to have a cat called "Puss" thats what the kids called her so the name stuck.
She was the usual nosey cat that liked to look into bags that were brought into the house by us and visitors,plastic carrier bags,sholder bags any type of bag on the floor.
One night at about 2 ish I heard the most loud banging,thumping hissing and spitting growling noise I had ever heard and got such a fright I had to get up and check.
I went into the hallway,nothing front door shut went into the kids room they were sleeping thought I must have been dreaming when all of a sudden this white plastic bag comes rolling and spitting towards me,it was Puss who had got herself stuck in the bag with the handle caught around her neck and had turned the bag inside out and was stuck inside.
it was the funniest thing i had seen in years and Puss was not amused as I ripped the bag open to get her out she was soaking wet it spit and very pissed off and as soon as I had freed her she sunk her teeth into my arm as way of thanks..she is greatly missed as one mad bugger of a cat..

http://www.shannonwoodward.com/cat%20tails.jpg

http://www.twbexposed.com/images/can...-2941-Cn-w.jpg

I like those cattails

It's really obvious how Kliban's Cat is a Maine Coon. Compare this drawing with my photo of The Rock :D

Cats are supposed to be fat :)... We have an 8 year old skinny cat and a 3 year old cat that WAS skinny till I came along and now shes fat because I leave dry food out all day for them :).

This is Simon and Luna. Simon alone in last pic, and Luna(tic) chillin in the middle. And yes, for some reason she likes hanging out with her arms dangling.
http://static.flickr.com/53/132994299_555ea7de6d.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/31/132988230_2be5d52a4f.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/45/132988227_a1e5868d0e.jpg

That cracks me up. Cats are so weird. I need to set up a video camera to catch what my cat, Mama, does EVERY night. We keep our bedroom door shut because she likes to tap-dance on my face or attack my feet while I'm sleeping. As soon as the door closes, she drags her Kermit the Frog (stuffed animal – we call him Kermie), which is as long as her, to our door. She holds the top part of his open mouth in hers and makes the most god-awful sound. It's sort of a sad, meow/cry, with a mouth full of Kermie. Sometimes she stands on his body and kneads it with her front feet. Every once in a while she does this while we're still up. It's the funniest thing. But as soon as we make eye contact she stops. Freak.

She used to make this same sound when she had babies. She'd carry them around and meow with them in her mouth. I think she misses Duffy :( He was the one baby we kept but he had to be put down in October. Now he's in a little cedar box on a shelf :D

Oh Christ!! It's Cat People!!

Run Awayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

chainsaw: I know what you mean..I think thats why I like cats...they have quirks..

Luna, the one that likes to let her arms dangle, has many quirks. She was declawed before she became our cat, but she seems to think she needs to sharpen her non existant claws...she scratches the scratching post more than simon...and she loves to dig... all of which she stops immidiately if we look at her... The awesome thing that I cant catch on video is taht she has learned to navigate the kitty city without claws...she kinda wedges herself between the posts and the walls and uses her back feet to scootch up... its great...

Before I moved in with them the BF only gave them food once a day...and when they got hungry they would beow non stop... I have it on video on an old HD... I have to find it and youtube it...its hilarious.

That's suckling/nursing behavior. One of our cats does this, two. We have a cat wet-nurse come in once in a while ;)

Damn, I can only hope the stray I'm feeding gets fat like that.

That is one of the cutest things ever :D

Tigers. ;)

Have 3 cats. The oldest is a huge, orange, long-haired fatty named Frank. He eats non-stop. He shoves the other 2 out of the way and eats furiously, panicky, like it is the last meal of his life, about 8 times a day. But I love to watch him play. He plays with so much enthusiasm, even though he's getting to be almost 9 years old. He will take the little mouse with synthetic fur and literally toss it across the room with his front paws. He stands up on hind legs and just pitches it, then runs after it and tackles it, looking around like a mad man back and forth, trying to protect his prize. The wierdest thing he does is drool, a lot, like strings of drool while he sits in front of the TV. He loves Law & Order.

Simon, our middle child, is a claustrophobic black and brown tabby. He is the thickest, most densely muscled cat I've ever known, and although not very large, weighs roughly 23 lbs. If you try to pick him up, pet him with 2 hands, or wave anything in front of his face, his eyes get wide and frightened and he retreats into the kitty condo, not to show his face until we go to sleep. He always has to turn around a couple times before finally choosing the proper spot and position to lay down. He's so self-conscience, too, more so than any cat I've ever had. Once he fell off the top of the fridge onto the counter and rolled off onto the rug and was so embarrased he hid for like a whole day and a half.

The one that gives us the most trouble is our youngest, Buzz. He has an obsession with chicken wings, and so when my husband has them, he has to take the bones out to the curb the minute he finishes. We've tried wrapping them in plastic wrap, then aluminum foil, then putting them in a zip-lock and inside a cereal box, then in the trash can with something heavy on top of it, like a ceramic jug or case of soda, something like that. In the morning, there are still chicken bones all over the kitchen floor. Buzz will play fetch for hours at a time, happily bringing his "be-Bop" back to you over and over, even if you keep throwing it to the EXACT same place 100 times, he can't get enough. He was the runt of his litter, and is fully grown but still looks like a kitten, and so we constantly regard him a child. He loves to be tortured- my husband will slap him around playfully, like punching him in the ribs, and Buzz runs away like 2 feet and comes back immediately, laying down and surrendering himself on the floor, whining until Jon does it again.

We are a young couple; don't have kids yet and so the kitties are our entertainment and we love them. Such distinct personalities... anyone ever read "The Fur Person?" Best cat book ever read. Very good. :D

Here is a picture of oatie man. He was eaten by a fox or a coyote several years back. He was very sweet.

aww :sniff: , I am sorry footie. damn.Oatie is beautiful. I just want to pick him up and love him. Who is the other one?


This is Wayne. Is is a sweet teddy bear. I have been appreciating him alot this week after seeing two run over cats whose owners probably won't know what happened to them.

[edit- I forgot I already posted him]

This is both our cats at the window.

How do you know? Are you the fox or coyote?

Yumm!

Don't know, just a guess, there was a lot of coyote activity where we lived, and fox sightings weren't uncommon.

Maggie, Thanks for the link ! I was intrigued! but wierded out at the same time.


http://www.animalliberationfront.com.../DogKitten.jpg

I agree...it's as wierd as the snake's suspenders; partly due to the Uncanny Valley effect.

In "zombie" films, human bodies are horribly dismembered with no accompanying emotional response.

From whom?

wow , I didn't now people actually documented that wierded out feeling from the uncanny valley effect. So fitting a name too.

thanks, I learned something today.

one of my hobbies is cat-arranging.......

That is pretty cool jay. Nice trick to get those cats to cooperate.

http://www.xmission.com/%7Eemailbox/.../contented.jpg

Food gets their attention. ;)

I first learned the term in a job interview. Sometimes I love being in this business.

Here are my pride and joys. :D

The blonde one is Munchie (my sister named her that because she likes to chew on jewelry) and the black one is Zeus.

What the!!!!
 

http://www.wildfreshness.com/brian/a...s/adeadcat.jpg

I was gonna pet this cat I saw across the street from where I live, but when I got close, I saw that IT WAS DEAD! It smelled bad, too. YUCK!

This is Schumacher after a snooze...he's very good at sleeping :D

My cat story isn't very much fun. Little Anu is, in fact, so little that he is easily overlooked while going about the normal doings in our house. This morning, my wife called me to say that she had accidentally shut him in the back door while letting our dog in. Poor little guy had the pad of one of his feet torn off, necessitating a visit to the vet for cleaning and debriding, bandaging and an antibiotic shot.

It is easier to hurt this poor little guy than you might think. He is totally imprinted on us, his humans, and he is usually wherever we are, whether that be walking down the hall, moving around in our rolling office chairs, etc. I myself shut him in the trash closet door the other day - this, after actually checking to be sure he *wasn't* in there.

I hope we don't kill him before he gets big enough to be more noticeable.

@ pan,
stop poisoning the cats, ( just kidding, you wouldn't do that , nah)


@ elspode
You won't kill him. He'll be ok. Just don't let him around pan.

Poisonings
 

No, I don't poison cats.

I do poison religious zealots, homophobes, HumV drivers, and an occasional FOX NEWS pundit. I use a relatively weak strain of salmonella enteritidis in spray form. I can spray it on their car door handles or (if I get lucky, something they're eating. They get violently ill but rarely die. I'm not a killer.

Yet your sig line flies in the face of your statement of innocence. :)

Killer of Concepts
 

Dammit, El Spodinho, you're are correct. I better change that tag line.

What that really means is that I envision myself as someone who has killed "the concept" of God in his own mind. I sucessfully murdered that concept in 2nd grade, and had to suffer CCD classes beyond then. Boy, did my teachers get mad: "You honestly believe that this Jesus character actually rose from the dead?" "Why would I want to live forever in some place called heaven?" "Can't I at least have the chance to say 'No, thank you'?" They actually called my mother to say I was causing trouble.

That said, I don't think I can kill that God concept on a global level, at least not right away. Gotta take baby steps, ya know.

So much profundity in a thread about cats.

Hang In There, Baby!

I agree...especially since there will apparently be no one there except Christians. And you know what judgemental pricks some of them can be!

http://voyager.dvc.edu/~jsinsel/imag...0in%20hell.jpg

Hellacious Music
 

I would hand out an iPod loaded with nothing but Kenny G and John Tesh. You would be required to play it 24/7. Now THAT would be hell.

Birdie Num Num
 

From today's NYT:

L.I. Keeper of Birds Is Accused of Going After Neighbors' Cats

By JULIA C. MEAD
Published: June 14, 2006
RIVERHEAD, N.Y., June 13 — In December 1998, two cats belonging to a family in Bay Shore on Long Island vanished. Then, in April, the family's purebred Russian blue disappeared. Other residents of the same street in Bay Shore, Hyman Avenue, also complained that their cats were missing.

Kirk Condyles for The New York Times
Regina Fagone of Bay Shore, N.Y., with Cole, her Russian blue.
Now a neighbor, Richard DeSantis, 56, faces charges that he lured the Russian blue, named Cole, into his backyard on the night of April 2 with a baited trap. Neighbors wonder whether Mr. DeSantis was responsible for the disappearance of other cats, but they declined to speak for the record.

Jesse Fagone, who reported Mr. DeSantis to the police, had plenty to say, however. "Look up and down our street and we're the only family left on the block with cats," said Mr. Fagone, who lives next door to Mr. DeSantis and owned the Russian blue and two other cats that vanished. He still has two cats and two dogs.

Mr. DeSantis faces felony charges of criminal mischief and falsifying records; misdemeanor charges of possessing stolen property and making a false statement; and a minor offense, cruelty to animals.

He pleaded not guilty at arraignment on Monday morning and was released without bail. A woman who answered his phone referred calls to his lawyer, Eric W. Naiburg.

Mr. Naiburg acknowledged that Mr. DeSantis took a cat to the animal shelter in April to be put to death, but said it was a feral cat with no collar or tags.

"He had no idea it was his neighbor's cat," Mr. Naiburg said, adding that Mr. DeSantis, who is retired, is a wildlife rehabilitator who nurses injured animals back to health. The cat was stalking birds that Mr. DeSantis kept in his backyard and even tried to climb their cages, Mr. Naiburg said. He said that state law permits a licensed hunter like his client to trap any cat threatening a protected bird. "Some people believe they have absolutely no responsibility to their own pets," he said. "My client did nothing wrong."

http://www.wildfreshness.com/brian/archives/cats190.jpg

Mr. Fagone said he turned in Mr. DeSantis after he and his wife, Regina, did their own investigating. Two other family cats — Corky and Grady — had disappeared in 1998. He said he later heard that someone had taken two cats fitting their descriptions to the town shelter to be put to death.

"We thought it was an accident," Mrs. Fagone said.

But after Cole, the Russian blue, slipped out of the house one Sunday evening in April, Mrs. Fagone went to the animal shelter after two fruitless days of searching. She asked to see the form that the shelter requires people to sign when they bring in animals to be put to death.

Mr. DeSantis had signed the form, she said. Her cat was already dead.

He also signed another form on March 21 authorizing the shelter to put to death a black and white cat he took to the shelter, according to Islip Town records.

Mrs. Fagone claimed that Mr. DeSantis had taken three other cats to the shelter, including Corky and Grady, in recent years, but those documents are in storage and were unavailable for review on Monday, said a spokeswoman for Islip Town, Michelle Remsen.

Mr. Fagone said he remains puzzled. "I just can't stop asking myself, if he found a cat and knew his next-door neighbor has cats, why wouldn't he just ask if it was ours?"

Why are they letting their cats roam loose? I'm with the bird guy.