Catscapades

Before leaving for our four-day trip to celebrate Dennis’s mother’s 98^th birthday last week, I picked up all of Lily’s animal toys. She scatters them around the house, you see—mostly in the hallway leading to my office and also to my bedroom. Sometimes she’ll drop one in the kitchen for us to stumble over. But I scooped them all up and put them away. When we returned home, not a stuffed owl, otter, or kitty-cat was in sight. They remained tucked away in the toy box.

Within minutes of us being home, however, Lily went to work dragging out a tiny bear, then a baby possum, lion, eagle, lamb and hedgehog and depositing them each at my office door as I caught up on a few things.

This tells me that she does this for me. What I still don’t know is whether she’s showing off her hunting skills, bringing gifts to please me, or maybe she’s marking her territory. There’s some speculation that female cats will carry things around in their mouth because they’re frustrated mothers—never had a chance to become a mother and they have some latent motherly desires. This cat will also put all of her “kittens” in the same general area—gathered together to keep them safe.

But most experts seem to consider this more of a hunting behavior, especially when the cat loudly announces her arrival with her “catch.” However, she’s obviously not hunting for herself. It’s for me–either to teach me or to show off her hunting skills.

This is the first cat I’ve had who did this, so it’s been kind of interesting to watch. Our house certainly has a unique décor with Lily on the job. But I learned over time that if I want the house to stay tidy, all I have to do is leave because Lily’s toys stay in the basket when we’re gone.

Is there anything more mesmerizing than a cat’s eyes? A close second in an expressive eyes contest would be those of an owl. In fact I think owls, especially great horned owls, are cat-like in the way they stare at you. If you’ve ever had the opportunity to spend time viewing a great horned owl, you’ll probably notice the aloof, who cares look in his big round eyes.

People—generally non-cat people—sometimes say that cats have no personality. Well, cats use body language and they also have expressions. If you spend time with one of more cats—really pay attention to them—tune into them—you know what most cat people know, that there is quite an interesting, even profound and expressive cat living inside that gorgeous fur coat.

I’m still having fun photographing birds, but also some of the cats I see hanging around our neighborhood and my walking route. Notice how they choose just the right background and the right pose. Cats are clever that way. However, if they know you have a camera, sometimes they seem to mutter “abort—abort,” and they turn away or dart, leaving you (the photographer) with a blur of fur on your screen. You have to be fast to catch the shot you want.

I’m notorious for thinking too long before picking up the camera. It happened again this week. We were visiting family and the two household dogs were waiting for their dinner on the “waiting rug.” They’re trained to stay there until the command is spoken. Well, I see these two waiting with extreme anticipation. Every muscle in their little bodies were tense. Sandy and Lacey were poised to bolt toward their food dishes at the first spoken syllable. “What a neat shot,” I told myself. But by the time I had my phone camera ready to shoot, the command was spoken and the dogs were off like a shot, leaving me without one (a shot, that is), unless I wanted to take a picture of wagging tails.

Sometimes you get more from a photo than you expect, like the time I was photographing a pretty white Samoyed and his friend photo-bombed him. Clever dog.

Speaking of surprises in your animal photos, once a bird I was photographing decided to drop his own “bomb” as he flew off. Yup, I got the shot.

I’ve been scolded for photographing cats in someone’s yard. Ooops. I try to get permission before photographing toward a house, but when the cat is in a window and the blinds are pulled, I will take a couple of shots. And if the cat is in the yard, but nowhere near a window and there are no residents in the frame, I figure it’s fair game. I especially like photographing cats in trees, on fences, or lolling in a garden. There’s just something charming about cats in the out-or-doors.

It seems to me that bonding with a cat is kind of a science and it appears that the bonding process is different from cat to cat. You read a lot here about Lily. She and I bonded strongly together when she was a wee kitten. She was hurt really badly when a cat tree fell on her and I spent many hours over several days next to her—even throughout the night—during her healing process. She came to trust and (I believe) love me. For most of her kittenhood, she was my constant companion. She was where I was. If I was sitting at the computer, she was either sleeping on my feet or in my lap. I was almost always within eye-shot of Lily. We had definitely bonded.

As she grew older, she’s still my girl, but now a serious bonding agent between us seems to be food. She’s an absolute glutton. She gets three meals a day and she becomes Velcro against my ankles just about any time I’m in the kitchen fixing her food, my food, a snack, cooking dinner—whatever. Most of the time when I’m moving fast in the kitchen or dealing with heavy pots and hot things coming out of the oven, I can convince her to lay down out of the way where she can still watch me. I joke that I need a kitty pack to carry her around in while I’m puttering in the kitchen.

Typically an hour before the cats’ mealtime, Lily starts begging. She hangs out wherever I am and stares and paws at me. If I get up to go somewhere else, she follows me—keeping a very close eye on my every move.

I said that Lily gets three meals a day. Well, she also gets a dried chicken treat twice a day (which was okayed by her kidney doctor), and she has somehow (ah-hem) decided that she needs to help me with my meals. No matter what I’m eating, she will take a bite if given the chance. What I’m getting at here is that Lily and I have now bonded over food. (Or is she just using me?)

What are some of the other things we can share in common with our cats—bonding elements? Play time is one. When we establish a little tradition or ritual with a cat, they begin to respond to you whenever you bring out the feather wand, squishy ball, or whatever. Lily and I have games we play with wads of paper and with the tip of a plastic straw. (I use a straw in my coffee, so cut the end off so it’ll fit in a cup.) Lily hears me get a straw out of the holder and races into my office for fun and games. I snip it with the scissors and, when the tip flies over her head, she scrambles to catch it or she begins batting it around the room. Cuteness.

Dennis has bonded with Sophie over grass and combing. She loves to be groomed, but pretty much only when he does it. And she adores chewing on grass—so much so that we’ve had to cut her back on her habit. Anytime he steps outside in the late afternoon, she begins caterwauling and dancing around the room in anticipation of a piece of grass from the yard. Actually we no longer have a lawn, so her grass is actually a stray weed tendril Dennis might find growing under a shrub. Doesn’t matter to Sophie. She loves her grass.

Lily gets itchy sometimes right before dinner—it’s like a nerve thing. She comes to me and lays flat in front of me so I can use her rubber brush to sooth her discomfort.

These are some of the things that seem to bond us with our cats. How about you? What special moments or experiences do you share with your cats?

I’ve only raised one set of sibling cats over the years and what a lovely experience. Sibling cats raised together can be wonderful companions. While most I’ve known bond nicely with each other, they still have their own personalities and the beautiful capability to bond with their human.

I love the way siblings will snuggle together when napping. When they play, they’re generally evenly matched and no one gets hurt. They’re at the same stage at the same time, so you don’t have a grumpy older cat growing more and more annoyed at the young whippersnapper.

In some cases, an older, settled cat will readily accept a kitten into the household or an

Max and baby Lily

older stray, for example, and they will bond as if they’ve known each other forever. But most of the time the sweet moments between the two cats are few and far between. The older one won’t allow the newby to curl up with him, and he certainly has no time or desire to engage in the new cat’s brand of play—except maybe on rare occasions when no one’s looking.

Our older, grumpy guy, Max, was NOT a happy camper when Lily came to us as a kitten. He never hurt her, unless you consider his rude behavior hurtful. But there were times when I’d catch what I considered a sweet moment between the two of them and I captured a few of them with my camera.

While Max definitely rejected the kitten and everything about her, Sophie, who was five years old when we adopted Lily, was ready to have a friend. She welcomed Lily as a playmate from day one, but they didn’t snuggle or cuddle. The bond between the two formerly feral cats didn’t seem all that strong—it didn’t appear that they were developing much of a friendship. However, when Lily was injured, Sophie reacted as if she was in mourning. It was as if Sophie knew that Lily was seriously hurting and she became almost grief-stricken in her behavior.

Fast-forward nine years. Max is gone and Sophie and Lily behave, not so much like bonded sisters, but old friends who’ve developed a deep caring for each other. They live their own lives apart from each other except when one of them wants to play—then they come together with gusto and glee.

I sometimes talk about and feature office, warehouse, library, and shop cats in this blog. Today I want to focus on community cats—often considered feral, stray, or abandoned. But first, I’d like to introduce you to a giant beauty named Bone-Bone. Have you seen this cat on the Internet? He’s popular on Instagram. He lives in Thailand and evidently everyone who meets him wants their picture taken with him. He’s gorgeous—probably at least part Persian—and he’s very large.

I tried, but was unable to locate information about his weight, but you can see from some of the pictures that he’s no light-weight.

https://whatzviral.com/bone-bone-the-adorable-fluffy-cat-from-thailand/

While Bone-Bone has a home—he’s out in the public only under supervision—there are millions of cats throughout the world known as community cats. Some of us enjoy seeing a stray or a neighbor’s cat wander through the yard, stop to curl up in our birdbath or under the patio umbrella, but others consider free-roaming cats a nuisance. Here’s a link to some good information and ideas for those abandoned cats in your community. No matter which side of the cat-fence you’re on, you’ll probably gain something of value from this article. https://resources.bestfriends.org/article/resolving-conflicts-over-community-cats