We had an interesting experience with our kitties last week. Our two cats, Lily and Sophie, are indoor cats. They have been since we plucked them from precarious situations and brought them to live with us. While they love to spend time gazing out a window, they’ve never tried to escape. It seems they have no desire to return to the big wide world. And this fact was tested last week.
I came home from taking care of business and found our sliding glass door into the backyard standing wide open. (Dennis was home with the cats.) First thing I did was look for the kitties. There they were in the living room, just chilling. I questioned Dennis, who was oblivious to the breach—and I learned that my four-year-old twin great grands had visited with their mom. When littles are around and you have indoor cats, you constantly check doors, right? Well, Dennis evidently didn’t think of that and the door had been open
for at least half-hour, yet our kitty-babies were still inside. Whew!!!!
Now the question is, did they see the door open and choose to ignore it or did they actually take a jaunt around the yard while they had the opportunity. The cats are not telling.
I have had indoor kitties escape—it happened with my beautiful Himalayan, Katy, twice. In fact both times she actually spent the night outside and both times we’d just moved into a new place. The first time she pushed a 
screen out overnight and I’m pretty sure it was an accident. Once the screen gave way, she might have leaped out the window, but I think she fell. I found her crying at the front door when I got up the next morning. My poor baby!!!!
The second time she escaped during a move and went under the house. It was getting dark and we couldn’t get her to come out from under there, so we closed up the crawl hole and left her without food, thinking she’d come out in the morning, which she did. She was never as enamored by the out of doors again.
However, as Katy grew elderly—into her teens, she was much more settled and she dearly wanted to join me when I was in the garden. So I began giving her supervised outdoor time. All she wanted was to loll in a dirt patch feeling the sun on her fur. We buried her in that spot when she died at the age of 17. Miss you, Miss Katy, love.
Have you ever been photo-bombed? Maybe you’ve been a photo-bomber? A photo-bomb is when someone unexpectedly appears within the camera’s field of vision when a photo is being taken. Sometimes the photographer doesn’t even notice the photo-bomber until he reviews the results of his photo later—like the time a flying fish appeared in a picture I’d taken of a tugboat.
news casts when a cat suddenly appears or a cat that’s being video taped does something unexpected. Oh yes, they can be quite the little scene stealer. Why is this? Well, cats are attracted to activity, especially if they’re bored. And if a human is talking, a cat often thinks he’s talking to him.
terms. Unless I’m talking to a fellow cat-lover, I try to maintain a semblance of professionalism when I’m being interviewed and that doesn’t include hearing a cat in the background giving his two cents. It’s bad enough having a bored cat join you in your office and sit on the very document you’re using at the time.
Book 33 of the Klepto Cat Mystery series, The Secret Claws is selling like crazy; book 34 FURever Friends is in the final editing stages; and I’ve just about finished fleshing out the details of another intriguing story. I’m really excited about these last two. Look for Book 34 around the end of March and Book 35, perhaps in June.
contest. Congratulations to the lucky winner: Edith Brunner wins a FREE book of her choice either print (if sent to a US address) or Kindle. Thank you all for responding to my burning question—“What is your favorite book in the Klepto Cat Mystery series?” Some of you responded on Facebook and some emailed me directly. The most popular book, it seems, is Catnapped, the first in the series. Readers say that is because Catnapped got them involved in the series and it was the book that set the scene and the tone for all the others. Other faves are A Picture Purrfect Christmas (Book 13), Mansion of Meows, Cattywampus Travels. But most who responded listed “All of them.”
In the meantime, three colleagues and myself are preparing to present a panel discussion at the 25th annual Cat Writers Association (CWA) conference in St. Louis in May. Oh, and I’ve entered some of my books in the highly competitive CWA contest. The awards ceremony takes place at the conference and it’s quite an event—sparkle sparkle.
It has been said before that cats are little psychopaths. This theory is bantered around for a couple of reasons—because of the house cat’s seeming lack of compassion when she performs a sneak attack on one of the other family pets (or you), but also because believers claim cats have no facial expression. Say what? Yes! They say a cat can’t smile like a dog. Do you know how ridiculous a cat would look with her mouth wide open and her tongue hanging out panting breathlessly? “They” claim that a cat doesn’t show emotion in their little whiskered face—they don’t have the muscles needed to frown, scowl, grin, etc.
movement. Those of us who know cats can attest to the fact that a cat can be quite expressive. But the articles trying to label cats as psychopaths keep coming. Here’s a recent one from The Atlantic
If you find this hard to believe, check out this writer’s research results and opinions on the subject. She actually entertains the question as to whether your cat wants to kill you, would kill you and, if he kills you, would he eat you. Lovely. 
Oh yes, there are videos for your cat. You can play them while you’re gone to keep them company and out of trouble, or you can watch your cat watch the video. Really, these specially designed videos can be quite entertaining for your cat. There are videos showing fish swimming across the screen, those showing cats, of course, and there’s a new video out that teaches cats how to be more street smart.
The cats would meow, purr, hiss. You could pet the cats, feed them—I loved the slurpy sounds the cat made when she was sucking on a bottle. You could change your cat’s fur color, and involve her in a variety of activities. I loved playing with the kitties in that program and my cats enjoyed watching it. Often, one of them would run in to my office to find the meowing cat was. I have a picture of Max, when he was a kitten, trying to interact with the computer cats. Here’s a link with several videos your cat might like to watch. Take your pick, does your cat like to see lizards, birds, fish, snakes, squirrels? 
One thing cats do and do well is play. For kittens, play is a full-time job—well, that and sleeping. In my experience even eating takes a backseat to playing and sleeping for a kitten.
across a bare floor, but he doesn’t pursue this activity as often or with as much vigor. When he becomes more elderly, the ball might still be a fascination for him, but he’ll be more likely to bat it and just watch it roll away. This is a good time to strike up a give and take with your cat. Toss him the ball, let him swat at it, then retrieve it and toss it to him again. Yeah, it can take years for a cat to train his human to fetch, but it can be done.
Lily will soon be ten—we’ll announce her birthday and maybe let her run a contest to celebrate. Lily has always adored tiny stuffed animals. Remember the Beanie Babies? Then there are the tiny finger puppets. Lily has a wide collection of all brands of small plush animals.
In my Klepto Cat Mystery stories Rags is always resolving issues, solving problems, and, yes, saving people and other animals. His fans love this aspect of Rags. They also enjoy being taken on naughty journeys by this wily cat. Only a few people have ever scoffed at the things Rags does, saying, “Not realistic. Cats don’t do that. Bet me!!!
diabetic attack. Yeah, yeah, that’s not such an incredible feat, right? Cats are curious. He just wanted to see why that lady was on the ground. No. The story’s more intriguing than that. Bandit likes to go for walks, but he isn’t usually inclined to take his family out after dark. This night, however, he wouldn’t give up. He continued to yowl to go outside. So they took him out, walked along with him and that’s when he found their neighbor in trouble. She survived because of Bandit. Yes, he’s a hero in my book.
Among the stories you’ll see at this site is a cat who helped end a suicide stand off, a cat that dialed 911 when his human fell out of his wheelchair, a cat that detected cancer, a small blind cat that stopped an intruder, a cat that kept an abandoned baby from freezing and, the famous clip we saw of the cat that saved a little boy from a vicious dog attack. There’s more. Go watch the video!
I visited our local Humane Society this week. I heard they were running out of pet food for their food bank, so I delivered some. Then I visited the cats. I was stunned to see how many beautiful black cats they had up for adoption. I’m guessing it was eight black cats out of a dozen total. Why are they the last to be adopted? Because they’re so nondescript? Ordinary? Have you ever looked deep into the eyes of a beautiful black cat? Have you noticed the variety of styles 
black cats come in? Just like other cats, there are black cats with cobby bodies, long fur, sleek fur, and they are seen in many breeds. My grandson has a solid black Munchkin and boy is he full of personality.
While in America black cats still carry that awful stigma erroneously cast upon them related to witchcraft, in some countries black cats are thought to bring good luck. Black cats are more disease resistant. Now there’s a real good reason to adopt one. If eye color matters to you, black cats can be found with green, 
gold/copper, and blue eyes and there are even odd-eye black cats.
Lily and Sophie are not related except by association. We had already adopted (rescued) Sophie by the time we found Lily. So we consider Sophie the big sister. They don’t seem to love each other. They don’t snuggle together. They don’t even rub against one another affectionately. The closest they come to even acknowledging each other is an occasional butt-sniff. Eeeew! And they sleep next to each other in separate kitty beds near the heater this time of year and, on sunny days, they share a shard of sunlight coming through the window.
Sophie on Lily’s tail, then back again with Lily doing the chasing. They might run lickity split up and over furniture, through their kitty tunnel and then slide across the slick floor trying to get traction before screaming down the hallway again. It’s fun to watch. But most entertaining is when they square off for a kitty-girl fight.
This happens when they’re bored or waiting for mealtime. They’ll sit close together for a few minutes. Soon one of them lifts a paw toward the other. She just holds it menacingly in the air. Then the other one lifts her paw in a threatening manner. The ears go back, they squint their eyes and soon the fight it on. It might consist of a couple of swats or a full on wrestle-mania. But as ferocious as it looks sometimes, it must be in fun because no one seems to get hurt, just maybe bent a little out of shape.
Lately, I’ve seen a couple of videos featuring trained cats—yes, cats actually doing some pretty amazing moves on cue. Here’s the one featuring the Savitsky cats who performed on Idol. (Spoiler Alert: Simon loved them). 
taking and almost unbelievable. I’m especially intrigued to see that the cats seem to enjoy performing.
Why train a cat? I suppose some do so in order to show the world what a cat can do—to give cats greater exposure. But someone adopting a cat based on one of these performances is going to be mighty disappointed when that cat doesn’t bring him a beer every night when he gets home from work. Here’s a link to a site that shows you how to teach your ordinary cat how to do five things—and we’re not talking about punishment for bad behavior here. No punishment. It’s called clicker and treat training—reinforcing good behavior. Check it out and let us know if it works for you. 
