Catscapades

Is your cat a cozy sleeper or does she prefer sprawling on hard surfaces? Don’t you love seeing pictures of cats sleeping in unusual and usually quite cozy places—the laundry basket or amidst your knitting project, under the blankets in the bed, among a smattering of stuffed animal toys, on a plush blanket or winter coat, in a pajama drawer, on the sofa or recliner chair, or on her person. That’s my favorite scenario—Olivia snoozing either on top of me or right next to me.

I wonder, though, why she won’t sleep in a cat bed or on a cozy blanket. She just won’t. She actually chooses my desktop or a stack of my books or a current work project which is on a hard surface. I suppose that’s because it’s close to me.

We have two cozy cat beds, which I place near our wall heater and not one of our most recent cats has used it. Even catnip doesn’t entice them to use the cat beds. For Olivia, maybe she declines to use them for the same reason she won’t play with our basket of cat toys—they belonged to other cats before her. Well, I washed the cat beds and still she stays clear of them.

She will occasionally curl up in the cubbies in our cat trees, though, and those were used by several former cats. Or she’ll snooze in one of her tunnels. Many times, however, she simply prefers sleeping on hard surfaces, except at night and she will sleep with me on my bed–every night.

I see cat beds while out shopping and come so close to buying one for Olivia, but would it be a waste of money? Probably. Cats can be set in their ways.

Where’s the most unusual place your cat sleeps? Or the cutest position she gets into when sleeping? While doing a little research for this post, I came across a couple of sites with pictures of cat sleeping positions and their meaning. These are entertaining and enlightening. Enjoy!

https://outwardhound.com/furtropolis/cats/cat-sleeping-positions

https://catbehaviorassociates.com/15-common-cat-sleeping-positions-and-what-they-mean/

February is recognized as Spay/Neuter Awareness Month and the fourth Tuesday in February is World Spay Day. This is a good time to get your own pet spayed or neutered, and gather up those outside cats that hang around your place (you can borrow humane traps from your local shelters) and take them to be spayed or neutered. Many communities have free spay/neuter clinics. Check those in your area and take this important step to protect your pets and future litters.

In honor of World Spay Day and Spay/Neuter Awareness Month, many veterinarians and humane organizations offer free or discounted spay days. If you’re already a supporter of spaying and neutering our pets, take it upon yourself to educate others. Talk to people you know who are unfamiliar with the concept of spaying or neutering pets for healthier and longer life for their pet.

If you are brave enough to crusade for spaying-neutering, consider arming yourself with the alarming statistics focusing on the number of unwanted cats and dogs that are euthanized every year—dare I say, every day. Help nonbelievers to see the bigger picture than can be found in their excuses—such as, “Kittens are so cute.” “Having a litter of kittens teaches my children about reproduction,” “I don’t want my precious cat/dog to go through that surgery,” “What are three or four more puppies going to hurt?”

The statistics are daunting. Here’s what I found: There are 5 million cats and kittens in shelters in America alone, waiting to be adopted, and over 70 million cats and kittens living in the wild—in colonies and on their own—abandoned, forgotten, unloved.  Millions of them are euthanized each year.

If that isn’t incentive enough, I don’t know what is.

Olivia is a finicky eater. She wants to graze on kibbles. Rarely will she eat a plate of canned food. This worries me and I weigh her  often to make sure she’s maintaining a good weight. Ten pounds. She always sits on the ten pound mark, so I guess that’s a good sign. I continue to offer her canned food, though, and sometimes she’ll eat it—most of the time she doesn’t. Wasteful, I know.

Another cat we loved, Winfield, would eat canned food, but he also liked his kibbles. At bedtime when we were shutting down the house for the night, Winfield had his own routine. He’d go to the kibbles bowl. If the kibbles covered the bottom of the bowl, he’d join us in the bedroom. If he could see the bottom of the bowl, he’d stand at it until we walked by, then he’d signal for us to add kibbles to the bowl. To eat, he’d take a mouthful out of the bowl, drop them on the floor and eat them. He drank water with his paw—dip, and lick, dip  and lick.

Lily was the best eater we ever had. She’d eat anything and everything we gave her and if I was eating it, she’d eat it—lettuce, tomatoes… Of course, I didn’t feed her these things, but if she had the opportunity, she’d eat them.

I found my Himalayan cat, Katy, eating chocolate brownies one night. Frightening. I’d remembered I forgot to cover the brownies, got up to do that and found Katy chomping away at them. Who would have thought? (Yes, some cats are attracted to chocolate–and yes it is toxic to cats.)

Does your cat eat what you think is best for her or is she a finicky eater, a messy eater, a routine eater, an anytime eater, a beggar, or?

Does she have a special eating place? I leave kibbles and water bowls in my office and in the service porch off the kitchen, but when Olivia wants to eat canned food (which I serve to her on a small plate to prevent whisker stress), she runs to a spot in the living room where we first started feeding her when she was a kitten. Cats seem to like routine and familiarity.

Is there such a thing? Does a single cat in a household suffer? Are they missing out on something valuable to their health and happiness?

Well, I read an article recently saying that kittens that grow up in a home without cat companionship are likely to develop behavior problems such as biting, refusing to use the litter box, clawing furniture, and being too dependent on humans. The articles I read indicate that when 2 kittens are adopted together they grow up more well-adjusted.

Olivia is an only cat now since we lost our older cat, Sophie. And I have to say she seems to be more dependent on us than almost any cat we’ve ever had.

We’ve always had multiple cats—at one time it was four. Through most of the years it was at least two. We found two to be ideal. But now we’re down to one and we’re not planning to add to our household. After reading these articles about the single cat syndrome, though, I’m wondering if we’re doing a disservice to Olivia.

She’s grown now and seems to be quite well-adjusted. She enjoys her quiet time in solitude, but she is also great company and often seeks us out to play, to cuddle, or just to hang out in our presence.

Is single cat syndrome real? Apparently it is. I found numerous articles about it. Some shelters will not adopt a single kitten. If you want one, you must take two. I read that single kittens are the most commonly returned cats, generally because of the obnoxious behavior they develop. They often become destructive and extremely vocal and demanding.

I have not experienced this, maybe because we always had cats in the house when we adopted a kitten, as was the case with Olivia. After reading about the single kitten syndrome, I have more closely watched Olivia, who will be three this year. Yes, she is more clingy since our older cat, Sophie, crossed over the rainbow bridge. She claws some of the furniture, and she meows at me when she wants me out of my office and in the living room to play or cuddle with her. She demands I open a window for her every morning around 10 in my office so she can watch and hear and smell the birds at the feeder.

Are these symptoms of Only Kitten Syndrome or is it Olivia just being a cat—a smart cat who knows what she wants and how to get it?

If you’ve had as many cats as I have over the years, you know how different each can be. They have different petting tolerance needs and different styles of playing. Olivia does pirouettes all around the room on her back paws while playing at her felinest. And she’s good at inventing games.

Her latest one is batting paper wads and small toys off the top of her tunnel toy. We toss the paper wads on top of the tunnel and she dives inside and knocks the paper or toy off with an exuberant kick. It keeps us all entertained.

Lily loved jumping high into the air after paper wads. Max chased toys across the floor, excelling at losing them under the furniture. He’d lay looking under the fridge or… until we’d come use the “toy finder” (ruler) to dig the toy out.

Olivia used to play fetch, but I guess she must have received fan mail or heard from one of the outside cats that it is undignified for a cat to fetch a toy and bring it back. It’s the human’s job to do that. Bummer. It was so darn cute and convenient!

Olivia almost totally plays with only her own toys. We have a lot of toys belonging to former cats. Olivia does not play with them. She didn’t play with any toys until we started bringing home toys for her—toys of her own. She also got some for Christmas and she adores her own toys—some quite similar to those in the toy basket, which once belonged to Lily and Sophie and other cats.

What did Olivia play with during the interim? A toy we bought her as a homecoming gift. The first picture we saw of Olivia at the rescue shelter, she was posed next to a toy with balls in grooves she could chase. We had one like it here waiting for her when we brought her home. She also took to large bottle caps, the plastic ring around a container of oatmeal and, her favorite, a small water bottle. That bottle’s like her best friend ever. She rolls around with that in her “arms” kicking it. She loves it. Lily’s toys were all stuffed toys. I thought Olivia just didn’t like stuffed toys and that’s why she wouldn’t play with Lily’s collection of favorite toys. Oh, she would chase balls and chew sticks up and down the hallway, but shun the toys in the basket.

At Christmas she got two stuffed toys with feathers and she loves them. I guess that’s because they’re her own.

Dang, cats are interesting.

Monday’s post was all about grooming your cat. You may have noticed we omitted some things from that lengthy post. There’s more to grooming a cat than taking care of that lovely fur. In fact, I know a woman who washed her cat’s face every morning. The cat would come into the bathroom with her while she was doing her morning routine and get her little face washed.

A cat can usually keep her own face clean, but some cats might need a little help as they age or just because they aren’t that good at grooming. A soft cloth and warm water should do the job.

It’s up to us, especially if the cat is indoors only, to keep her claws in good shape. I trim Olivia’s claws regularly—just taking off the sharp point so she is less likely to get a paw caught in something. I found her once dangling by one paw from a valance in the living room. Of course, I helped her down, then removed the valance for the time being. Still haven’t put it back.

I have an ulterior motive for keeping her nails trimmed—my furniture. Yes, she has several scratching posts and a rug that’s okay to claw. She has a wooden cat tree she likes to scratch, a couple of carpeted cat trees and two sisal posts. I’ll sometimes buy those cardboard scratchers. But a cat’s going to scratch where a cat wants to scratch. Sighhhhh.

Keep an eye on those cat ears. Cats get mites and other types of infections in their ears. You’ll want to make a veterinarian appointment at the first sign of goop or anything abnormal in her ears.

As for the back end of a cat. The fluffy-butt ones are prone to catch smears and bits and pieces of—you know… Some cats have looser stools than others, which can get caught up in the fur. Funny story: I once walked into the hallway and saw something odd at my eye level on the wall. Turns out it was a cat turd!!! I can only reason that one of the fluffy cats came out of the bathroom with one stuck to his tail, gave that tail a flick and you-know-what hit the wall. Cats can certainly be creative beings.

My advice about a fluffy-butt cat and grooming—watch out what you feed her so that what comes out the other end is a firm consistency and you won’t end up, as I have a time or two, with a gooey, stinky, fluffy butt to help the cat clean up. No one likes that scenario, especially the cat.