Buying a cat...

[contender1]

The motor oil story made me chuckle a bit. But I can also relate a bit.
Long ago, my wife wanted a cat of her own. She found a Himalayan for free,, that the young girl who owned it couldn't keep it. (Long story there.) It was love at first sight, and that cat was my wife's cat. Sadly, when we got him, he was infested with fleas, and we didn't know right away. Well, all our cats are indoors & such,, so it affected all the others. He was miserable due to the fleas,, and my wife (who had limited experience with cats at the time,) decided to give him a bath. My comment was; "You'll regret it!" Well, when I came home, she was sitting in the floor with him, he was on a damp towel. She had politely drew some warm water in pitchers, set him in a sink, and gently poured the water on him a little at a time,, all while scrubbing his fur & skin with flea soap. She said it was so bad,, the water turned red with blood. He never fought her,, and she gave him his bath, and THEN,, used a hair dryer to dry him. When I came in, he was sitting there,, allowing her to gently blow dry him. She had to give him a few baths,, but he was always great about it. We figured he was just grateful as it likely felt very good to him.

As mentioned by many above,, folks usually feel like a cat is aloof, or doesn't seek human companionship, easily or maybe in a needy way like dogs.
Well, I will say that we have 4 of them, as well as having owned several over the years. Many of them DO seek our attention & will want to be petted & lay in our laps. We can be in the living room, and all 4 will be around us or in our laps. If we move to the "happy room" all will move out there as well. And they also know who is the Alpha, and will obey me over my wife. I can speak, and they will pay attention. And they also know which one is "in trouble" if I speak a certain way. They are also jealous of attention by the Alpha,, (me) in general.
I could spin stories all day about such stuff.
Basically, you give love & will receive it back 10 fold.

[uscra112]

It's a known fact that cats can understand several hundred English words. They just don't want to admit it.

From early in her life my Smudge (now the tripod) has always come running whenever I get out of bed, or get up from a chair, or go out to the porch, just to see what I am going to do. Hopefully something interesting. Still does it. Blocks the hallway to the kitchen to collect a toll in pats.

Little Cozy, the rabbit-catching runt, is even worse about that. I can't go up a flight of stairs without giving her at least 30 seconds of my undivided attention. Which I do so the others will know that I don't play favorites. (Much)

[MaryB]

I try to divide petting and attention time or one or the other gets jealous. Oliver gets fur mats despite daily brushing(his under fur is so dense and fine it tangles easy) and he will lay and let me cut them out because they hurt after awhile and irritate the skin.

[Mr_Sheesh]

Years ago on a trip to Alaska the other person I was with wanted to stop at a bar in a reservation, I didn't feel like going in so I stayed in the truck. Dog chained with a choke collar in the back of someone else's pickup barked at me if I got near, guarding his master's tools etc., which is fine with me. (Not so much the choke collar part.)

Sat a while and a goose came out and was intentionally trolling the dog, "Oh I don't see that dog, it'd be terrible if a dog jumped down and ate me!" and eventually convinced the dog to try for it. Dog jumped out, came to the end of its' chain, flipped and was hanging on the choke chain with 6" at least of air under its' rear paws.

I jumped out, ran over and picked the dog up enough to relieve the pressure on its' neck, said "OK, I am going to put you up in the pickup bed, I'd prefer that you not bite me for saving your life, OK?" and put him up into safety.

Rest of the time I was there that dog wagged his tail every time he looked at me, had I been larcenous I could have hauled tools & dog off & that dog would have been OK with it...

Dogs and cats who've been saved REMEMBER, they know what you did just because you're a good person

[bakerjw]

Mittens as we call her is slowly acclimating to the house. We had kept her in our exercise room but have since opened the living room to her and keep it blocked off from the rest of the house. She has slipped a bit back to feral ways. i.e. hiding behind and under furniture and being reluctant to come out to anyone other than me. I can coax her out and she is fine but she still doesn't want to come out for my wife which makes her feel left out and disheartened. From now on, my wife will be the one to feed her.

Last night I coaxed her out and she laid across my arms as we watched TV and fell asleep with my wife petting her. She is sweet and is overcoming the fear of the last month or so but it will be an uphill battle.

Our 2 other cats have taken over the office and established it as their base of resistance. With mittens in the back room, I got "Lilly Bug" to chase the laser dot which she loves doing. She will chase it up the stairs and wall, back and forth across the kitchen and into the living room.... Typically... She ran after it into the living room, got half way across the large rug in the center and stopped. After sniffing around for a bit, she wouldn't have anything to do with the living room. "Libby" won't even go to that end of the dining room now.

We're taking it slowly. The next step in the next week or so is to block the girls in the office and let Mittens have free run of the kitchen for a while. The girls will eventually get used to it. We hope...

LOL... Cat Drama....

[contender1]

You are doing fine. When you consider how short a time it has been for Mittens from lost, to injury, to surgery, to a loving home,, things are doing quite well. In 6 months, a year or so,, you'll be able to look back & see the changes quite easily. The other girls will get used to things,, and a set of boundaries & such will be established, and acceptance will be comfortable or at least tolerated by all.

Yesterday,, I went to work at a house,, (bats) and the older gentleman that lives there has 4 dogs & one cat. When I did my inspection about a month ago,,, I saw the cat through a window. Very small,, about the size of a normal 2 month old kitten. Well, yesterday,, the daughter of the gentleman was there,, to feed & visit the dogs & cat. Apparently, the gentleman is in the hospital. The "kitten" I found out was actually about a year old. Just a VERY small cat. All of the dogs are 20-40 lb critters. Guess who's the boss? Yep,, that "kitten!" I saw her whack one dog right across the face,, grab another ones wagging tail, and none of the dogs even growled. That little girl made me just laugh. She was bold, and friendly. I was petting her & she just loved the attention. Then a dog came over,, & that was when the face whack happened.
But even the cat didn't like the coon I had in a cage sitting about 20 ft away. (I had to pick up a coon before I did my bat work.) She heard it,, went to investigate,, saw it, Arched & hissed,, and backed away until she felt safe in turning back to the house.

[Mr_Sheesh]

bakerjw - You could try having SWMBO (the wife IOW) feed kitty cat treats, or even a teaspoon of tuna or the like. Kitties remember who treated them, and "stay bought" LOL

I used that with Linda, when I first got her she was scared of everyone but me, I had my mom and friends who visited feed her treats and she went from running and hiding when others came over, to padding over to see if they had treats. (I put a treats bottle by the front door, to help.)

[bakerjw]

I told my wife this morning, that we need to start eating tuna on crackers for snacks. There is no way that Mittens will stay away when she smells the tuna. We're going to cut back on food for a bit and my wife, Beth, will be doing the feedings. Mittens will come around for sure.

We have a thing in our house. Whenever we open a can of anything, Lilly Bug is at our feet meowing like crazy. So in our best Arnold Schwarznegger voice, we say "It's not tuna." ala Kindergarten Cop... "It's not a tumor."

[Mr_Sheesh]

Humor helps LOL

[contender1]

So,, how is Mittens & the girls?

[oldred]

I have really enjoyed reading this thread, it's nice to know there are a lot more "cat people" around and I am not alone!

Another funny one happened again yesterday, we have four (yep FOUR!) indoor cats with two that always stay inside and never go out and two that go out every morning into our fenced yard. Well yesterday it was raining quite hard and when I opened the door for Doc and Sterling who were both begging to go out they both started lunging for the door as always but abruptly stopped in their tracks! Both of them were walking around me, meowing and pawing at my legs obviously asking me to stop that rain! I laughed at them because I have seen this so many times before when it was wet outside and since we do about everything else for them I suppose the little critters look up to us and think we can do anything, even stop the rain!

Ya just got to love the little buggers and I would be just lost without mine!

[bakerjw]

Things are progressing well with some rough spots along the way for Mittens. She is still relegated to the living room for now and is settling in to day to day activity. She hides and runs back and forth along an area behind the loveseats. They are recliners so we have to keep them a foot or so away from the wall and that has become her back alley. She is also still overcoming her fears of people and the new surroundings and is starting to chase balls and little fuzzy mice toys. There is little doubt that I am her preferred person as she will be on my lap or next to me constantly when we watch TV. She has been putting on a little weight, is no longer skin and bones and her coat looks very good now.


Before


Now


Today, she is being introduced to the vacuum cleaner. Upholstery cleaner to be exact. When she first arrived, we kept her in our exercise room. She avoids that room completely as that was where she was confined as she healed. Her litter box is in there and we used some of the recycled paper litter as it is a bit more sanitary. Well, she doesn't like the room or the litter and opted to use one of our loveseats instead. We had changed the litter and even though it was for her own good, we had not thought of everything. So, the litter was replaced with the normal clay kind and we moved it out of the exercise room to the living room. I showed it to her and she has been using it ever since. Any cat owner can attest to how fickle these little creatures can be. For now, whenever we are not in the living room, we have sheets of plastic on all furniture.

The girls, Libby and LillyBug had been acting really strangely as would be expected. The new scent in the house kept them on guard for several days but things are going back to normal. i.e. they have mostly abandoned their fire base in our office. They're sleeping upstairs with us again. For a while they were content to stay in the office or escape to the basement.
The other night, we left the foam barrier open a bit and were petting Mittens and Lillybug walked into the room. She took one look, hissed and trotted back out before looking back to see what was in there.
We're going to replace the foam board that we use as a barrier with a chicken wire gate so that both sides can see through and we will take it from there. We will also likely banish the girls from the kitchen today and let Mittens have free reign of the room to get her scent out there and get her used to the girls too.

Photo gallery link
http://www.bakerjw.org/PhotoGallery/...?/category/877

[contender1]

Thanks for the update. As I type this,, one of my 4 is being nosy around my desk stuff,, trying to get my attention.

It sounds as if things are progressing quite well for the time being. I like the pics too.

[oldred]

Photo gallery link
http://www.bakerjw.org/PhotoGallery/...?/category/877

I see a very lucky and special cat with a very kind and special owner (or actually the other way around for who owns who?)!

My wife and I really enjoyed those pics and the story behind them.

[clum553946]

How’s our cat Mittens doing these days?