We almost made it through the whole year without losing a cat. Alas, it was not to be. We inherited Bob and Tippy when my daddy died in 2016. They have been my gaming buddies for several years; I play video games while they lay on my chest.
In mid-November I realized that Tippy’s left eye wasn’t opening fully. I then realized that she had a small bulge in her forehead over that eye. I took her to the vet where x-rays revealed bone cancer. The vet wanted to see her in a month so we scheduled a follow-up on December 26th.
Tippy, just after I discovered the bulge over her left eye.
I spent that month loving on Tippy extra hard while the cancer progressed rapidly. By the time we returned to the vet, the bulge had grown to the point where her left eye was a mere slit and it showed no signs of stopping. I made the decision to let her go.
So, as I always do, I held my girl while the vet administered the euthanasia meds. I made sure that the last things she felt were my hands petting her and the last thing she heard was my voice telling her how much I loved her and how much I will miss her.
Actually, this should probably be titled “Friday Floofies.”
Barn swallows and wrens are currently nesting behind our house, and the cats have their noses pressed to the windows watching the activity. I caught Kota looking extra fluffy during her time at the window.🤣
Most of us are familiar with Pavlov’s dogs. In short, Ivan Pavlov, who was studying digestive processes, would ring a bell and present dogs with food. He soon realized that the dogs would begin salivating when the bell rang, even if no food was present. This is what became known as classical conditioning and helped develop the school of behavioral psychology.
A few months ago, I realized I have accidentally trained our cats similarly, even though no food is involved. We have two Ring devices: our front doorbell, and motion-activated floodlight which covers our carport and back steps. I have the Ring app on my phone and have different alert tones assigned to each device so I’ll know which one I need to check when a notification sounds. The cats have learned that when the tone for the carport sounds, it is frequently followed by someone coming to the front door. It’s funny to watch them. When the carport alert sounds, they either run for the door and look out the windows in the sidelight to see who’s coming or just sit up and look at the front door. Actually, I’m pretty impressed that they put all of this together on their own.
On another note, I found myself in need of Mark Petruska’s (as yet non-existent) cat scratcher business this weekend. As the owners of multiple cats, we have a variety of cat scratchers and cat trees scattered around the house. When the scratchers wear out, we generally buy a new one. At one point, we bought sisal with plans to just repair the scratcher. Well, I have no idea where the sisal went, and we never did repair that scratching post. When I was vacuuming last week, I found a mystery substance on the floor. I soon determined that the cats had scratched through the rope on the scratching post and were now in the process of destroying the cardboard tube that functions as the base of the scratcher. I assembled the replacement cat tree over the weekend, a process which required a lot of feline “assistance.”
The shredded scratching post.
Bear had to get in the cubby as soon as I finished it.
Roxie had to try out the new scratching posts while I was still working on them.
More progress on the cat tree, and I exchanged Bear for Roxie.
All finished. Bear and Roxie were exhausted from all that work.
I hereby pinky swear that next time, I will repair the scratching post, not replace the whole cat tree/scratcher.
What behaviors have your pets learned without training?
A few of my cats have made appearances in various posts, but it’s past time to introduce y’all to the whole clowder. So, here they are in all of their furry glory.
Name: Molly
Age: 16
Nicknames: Molly Mayhem, Molly Mae, Girlfriend
Notes: Molly is the sister of Desmond; they got their names from the Beatles’ song, Ob-La-Di.
Nicknames: Beaver Butt, Brick, Baroness von Underbite
Notes: Cricket is probably the clowder member I worry about the most. She has feline herpes which manifests in her as respiratory issues. The poor girl sneezes constantly and always has a snotty nose. Steroid shots only help for a few days so we deal with it the best we can. As for her nicknames, Beaver Butt is due to the fact that she has a really thick tail. Brick comes from the character of the same name in the television show The Middle. (I love that show.) Brick has a verbal tic of saying “Whoop” and Cricket frequently makes a similar sound.
Names: Bob (r) and Tippy (l)
Ages: 11
Nicknames: Bob the Blob and Tippy Cat
Notes: We inherited Bob and Tippy when my dad died in 2016. They are my gaming buddies and insist on lying on my chest while I’m playing video games.
Name: Nyx
Age: 10
Nicknames: None
Notes: Nyx has adopted the kitchen as her territory. She’s fairly aloof unless we’re in the kitchen, then she comes in and weaves around our ankles and “talks” constantly. It’s not exactly a nickname, but we call her our house panther with kitchen specialization.
Name: Kota
Age: 9
Nicknames: Floofy Butt, Princess Floofy Britches
Notes: Kota’s name is an acronym which stands for Kitten of the Apocalypse. Kenn found her near the storm drain behind our old house and was upset that yet another cat had shown up. I said something to the effect of “Dude, it’s just a kitten. It’s not even the kitten of the apocalypse,” and it stuck.
Name: Bear
Age: 5
Nicknames: Old Man, Baby Bear
Notes: Bear has probably made the most appearances in my blog. He’s just an all-around cool guy.
Name: Roxie
Age: 2
Nicknames: Roxie Pants, Bunny Butt
Notes: Roxie’s biggest claim to fame is always looking shocked about everything. She also has the quietest meow of all the cats.
Do you have any pets? If so, what kind and how many?
Y’all know I’m a cat lady and that we have several cats. I’m an old pro at introducing cats to Christmas trees and dealing with the occasional ornament on the floor. All of our ornaments are shatter-proof so, no big deal. Then, Roxie joined our clowder.
The reason we can’t have nice things.
Roxie may look like a Calico, but she’s actually a kleptomaniac. Nothing is safe since she joined the family. I have yet to find half of my fridge magnets. Among the things I have caught her carrying around: a 9mm shell casing, a screwdriver, and a roll of film. I didn’t even know we had any undeveloped film rolls!
Last year, I almost didn’t put up a tree because I didn’t want my ornaments getting lost and/or destroyed. I finally put the tree up a week before Christmas but didn’t put any ornaments on it. That worked okay, but I didn’t want to go that basic again this year.
This year, I decided to start introducing Roxie to the concept of ornaments. To keep from stressing, I’m only using “filler” ornaments – the ones that I won’t be upset about if something happens to them.
So far, things are going about as I expected. Roxie has spent a lot of time in the tree and on the floor swatting at ornaments. At least three ornaments are no longer on the tree, and I have no idea where they are.🤣 As a matter of fact, our tree looks a lot like the ones when our sons were young – most of the ornaments are on the upper half of the tree.
This is my life now.
Those of you with cats – or other pets – do they interact with your tree?
I had a good chuckle over this quote. Kenn sort of rolled his eyes and said “Duh” when I showed it to him. (I’m so proud. Over the course of our marriage, I have taught him the importance of a well-executed eye roll.)
Linda Lou's Life 