Your daily cat and kitten news

[Puddy_Tat]

It doesn't matter, cats are not pack animals with a hierarchy. Feed them first or feed yourself first, it makes no difference because they have absolutely no pack mentality.

Yes, it's not a 'pack' thing, it's more an "I am hungry" thing...

 

[High Voltage]

From a feeding first point of view - I feed them at weekends so they get fed whilst the tea is brewing - we eat MUCH later and having 2 whinging and whining cats around the place getting under your feet and generally being bloody annoying - slopping 2 sachets of food into 2 bowls and plonking it down in front of them accompanied with a "If you want feeding any faster may I suggest you either a) go out to work or b) make a cup of tea for us sometimes" falls on deaf ears

 

[Puddy_Tat]

"If you want feeding any faster may I suggest you either a) go out to work or b) make a cup of tea for us sometimes"

 

[Agent Sparrow]

"Look Trillian, there's no point sitting and staring at me like you want food when I've already put food down for you and you're just being too fussy to eat it"

 

[story]

So while I was ill in bed, One-eye-cat was in a state of bliss, sprawled on the bed, pressed against my feverish body, tucking his head under my hand, reclining in the cleft between my legs, rolling over and stretching, only to curl up again on the other side. Now that I'm up and about again, he is asking me "Well? When are we going back to bed???" He is keeping watch on the landing, and every time I walk across, or go towards the general direction of the bedroom, he's all "Yay!" and trots off to hop up onto the bed. He is so disappointed when I don't go to bed.

And at bedtime - proper night time bed time - he comes to fetch me: "Come on! It's bedtime! It's past bedtime! It's time for us all to get into bed and cuddle up and pur warmly together! Come on! What are you waiting for!"

He's never been a cuddle-cat before now.

 

[oryx]

So while I was ill in bed, One-eye-cat was in a state of bliss, sprawled on the bed, pressed against my feverish body, tucking his head under my hand, reclining in the cleft between my legs, rolling over and stretching, only to curl up again on the other side. Now that I'm up and about again, he is asking me "Well? When are we going back to bed???" He is keeping watch on the landing, and every time I walk across, or go towards the general direction of the bedroom, he's all "Yay!" and trots off to hop up onto the bed. He is so disappointed when I don't go to bed.

And at bedtime - proper night time bed time - he comes to fetch me: "Come on! It's bedtime! It's past bedtime! It's time for us all to get into bed and cuddle up and pur warmly together! Come on! What are you waiting for!"

He's never been a cuddle-cat before now.

Our oldest one (nearly 20) leads you to her bed at bed-time and makes you put her to bed. My other half, whose cat she originally was, spends at least five minutes settling her in. One of these nights I will come home from a night out and find him reading her a bedtime story.

How does she 'lead' you? A bit like story's cat - she turns her head round when you're behind her and is obviously saying 'Come on! Keep up!'.

She's also not a cuddle-cat - quite fierce.

 

[story]

He's also very specific about wanting to be scritched on the back of his head sometimes. Or in the hollows behind his ears. Most of the time, he'll just take any kind of head rubs and strokes, but sometimes, he'll reach up and gently with his claws (y'know, not actually breaking the skin...) take my hand and move it til it's in just the right spot. As a result of this, he has discovered that having his toes and the webbing between them fiddled with is also pleasurable. But only when he's lying down beside me on the bed.

I was pressing his paws between my fingers, and digging my fingers between his toes. Another cat I had used to LOVE this, but One-eye was like "Woah! WTF!". Then on about the third occasion he was, like, "... Ooo-kay.... Hmmm....yeah.... this is quite nice actually..."

And I just can't stop wanting to probe the hollow where his eye was . It made him jump the first few times, but now he likes it when I rub the rim of his orbital bone, and he'll let me rest the tip of my finger in the hollow. Very gentle, of course!

 

[trashpony]

We've been away for nearly a week. The cats are like velcro, have lost any memory of kitchen counter tops being out of bounds (at least when I'm in the room) and are MASSIVE!

My sister's kittens are particularly tiny but I hadn't realised just how giant my boys are

It's lovely to see them - I've really missed them

 

[Puddy_Tat]

So while I was ill in bed, One-eye-cat was in a state of bliss, sprawled on the bed, pressed against my feverish body, tucking his head under my hand, reclining in the cleft between my legs, rolling over and stretching, only to curl up again on the other side. Now that I'm up and about again, he is asking me "Well? When are we going back to bed???" He is keeping watch on the landing, and every time I walk across, or go towards the general direction of the bedroom, he's all "Yay!" and trots off to hop up onto the bed. He is so disappointed when I don't go to bed.

And at bedtime - proper night time bed time - he comes to fetch me: "Come on! It's bedtime! It's past bedtime! It's time for us all to get into bed and cuddle up and pur warmly together! Come on! What are you waiting for!"

He's never been a cuddle-cat before now.

I used to work odd hours, and would quite often sleep in the daytime - the mogs i lived with then seemed more enthusiastic about joining me for an afternoon sleep than a night-time one. i suppose it was because i was sleeping at what they considered the right time...

 

[Epona]

So while I was ill in bed, One-eye-cat was in a state of bliss, sprawled on the bed, pressed against my feverish body, tucking his head under my hand, reclining in the cleft between my legs, rolling over and stretching, only to curl up again on the other side. Now that I'm up and about again, he is asking me "Well? When are we going back to bed???" He is keeping watch on the landing, and every time I walk across, or go towards the general direction of the bedroom, he's all "Yay!" and trots off to hop up onto the bed. He is so disappointed when I don't go to bed.

And at bedtime - proper night time bed time - he comes to fetch me: "Come on! It's bedtime! It's past bedtime! It's time for us all to get into bed and cuddle up and pur warmly together! Come on! What are you waiting for!"

He's never been a cuddle-cat before now.

I hate to say it, but if you were ill and running a temperature, that increased your attractiveness to him - you were just more radiator-like than usual. The side effect was he hung around long enough to learn that the cuddling thing was quite nice after all

My cats can be complete shits when I am unwell.

 

[fucthest8]

Where's the cat?





There!

 

[CRI]

Just out of interest, what is Breeze's 'official' colour (in terms of the breed reference number on her pink slip), I find it awfully difficult to tell with longhairs because the longer the hair gets, the less well defined markings become. My guess would be either blue tabby or blue tortie, but kind of hard to tell with hair that long whether it's a definite tabby pattern, or irregular markings!

Her passport says "blue silver tabby." In photos of her when younger, she looked much more tabby, but now seems more sort of blue/silver and cream blotched with some tabby. I'd have to cut her fur short to actually see!

This is her mum as a kitten .........................................................and her dad.

And this is her Breeze and her twin brother (gorgeous!) ..............................and her daughter (baby father was red tabby)

The genetics & colour info is really interesting. I know more about genetics of guinea pigs than cats - probably some similar principles there.

Interesting fact - whatever colour the guinea pig's fur is, the skin below is similar - except the skin under white fur is pink of course. Tortoiseshell guinea pigs have similarly patterned skin!

 

[CRI]

Thinking about it, I wonder whether if there is indeed a higher rate of blue cats in the feral/stray/shelter population in the US than the UK it might be because a higher number of pedigree cats are put out on the street due to owners no longer being able to care for them. Things are far from ideal here, but take into account weaker employment laws (in terms of protecting employees) and less of a safety net, especially in terms of medical care - I can't help but wonder whether there are just more pedigree cats (who are more likely to be dilute or carry a dilute gene) put out on the streets.

Possibly, but I am old, so I was talking about loads and loads of grey moggies in say the 70's, so not a recent economy-linked thing. I remember some old guy telling me I had a "Maltese" cat - just found that term when searching for images of gray cats.

Most of them looked pretty much like this one. Sometimes you'd get a grey and white, but mostly solid. American cats tend to have pointier faces as well.

Found some very old, very poor quality of two cats I had in the late 70's - Jason was a silver Tabby semi-longhair
and Tracey was solid grey taby semi-longhair (he's in the 2nd one, it's black and white so hard to tell.)

 

[Puddy_Tat]

cat genetics is complicated. some odd things, like torties are almost all female, gingers are mostly male, white cats with blue eyes are prone to being deaf (white cats with one blue eye and one other coloured eye tend to be deaf in the ear the same side as the blue eye)

 

[fucthest8]

Minor q, isn't the fur/skin thing the same for cats? Pretty sure it is. Wicked photos BTW

 

[ska invita]

It doesn't matter, cats are not pack animals with a hierarchy. Feed them first or feed yourself first, it makes no difference because they have absolutely no pack mentality.*

*Edit: and therefore have no notion of being either above you or below you on some sort of pecking order, regardless of when you feed them, because there is no pecking order. For cats, it's a completely irrelevant issue.

Not sure thats true - i watched this:

and they definitely have a Top Cat and a loose but nonetheless pack structure

 

[CRI]

I'm buying almo natur in bulk off the internet at the moment. If you have room to store it, it's pretty economical, but you have to get opening-a-pet-food-shop sized quantities . (And hope the bloody animal doesn't suddenly decide he won't eat it)

Almo is good, but some of it's not complete food. You have to look so damned close to tell! Breeze at the moment is going ape for Nature's Menu (it's about 60p a pouch mostly from independent pet shops or on line from Pets at Home) but also quite fond of the Feline Fayre chicken and beef liver that's about 65% meat, complete and was only 19p a pouch at Home Bargains the other week - well in date (if you can find it, worth a go.) I try to give a combo of the really good / 70% plus meat stuff like Thrive Complete & Nature's Menu and some of the middling stuff 50% plus (Feline Fayre and High Life.) If you can get your hands on Thrive complete dry food, she loves that as well - like 90% chicken or something.

 

[CRI]

cat genetics is complicated. some odd things, like torties are almost all female, gingers are mostly male, white cats with blue eyes are prone to being deaf (white cats with one blue eye and one other coloured eye tend to be deaf in the ear the same side as the blue eye)

Oh, also had 2 deaf white blue eyed cats in childhood - one when I was like 18 months old, so don't really remember Snowball that well and ChiChi. Lived in a fairly rural village so there were tonnes of cats everywhere (and quite a high rate of attrition on the very busy highway that ran through - suspect I'll go to hell for that )

 

[CRI]

Minor q, isn't the fur/skin thing the same for cats? Pretty sure it is. Wicked photos BTW

Maybe so! Can't take credit for those photos - they were from her breeders' websites.

Had to take a few of Breeze for a website thingie I'm doing for someone else. Stereotypes or what here?

 

[Epona]

Not sure thats true - i watched this:

and they definitely have a Top Cat and a loose but nonetheless pack structure

Hard of hearing, so no point posting up a video to illustrate a point to me unless it has subtitles (Youtube autosubbing can sometimes be extremely funny, but doesn't actually help when it comes to understanding dialogue or narration, it's at least 10 times worse than google translate!)

In a multi-cat group, the hierarchy tends to be very fluid and tends to be focused on small desirable areas of territory rather than a rigid pecking order within a group. Cat A may 'own' a high up branch and be dominant there, whilst cat B 'owns' the area under a shrub nearby and is king cat in that small area.

My point is more that cats do not have any sort of instinctive general pack instinct that could include humans and therefore requires them to 'know their place' by being fed last. Even when cats do live in groups, they do not hunt communally and let an alpha take their share of a kill first, they are lone hunters that will provide their own sustenance by their own hunting, therefore feeding yourself first or feeding them first will just go straight over their heads, because they do not naturally stand back from a kill to let the 'alpha' get in first. Cat hierarchy is not influenced by food-sharing because (with the exception of kittens up to around 6 months old who will hunt with their mother), they each provide their own subsistence.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

I am afraid I win the prize for worst cat mum today. First I realised it was time to deflea her; no advocate but had some program left. Which should of been fine, had I not then accidentally applied the oral suspension mix to the back of her neck Then I cut a little bit of matted hair off below her chin. Done very carefully and all fine. But then noticed that one set of whiskers are now shorter than the other side, with a distinct hair cut quality to them

Since then she has just received tickles and strokes from me, and proper care will resume when I locate my brain again

 

[Epona]

cat genetics is complicated. some odd things, like torties are almost all female, gingers are mostly male, white cats with blue eyes are prone to being deaf (white cats with one blue eye and one other coloured eye tend to be deaf in the ear the same side as the blue eye)

It is complicated, there are several gene combinations that can cause a cat to be white - only one of them can cause deafness.

For example there is no deafness in Foreign Whites (white Orientals) in the UK because the lack of pigmentation is caused by a gene that does not affect the development of the small bones in the ear.

 

[Epona]

I am afraid I win the prize for worst cat mum today. First I realised it was time to deflea her; no advocate but had some program left. Which should of been fine, had I not then accidentally applied the oral suspension mix to the back of her neck Then I cut a little bit of matted hair off below her chin. Done very carefully and all fine. But then noticed that one set of whiskers are now shorter than the other side, with a distinct hair cut quality to them

Since then she has just received tickles and strokes from me, and proper care will resume when I locate my brain again

I am sure she will be fine

My worst deflea-ing incident was when I first used a spot-on and opened up the Advocate and read the instructions, which included a warning not to ingest it or get it in your eyes. Ha ha ha I said, who would be stupid enough to ingest Advocate or put in their eyes? Approximately 30 seconds later Sonic had shaken his head furiously and I was at the sink washing the fucking stuff out of my eyes and rinsing out my mouth

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Maybe so! Can't take credit for those photos - they were from her breeders' websites.

Had to take a few of Breeze for a website thingie I'm doing for someone else. Stereotypes or what here?

Breeze : "Seriously, you want me to pose with a ball of wool? Don't you think that's a bit of a cliche? Can't we do something a bit more avant garde and representative of the feline in the postmodern era?

*sigh* - OK then. There had better be some serious cat treats involved..."

 

[Epona]

cat genetics is complicated. some odd things, like torties are almost all female, gingers are mostly male, white cats with blue eyes are prone to being deaf (white cats with one blue eye and one other coloured eye tend to be deaf in the ear the same side as the blue eye)

Also (sorry to reply again to the same post but you're on a subject that floats my boat) the process that causes any particular pattern in torties is developmental and linked to whichever X chromosome in a particular cell randomly becomes dominant at an early stage of development (unsure, but maybe at 4 or 8 cell stage) and that state is then copied during cell division. You could in theory clone a tortie cat and have it end up with a completely different coat pattern (although in the same colours) than the individual it was cloned from, depending upon which X chromosome in each cell became dominant and subsequent cell division and distribution of those cells amongst the melanin producing cells of the skin.

Similar with cats with white on them, the amount and pattern of pigmentation is part due to genetics (the % of white is largely genetic) and part due to the way pigmented cells move away from the neural tube in early foetal development, which could not be replicated even in a clone.

Edit: I have a cat that is mostly white with some black markings, and I can see what position one of his stubby proto-legs would have been in relation to his body when he was at an early development stage in the womb, because he has a black spot that is half on his abdomen and half on his leg.

 

[fucthest8]

Fascinating stuff by the way Epona, always interesting to listen to someone who really knows their shizzle. I love it when someone on here turns out to know loads about a particular subject.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

Btw, this is Trillian face palming after yesterday's trials

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Btw, this is Trillian face palming after yesterday's trials

View attachment 47590

which particular urban thread caused that?

 

[devit]

Ah, the sanctuary of the cat and kitten thread.

After two years pretty much unemployed (I had a 10 week contract!) I finally got a job... the slight fly in the ointment is that it's in Hong Kong. Since I got the offer (and said Yes) I tried to get my parents to take the boys on, that way I stil have them "in my life", just a little extended. However they couldn't take them.

I have, though, found a friend of a friend who is absolutely mad about cats, and a really nice person to boot. She came to collect the cats today at noon I've been out for the afternoon but have come home to a horrible empty shit flat with no cats and I'm pretty much losing it. Why do we get so attached to these bloody animals? I always had a choice - I could have said no to HK - but then I couldn't guarantee them a home here anyway and it'd be far worse them going somewhere else for bad financial reasons.

I know it's only been a day. I'm distraught, seriously howling and I have to say I'm almost embarassed. Don't really know any cat mad people (except one who understands by text!). Has anyone else had to leave their cats? Oh I don't know if that's the reason I'm posting. May be I just want to write it out on a thread where people won't think I'm a twat (hopefully).

Looking forward to HK, the new challenge, the travelling opportunities. But hope this feeling passes (they really have gone to a fab home).

Goodbye Pilau and Ginger - you kept me sane during my unemployment and frankly you're the best cats in the world

 

[fishfinger]

Sorry that you had to leave your cats. At least they are going to be looked after. I hope your job in Hong Kong is a good 'un. ((( devit )))