I do not like cats

Before getting the cats, I didn't really think of myself as a cat person. I thought, if I had to choose between the traditional "cat or dog person", I'd choose dogs. You know where you are with a dog. You can play with a dog. You can train a dog. I like the idea of training a pet, particularly when it comes to toiletting.

But, I'm coming round to the way of the cat. Here's a brief list of my pre-cat concerns, and what's happened since the cats have lived with us.

Cats pee, puke and poo in the most inappropriate places
I like to read forums on the internet, and over time I've read a few cat based messageboards. Without a doubt, within the first 50 or so posts, someone will talk about their cat pissing on their bed, pooing under their bed and puking in the porch shortly before guests arrive. It's like some law of the internet. They will also, invariably, be perfectly jovial about it, and act as if it's no big deal.

Trust me, anyone pissing in my bed is a BIG fracking deal. A big deal. My bed is a very lovely place to be, and the bed itself cost a lot of money. So, I decided to institute a "no cats in the bedroom rule". One of R's major fantasies about getting a cat was curling up with it on the bed. But no! I said, no cats on the bed. No cats means no piss, right?

Well, the no cats on the bed rule failed, as you've seen from previous posts. They are only allowed in here when we are in here, and I must say, I quite enjoy a morning cuddle with a cat, or chatting to them when I get dressed. We have, sadly, had a piss-bed interface incident. It was just one of Nathan's droplets so nothing too major, but I was NOT happy about it, and now he's only allowed on the bed if there's something under him. He doesn't seem too keen to come on to the bed with us anyone, as it's really Natalie's domain.

We have had some puking, and there was one epic day where Nathan managed to puke in four different places in the house. Luckily I was at work and R had the joy of cleaning that up. They have puked a couple of times, but nothing too unbearable, and I've only had to clean up sick from hard floors, which seems to be a lot less unpleasant.

As for poo, well, we've had a couple of occasions where they've misfired from the litter tray, and I was the one that cleaned them up. It wasn't nice, and it wasn't pretty, but I can forgive a misfire and would rather have that any day than a cat turd curled out on my sofa. Yuck.

Scratches
A lot of cat owners have scratched arms and some of them make jokes about looking like self-harmers. This HORRIFIES me. I do not want my forearms getting slashed by some wildcat that I've given a home, feed and clean up after thank you. I decided that I was going to try very hard not to get scratched. I was lucky enough to be gifted "Cat Confidential" by Vicky Halls shortly before they arrived. What a lucky person I am. It's such a great book, explaining all about cat behaviour, how cats think, and gives case studies of where it's gone wrong, why and how to deal with it. I guess reading this book has really helped with all of the problems I was worried about, but body language has been a really helpful one. Of course, living with the cats is the only way to really get to know them, but it's cool to be able to anticipate what they may be about to do from a flick of the ears.

I think we're lucky, in that neither cat is at all swipey, and we frequently comment that they don't seem to know that they can use their claws against us. They usually turn or walk away if they want to be left alone. Equally, we generally try to respect them so that they don't feel they need to use their claws. It's a last resort, after all. They get plenty of space from us, and when we need to grab them for whatever reason, we do it at gently and safely as possible. Even when we were doing the pilling saga with Natalie, I think we only got scratched once each, and then not badly at all.

I could hear this weird crunching...
I also heard far too many horror stories about cats bringing in dead or nearly dead animals. Owners have been settling down for a night's sleep and looked down to see the cat under the bed crunching on a dead frog. Or the cat brings in a bird which isn't dead, but mortally injured which then flaps around the house, spraying blood everywhere until the grim reaper finally puts in an appearance. Or the cat brings in a half dead mouse which scurries behind the fridge and no one knows until it starts to smell. I can think of few things worse than getting home from work to find blood all over the walls of the house and a bird corpse to deal with.

Now, this may be beginning for us, as we've never seen them with anything until today, but it has been ok so far. We're lucky to have the option to stop them bringing anything in to the house proper, as we can shut them in to their room which is off the garden. Boring for them, but dealing with corpses with any regularity is not high of my list of things to do before I'm 50.

We just don't get on
Finally, I suppose I was just worried about how it would be. I'd never lived with a "proper" pet before and wasn't quite sure how it would work. Some of the stories in the Cat Confidential book were quite worrying. What if I didn't get on with the cats? What if they were impossible to live with? I think, perhaps, if they did some or all of the things I've mentioned above, I would definitely find it hard to enjoy them. But as it happens, they've really brought a lot to our lives, things we hadn't imagined, and I am enjoying having them. Scraping cat poo off a wall may not be the height of glamour, but when they burst out of a bush and rub your legs when you go in to the garden, a little bit of you does melt. And hey, I can pill fighty cats now. That's got to be a new skill worth celebrating.

Hunter

We sat down for a meal (unusual, it's normally TV dinners round here) and I noticed Natalie looking like she was about to pounce on Nathan. I called to R to look out of the window, and we realised that he had something in his paws. A whitish, furryish something.

A mouse! One of our cats has finally caught a mouse!

We have mice, and can hear them scratching around in the walls. It would be good if the cats could catch a mouse, from time to time.

But then, mice aren't really very white, are they?

He began tossing and throwing this furryish object in the air, Natalie standing nearby looking extremely jealous.

I decided to go and investigate. Fortunately, he didn't run off with his prey and I got close enough to see that it wasn't a mouse. It was a little brown bird.

We have lots of birds in our garden, and we're particularly proud of the blue tit babies that are fledging and a pair of bullfinches that stop by from time to time. So far, we've not noticed the cats even paying much attention to the birds. Until now.

I think it was a sparrow, and it was dead. Nathan seemed to be quite enjoying gnawing it and playing with it, which was rather vile.

We were sort of impressed he caught something, as we didn't think he'd have it in him, and also really quite sad that a bird had died. I just hope the baby blue tits stay off the ground as they have been. Fingers crossed.

Where are you, Nathan?

Last night, both R and I went out separately. I got home about 11pm and called the cats in as soon as I was in the house.

Natalie came in straight away, chowed on her food and then wouldn't leave me alone. It wasn't quite lovebombing or maybe I'm more used to it now, but she was by my side as I changed into my pyjamas and got a cheek rub in on my bumcheek. She loves me.

Nathan didn't come in so after about 20 minutes I called him again.

Ten minutes after that, R came home, made some food, and Nathan still wasn't in. It was after midnight by now and we were wanting to go to bed. R walked round the garden, shook the food, called his name and searched around the house. But there was no Nathan.

They usually come in quite quickly, and I'd assumed that he'd be in as soon as he heard the food as I was sure he would be hungry.

Apparently, he wasn't.

We left the cat flap on one way, so glad we got a four way flap, and went to bed. Initially, we shut Natalie in their room but then decided to let her sleep with us.

Of course, this led to some antics, with her crawling across our pillows then settling down for a pre-sleep wash. She got kicked out shortly after.

Somehow, she found her way back in and woke us up at 4.30 attempting to yack up a hairball. On the bed. I got up and shooed her away, and decided to go down to see if Nathan had finally decided to come home.

And he had! He was eating, which is the first thing they do when they come in, so it was possibly a case of very good timing. Maybe Natalie was sick that he'd come back and she'd have to share again? ;)

It was a bit worrying, because he is the slightly more pathetic one, and we have badgers and foxes in the garden and land beyond the house. We didn't want him getting beaten up by a badger. Then we wondered if he'd got locked in a garage. He's come home before with engine oil on one of his ears. Maybe we'll have to fashion some sort of camera attachment to find out just where they go during the day. It would be fascinating!

I wanted to keep him in this morning, but he was doing the cat version of "I really really need a poo!" by the door so I had to let him out. I've seem him falling off hedges, and he's come in once to cry at me, so let's hope it was a one-off.

Brother and sister II

What was I saying yesterday about how they get on? This makes it look like they are totally in love!



I'm not keen on the amount of licking she's giving to the site of the rodent ulcer, but if this happens a lot it explains why he's lost so much fur from it. Bless her. I wonder if he's allergic to her spit and this is the explanation for why he keeps getting the ulcers?!

Oh, and, isn't just SO CUTE?! ;)

Brother and sister

I've posted a lot about the cats separately, but not much about how they interact.

The overall advice seems to be that having more than one cat is a Very Bad Idea (although I've noted that a lot of people who say this have several!). Cats are territorial (but social...) and don't like to share their space or their humans with other cats.

If you MUST get two cats, littermates are best, and the best combination is a brother and a sister cat. We win one point. Finally.

When we adopted them, the sanctuary said that Natalie was extremely shy and needed Nathan around to help her out a bit. Since they've settled in, she's come out of her shell twice the size. I'll illustrate this by saying that although we get them in at night, it's Nathan I worry about when he's a bit slow to come back. I know Natalie could beat up a badger no problems; Nathan, not so much.

Their interactions with each other are interesting. They do quite a lot of tearing around after each other, probably because they are both still young cats. At first, I worried that he bullied her, as he was always the one jumping on her. It felt like she couldn't go anywhere without being mounted. I really don't approve of siblings mounting each other, for the record.

Since then, I've seen her drop-kick him in the face, punch him on the nose with her back legs from lying down and kick him in the guts. She can handle herself.

They've recently starting fighting with hissing, where before it was purely playfighting with no verbalising. I don't know if the hissing is just play too, but it certainly sounds a bit nastier.

When we let them out in the morning they go off together, which is sweet, and they do some investigating together, as per the photo at the top. They are quite independent of each other generally though. Domestic cats are definitely more tiger than lion, and pack hunting doesn't come into the equation. When they're hunting bees, it's every cat for him/herself.

I hope they carry on getting on, and a little less fighting would be very pleasant, in the long term. It's noisy, above everything!

Here's a short photo story from today:



This looks cute, like they're bookends, right? In reality, it's like the game of chicken they play in Grease, and they're going to run at each other for a wrestle. You can see Nathan's baldy face patch clearly in this picture.



POW! Smackdown! Nathan on top of Natalie, looks like he's biting her shoulder. She's kicking him where he hasn't got any balls. It's quite dramatic in real life.



Then they walk away, like nothing happened. Nothing to see here.

As I type, they are chasing each other around the hall and living room. So peaceful.

Nathan T Cat

Nathan el diablokitty.

I haven't been on good terms with Nathan lately, I didn't really understand him. I began to wonder if Natalie was dominating him. We can trust her a lot more, and so she's the cat that gets to sleep on our bed in the mornings, sit on our laps as much as she likes and generally be as near us as she pleases. This is because she hasn't done piss/spray droplets on us or our floors. As far as we know.

Poor Nathan. It can't be much fun being an undersized male cat (although he's not even one year old yet) and having your smaller sibling own you whenever she pleases. His rodent ulcers/eosinophilic granuloma has got a lot worse over the last 48 hours too. I'll try to get a picture. I read in Cat vs Cat by Pam Johnson-Bennett that when a cat is ill, it instantly loses any dominance. Poor poor Nathan. No wonder he's been feeling a bit sorry for himself.

I decided to buy him a new scratching post, for the room he prefers when they're in the house. I've done this and hope he gets to enjoy it. Natalie definitely scratches more than him, and does so at the foot of the stairs at least twice a day. I'm not sure what that means in terms of territory and boundaries, but she's a very scent-marky cat with her face and the whole house, and us, must just stink of her to Nathan.

I was really pleased with a spot purchase though. It's a dog blanket for cars for wet dogs to sit on so that they don't ruin the upholstery. But what else would it be perfect for? Allowing a cat to sit on one's lap without the fear that piss/spray will end up on your clothing. I've already had him on my lap twice today and he got so excited he dribbled! I love it when cats dribble, you know they're really happy then. So, we'll persevere with that, and the great thing about it, that as we'll only use it with Nathan, it'll smell of him and hopefully reduce his desire to "mark" us with urine (well, that should be ME really) when he's on our laps. Win win all round.

Not such a diablokitty after all.

Bullycat

As I said yesterday, I think we have a bullycat.

It is quite huge, compared to our two, or perhaps just fatter and furrier. Neither of them could have it in a fight. It has quite a big head, so maybe it's a boycat.

I call it the blue cat, but it's actually grey and white and we used to see it in the garden before we got the cats.

I'm not sure if this story involves the same cat, but it certainly explains some of Nathan's behaviour if so.

You often hear cat behaviourists saying they don't like cat flaps. I read Cat Confidential by Vicky Halls before getting the cats and she is not a cat flap fan. She likened it to humans removing the front door and replacing it with an unlocked flap. I know I'd be terrifed about who could get in, day and night.

We do lock the cat flap at night, and place one of their unused beds in front of it. This is to stop Natalie pounding on it constantly as that cat really does like to go out, rather than reassure the cats they are safe inside, and I'll give some thought to this in light of last night's events.

The cats are extremely spoilt and have their own room, which is off the kitchen and is attached to the garage. There's a corridor from the garage down the side of their room (behind a wall) that also leads to the garden. As their room has a glass sliding door, they have two cat flaps - their room to garage, and garage to garden. Lovely.

Last night, I had to go into the garage and as I shut the door on their room, keeping the bed in front of the flap (they'd been put to bed) I heard an ALMIGHTY pounding on the catflap from the garden. I was absolutely TERRIFIED. It was so loud and persistent and completely unexpected. I actually froze in position for a good minute, before finishing off my chore and running upstairs to get my partner to go into the garden and lock the external catflap. It probably was just another neighbourhood cat, but oh so scary!

We don't usually lock the external flap, and it made me wonder if bullycat comes into our garage when the cats are in bed and pounds on the flap, making them scared and anxious? I really hope not, and it really has made me count my blessings that Nathan's spray/piss problems are actually quite minor. I know some people really do suffer with their cats' stresses and anxieties.

I think we may re-evaluate the cat flaps over the next few days and see what we come up with. Nothing may change, but I do know it's extremely important for cats to feel secure to get the best out of them.

Here's a picture of them in their room from when we'd had them a month. They're so much bigger now!

Hide and seek

The first clue we had that Natalie liked to hide was the day the kitchen fitters came to finish off their work. The cats were indoor cats at that point, and confined to the kitchen, to reduce the likelihood of hiding. We put them in the living room while the fitters came. And when they left, we couldn't find Natalie.

Eventually, we found her here:



Then we discovered she likes drawers:


One night, people on the council estate did fireworks, for no reason we could discern, and she hid on a bookshelf. I couldn't get any pictures of that.

She does seem to like our two pieces of inherited antique furniture. She got in the piano again last night, and a couple of days before that, had a little nestle under the music table:


I think she gets sick of being papped. But what's the point of having cats, if not to take pictures of them being stupid?

They also like overhangs:




I've seen a big bully cat in the garden and I think he scares our cats into hiding inside. He walked past Nathan the other day, when I happened to be watching. The piloerection (fur standing on end) was so freaky! The two cats sniffed noses, then bullycat sprayed on my plants and sauntered off. Cheeky furry bastard! My poor kitties are being intimidated in their own back garden. Will have to try to find a way to get rid of him. He is very large, and they are very small though. Poor kitties. At least our messy house has plenty of hidey holes and overhangs!

The internet is made of cats

As we all know, the internet is made of cats. And there's a special part of the internet that is made of cats in boxes. Why do cats like boxes? I don't know. But if you put a box on the floor, a cat will try to get into it. Just watch this marvellous film featuring the fabulous Maru and many too small boxes.

Here are the witch's cats in boxes:



It is much tidier around here now, and I'm sure the cats are less entertained for that fact!



Sharing nicely. Well played, kitties.



I put this on the floor while she was in the room, and two minutes later, she was in it. Very amusing.

Cats in boxes. Hours of fun.

Continuing Rodent Ulcer/Eosinophilic Granuloma

Well, it's sort of getting bigger, but completely not bothering him at all:



Don't worrry that it looks like we're strangling him, it's fine, and only for a few seconds. Not a great picture due to the flash, but the left side of his face, just above the lip, has swelled up a bit. It's a little "crusty" under the fur, and some has come out. It's been a bit weepy but is quite dry today. It doesn't seem to bother him at all.

So, I'm wondering what's going on with it really, and thinking that the food is actually helping the situation, instead of being random advice.

As I've said before, when the previous rodent ulcer came up, his lip was a bit swollen on the Monday and by the time I took him to the vet on the next Wednesday, less than three days later, it had become red, crusty and oozy. Disgusting.

This one has been going on for about three weeks. It is a bit crusty and oozy from time to time, but not red and not in a place that's going to cause him any bother. It does look like an eosinphilic granuloma, but nothing like as bad as some of the pictures I've seen on the internet. I'm making the assumption that the hypoallergenic food is doing some good and reducing the amount of time the reaction is taking to develop. Or perhaps there is far less of whatever he is allergic to. Or perhaps it's something completely different.

The best result for me, would be if it went back down and we could try him on some other food to see how that goes. It would be useful to take him for a biopsy, but I'm not keen at all on the idea of a general anaesthetic and the cost is rather high. Poor little cat's had a lifetime of being messed with so it would be nice if this would just resolve itself.

Funny things cats do #1

Nathan does this weird thing where, when he's all relaxed and chilled, he rolls. He's usually lying on something that he can roll off, sadly for him. He's rolled off the footstool thing in the picture below, our bed and the sofa.

Today, I was in the shower and often, when we're in the bathroom, one or both of them will sit outside the closed door. I'm not sure why, and it's actually probably completely unrelated, but there it is. When I came out, he was waiting for me. I stroked his head and bit, and said hello. Then he tried to attack my slipper. Naughty cat. So I made to leave, and he did his stretching and rolling thing.

Problem is, our bathroom door is at the top of our stairs, so as he rolled over, he fell off the top step and began to fall down the stairs, like a mountain climber sliding down a sheer rock face. Fortunately, as climbers have ice picks, Nathan has claws, so he managed to dig in a claw, shake himself down, and run away from those nasty stairs that tried to scare him

Silly boy.

Very silly boy, he doesn't even like snooker:

Vet book

I'm reading this guy's book. I am very amused to see the cat on the splash of his website is a dead ringer for my Natalie.

I haven't read much of the book, but I always enjoyed James Herriott when I was a kid, and another vet series who's author I can't remember. I never thought I'd end up owning two naughty black cats though!

The beginning of a rodent ulcer

I just pinned Nathan to the floor with one hand and took a picture of the burgeoning ulcer with the other. Quite proud of myself, and him. He did attempt a scratch with a back leg, but I moved too quickly for him. Dopey cat. Today he managed to get himself lost in a fitted sheet that he was lying on (we are not keen housekeepers) and he's currently having a fight with a curtain. Bless his lack of brain cells.

Anyway, it's rather blurry but I want to document the progression of the ulcer. It's not coming up too quickly, really. With the last one, all of three weeks ago, his lip was swollen on the Monday, and sore, red and weeping by the Wednesday. This has been trying to rise since before the weekend. Of course, he still has some steroid in his system, but perhaps the special diet is helping in some way. I'm sure it'll still come up, and then it's off to the vet for a general anaesthetic and a biopsy, leaving us a little lighter in pocket. All the biopsy will tell us is whether the problem really is eosinophilic granulomae, but doesn't tell us what is causing it.

The vet said 90% of the cause of the condition is an allergy to flea bites. I've read on the internet that just one or two flea bites can cause the ulcer to start. We do treat him with Frontline regularly, and the vet checked him all over again for flea dirt, finding none. But I'm sure a treated cat can be bitten and thus cause a reaction. Apart from keeping him inside, and possibly his sister too, which they'd hate, what else can be done? Then, there's the 10% of cause which may be food allergy.

In order to find out what the food allergy could be, we'd have to cook him food ourselves and a food he's never had before. I read somewhere that cats like variety in their diet, this means that the only meat he's never had is....venison. Yeah, as if I'm going to buy venison for a bloody cat! Not going to happen. Well, I say that now. I also said that I'd never allow a cat on the bed, in case it pissed on it. Guess what happened yesterday morning...This cat is pure trouble, I'm telling you.

Face Herps

Just back from the vet with Nathan. We've just finished a course of steroids for his rodent ulcers/eosinophilic granuloma and it's starting to come up again.

The vet, however, had slightly different ideas. We'd had in mind asking for a long supply of steroids to try to keep it at bay. The vet said that wasn't a good idea and he'd only be willing to treat if the granuloma/ulcer comes up badly as it has done previously. That'll be in about three days then.

I think we're going to stop treating him with the steroids, in spite of being given a few, and then go in for a biopsy when the burgeoning ulcer inevitably makes an appearance. This will make sure the condition is actually eosinophilic granuloma. And then, perhaps we'll have to see what happens with the medication at that point.

I'll try to get some photos of it as it progresses, as it will be useful for records. I'll have to figure out how to do a "jump" or "cut" as us LJ types put it. Watch this space. Or not, if you're squeamish.

Sunday lie-in with Natalie

A triptych, of sorts.

Asleep.



More relaxed:



VERY relaxed:



And then she went outside to hunt bees.