Cats!

[Volkonski]

[Azastan]

That's a BEAUTIFUL kitty .

[RVInit]

[Foggy]

Oh man, a Creamsicle kitteh. I used to love Creamsicles.




Yeah, yeah, look at the cat.

Now look at the ice cream bar.


EXACKLY the same.

.

Edit: Ol' Wifehorn got some more kitty food dishes. We have four now, plus four bento dishes, and only three cats. So obviously we've got enough food dishes for eight. I'm keeping a close eye on things.

[RTH10260]

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

That's a BEAUTIFUL kitty .

[RTH10260]

3the guy just posted again several clips

[Estiveo]

Oy, such a punim!

[Kriselda Gray]

Katy Kitty waiting for me to open the Chewy box Feb 26 2022.jpg

Katy feeling much better now that she's home!

(her pupils are different sizes because she just moved out of the sun on her right side, she's fine!)

Glad to hear she's home and doing well!

[Kriselda Gray]

She's lovely!

[bill_g]

3the guy just posted again several clips

I wonder how the cats would react to ragtime.

[Foggy]

So here's a scruffy monster.



In the morning I feed all three of them the canned food. One small can of Fancy Feast seafood choices or sumpin', ol' Wifehorn buys the cat food, I just give it to them. The two girls are not big eaters, so Leon here (aka Johnny Bento) gets about 2/3 of the can, and the girls get 1/6th each. Life is never really fair. He eats in the kitchen. The Kittybear eats in the garage. The Moocow eats wherever she is when she comes downstairs, I carry her little dish over and put it on the floor, or put it on the table if she's up there. Remember that, it's on the quiz later.

When Johnny Bento finishes what I give him, he goes looking to finish off anything the girlies didn't eat. That's OK, they really don't want it, and he doesn't eat as much dry food as they do. Ol' Wifehorn thinks too much dry food is bad for male cats. Anyway, the girlies don't object to him finishing off their breakfasts, but I like to at least give them the chance to eat or turn it over to Johnny. Normally, they eat a little, turn the rest over to Johnny, and everybody's happy.

EXCEPT sometimes the little one, Peanut Moocow, does not come down for early breakfast, particularly on Sunday mornings (today is Sunday, this is a story but we're still on background). And if I put her dish down anywhere before she gets downstairs, the Feline Food Vacuum will suck it up before she has any chance to politely give it to him. So on those mornings I put Moocow's dish on the counter, and wait until she comes downstairs.

This week Johnny Bento got up on the counter and sucked up Moocow's breakfast before she had a chance to look at it. Bad Johnny! But it's not like we didn't know he could get up on the counter.

Plan B. I put Moocow's breakfast THIS MORNING we're finally nearing the end of the story my gawd anyway this week I started putting it up on top of the refrigerator and THIS MORNING he got up there and polished it off while I was optimizing the Fogbow database and doing my weekly maintenance chores, and the damn cat, I don't know how he got down, much less up. Our kitchen is ... a little ... messy right now, and he should have broken his neck jumping down from there.

Instead, look at him. He's fat and needs some rest. People think it's easy jumping on top of the refrigerator to steal your sister's food, but it's not easy, just try it sometime.


I'm so damn proud of him. This cat is resourceful as hell. Strong like bull. Athletic as hell when the occasion calls for it. Loving, cuddly, the girlies pick on him but he's a perfect gentleman, and they're lucky because he is an AWESOME CAT and could tear them to shreds if he wasn't such a good boy. Ol' Wifehorn and I have now owned 8 cats together, this one we agree is the most awesomest cat we ever had. Molly-Polly coming in a very close second.


Next time I'm putting Moodow's breakfast in the microwave with the door latched, let's see him get in there. This is a battle I'm going to win.

[qbawl]

Don't know much about cats. But as for dogs my ole grandpappy told me many years ago, "If you want to teach something to a dog first make sure you know more than the dog."

[jcolvin2]

Ol' Wifehorn thinks too much dry food is bad for male cats.

It is my understanding that eating too much dry can result in urinary tract issues for male cats. Our prior male cat had to have an operation for this reason and was subsequently given special (i.e. more expensive) dry food designed to force him to drink more water. We give our current male cat as much wet as he will eat, hoping to avoid a repeat. (He is no fan of the dry.) He is currently eating three to four cans of Fancy Feast a day. (He weighs 7 kgs.)

[Foggy]

Don't know much about cats. But as for dogs my ole grandpappy told me many years ago, "If you want to teach something to a dog first make sure you know more than the dog."

True also with cats, except more difficult in practice because what cats know is unknown.

And yeah, Johnny Bento gets basically two cans of Fancy Feast and a generous share of rotisserie chicken. I worry about his weight, but I reckon he showed this morning that he's not exackly getting out of shape.

We got him at about 8 weeks old in May 2015, so he's right around 7 years old now.

That's why the girlies love him. He's so big, so strong, so athletic, but when they come up and pop him one for no reason known to man, he doesn't do anything to get them back. They get away with it. So naturally, the next time they think they have a good shot to pop him another one, they don't hold back.

The Kittybear was a bouncer in a Texas roadhouse in her previous life, and before that she was a Boer and a Confederate soldier, godonlyknows what else. Maybe a Cossack, that would be trendy.

She musta done something really bad as the Texas bouncer, to have to come back in this life as a fluffy little girl kittycat. Luckily, she has an owner who recognizes her true nature and is helping her get through.

[Azastan]

Ol' Wifehorn thinks too much dry food is bad for male cats.

It is my understanding that eating too much dry can result in urinary tract issues for male cats. Our prior male cat had to have an operation for this reason and was subsequently given special (i.e. more expensive) dry food designed to force him to drink more water. We give our current male cat as much wet as he will eat, hoping to avoid a repeat. (He is no fan of the dry.) He is currently eating three to four cans of Fancy Feast a day. (He weighs 7 kgs.)

It's not so much that eating dry food is a problem, but more that wet food provides water to dilute the urine. Cats that consume a diet rich in sodium, calcium, and phosphorus are at an increased risk for urinary blockage. Alkaline pH also can be a contributing factor, as can the sex (males are MUCH more prone to crystalluria than females, due to the length and narrowness of the male urethra). There are two types of crystals which get precipitated out of urine, struvite and calcium oxalate. Struvite crystals can be dissolved by feeding a special diet, but calcium oxalate crystals can't, so prevention is vital if your cat has calcium oxalate crystals.

If your male cat winds up with a urethral blockage, you will have him on a prescription diet for the rest of his life because the issue will keep happening if he's given non-prescription food. Keep an eye on him if he keeps going to the litter box but never actually urinates, or if the output is just a few drops of urine. Urethral blockage is an EMERGENCY and your cat could die, painfully, of a ruptured bladder if the urine can't escape.

Fancy Feast isn't horrible for them, but try to avoid the fish based ones since those are high in phosphorus.

[Foggy]

Wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, he isn't sick. He's freakin' SuperCat, if I've been following along with the conversation.

Which I have, since he is, after all, my cat.

He's not having dietary or any other medical problems. He's strong, active, he eats and drinks (and poops and pees) without any problems, and his biggest complaint is that he has recently consulted with his own internal guidance counselor and discovered, amazingly enough, that he's really an outdoor cat who needs to spend time outdoors every day. And we're not listening to that noise.

He really is amazing in many ways, and getting ready to die from the food he eats isn't one of them. One thing, he has the biggest vocal range of any cat I've ever known. He says things very softly. He says things very loudly. He makes polite requests. He issues harsh commands. He doesn't talk all day, but when he really wants to tell you something, he will make his point clear. Not always bossy, not always hungry ... but always clear, he can get the message across, which is a measure of intelligence all by itself.

[jcolvin2]

Urethral blockage is an EMERGENCY and your cat could die, painfully, of a ruptured bladder if the urine can't escape.

Fancy Feast isn't horrible for them, but try to avoid the fish based ones since those are high in phosphorus.

Yes. Our former cat had to be rushed to the emergency room for urethral blockage. We were driving back from San Francisco, and the cat sitter called, explaining the symptoms she was seeing. We had her take the cat to the vet, and sped back to Seattle. We had planned to spend a night in Oregon, but drove straight through instead.

Thanks for the info on fish-based wet foods. I did not realize that phosphorous was an issue.

[Azastan]

Wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, he isn't sick. He's freakin' SuperCat, if I've been following along with the conversation.

Uh, this was not implying that your kitty was ill!

This was more an FYI so that if you ever see your cat struggling to urinate in the litter box, just know it's an emergency.

I am part of a 'vets only reply' FB page, and this is one of the most common questions asked about male cats.

Yes. Our former cat had to be rushed to the emergency room for urethral blockage. We were driving back from San Francisco, and the cat sitter called, explaining the symptoms she was seeing. We had her take the cat to the vet, and sped back to Seattle. We had planned to spend a night in Oregon, but drove straight through instead.

Thanks for the info on fish-based wet foods. I did not realize that phosphorous was an issue.

You and the former kitty were lucky that the pet sitter checked with you about what she was seeing. I keep a close eye on George for this reason. Oddly, he's gotten a couple of urinary tract infections, but never had a urethral blockage (female cats get UTIs, male cats get the blockages). But George has been hustled down to Renton Blue Pearl a couple of times, 'just in case'.

[Foggy]

Yes, well all jokes aside, I don't and really can't watch him pee. We have a lid on the litter box, and it's in the laundry room, so they have their privacy. The last thing my little girls want is Daddy watching them pee and stuff. So I won't know unless there's suddenly a dramatic difference in the amount of pee I have to scoop out of the box. That's the only thing I can really monitor.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Johnny Bento is the MAN!!!!!!

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Don't know much about cats. But as for dogs my ole grandpappy told me many years ago, "If you want to teach something to a dog first make sure you know more than the dog."

It's easy to "outknow" a dog. You can never "outknow" a cat.

[Maybenaut]

We may have discovered one of Stormy’s parents. We looked outside yesterday and this orange kitty was eating with the other feral cats. There are quite a few ferals here on the mountain side, but we’ve never seen this one. We weren’t able to get a good enough look to determine it’s sex. The is the best picture I could get; it ran away as soon as it saw me.

A3FE3DCF-E803-4D6B-A958-24E7A1B61FFE.jpeg (202.43 KiB) Viewed 984 times

[Azastan]

We may have discovered one of Stormy’s parents. We looked outside yesterday and this orange kitty was eating with the other feral cats. There are quite a few ferals here on the mountain side, but we’ve never seen this one. We weren’t able to get a good enough look to determine it’s sex. The is the best picture I could get; it ran away as soon as it saw me.

A3FE3DCF-E803-4D6B-A958-24E7A1B61FFE.jpeg

Odds are 3-4 that it's a male LOL.

[Maybenaut]

Probably male, but Stormy’s not. As I understand it, her father must be orange. This is probably him. Likely not Stormy’s sibling because she’s still quite small. Hopefully we can catch it so we can spay/neuter.