Wabble Opens Doors

My youngest boy has gotten taller than I realized. A few weeks ago when I was doing laundry, I came out of the laundry room to find several of the cats roaming around the hall. Since my roommate was home, I thought she must have let them out, because I was sure I had pulled the door closed behind me. She heard me chasing them in and came to see what was going on. She hadn't even realized they were out! When I went back to the laundry room, I came back just in time to see Wabble coming out. Di swore he had opened the door himself. A couple of days later, I saw it with my own eyes. I had forgotten to lock the door when I came in from work, and Wabble went to the door and meowed. I looked to see what was going on in time to see him sit up, brace one paw against the door frame, and pull down on the door handle (we have ADA levers on the doors in our apartment). The door popped open enough that he could drop down and get a paw in there to pull the door open enough to get out. Now we have to lock the door even if we're just going to the laundry room, mail box, or dumpster.

Once again, my cats have proven that they are smarter than I am. It also means that we have to be home when Maintenance comes by because we can't lock them in the bedroom any more.

A New Blog Home

To give fair warning to new readers of this blog, it doesn't get updated very often. I have a tendency to forget for months on end that I even have it. To reintroduce my family to those who may not know us, it consists of myself, a full-time Department Digithead for the Exposition Sales department in a major trade association, variously full- or part- time student at a local community college (to get "officially smart" in what I've been doing and teaching myself for the past 20 years), and full-time cat mom; my roommate, a customer service assistant at a nearby grocery store and full-time "cats' favorite auntie"; His Grace, Sir Frederick, Duke of Northern Virginia (affectionately known as Freddie), a Siamese male who rules the roost; Nittany Lion (affectionately known as Mittens), a Siamese female who is very affectionate, but has a very loud soprano voice (especially when she wants something); two of her children (resulting from an adventure she had that was chronicled in the early part of this blog) Wabble, a tabby boy who is shaped like a Siamese, but scaled up to about double size (it's hard to believe that big boy came out of such a little Mother); and Sugar Paws, a cute little black girl with white paws and a white exclamation point on her nose (who looks just like her Mother with a different paint job); Finn Mac Cool, a Tonkinese (we think) whom we found at a local shelter while looking for the missing Mittens, and who is now a big Irish boy with a soft meow and a purr like a Mack truck; Coco Puff, a Siamese mix we also found while looking for Mittens. She looks like a Siamese done large with full Siamese coloring and a voice to match, but she's a real snugglebug when she wants to be; and Romana, a long-haired grey lady with a plumy tail and eyes that are green like springtime. Mittens also had two other kittens from her adventure, a grey-and-white pair now named Jamie and Zoe and living with their adoptive parents in Manassas. Our outside family also includes various birds, squirrels, and chipmunks who come to our feeder. The chipmunks only seem to come one at a time, so for a long time we thought they were all the same one and called them all Chippie (except when one got inside and became temporarily "that bloody rodent" (see "The Great Chipmunk Adventure" for more details on that one)).

Yesterday, Sugar Paws, Wabble, and Puff flushed Chippie out of the corner by the potting soil again when I went out to fill the feeder, but this time he escaped under the door of the utility closet. You should have seen the cats put on the brakes to stop from careening into the door!

As the days dwindle into Fall, the weather is turning colder, especially at night, although the days have still been fairly warm. We see a lot more squirrels out and about as they gather in their winter stores, and the time we have to take the boys out walking is limited -- especially since poisonous snakes have been seen in the area. According to the local news, a dog in the area was bitten and barely survived -- and the dog they were showing was a Golden Retriever. I don't want to risk my boys until we've had a solid frost so all the snakes go into hibernation.

I think Chippie either has a nest or a passage to his nest in the utility closet. I keep seeing him dashing back and forth across the balcony with his cheek pouches full. Most of the cats are asleep right now, except Sugar Paws, who is sitting under the coffee table watching the show outside the sliding door.

The other thing you may notice about these postings is that I never seem to know how to finish one off.

The Great Chipmunk Adventure

I really need to add to this blog more often in the year since the last time I made an entry, we have moved apartments, Ringtail and all 8 of her kittens have found forever homes, and our own cats have continued to grow happy and healthy.  Last Saturday morning, I went out to sweep our balcony, closing the screen behind me.  However, when I tried to go back in, Sugar Paws and Coco Puff slid out onto the balcony and made a beeline for the corner where the potting soil sits behind a couple of chairs.  It turned out that while the birds and squirrels had made themselves scarce while I swept, Chippy the Chipmunk had instead hid behind the potting soil.  When I tried to get Sugie out from under the chair, it bumped the potting soil and Chippy bolted.  Well, Sugie caught him and ran into the apartment with him!  He was unhurt, but she dropped him and he escaped into the apartment.  We locked all the cats up and started looking for him.  Since we couldn't find him, we let the cats out.  Sugie flushed him out, and we chased him toward the open screen door.  Unfortunately, Finn tried to join the chase, so I didn't actually see whether he had gone out the door or doubled back.  Since we didn't see him inside and the cats settled down, we figured he had got out.

Fast forward to Sunday night about 1:00 AM.  We were awakened by a clatter and row in the living room and went in to find Sugie and Puff going behind the green chair and Wabble trying to get around the other end of the couch.  We tried to move the couch, and out came Chippy!  After a great deal of fuss and moving of furniture, he ran inside one of our big speakers.  Since it was 1:30 by that time and we needed to be up by 6, we just put the speaker out on the balcony for the night, locked the door, went to bed, and hoped for the best.  Monday morning, he was gone from the speaker, so we brought it back inside.  But the cats are barred from the balcony for a few days just to let them know that catching chipmunks and turning them loose inside is not a good idea!

Cats -- gotta love 'em!

Tags: cats, chipmunks, meezer

More Kittens

Boy, it's been a long time since I posted to this!  I've been too busy to even mention that Ringtail surprised us in late August.  It turns out when she brought one set of kittens in from the storm, she was already working on another set.  She presented us with five new kittens, two ginger boys, a tabby/tortie boy, a tabby/tortie girl, and a black girl with white socks.

They are all adorable and are wandering about exploring their world.  The older kittens don't know what to do with them, but Wabble thinks they're wonderful.  We let them out for a couple hours at a time a few times a day so they can get socialized, but put them and their mother back in the nursery when the hissing starts.

A Whole Nuther Famiily

Yesterday, the remains of Tropical Storm Barry came through.  Ringtail, the female feral I've been taming gave us quite a surprise!  Diane called to me to come quickly, so I came running to see what she was on about.  I'd seen Ringtail up and about a little earlier and now she was up again, in the rain, with a kitten trailing along after her.  Diane and I went out to see, and Ringtail let us come right up to her, as she has been doing for some time.  The kitten, however, ducked beneath a car and climbed up into the wheel well.  Diane reached up into the wheel well and pulled the kitten out.  Meanwhile, Ringtail diappeared back down the storm drain.  Not knowing what else to do, we brought the poor bedraggled kitten inside.  About an hour later, Ringtail appeared again with another kitten.  This time we brought both her and the kitten inside.  Once she had settled the kittens in, eaten a couple of cans of food, nursed the kittens and got them to sleep, she jumped up on the window sill and called repeatedly out the window.   On the advice of a friend who does animal rescue, we took her back outside and she promptly went right back down the storm drain.  It was another couple of hours before she reappeared.  Diane said she had seen her running across the yard.  I went back out to see if I could find her.  Eventually, I went over to the storm drain to call her and saw her peering out, with another little nose peeking out beside her.  She came out and rubbed against my legs, calling to the kitten as if to tell her I could be trusted.  Eventually, the kitten came within reach, and I picked it up.  I heard a mewing, looked down, and saw another kitten coming out.  This kitten, however, was too scared to come out and kept ducking back down the drain.  About this time, Di came out to see what I was doing.  While she tried to persuade the kitten to come out, I brought the one I had caught inside and tucked it in with its siblings.  When I went back out, Diane handed me the fourth kitten, still struggling and spitting as if to convince either us or itself that it wasn't scared.  We brought the kitten and Ringtail back inside, and she settled in with the kittens.  She seemed quite content to stay in the middle room with her kittens until it started to get dark.  Then she went to the window and started calling again.  This time when I took her out, she only stuck her head into the storm drain and called, then repeated the process at the other storm drain.  Then she came back to the patio near the steps where I put the food for the ferals, calling all the while.  After a little while, the new tom, whom I call Young Tom, to distinguish him from Old Tom who passed away over the winter, came wandering up, and Ringtail went over to him.  I don't know what he said, but she whapped him on the nose, and they wandered off for a while together.  In the meantime, I brought out food for Tom and went back inside.  When I came back out, she was standing at the door crying to get in to her babies.  Tom, meanwhile, was eating; and when he finished he ran off into the night yelling loudly as if he couldn't believe what she had done.  She came back in with me, and now the whole family is safely ensconsed in our middle room with our resident cats safely shut out of it.

We are planning to foster her and the kittens until the kittens are old enough to be rehomed and then find homes for them.  In the meantime, I have the delicate balancing act of looking after and socializing Ringtail and her four kittens without our resident cats getting jealous.

Tags: cats, rescue, feral, kittens

Quality Control

I am very upset by the Menu Foods recall -- or rather, the reasons for it.  I hope they don't try to weasel out of compensating pet owners whose cats got sick and/or died as a result of their food.  I had a cat with chronic kidney failure, and that can get very expensive.

My point is, where was their quality control?  Why were they not testing their ingredients before to see if there was anything in there that shouldn't have been?  Also, why did they have so little idea of where the ingredients were coming from?  First they said the wheat gluten came from Canada, and now they are saying it came from China.

I do hope they find out how the poison got into the food in the first place and make sure it can't happen again -- at least without them finding out about it before they seal up the cans & pouches!  According to the news, no criminal charges have been filed.  In my view, somebody is guilty at least of criminal negligence.  If it turns out that someone put it in there on purpose, they deserve the death penalty (not to mention rotting in the special corner of Hell reserved for people who do that sort of thing).

My cats are my children, and it's only the pure luck that they don't like Iams or Eukanuba canned foods that has spared me from losing one or more of my cats.  My heart goes out to those who have lost pets to this poison.  I know what it is to lose a pet, and it is that much harder when you find out it could have been prevented if people you trusted to know what they were doing had been doing their jobs.

Tags: Menu foods recall, tainted cat food

A Lot of Catching Up

It's been longer since I wrote than I thought! In the time that has passed, the kittens have grown up a bit.  Two of them, GB and GG, have moved out to live with my friends in Manassas, Benjamin and Lisa, who have renamed them Jaime and Zoe.  They have grown quite a bit and are doing fine.  They've even won over Pearl, Lisa's 16-year-old moggy.

Of the remaining three, Star developed FIP in early September.  When Jazzle had it in 2005, she only lasted two weeks.  However, Star had a new vet who was willing to try new ideas and do some research.  She drained the fluid from his tummy twice a week and gave him a vitamin B shot each time.  We also had him on Predinsolone, Cytoxan, vitamin C, and pulsed dosing of antibiotics (one week on and one week off) to ward off secondary infections.  With this treatment, he was feisty and active for six weeks! When the crash came, it was overnight.  One night, he was fighting me over his evening meds, then overnight he kept shifting around as if he couldn't get comfortable.  The next morning, he was nearly comatose.  We took him to the vet, and I held him as he crossed the Rainbow Bridge.  His ashes now rest in a little box on our bookshelf with the notation:

Star
June 18, 2006 - October 12, 2006
One Feisty Little Bugger

Since the other two, Blaze and Wabble MacTabble, have been exposed and are susceptible until they are two years old, we decided it would be unfair to rehome them, so we are keeping them.  To date, they are very healthy and went in to be snipped and chipped a few weeks ago.  Blaze had her stitches out just before I left for the International Builders' Show in Orlando.  She is up to 6 pounds, and Wabble is a 10.2-pound boy -- as big as Freddie, and Freddie just turned 6 years old!  We recently had them all checked, and the biggest of them is 1-1/2-year-old Finn Mac Cool at 14.1 pounds.  Then come Freddie, Cocoa Puff, and Wabble, all tied at 10.2, then Romana at 8.9, then Mittens at 8.6, and Blaze at 6 pounds even.   All are currently healthy, and I hope they stay that way.

Now I'm in Orlando at IBS, running the exhibitor reg desk.  I've been down here a week, and I miss my kitties dreadfully.  I talked to Di the other day, and she said Finnie kept jumping up on the back of the green chair and whapping her in the head every time she sat in it.  She thinks he's decided she got rid of me so she could sit in my chair!  He jumped up on the arm of the chair, so she held the phone up so I could talk to him, and he purred at me.  He has a very soft mew for such a big boy, but he's got a purr-motor like a mack truck.  Every time Di tried to take the phone away so she could talk to me, he whapped her on the arm as if to say he wasn't finished.  She couldn't talk to me until he was good and ready to let her!

I also miss playing fetch with Blaze.  When we're in the bedroom and she wants to play, she will bring one of her tinsel buddies and drop it on the bed of whomever she wants to play with.  We throw it, she chases it around and brings it back until she gets bored with it and just wants petting and cuddles.  Oh, well.  I fly home in two days, and then I have a whole week off to play with my kitties and give them lots of cuddles.

On the subject of tinsel buddies, they are the worlds best cat toys.  They are actually tinsel pom poms that you buy at Wal-Mart or craft stores for about $2 for a bag of twenty, but every cat I've had has just gone nuts over them.

Tags: cats, siamese, meezers, cat toys