This lovely lady crossed the road in front of me near midday a couple weeks ago and then paused for in my neighbor’s yard. She’s nursing pups, which might explain her daytime hunting.
She and her pack are one reason we keep these beasties inside.
Sweet, FSM, I hope Niko isn’t dumb enough to munch on those flowers.
For those not keeping track of the Kidd Kittehs, Special Needs died last summer after ingesting a very small quantity of calla lily. Because he had suffered occasional seizures, we didn’t realize he’d been poisoned until it was a good 24 hours too late to save his life. Never before did we have issue with bringing a lilly or any other bulb flower in the house, and now we will never have such flowers in the house again.
Thanks for the warning! Niko was only interested in the bear grass in between the tulips.
Douglass and Greenlee San Francisco Ca.
American Lineolated Parakeet rescue birds.
Douglass is lame and cannot use his feet like a normal parrot to pick up food and climb.
My retirement home for elderly classroom pets:
On the right is my desk rat Buckwheat, happily middle aged, whose photos I’ve posted before.
On the left in the fuzzy tube hammock is his mother Violet, still a feisty old lady, and her somewhat younger buddy Daisy. They have done their time in the classroom and have earned a less stressful old age.
More ennui than exhaustion?
Must.become.one.with.sofa.
Hello, mutants. This is Jingle Cat, who is 13 months old as of this weekend.
We adopted Jingle when she was 6 months old and 4 pounds of fluff; the Maine Coon/ Norwegian Forest Cat was not then apparent. She was just a bit fluffy. Most cats only add another 20-25% of weight and height between 6 months and 1 year. Jingle doubled. Jingle is now a meter long, almost counter-height when she stands on her back legs and stretches, almost 10 pounds, active and still growing. I have no idea how big she’ll be.
Here’s the question: she’s 100% indoor, we keep the house in the 70s during the summer. But she’s all fur. Should I be looking for a groomer for an annual haircut for Jingle? She’s now past her slovenly teenager stage; her butt and pantaloons stay clean, and other than her poop being furry, she’s not clearly suffering from heat. It’s been two decades since I’ve had any cat this young, so the fact that she lazes about unless she’s fetching a toy (or running her stadium on our stairs at 2 AM) just seems like cat to me. But I’ve never had a MC/NFC, or even a longer-haired cat. Vet says this is more of a personal/cat’s personality decision, not a medical one, and Jingle will be fine either way, but the time to make this decision is now, while she’s young, so she gets used to it. Any advice? (Top temps are high 90s/very low 100s with low enough humidity that a swamp cooler is a viable cooling option in July/August.)
I don’t have any good advice (similar situation, but two short hairs). Sounds like she may have some Maine Coon in her, so if you think you can acclimate her to trims now, it might be with doing anyway. Wife’s late Maine Coon needed trims every now and then (poopy butt) and it took two people with welding gloves and still tears.
I agree. You definitely cannot teach an old cat new tricks, even if it’s just getting them acclimated to something.
Other Cat is a petite fluff monster. The vet insists that she is part Maine Coon in her based on her hair coat, but she’s the daintiest MC mix I’ve seen. Anyway, she spends much of her day basking in the humid Alabama warmth of the non-airconditioned sun porch. She has access to the a/c in the house via a cat flap but seems to prefer the porch. She’s shedding out a massive amount of undercoat now, and brushing her with a slicker brush or the Furminator shedding brush does wonders. It’s amazing how much comes off her. I’d suggest this over a haircut. It’ll thin out the undercoat, maybe help reduce the amount of fur she’s ingesting, and prevent mats, which my previous MC mix was prone to as he aged. She also enjoys the brushing.
Other Cat is lovely. You’re lucky that she enjoys the brush.
Jingle will let me comb her with a fine-tooth comb (preferably one I’ve used on my head) but objects to every single brush, from cat specific (slicker to knobby) to my hair brushes. Brushing is one of the few things she actively resists; otherwise she is the mellowest cat I’ve ever been owned by. But combing takes forever.
I’m thinking Jingle’s getting an embarrassing cut, because we had Madame, the 5 pounds of Siamese who ruled us for 24 years. In Madame’s last year or so, she finally got over all of those artificial beauty standards and her grooming got sketchy. Since the expected, old-age failure mode for cats is kidney disease, and FKD causes dry mouth, which messes with grooming, it’s in Jingle’s long-term best interest to get a cut as a hedge against her own old age.
Oh, that’s too bad Jingles is anti-brushing. Totally not worth the drama then. Funny how a comb is ok; sensory overload with the brush perhaps? I hope you’ll post a a photo of her post-barbering. 
I have been lucky that most of my cats have either enjoyed or at least tolerated it. The one who didn’t was a short hair calico with a thin coat, so when she did give up on “artificial beauty standards” (love this!) during her rapid decline, also from kidney disease, it wasn’t an issue. My previous MC mix also succumbed to kidney disease, and brushing him during his final decline was hard because he was so thin and his skin felt so fragile. He was a good kitty.
Yep, I think it’s sensory overload. A colleague of mine studies the autism spectrum and does a level of behavioral parallel framing with certain colleagues and students. † Feline behavior and the autism spectrum behavior look remarkably similar.
† Behavioral framing is always fraught with risk, since framing is an analogy and a metaphor, thus requiring care with those determined to be either literal minded or bloody minded or both.
Niko was initially freaked out by the Love Glove™, but I was patient: one stroke and then I’d let him wander off. Over time he got into it.
