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He is a rapidly growing kitten, more like a teenager by now, who is looking for a good home.
Would anyone want to adopt this neglected little boy? I thought he was ferrel for a few months now but I just found out he has an owner. The owner told me he is out of town often for 3 days or more and the cat just lives outside anyways. At first he was really skittish but now he is friendly and talkative. The cat is really skinny and he is always starving when I feed him. He feels so thin and boney and his belly is always empty. He is friendly with our cat and the rest of the neighborhood cats. Always tries to play with them and is very cute. He was often really dirty and covered in soot and car oil. A local vet offered to get him neutered for free as he is about 8 months to a year old. He is energetic and likes to be active as most young cats. He craves love and attention.
The owner told me that he would like someone that can give the cat proper love and care.
If you know someone that is a good cat person please PM me.
here are some photos and a video of him playing with a catnip toy.
http://vimeo.com/27271501 (http://vimeo.com/27271501)
(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6150/6006665945_a02f373637_z.jpg)
(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6144/6006662477_20fec24e5a_z.jpg)
(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6134/6007206038_3ff55be64b_z.jpg)
(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6024/6006664115_43e953a92b_z.jpg)
Photographing cats is really hard.
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<Paging TimO, Paging TimO>
That's a lovely cat. I hope someone does take him on.
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Well, I'm currently mid kitten adopting (probably), and was intending at some point to look for another cat/kitten.
It would obviously complicate things for me, since I'd have to deal with two cats, and they'd have to be kept apart, at least initially.
It would also help (and not just me, but any other potential adopters) if we had at least a vague idea of location!
If he's entire, and hasn't been neutered, then that'll need to happen pretty soon, since an entire male cat will be very smelly, very fast!
Personally I wouldn't leave a cat to fend for itself more than a short while. Talisker, when he was younger, used to occasionally be left for a couple of nights by himself (ie from one evening to the morning of the day after that next day), but that was left with access to the house via the cat flap, and a very big bowl of dried cat food and water, as well as a bowl of wet cat food immediately before he was left.
He looks to be long(ish) haired, so should probably be brushed a bit daily, otherwise his fur will likely get matted, and need to be cut off (slightly amusingly, one of the local cat bods, who has a feral cat colony, has to essentially have the long haired cats shaved almost bald, once a year, since it's not possible to brush them, and being elderly cats, they aren't really as capable of looking after their own fur as a younger cat is!)
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Awww he's lovely, never seen a cat with those patterns. He looks almost as furry as Frankie.
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(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/JackFirstDay_480.jpg)
He's moved into my bathroom, but hasn't left the cat carrier yet. The image above shows about as far as he's come out, when I've seen him anyway.
He's got dry cat food, cat milk, and water, but seems content to just curl up at the back of the carrier. I think he's just a bit shell shocked by the change of scenery, and the travel across London.
He seems happy enough, but I'm not about to drag him out of the carrier, I'll try and let him come out at his own pace.
Unfortunately, he's booked into to see the vet tomorrow morning,at which point he'll have to come out, but aside from that, I'm trying to leave him alone.
More photos when he's feeling a bit more photogenic.
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Yay, another thread of cute kitty picks :thumbsup:
Welcome to Tim's new Feline Overlord.
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Wow, I didn't realise that TimO was starting the YACF cats' home :D
He's about five times the size of our little one, who currently has no fear, so I expect that long-term they may get on well.
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Minky wasn't much bigger than Madam is when we got her. Latched onto our huge, fluffy, friendly cat Simpkin immediately, and then they became inseperable. Hopefully these two will be the same.
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Awww he's lovely TimO, you're going to be occupied full-time being cat slave to TWO kittehs! Hope he feels safer and more able to come out soonest. You'll probably find Madam up here much less wary and much more pouncy (and sharp!). :)
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He went to the vets this morning, which was obviously another bit of a shock to him, especially with one enthusiastically friendly dog sitting a few feet away (but the owner did try and keep him from shoving his nose right up to the cat carrier). With a bit of smoothing, and scratching around the neck he relaxed a bit, and stretched out a bit in the carrier, rather than scrunched up as small as he could at one end.
The vet checked him over, and judged him to be in good health, He's probably older than he looks, he reckoned about four to five years old, which I guess was based on the wear on his teeth. It was clearly a bit of a guess, so there's probably a lot of potential variation.
He had the first of his vaccination jabs, and has to go back, for the second one, in three to four weeks. He's booked in to be neutered on Monday, and they'll also chip him then as well. He's not going to like it when I take his food and drink away on Sunday evening!
When I took him back home, he was clearly happy to be back, after only having been there for 12 hours or so. It was probably relief that something else horrible and unexpected wasn't going to happen.
He has taken to hiding under the radiator, and behind the towel rack, which is fair enough. He does come out from there quite fast when I appear, so he's getting used to me. Hopefully he'll get more relaxed. I need to find some other stuff to put in the bathroom for him to sleep on and poke around. Unfortunately he's going to get a bit bored for a few weeks. :(
I've got a pile of flea treatment, and a worming pill. I've had practice giving pills to cat with Talisker, hopefully it'll be as easy with this one (I know, I'm being optimistic!). I haven't given him the worming pill yet, since he hasn't eaten much yet, and I don't want him to throw it up. I think he ate a little of the chicken Encore (wet) cat food which I put down earlier. With a bit of luck he'll have chomped his way through something by the time I get home. He must be getting a bit hungry, since he won't have had anything for over 24 hours by that point.
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I've got a pile of flea treatment...
That is going to take a microscope and a very steady hand to apply. Not sure I'd care enough about its wellbeing to get that close to a flea's a**e...
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That's great TIm. One of my cats will fight till death not to take a pill. I've had lots of practice with the others but he just won't do it. I got a pill gun from the vet and it makes the whole experience last only 5 seconds. It is less dramatic for the cat and my hands. Im glad he is getting used to you. He always runs to you very excited when he sees you coming.
http://www.discountpetmedicines.com/buy/pill-gun.htm (http://www.discountpetmedicines.com/buy/pill-gun.htm)
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I managed to get a few shots this morning, before I took him to the vets.
This is where he seems to be hiding away, when I'm not in the room with him. He's had to reverse out, because he can't turn in that space (although he tried!). I've pulled the towel rack a little further out so that he can turn around now.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/under_radiator_480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/under_radiator.jpg)
Just lying down, and relaxing. He manages to stretch out a long way, as do most cats, when stretching after a snooze.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/lying_480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/lying.jpg)
... and a couple of shots with him actually looking at the camera, which is hard to get when you're trying to hold a camera to your eye, and adjust the zoom, and hope that the autofocus doesn't decide to play silly buggers etc
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/sitting_480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/sitting.jpg)
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/looking_480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/looking.jpg)
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Looks like he's had a decent break at last :)
Interesting that he's a bit older; he's quite "pretty" for an intact Tom.
What's his name ?
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I'm calling him Kai, since I needed a name for the Vets!
Absolutely no prize for anyone geeky enough, who can guess what I'm going to call the (female) kitten, if you can do this without using Google!
(Actually a quick Google suggests that even with it, you won't be able to guess!)
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Xev or Lyekka?
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Boshed?
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Xev or Lyekka?
Valiant wins! Impressively fast. ;D
Actually I'm going for Zev. Both spelling were used in the series, the Zev spelling with the first actress (Eva Habermann) who played that part, and the Xev spelling with the second actress (Xenia Seeberg). I think I'll have less problems with the Z spelling than I would with X. Kai and Zev are unique enough that it's unlikely they'll be confused with all the Fluffy's and Fuzzy's. ;D
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If only their colours were reverse, so Kai was the goth lol.
I last watched Lexx maybe a couple of weeks ago so still fresh in the mind.
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LOL, yes I shall have to dye him[1]!
There's plenty of additional possibilities, so I could have Lyekka, 709, Isambard Prince, Giggerota, possibly even a His Divine Shadow!
(No, I do not want any more cats or kittens!)
Footnote [1] No, not seriously.
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He's been great this evening. When I got home, he was hiding under the radiator, but only a few minutes after I came in, he wandered out under his own steam, and after some petting, scratching, and purring, decided to have something too eat. :thumbsup:
He scoffed a good portion of the Encore (chicken flavoured wet cat food), and then switched to the Orijen (dry cat food, I forget which flavour). He ate a moderate amount of both. He's not a big cat, and he hasn't been doing much, but he also hasn't eaten for over 24 hours, so that's good.
There have been a couple of half hearted attempts to kill a couple of toys, one of Talisker's old mouse toys, and a new cat nip sausage shaped toy. I got out a wiggle green fluffy thing on a string and stick, which Talisker would have gone absolutely spare chasing about, and it scared him so much that he retreated back under the radiator! He came out after a couple of minutes, but at the moment dangly chasy things seem to be right out.
He'll purr like a tractor, sometimes just through doing the cat squint your eyes and look away thing (that's quite friendly cat body language), and loves to be scratched and smoothed. He doesn't really want to sit on my lap, but doesn't really dislike it, I just think he's never done it before. He may or may not be a lap cat. Some cats never really take to sitting on laps. Talisker was a bit like that, he only very very occasionally curled up on my lap.
Here's a snap taken by the webcam on this netbook. Predictably if you set the camera to take a photo every few seconds, he'll move out of view, or show his bum to the camera or something, but I got one good shot!
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/Kai_webcam.jpg)
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I'm calling him Kai, since I needed a name for the Vets!
Absolutely no prize for anyone geeky enough, who can guess what I'm going to call the (female) kitten, if you can do this without using Google!
(Actually a quick Google suggests that even with it, you won't be able to guess!)
Zev or Lyekka?
Or are you a Trekkie?
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Xev or Lyekka?
Zev or Lyekka?
Go back a few posts, Valiant beat you. ;D
This morning I've let Kai out for some supervised wandering around the house (so I can stop him if he tries to spray anywhere).
I can leave the door open and he won't leave the bathroom! He had a careful wander around the whole house, sniffing a lot, and after about ten minutes returned to the bathroom.
The only place he seems to like outside of the bathroom (and only just outside), is the electrically heated cat bed that I bought for Talisker, and which I only ever saw him use twice in 12 months! If he sees me looking at him in it, he comes running back into the bathroom. :)
I'm sat on the edge of the bath typing this, and he's slumped on the floor right next to my feet, with no attempt to leave the bathroom, even though the door is wide open.
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Bathroom cat?
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Zev has looked over the bathroom step a few times (there's a step down into the bathroom cos of crappy extension syndrome) but hasn't made moves to escape. We have a row of cardboard boxes blocking it so we had a chance of catching her when we weren't sure we'd get her back in.
You'll get to see the bathroom which looks like someone's had a riot in it now ;)
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Xev or Lyekka?
Zev or Lyekka?
Go back a few posts, Valiant beat you. ;D
D'oh! :facepalm: Missed that.
Great series though.
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:thumbsup: Am very pleased that this chap has found a such a great home. Love his eyeliner in this shot!
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/sitting_480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/sitting.jpg)
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I had to leave him alone quite a long time last night, whilst I went to Birmingham to pick up the kitten.
He wasn't too aggrieved to see me when I got in, and was actually quite active, a lot of cats do seem to be active at night, I guess it's a good hunting time, especially in the mild summer.
After not touching the prawns I put down for him on the first night, he's gradually been eating them, when I put a side order next to the wet cat food. This morning, whilst I was dealing with the kitten, he scoffed all of them and ignored the wet cat food! (He has just scoffed most of that as well though, the prawns were clearly just preferred).
He is getting more confident at noising around the house, although he mostly doesn't like to go too far away from me.
He still hasn't passed any solid material, which is a little unnerving. At some point his digestive system is going to explode!
He's also starting to be a bit more vocal. Last night when I closed him back in the bathroom, he complained loudly a few times, and this morning I had an inquisitive meooooow from him!
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He still hasn't passed any solid material
Are you quite sure it's not behind the sofa? :demon:
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He still hasn't passed any solid material
Are you quite sure it's not behind the sofa? :demon:
Nope. Since he's still entire, I don't let him out of the bathroom unescorted, so he doesn't spray anywhere. The bathroom is relatively spartan, so there's nowhere he could have gone, and it wouldn't be visible (or smelly!).
He's being very cute at the moment. I'm sitting cross legged on the bed, typing this, and he's curled up hard against my leg. He really likes to be close to me, most of the time. I'm not sure if that's insecurity, or because I'm "his mum" (because we behave towards cats, even adults, a lot like the way their mothers would have treated them).
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Oh that's great he is getting friendlier. It took a while but he really got used to us ( humans). Eventually we were able to pick him up and curl him in a little ball and cary him around without him complaining or crying. It took a lot of hugging him to get him to relax in your arms. He used to just stiffen up at first. You will see that he is very talkative once he becomes more comfortable. He never really liked wet food. Just ate the dry and left the wet food there.
How is the little black kitten?
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I came across* a cat in the woods today. Friendly, not especially young or old, calm demeanour (mind you, most cats will come to me when called because I am a Cat Person), looked in good health but when I stroked it it was incredibly thin. Not near any houses, so it's either a long-range tom or feral. However, even a feral cat ought to be able to feed itself in woodland in August, I'd have thought. No collar.
I'll keep an eye out for it and tip off the CPL if it genuinely seems to have been abandoned. It's not your average feral cat in appearance because it's very fluffy and quite striking in appearance.
*stop sniggering at the back
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... so it's either a long-range tom or feral. ...
Minor quibble, if you could approach and pet it, it's not a feral cat, it's a stray. A feral cat is one which was born in the wild (often of ex-domestic house cats), and once they're beyond about 6 months old, they'll never be domestic cat, and you certainly won't be able to approach one.
Some feral cats, who are familiar with humans (for example in Croydon's Animal Samaritans feral cat colonies), will tolerate being approached by humans, but certainly not handled. Feral kittens can be domesticated, so long as they are still young kittens, but you're likely to loose some skin in the process!
Anyway, he doesn't sound like he's in a good way. As you say, at this time of year, even the most hopeless mouser will probably be able to find a reasonable amount of food. I imagine some domestic cats are truly useless mousers though, never having had to practice the skill.
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Ours are all hunters; Sassy (in exile) actually taught Boo to hunt by bringing live mice back to the house for her, before Boo reached adulthood and Sassy turned on her. Which is why Sassy now lives happily with the in-laws in rural Bedfordshire, and why we no longer have to get Joshy and Boo patched up at the vet every six months.
Fortunately they all go for rodents* rather than birds. We even get the odd dead rat. And they leave our own rabbit alone; in fact, they're all good chums and the rabbit follows the cats around and lounges about with them in the sun.
*OK, a rabbit isn't actually a rodent, but it's close
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It does seem to vary, Talisker was a fairly efficient hunter, although utterly dopey and soft with humans. He could catch pigeons and squirrels, so I'm sure the population of small rodents, birds, and reptiles also suffered.
A couple of times I've seen the local squirrels going absolutely batshit as a domestic cat wanders down the road, so the squirrels definitely view Felis Silvestris Catus as a threat.
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A couple of times I've seen the local squirrels going absolutely batshit as a domestic cat wanders down the road, so the squirrels definitely view Felis Silvestris Catus as a threat.
Swindon squirrels don't give a toss about our cats, but the rabbit chases them instead.
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I've just tried changing Kai's cat litter from the Bio Catlet to the Catsan that Kim and barakta were using with Zev (and which she has no problem with). Since he hasn't cleared his bowels yet, and I've had one instance of inappropriate urination (followed by a significant purchase of carpet cleaner and air fresheners from Sainsburys), I'm guessing he didn't like that cat litter (or something else to do with the litter tray).
I think Kai's eating the wet food in preference to the dry, but both are premium brands, and he's still eating dry food as well. Actually for a small cat, who isn't doing much, he's eating quite a lot.
He's getting more vocal, but some of that is complaining when I close him back in the bathroom, and go away. Even when the doors open, he doesn't go that far from me, but I have to watch, and make sure he doesn't try and use somewhere else as the loo.
I don't think I'm even going to try and introduce them to one another until he's been to the vet, and been neutered. I don't want him leaving any more smelly patches, which the stress of another cat (even a kitten) could instigate. At least, once he's been to the vets, I won't have to watch him quite so closely, so he shouldn't need to complain too much about being locked up.
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I was lucky before Josh was neutered; he never sprayed once. He did shag his sister, but that's another story.
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Swindon...
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Yup, the kids will proudly tell you that the cats were adopted from "pikey Dean Street" which is glamorously located opposite a TA establishment and next to the old railway works. Breeding? I've heard of it.
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Ours were from Newport, but we've been able to gentrify them. And they don't have the accent.
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I bet they go out fighting at weekends though.
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Yay, he used the cat litter to pass solid matter. He's not some sort of feline nuclear reactor, who converts cat food into pure energy. ;D
Clearly biodegradable cat litter may be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but he doesn't think so. The Catsan does a damned site better job of absorbing his odour as well.
He is a great cat, very mild mannered and friendly, and he doesn't particularly try and escape the bathroom when I close the door. He obviously doesn't like being locked in there, and makes a half hearted attempt to leave, but he could be a lot more difficult than he is.
He clearly likes companionship and attention, and doesn't like being locked away in one room, which I can understand, so I feel very guilty, but I haven't yet managed to remove the smell from the carpet so not that guilty (diluted biological washing liquid is apparently the answer, I'll try that in the morning).
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He's a bit hopeless with toys. Anything on a string seems to scare him, bouncy balls and ping pong balls are ignored, normally with him looking at me in a "If you wanted that, why did you throw it away?" manner.
I got one of those balls which you can feel with treats, and if they bat it around, eventually all the treats fall out. You would think that he'd smell them, and knock it around, and eventually work out that if he does this, the treats fall out.
Nope, it doesn't occur to him. I've tried knocking it around so that bits fall out, and he'll rush over and eat them, but doesn't yet see the link. I guess I'll just have to keep on trying. Talisker worked it out quite fast, and I thought he was a bit thick! Maybe I was wrong, and he was a genius amongst cats. ;D
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He's a bit hopeless with toys. Anything on a string seems to scare him, bouncy balls and ping pong balls are ignored, normally with him looking at me in a "If you wanted that, why did you throw it away?" manner.
I got one of those balls which you can feel with treats, and if they bat it around, eventually all the treats fall out. You would think that he'd smell them, and knock it around, and eventually work out that if he does this, the treats fall out.
Nope, it doesn't occur to him. I've tried knocking it around so that bits fall out, and he'll rush over and eat them, but doesn't yet see the link. I guess I'll just have to keep on trying. Talisker worked it out quite fast, and I thought he was a bit thick! Maybe I was wrong, and he was a genius amongst cats. ;D
I dunno, sounds pretty clever to me. Why go to the effort when the helpful tall thing will do it for you? ;D
My PhD supervisor, who taught the zooarchaeology courses (the archaeology of human/animal interaction), produced a crib sheet of domestic species, listing latin names, wild ancestors, when domesticated etc. At the bottom was:
Man. Homo sapiens. Domesticated c7000 years ago by cats.
Also, I just had this random thought: Domestic cats generally don't like getting their feet wet. So how in heck did they/we find out they like fish?
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Also, I just had this random thought: Domestic cats generally don't like getting their feet wet. So how in heck did they/we find out they like fish?
I'm not sure why humans eat fish. They live in a different element FFS!
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Also, I just had this random thought: Domestic cats generally don't like getting their feet wet. So how in heck did they/we find out they like fish?
I'm not sure why humans eat fish. They live in a different element FFS!
Yes, but we are omnivores, who don't generally mind getting wet so much. How did cats ever find out (and how did we find out they liked it too?)
I mean, how is a cat going to catch prawns? Build a trawler?
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Didn't all animals evolve from sea creatures?
Fishing jaguar:
http://youtu.be/o_MjHVgzdbk
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Cats don't like getting wet, but they can be fascinated by water. Turn a kitchen tap on, and preferably adjust it to drip or run erratically, then sit a cat in front of it. Invariably the cat will try and catch the water with it's paw! Do a YouTube search on that sort of thing, and you'll find many videos of cats trying to catch or attack a stream of water. ;D
I think curiousity and lust after food will exceed their dislike of water (and many other things!)
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Yay, he's drinking!
I had yet to have any proof that he was getting any fluids, although he would have got some through the wet cat food, which is how cats get most of their fluids naturally.
I'm spending some "quality time" with him in the bathroom, so he's got my company, and isn't quite so bored, and he promptly wandered over to the water bowl and licked away at it like mad, actually quite a noisy drinker! Looking at it, it's dropped in level significantly since yesterday, so I don't think this is the first time he's had a drink.
I shall have to try him with some milk again, he ignored it earlier in the week, but was also ignoring prawns then, which he scoffs down quite rapidly now. ;D
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Tim don't let him fool you. He is a fast vicious toy killer with very quick hands. He must be really confused about his surrounding or something. He loves chasing anything I threw away from him, toy mouse, rolled up paper ball anything, and go after it pick it up with his hands and bat it around like they do with live mice. Also a long string was his favorite. Shoe lace would work but string is safer as his arms are long and quick and you don't want to get scratched.
http://vimeo.com/27271501 (http://vimeo.com/27271501) video of him kicking a cat toy.
He's a bit hopeless with toys. Anything on a string seems to scare him, bouncy balls and ping pong balls are ignored, normally with him looking at me in a "If you wanted that, why did you throw it away?" manner.
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Actually, you're quite right, because I haven't tried a bit of cord. I found some bits I was going to use with Zev, but she seems fine with Kim's old shoelace, so I'll grab one of those bits from her room later on, and try it with Kai.
He does kill the similar catnip sausage which I got him, but otherwise seems either scared or bored with the toys I've tried.
I wondered about trying one of those little radio controlled mice that you can buy quite cheaply from pet shops these days. Cats seem to either love to "kill" them, or are terrified of them!
I've got a small laser as well, which used to drive Talisker nuts. He'd pounce on the spot, and then be confused, because it disappeared when his head had blocked the beam, but he didn't realise that!
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Yay, he's drinking!
See? You should have left the toilet lid up long ago ;D
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Interestingly tonight, I came back from Sainsburys, and opened the bathroom door to let him have some escorted wandering around the house time, and he couldn't be bothered to get up!
He was nice and comfortably snuggled up in the cat bed, and even when I went over to him, and petted him a bit, it was a few minutes before he could be bothered to get up, and stretch. He did wander all of about two foot outside of the bathroom, before deciding that this was enough. He's now retired back into the cat bed for a wash!
I did give him a brushing, and in a minute I'll go and try and brush Zev with the same brush, if she'll let me, and try to swap over doing this every time I go into to see them. With some luck this'll get some of their smell onto each other, which should help the introduction process later.
I missed getting a photo of Kai attacking the catnip sausage in an impressive fashion. He actually threw it in the air, and was batting at it on his two rear paws. He may not play with any other toys much, but he doesn't half clobber that one!
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... He's now retired back into the cat bed for a wash! ...
He was very relaxed in the bed, and kneading it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8iNtDS77bQ
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Zoiks! I'm having a bath, and Kai is stuck in the bathroom with me, since I don't trust him not to wander down the stairs and do something, when it would involve me chasing him downstairs naked and wet. :)
He's indicating his displeasure at not being allowed out, by turning the meow all the way up to 11 ! He certainly has a fine pair of lungs.
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I'm amazed at how well behaved he can be. I needed to put him back in the bathroom, because I need to do stuff. I think he realised that I had picked him up because I was going to put him back there, and he was doing the deep long whine that they'll do when they're really really annoyed. His tail was swishing, and on any other cat I would have made sure that I'd grabbed the paws, so I wouldn't get painfully slashed. He didn't attempt to swipe or bite me, which most other cats, including Talisker, would have done, and catteries referred to Talisker as the most relaxed cat that they had ever met. Kai may have him beat!
He even eventually stayed in the bathroom when I put him down. He did make a couple of goes to leg it for the doorway, but eventually he stayed where I put him, and I could close the door without having to shove his head back.
Not a happy cat, but a lot less aggressive than most domestic cats.
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Unusually he doesn't seem to "do" milk. Most cats I've known have been big enthusiasts of milk. Since they all tend to like fatty stuff (fat off of meat, butter, margarine, cream, cheese), I'm surprised that he doesn't touch it.
I've tried a couple of times, once when he first arrived, and again yesterday, in case his initial disdain was a function of stress.
I wonder if he doesn't really know what it is? I guess it's relatively low smell, compared to the cat food (and even the dry stuff I've given him, has a quite strong meaty smell), and if he's not had any milk since he was a kitten, and even that would have been directly "on tap", so to speak, he may not realise what it is.
I wonder if seeing the kitten drink it will stimulate his curiousity? Quite likely when I introduce them, it'll be over a meal, since that tends to overcome any risk of fighting, in favour of stuffing their faces!
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My cats seemed to be with milk, but I've since learnt that it's generally not a good idea anyway.
"Giving your cat milk can cause upset tummies, cramps and even severe diarrhoea."
"Very young kittens produce the enzyme lactase when suckling from their mother but the ability to produce the enzyme diminishes after weaning." - http://www.yourcat.co.uk/Feline-care/Can-I-feed-my-cat-milk.html
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Sorry, I don't mean cows milk, I mean cat specific milk (ie lactose free), in this case Whiskas Cat milk. It's a lot more expensive than cows milk. I reckoned that my milk bill for Talisker was greater than for me!
Naturally, Zev would probably still be getting milk from her Mum, but I need to check on Wednesday whether the Whiskas milk is OK, or whether I should be using something else.
I'm wondering when to remove Kai's water this evening. When I was operated on recently, I had to stop eating the night before, and drinking as of 6am. I can't remember if the vets said anything specific about drink. Obviously they said to remove food this evening. Currently I'm thinking that I'll remove all his food at 6pm, and water at midnight. That may mean he's a bit thirstier than he may appreciate, but I think that's a reasonable approach. It'll be at least 14 hours after his last food when he's operated upon, and 8 hours after any water. I think that should be OK.
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Naturally, Zev would probably still be getting milk from her Mum, but I need to check on Wednesday whether the Whiskas milk is OK, or whether I should be using something else.
The vet here said it was, along with normal kitten food. I got the impression this was mainly because she was clearly happy with solid food (stray/feral cats often weaning at a younger age).
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Right, some git has just taken all his food. :o ;D
He'll just have water now, until I go to bed, but luckily he scoffed a meal that I put down for him earlier, just before I planned to remove his food.
Having had a quick search around, it looks like his urine can still be pungent for 10 to 14 days after he's been neutered, so I probably can't let him wander around the house immediately. I'll check this with the vets, but it looks like he's going to be stuck in the bathroom for a while!
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You can by straight lactose free milk, often wondered about cheese and butter.
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I'm calling him Kai, since I needed a name for the Vets!
Am I the only person who read this and thought "why would he name his cat and (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Kai_(conjunction))"? Obviously, I need to watch more sci-fi.
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I should have gotten the Esperanto "kaj" reference, but it's a long time since I last did any Esperanto, and I was only ever rather poor at it.
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kai is Greek, isn't it?
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kai is Greek, isn't it?
Yes (or ναι, if one is so inclined).
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Our tortie Willow is allowed a small drop of cows milk occasionaly.
She reacts to it like a dose of speed. Drinks, saunters away then goes into a mad frnzy, charging around the house for a couple of minutes. her favourite 'launch' point is a lightweight rug on the laminated floor. Howlingly funny "Tom and Jerry" moments as she accelerates away but goes nowhere whilst the rugh piles up behind her ;D
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He really isn't a happy cat this morning. I think the lack of food and drink is exacerbating being locked up. I'm not even letting him out of the bathroom this morning, so there's no risk of him finding something to eat, and because he'll be easier to get into the carrier if I don't need to try and retrieve him from under my bed.
Ho hum, at least his behaviour is only likely to get better from this evening, at least as regards the risk of spraying and pungent urination (although admittedly that won't be immediate).
I'm amazed he hasn't really tried to have a go at me yet, but there's still a chance, I don't think he'll be happy to see the cat carrier appearing.
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Right, he's been delivered to the vets, and should could back very slightly lighter, and more easily recognisable, if you've got an RFID reader.
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Small price to pay to be let out of the bathroom.
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Small price to pay to be let out of the bathroom.
Actually, it'll be 10 days to two weeks before the pungency of his urine entirely goes. However, because he'll start destroying things even more than he already has (somehow he managed to get onto a full shelf unit last night, and inevitably kicked stuff everywhere!), I'm probably going to give him access to the bits of the house that I can't close off, so the bathroom, the landing, the downstairs hall and stairs, and the kitchen.
This will require some removal of stuff that he could otherwise destroy, eat, etc, so will take a day or two, but I doubt he'll be feeling that active this evening anyway, so another night in the bathroom shouldn't be too much of an issue.
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New living plans sound like a good idea. Well done for getting him to the vets without too much trauma. I want an RFID reader for cats now! When we're grown up enough for being enslaved by cats I'm getting one (several) and wiring it into the household system so we know where the cats are - like Startrek or something (*looks at Kim* who will have to implement that nao :D )
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RFID readers are easily available to integrate into various odds and sods. Cool Components (http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/catalog/index.php?cPath=88) do some, and I'm sure there are similar things available from other suppliers.
Often it's the mechanical side which is more involved, and if I was implementing a more universal design (for example with cat in/out status), I'd be tempted to buy one of the existing ones, and use it's mechanics as the basis for a more advanced model. That would be an expensive approach though.
I should get myself a reader, and experiment on my College access card, and the cats. ;D
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I have a cat flap with RFID reader built in that you can program your own cats into so no others get in ;D
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I have a cat flap with RFID reader built in that you can program your own cats into so no others get in ;D
Their paws can manage the swipe cards then?
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I have a cat flap with RFID reader built in that you can program your own cats into so no others get in ;D
That's what I already have, but that's not techie enough. A better approach would be one that's wired into the local network, so you can interrogate cat status over ethernet, and obviously make it more widely available through a webserver.
Other mods would be several RFID readers, so you can work out which direction the cat is going in. Mine only knows that there's a valid RFID chip beneath the reader, it'll unlock the door as the cat is on it's way out (and the door is permanently open in that direction, any cat can get out). With two readers, you can make a guess over which direction the cat is going (unless it changes it's mind, midway through the door), and so know whether a cat is in or out of the house. I've seen cat flaps with cameras on them, primarily to do cat visual identification, but it had the added benefit of also disallowing a cat with a mouse in it's mouth!
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AIUI at least some of the implantable RFID chips include a temperature sensor, so polling that and flagging up variations could be a Good Thing...
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AIUI at least some of the implantable RFID chips include a temperature sensor, so polling that and flagging up variations could be a Good Thing...
I read that as 'flagging up vibrations'...
... and I wondered 'is that where we get "dogging" from? :-[
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AIUI at least some of the implantable RFID chips include a temperature sensor, so polling that and flagging up variations could be a Good Thing...
Possibly, but I also know that the Pet Porte people didn't use to recommend it, because it wasn't as easy to detect using the reader in their cat flap design.
Why, and whether it's currently commonly used or not, I don't know.
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Why, and whether it's currently commonly used or not, I don't know.
A quick google finds research (mostly concerning livestock) suggesting that an implant just below the skin gives a surprisingly poor indication of core temperature.
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With two readers, you can make a guess over which direction the cat is going (unless it changes it's mind, midway through the door), and so know whether a cat is in or out of the house.
Shrodinger must be turning in his box...
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AIUI at least some of the implantable RFID chips include a temperature sensor, so polling that and flagging up variations could be a Good Thing...
Possibly, but I also know that the Pet Porte people didn't use to recommend it, because it wasn't as easy to detect using the reader in their cat flap design.
Why, and whether it's currently commonly used or not, I don't know.
I think it's pretty common now
Ours have it, and were offered it as a matter of course. No indignity of a thermometer up the bum (it's the only time our old Amy every tried to bite anyone)
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Retinal scan FTW ;D
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... No indignity of a thermometer up the bum (it's the only time our old Amy every tried to bite anyone)
Interestingly, Talisker was never particularly worried about having his temperature taken this way, but on the other hand, the few times I saw it taken like that, he was feeling pretty rotten for himself anyway, which was the reason why I'd taken him to the vets, so not likely to try and do anything like bite or scratch.
He was a pretty relaxed cat, and I can only think of one occasion when he tried to scratch or bite me, and that was when I had to bathe him, which he really didn't appreciate. I was prepared for this, and was wearing gardening gloves, but I did end up with a couple of long scratches on my arm, which was the only time I was ever injured by him.
Kai is back from being neutered now. He seems remarkably OK. A little inclined towards flopping down in the cat bed in an "I'm knackered fashion", but also prepared to try and escape the bathroom!
The vet's put his fleece / bedding in the washing machine, because he had an accident on it. I'm not sure when, because it was OK when I left him there (after the short car journey), and he wasn't too upset at that point. He's had a 1½ hour tube and tram journey, packed with people, which didn't cause him to have an accident previously.
I was advised to only give him small amount of relatively bland food, so I gave him some canned chicken cat food, which he was wolfing down when I went next door to check on Zev. Hopefully he hasn't promptly thrown it up over the bathroom.
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I always wanted a gps tracking bug on my cats. I wonder how big their territory is? A camera to see what they see would be nice too. I remember some website a few years ago with a cat that had a camera on his neck that showed what he hunted.
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I always wanted a gps tracking bug on my cats. I wonder how big their territory is? A camera to see what they see would be nice too. I remember some website a few years ago with a cat that had a camera on his neck that showed what he hunted.
Yes, Mr Lee - CatCam (http://www.mr-lee-catcam.de/), and he also has a GPS tracker now.
The GPS tracker is just one of the little units used with photography. I've actually got one which I was going to put on Talisker, but I was never happy with using a harness on him, which wouldn't have had a breakable link like collars do, so he could have ended up stuck somewhere.
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But easily trackable
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But easily trackable
Not really, it's only trackable after the event. This is a GPS device which records the location, there's no way to find the current location without access to it.
There are GPS devices combined with GSM phone modules, but they're heavier and more expensive. They are available for dogs, but for cats haven't really reached the level of miniaturisation necessary.
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He's doing fine today. His testicles (or testicular area, since his testicles aren't there any more) look a little pinker than they did yesterday morning, but that's possibly just because I guess they have to be shaved for surgery.
His still has plenty of appetite. He's eaten two can of cat food so far this morning, I'll put a third one out before I leave, and he's got dried food and water.
I'm letting him wander around more of the house now, the hallway and landing, the bathroom that's been his domain anyway, and the kitchen and small utility area.
I'm keeping him out of the bedrooms and living room, because they've got more stuff in them, have more items which could be damaged by a cat pissing on them, and which aren't so easily cleanable. There's nothing too much in the rest of the house which can't be cleaned or which I'd worry too much about being damaged. It's not quite as tidy as it ought, but so long as he's not too stupid, he won't bring a teetering pile of crap down on his head (OK, so he's a cat, so not always the brightest, but he'll just have to be fast on his paws!)
I've put a second litter tray downstairs, so he's got an upstairs and downstairs toilet, which is better than me!
Most of his stuff is still in the bathroom, the cat bed, scratching post, original litter tray, toys, food, and drink. He'll also revert to the bathroom if he's feeling nervous, like earlier when the machine which eats kittehs vacuum was out. It seems sensible to leave it all there for the time being, so not everything changes at one go.
Whilst he could still make a mess (it'll take a while for the effects of his hormones to wear off), he was getting so plaintive and desperate to get out of the bathroom, that I've let him room free(er). I can't really blame him, the bathroom was a bit sterile and boring. It hasn't even got a window you can see anything out of.
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(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/KaiInCatBed_480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/KaiInCatBed.jpg)
This was him just before I left for work. Even though he can wander around a lot more of the house, he's happily sleeping in the bathroom still. I think it was the door being closed, as much as anything, that was upsetting him.
You can see a little pink patch on his right leg, which I'm guessing was where the anaesthetic was applied. I'd kind of expected his skin to be white, like his fur, since Talisker had black skin and fur. Presumably the black skin makes it harder to see the pinkness of the underlying skin and veins, whereas on Kai, that's what you get.
I reckon he's going to be impressed with that bed, once the weather gets colder, and I plug it in! I wonder if Zev will try and usurp him, or whether I'll end up with a blob of knotted cats in there!
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Well Kai seems to have been OK today. He just made a significant impact upon his fourth can of cat food, and he had some prawns with it as well. I'm slightly worried that neither of the cat litter trays has anything solid in it (but he did use the downstairs one whilst I was in the kitchen), and given the quantity of cat food he's eaten, I hope he's just either mildly constipated, or doesn't want to use the litter (Talisker could avoid using a litter tray for a couple of days). Otherwise, at some point, I'm going to find a little present somewhere. :-\
Largely he seems happy enough, and he'll follow me around the house a bit. He was almost hiding on the landing when I came in. He obviously doesn't associate the front door with me yet, since he's been closed in the bathroom, so won't have been able to link the two. I'm guessing the front door scared him, until I came up and found him, and he realised it was me. Probably he's also not yet familiar enough with my voice to know me from that alone.
At the moment he's curled up in the cat bed, letting his supper digest. I'm sat on the toilet (using it as a seat before anyone makes any suggestions!) so that he's got a bit of company, but I'm going to go down and make my tea shortly.
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But easily trackable
Not really, it's only trackable after the event. This is a GPS device which records the location, there's no way to find the current location without access to it.
There are GPS devices combined with GSM phone modules, but they're heavier and more expensive. They are available for dogs, but for cats haven't really reached the level of miniaturisation necessary.
Meh thats rubbish then, I want live data.
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(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/KaiInCatBed_480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/KaiInCatBed.jpg)
This was him just before I left for work. Even though he can wander around a lot more of the house, he's happily sleeping in the bathroom still. I think it was the door being closed, as much as anything, that was upsetting him.
You can see a little pink patch on his right leg, which I'm guessing was where the anaesthetic was applied. I'd kind of expected his skin to be white, like his fur, since Talisker had black skin and fur. Presumably the black skin makes it harder to see the pinkness of the underlying skin and veins, whereas on Kai, that's what you get.
I reckon he's going to be impressed with that bed, once the weather gets colder, and I plug it in! I wonder if Zev will try and usurp him, or whether I'll end up with a blob of knotted cats in there!
My siamese have a heated bed I got them as kittens to help them settle in, every time I have unplugged it they have been most unhappy. It is still plugged in all year round and they are now 5 :D
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4 cans of wet food? How big are these cans? I offered him wet food and he always ignored it.
Once they meet I bet they will cuddle up together in the heated bed.
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4 cans of wet food? How big are these cans? I offered him wet food and he always ignored it.
These are single (cat) meal portions. Talisker would have eaten one for breakfast, and possibly another in the evening, with some dry cat food during the day. Four is pretty exceptional, and if he keeps that sort of demand up, he's going to go on a diet!
This is a fairly premium wet food, Encore (Sainsbury's version of Applaws), it doesn't look like the pink mushy stuff a lot of cheaper (and even not so cheap) cat food looks like.
The chicken looks pretty much like chicken I'd eat, and the fish looks like identifiable bits of fish. The chicken flavours have >75% meat in them (I'm not sure about the fish flavours). It's also moderately expensive, but the cats food bill is tiny compared to mine, so I don't worry about it too much. Their vet bills this month will probably exceed the years bill for cat food, even with Encore, and other premium brands!
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Well, Kai just inhaled his wet cat food breakfast. He'd eaten all of the dry food overnight, and started on the fresh bowl that I put down, once he'd finished the wet food!
I think I'm going to have to start weighing him, and trying to decide whether to limit his intake.
To be fair, his hormones are probably a bit to buggery at the moment, so that might affect his appetite. He's also possibly bored, with no hunting to do, and that may be displaced into eating as an alternative activity.
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Rather amazingly he doesn't seem to be interested in ham. :o
I made some ham sandwiches earlier, and left some of the fatty bits, and a small bit of the ham to try with him. Unlike Talisker, his hamdar wasn't triggered by me getting the ham out of the fridge, and indeed putting it in his bowl and plonking him in front of the bowl didn't cause any sign of interest.
I've left the ham in there, and topped it up with two thirds of a can of fishy cat food (Zev's had the other third), and a very generous portion of cooked prawns. That should keep him going (along with the dry Iams if he feels peckish later on).
He may never had had ham before, so it might be a novelty to him. If he tries it, he may acquire a taste for it!
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Heh at the ham!
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As regards pooping habits - when our cats are being kept indoors, they seem to only poop about once every 36 hours (though as Mr & Ms Weasel discovered, they can still time a stinky one just as you're serving breakfast), and only widdle once or twice a day. I assume it's a combination of slow digestive tract (carnivore) + inactivity.
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As regards pooping habits - when our cats are being kept indoors, they seem to only poop about once every 36 hours ...
Cats tend not to produce much urine, because they're basically desert animals, so don't "waste" fluids.
I think Kai is producing solid waste about once every 24 hours, but Zev is outputting a lot more often than that, at least twice a day, probably three or four times.
Both digestive tracts seem to be working fine at the moment. I walk around the house with a plastic bag, and a scoop, emptying out all of the litter trays!
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From earlier on, making more good use of the cat bed.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/KaiInBed_Face_480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/KaiInBed_Face.jpg)
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/KaiInBed_Stretch_480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/KaiInBed_Stretch.jpg)
When his paws are spread broad like that, they really are as big as they look. He does seem to have freakishly big paws for a cat!
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He also has beautiful ear-hair! :thumbsup:
Does he have extra toes?
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RFID readers are easily available to integrate into various odds and sods. Cool Components (http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/catalog/index.php?cPath=88) do some, and I'm sure there are similar things available from other suppliers. ...
If anyone is thinking of rolling their own RFID cat flap design, it looks like the RFID devices designed for animals aren't quite the same as others. It looks like these units conform to ISO11784/11785, and operate at around 134 kHz, whereas for most other purposes it's 125 kHz (there are also some which operate at 13.56 MHz). The bog standard readers which companies like Cool Components sell are no use for the 134 kHz devices.
I think these devices (http://www.priority1design.com.au/animal_tag_rfid_reader.html) would work, they seem to be compliant with the appropriate standard, although the supplied antennas (RFIDCOIL-49A) are only quoted as having a read range >5cm, which may or may not be enough. A larger coil would improve the range, but would likely require some experimentation to get working well.
(ISO11784/11785 applies to the Bayer Tracer one which was used with Kai, and which will probably be used with Zev).
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Does he have extra toes?
Hmm, good question, I haven't counted his toes.
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He does look like a most excellent cat.
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Does he have extra toes?
Hmm, good question, I haven't counted his toes.
Right, he's not polydactyl, he just has the conventional 18 toes, with five on each front paw. He just seems to spread them out more than I've seen a cat do before, when he's kneading the bed.
He does look like a most excellent cat.
He is indeed an excellent cat. At the moment a bit frustrated, and probably bored, especially after having the world as his oyster, as it were, but in a few weeks time, when his vaccines are all up to spec, he can go out, and start terrorising the neighbourhoods population of small creatures whose ultimate destiny is to go "squeak", "crunch". :-\ ;D
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He didn't like salami either. I dropped some on the floor one day and he sniffed at it and then walked away. the other cats ate it.
When he was here he didn't touch wet food either.
I used to have a cat that couldn't digest processed cat food and he had to eat raw food. It was nice because his poops didn't really smell. Strange but common side effect of raw food is that both cats stopped drinking water. The bad part was having to be home twice a day at feeding time. everyday.
the cats didn't love or hate raw stuff but would go crazy for dry food. must be the cat crack they spray it with to give it flavour.
Rather amazingly he doesn't seem to be interested in ham. :o
also his eyes are not the shape they are in photos. i don't know why but when the photo is taken he always lowers his upper eyebrow and makes a grumpy face. I had a hard time taking photos of his face to show his cute face. He is a lot cuter then in photos.
He is a very long narrow/skinny cat. Has all this food made him thicker. When he was here his belly was narrower then his spine. It went inwards kind of without having that roundness cats had. We would feed him more then 8 handfuls of good cat food and he would eat it all up.
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He's still eating pretty well. Yesterday he had three cans of cat food, and is demolishing the last of the dried food whilst I type, since I haven't given him his breakfast yet.
He did eat all of the ham when I left it in the bowl with some cat food.
When he first arrived he didn't do prawns either. I bought a small packet of Sainsburys Basics cooked shelled prawns, and a handful of those on a plate was ignored. Now that he's worked out what they are, they go first, before the cat food. ;D I think they are just foodstuffs which he's never had before, and once he's tried them and realised that they are nice, he'll scoff them down!
He can still be a long thin cat, when he stretches as he gets up, he can be very very long. I do think he's getting a bit broader at the shoulders. Even though I think your feeding had put some extra mass on him, he seems to still be getting more mass overall, and on places which were a bit on the thin side, so possibly his body is still playing catch up, which is why his appetite is so voracious.
Last night he was whining outside the bedroom door, so I let him in, and he spent most of the night asleep on the bottom of the bed. I never really understand why cats, who are largely solitary animals, and we're told don't actually need companionship, seem to like getting as close to their humans as they can, sometimes.
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Last night he was whining outside the bedroom door, so I let him in, and he spent most of the night asleep on the bottom of the bed. I never really understand why cats, who are largely solitary animals, and we're told don't actually need companionship, seem to like getting as close to their humans as they can, sometimes.
Warmth.
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Last night he was whining outside the bedroom door, so I let him in, and he spent most of the night asleep on the bottom of the bed. I never really understand why cats, who are largely solitary animals, and we're told don't actually need companionship, seem to like getting as close to their humans as they can, sometimes.
Warmth.
Yes, because the weather is near freezing at the moment. :-\
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Last night he was whining outside the bedroom door, so I let him in, and he spent most of the night asleep on the bottom of the bed. I never really understand why cats, who are largely solitary animals, and we're told don't actually need companionship, seem to like getting as close to their humans as they can, sometimes.
Warmth.
Yes, because the weather is near freezing at the moment. :-\
More warmth, then.
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Lots of warmth + having itchy skin rubbed + perhaps companionship.
My cats used to roast themselves in front of the fire, or curl up with each other or human beings, or get into a cardboard box. They don't just like it warm, they like it very warm.
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when is he going to meet the kitten? I can't wait to see photos of them together.
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I never really understand why cats, who are largely solitary animals, and we're told don't actually need companionship, seem to like getting as close to their humans as they can, sometimes.
Because their relationship with us is complicated and they exhibit kittenlike behaviour as part of it, with us as a generic parent-object
Our old Amy used to mew pitifully to be picked up and squeezed, and loved nothing better than to be carried around like a rag doll. The new ones like a squeeze too, though they aren't quite as clingy (yet).
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I'm a little worried about them meeting each other, so want to be careful about it. I was planning on introducing them last night, but was so knackered that I just wanted to crash out. In the end, I had a small cat snoozing on the bed next to me, which wasn't planned.
I may attempt to do it this evening, but don't hold me to it.
I will obviously have a camera to hand, but I'm only likely to get photos if it goes really well, and I don't need to restrain one or both of them!
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Bugger, for all it's great that he's decided to curl up on my lap for the first time, I'm actually sitting sideways on the chair, so can't lean back, and I'm hungry, I want me tea. On the other hand, I don't want to dissuade him from being a lap cat ... Help!
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Yay! Perfect cat behaviour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s13dLaTIHSg
Kai is utterly gorgeous, by the way. You are doing such an amazing job with both of them!
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Simon's Cat is so funny, and so scarily accurate! ;D
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Kai always seems most relaxed after sleeping on the bottom of the bed all night. Even though whenever I've woken up in the night, he's been asleep on the bed, he's demolished all the food left for him, so he's definitely a nocturnal snacker!
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This isn't a bad shot of his face, before he decided to get up.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/Face20110819_480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Cats/Kai/Face20110819.jpg)
I think his face is getting slightly rounder, and his fluffy ears slightly less obvious.
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Cat scan next please.
http://thecatscan.tumblr.com/
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Oh Biggsy, I think that is my new favourite site this week :D
<stokes paw fetish>
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I don't think that's the original cat scan website, which originally existed over a decade ago. I tired to find it a couple of years ago, and failed.
I've only got working Linux boxes in the house at the moment, and I think the scanner software for the horrible old scanner/printer is Windows only, so possibly not an option in the near future.
Kai absolutely loves sleeping on the bottom of the bed, and occasionally on the top, if he feels like some attention! He'll curl up when I got to bed, and is still there in the morning, although there must make some departures, since he does seem to chomp through cat food in the night as well!
He didn't really take to the chicken cat food that was down last night, but he also hadn't tucked into the fishy one I just put down, and which he's eaten OK in the past. I think he's just full on dry cat food, which he demolished in the dark hours.
Currently he's sitting almost at the top of the stairs, outside the bathroom, ears swivelling, and looking annoyed at the sounds of Zev hurtling around her room!
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Are they getting enough exercise?
http://youtu.be/DPHyvWGuf9g
http://youtu.be/FDwZfhdkA3M
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Are they getting enough exercise?
http://youtu.be/DPHyvWGuf9g
http://youtu.be/pWyrOuH-x7k
I wonder how fast they can go? Apparently they can run at speeds of up to 30mph (which is pretty impressive for an animal that size), but I'd guess not for very long.
The cats in the wheel are at risk of gerbilling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monowheel#Other_issues) !
(ps I'd love a monowheel!)
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I edited my post to replace the second video with a faster run. One of the cats gets up to a full gallop. I know they run very fast in "the wild", but usually only for a very short distance.
See http://youtu.be/FDwZfhdkA3M from 2:09. Amazing.
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Bengals are of course generally larger and more muscular than your average domestic cat (and indeed, in the UK are licensed under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act, so aren't considered to be domestic cats), so it's not entirely surprising that they can go that fast.
Clearly all of those cats love using that wheel, I wonder how often one gets it wrong, and does go over the top (or close to it!)
Domestic cats can go pretty fast, when they're going after some prey, or trying to cross a road!
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can he go up to her door and put his paw under it. are you going to introduce them soon?
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I'm trying to introduce them, but it's not going massively well. I've been putting her into the cat carrier, and letting him into the room. In fact, not so much let, as take, since he doesn't want to go in there now.
He's clearly very apprehensive about meeting this other cat, which clearly he can smell, and hear.
Today I got him into her room, and closed the door. He growled, and whined, and scratched at the door to be let out, but relaxed a little then, and wandered around the room sniffing everything. I let him out after a couple of minutes.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/Zev_2011-08-20T17:20:07Z.jpg)
I think it's going to be several days at least before I can let them meet face to face, and then it's not going to be easy.
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I suspect you're just going to have to open all the doors and let them get on with it. They will find their own way eventually. It probably doesn't help it's a new situation for both of them.
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How about trying the same thing in non-Zev territory? It seems to be the room he has issues with as much as her...
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I suspect you're just going to have to open all the doors and let them get on with it. They will find their own way eventually.
+1. And do it sooner rather than later, IMO.
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Is this a group decision?
Now kitty cam not working sad now
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How about trying the same thing in non-Zev territory? It seems to be the room he has issues with as much as her...
Yes, I'm tempted to use the bathroom, mainly because it's larger, so has less stuff to hide and obscure cats, or for the kitten to get behind (where I won't be able to get to her).
There is an argument for doing things sooner rather than later, so I don't train him to be afraid of her (or the idea of her, more strictly speaking).
Kai's being very insistent this morning. Plonking himself down next to me, and meowing very loudly for attention. He's also having a good nose around, which it's not as though he couldn't do before!
He ate some of the fairly large bowl of Beef, Turkey Heart, Sardine, Tuna and Prawns I gave him (a mixture of a fresh can of cat food, some of the kitten food that Zev doesn't seem so keen on, and fresh prawns), but didn't scoff a lot down. He ate quite a lot dried food overnight, so I guess doesn't immediately need a refill, and it's good that he's not going to eat everything he can, so won't become fat from overeating (hopefully).
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Just an update on Kai, since I haven't said much about him specifically in the other threads.
I think we're working out how each other work, or as much as humans and cats ever do.
He's not quite so laid back as Talisker was. You really need to know cats to get on with him, because he'll often swish his tail, which is a classic sign of cat getting annoyed and emotional, and if you didn't touch him when he was like that, you may never handle him at all!
He's generally pretty good about being aggressive. The aforementioned swishing tell, and once he's had enough he may grab you with his claws, and bite on you, but in a typical warning manner, so long as you don't pull you hand back immediately, this won't actually scratch or break the skin.
I also think a lot of it is annoyance at not being allowed out. I think he's marginally better now that Zev and him have met, if nothing else it gives him something else to occupy time, but he does complain a bit, at the locations where he can smell the outside world (which perversely is the cat flap, and the chimney!
I suspect once he can go in and out, he'll get to be a bit more relaxed, and he'll be able to use up his energy against the local wild life. I've got some more collars on order, since I've no doubt he'll loose them, and even some cheap LED lights to mount on them, which could look interesting at night! That's not quite so necessary with him, as with Talisker, since Tali was totally black, whereas he's about 4/5ths white. It should help me spot him in the back garden, where there's no lighting.
He does still occasionally make a mess, rather than use the litter tray. I'm not 100% sure why, because he still uses both litter trays, and I normally clear them out twice a day, so it's not that they're unclean. I suspect this is a bit of a pointed message to me, that he wants to go out. That should be solved, largely, next week, once he's had his second vaccination, he should be OK to leave the house, although he may need training with the cat flap (and I'll have to program him in somehow!)
He absolutely loves sleeping on the bed when I go to bed, which can be a bit of a bugger when you try and move, and find there's a cat stopping you from moving to that bit of the bed. I suspect he'll sleep in other parts of the house, once he's more confident with the place, and doesn't feel the need to stay close to me. He's already getting less clingy, when I let Zev out, and they'll chase each other around for an hour or two!
I think he's starting to get his name. It may also just be my tone of voice, but he does seem to take some specific notice when I say "Kai". He's also nowhere near as bad at hiding when I come back into the house. Originally he'd hide and it would take me a while to work out where he was. Now, he'll normally come out at the sound of my voice, and meet me at the top of the staircase. Clearly the door being used, and suchlike makes him a bit nervous, but he's getting used to me coming and going.
Him and Zev seem to be getting on fairly well. I don't think there's any risk of them cuddling up together for a while, but they will chase each other around upstairs, and as far as I can tell, they haven't actually managed to cause any injuries. Kai clearly wants to play with her, he'll hang around outside her door, asking to be let in, and if he wanted to avoid her, he would just need to go downstairs, where she can't get (the solid open staircase is too much of a challenge for her small stature, so far!)
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Interesting. Even though he hasn't been showing much interest in the Chicken flavours of Encore that I've got (which Talisker preferred, so I have stock), a brief nuke in the microwave to bring it nearer to body temperature, and make it smellier, and Kai has tucked into a bowl of it. :thumbsup:
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Update on the previous post, two minutes later he'd turned his nose up at it. By the next morning he had scoffed most of it, but definitely not a favourite of his.
I've just brought him back from his second vaccination. Apparently that means he can go out in a weeks time, but I may bend the rules a bit (since they're always very conservative) and let him out at the weekend, when it'll be easier for me to wait around for him to come back in, and maybe start on CF-101 Introduction To Cat Flaps.
He's about 4.3 kg now, which is definitely up from what he was when I took him in for surgery a few weeks back (although I forget the exact mass difference). The nurse at the practice (who did the vaccinations) wondered if he had some Maine Coon in him, and looking at Wikipedia, he definitely has some of the features of the bread, the almost lion like ruff, large paws, very vocal, and possibly his bushy tail (although it doesn't look quite as bushy as some of the photos I've looked at). The head gives it away to me, looking at the photos of that area, he looks so much like the Maine Coon (especially when he's not wearing a collar), and not a lot like your average Domestic Short Hair.
Apparently the Main Coone takes a lot longer than other breeds to reach maturity, and may not reach their full adult size until three to five years, so he could still have some growing in him!
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If he's part Maine Coon you'll be needing a bigger cat-flap ;D
Norwegian Forest Cats also have some similar characteristics: (http://www.cheap.co.uk/insurance/images/cats/norwegian-forest-cat.jpg)
Kai's curly ear hair looks very persian though. He's a typical Heinz 57!
Good luck letting him out, it's so nerve wracking. When we let Doogie, our adopted-as-an-adult mog out we made sure he was vaguely responding to his new name and more importantly, knew that he'd respond to the sound of a packet of Dreamies being rattled ::-). We also didn't feed before we let him out, in the hope he'd come back when he was really hungry...
40 traumatic minutes later, he re-appeared for breakfast :thumbsup:
He then bit Chuffy really, really hard because we wouldn't let him straight back out :demon:
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I'm hoping that if he's part Maine Coon, it's only fractional, since he must be near his final adult weight and size, even if he gets the slow to mature gene from that side of the family.
He does respond a bit to his name, and he certainly knows where cat food comes from, so I'm guessing he'll reappear at some point. As you say, you can get a bit worried, and I've done this before a few times with Talisker (his first time out, and more recently on moving to Croydon). I'll be back from the FNRttC on Saturday morning, and if I let him out then, I'll be too zonked out to really worry about him!
Hi ears do look fluffier in real life than in any of the photos I've managed to take of him. I must try harder!
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I think Kai's been institutionalised by being kept indoors, he doesn't want to go out!
Actually I think instinctively he does, but not that big green noisy, smelly thing which is outside the back door!
He still pokes his nose in the fireplace, and around the cat flap, and looks desperate to be let out, but when I open the back door, he's incredibly nervous, and tends to back away from it.
I've been leaving it open as much as I can (I can't when the kitten's let out of her room), and he's got to the point of leaning his entire body into the outside world, whilst his paws stay inside the back door. His feline curiousity (ie noisyness) is gradually winning out of nervousness, but his still a bit unsure.
With a bit of luck he'll get the idea eventually, but of course when I'm not at home, it's difficult to do this.
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I think Kai's been institutionalised by being kept indoors, he doesn't want to go out!
Actually I think instinctively he does, but not that big green noisy, smelly thing which is outside the back door!
He still pokes his nose in the fireplace, and around the cat flap, and looks desperate to be let out, but when I open the back door, he's incredibly nervous, and tends to back away from it.
I've been leaving it open as much as I can (I can't when the kitten's let out of her room), and he's got to the point of leaning his entire body into the outside world, whilst his paws stay inside the back door. His feline curiousity (ie noisyness) is gradually winning out of nervousness, but his still a bit unsure.
With a bit of luck he'll get the idea eventually, but of course when I'm not at home, it's difficult to do this.
There's a possibility he is worried that once he steps fully out you will shut the door and he won't ever be able to get back in again. Presumably he realises he has never had it so good as inside your house :D
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There's a possibility he is worried that once he steps fully out you will shut the door and he won't ever be able to get back in again. Presumably he realises he has never had it so good as inside your house :D
LOL, possibly.
When he does got out, there's lots of looking back, to make sure I'm still there. I think it's just the environment he's unsure about, which makes me think his old "owner" can't have been far from loafheads abode, since he doesn't seem terribly adventurous. The wind in the trees can make him a bit worried, and sometimes the trains going past, although at other times, he takes no notice of them, if something else has caught his ears and eyes.
This evening he wandered out the back, and then up the side of the house to the front. He then had a brief wander along the front gardens, which must have looked interesting to my neighbours before coming back (because of his flashing light!). He seems to have either have gotten lost trying to come back via next doors side passage, or possibly met another neighbouring cat, because there was a very distressed wail, before he suddenly came rushing back in.
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Him being timid is so strange. Cat Stockholm syndrome maybe.
I used to see him 2 blocks away from my house running around checking trash bins and chasing another cat. He was often covered in car oils from going under cars. The only time I closed the door on him is when you picked him up and he went into a panic mode. He has programed your house as his home.
I am glad this worked out as the best case scenario we were hoping for him. Thanks, Tim.
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Him being timid is so strange. Cat Stockholm syndrome maybe.
I used to see him 2 blocks away from my house running around checking trash bins and chasing another cat. He was often covered in car oils from going under cars. ...
Odd, he's far too nervous to be that adventurous at the moment. Maybe he'll get his mojo back once he's wandering in and out more regularly. I'm opening the door whenever I'm feeding him now, and he will have a brief wander out to check on things in the immediate vicinity. Maybe it's just that so many things are different around here from what he expects, after all it is South London, maybe he's a North London cat at heart!
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Norwegian Forest Cats also have some similar characteristics:
It's interesting to compare those cats, and they are also quite similar to Kai. I'm not really sure what would distinguish that breed from a Maine Coon, and it obviously has black and white cats as an accepted colour. Presumably (since the Wikiepedia article doesn't highlight weight), they're a more normal cat size and weight than a Maine Coon, so it may be a more reasonable guess as one of his ancestors, although given their similarity, it's like that Norwegian Forest Cats and Maine Coons share some significant genetic heritage themselves.
I can't entirely blame Kai for not being that enthusiastic about going out today, given that it's drizzly. I'm not that enthusiastic myself!
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I wonder what sort of life Kai had before I took him on. This evening, when I came in, he was following me so closely, that I accidentally caught him with my heel as I was walking into the kitchen. I think I knocked his chin, but I'm not sure because he was behind me. He almost ran away, backing into the hall, and looked absolutely terrified. When I put my hand out to him, he positively cowered. :(
Eventually I got him to come a bit closer, and plonked him on my lap, and generally petted him until he started to purr (which is quite hard, he's not a great purrer). He seemed a lot happier after that. A few munchies and a bowl of cat food also probably helped!
Since I've never hit him, the nearest I've come to that is to tap him on the noise with a finger if he's being a bit of a sod, this must be a reaction to something that happened to him in the past. Quite sad really, that he responds that way.
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Some one I knew got a rescue cat, who was initially nervous of everyone, but especially of slightly built, light voiced men. Bigger blokes with deep voices could eventually approach, but not the sort of man you'd actually expect to be gentler (not that big blokes can't be gentle, but you get what I mean?).
We assumed she'd been abused in the past by a lightly built chap, possibly kicked or thumped in the head as she was missing a lot of teeth.
She settled eventually, with a lot of love.
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If a cat is round your legs it will get contact or stepped on.
Thing cat will figure out whats gone on.
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...and blame you.
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All is forgotten around food time or the cat wants fuss.
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In principle, yes the cat has to learn that weaving around your legs too much, has potential issues. That's sort of fair enough with Kai, since he's a hulking great thing (relatively speaking). Zev on the other hand is a lot less rugged, and substantially more gormless, so I have to be very careful around her. Her body won't tolerate damage as much as his will. She'll probably recover fast (as most young mammals do), but it would be easy to accidentally step on her body, and not just a paw or tail.
She's also harder to notice, since Kai has a jangly collar on, whereas she doesn't (yet).
... and they don't ever really learn that they can easily be stepped on. Talisker did pretty much the same thing for over a decade, and only occasionally got stood on, it didn't particularly change his behaviour though. Cats don't always seem to be that smart.
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That was quite impressive. I was in the bathroom, and there was a fly buzzing around. It was directly behind a thick towel so there was no way Kai could see it, but his head tracked it perfectly. It was buzzing around in a semi-random circular path, and he was following it flawlessly, presumably just by hearing. Very neat.
The other day he also impressed me by standing up on his rear legs alone. I've see other cats do it, in pictures, but I've never seen a cat actually do it in person. He had spotted something in the undergrowth of my back garden, and stood up on his rear paws to get a better view. It put his head something like 3 foot off of the ground, which isn't bad for a not very large cat.
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Yay, I've got him to eat something else fairly enthusiastically.
Mostly I've been getting him to eat the Encore fishy flavours. I've got a few of the Chicken ones, which Talisker favoured, but which Kai doesn't seem too keen on. He'll eat them if there's nothing else, but will often leave some to go dry, and uneaten. The same has been true of many other cat foods, even some premium brands.
I got a box of Purina Gourmet A la Carte Chef's Recipes, which seems to be one of those designed to appeal to humans more than cats. So far I've tried him with the à la Primavera with Beef and à la Florentine with Pollack, both of which have been inhaled with some gusto. ;D
(I mainly bought it because it was on special at PetPlanet, and worth an experiment).
It's good to find something else he'll tuck into, and not just eat under duress. :thumbsup:
Aside from fishy stuff, he also appears to prefer gravy type meals over paté ones, which is also pretty much the opposite of Talisker's taste.
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More piccies?
Remeber there are kitten annoying services available.
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I got a box of Purina Gourmet A la Carte Chef's Recipes, which seems to be one of those designed to appeal to humans more than cats. So far I've tried him with the à la Primavera with Beef and à la Florentine with Pollack, both of which have been inhaled with some gusto. ;D
(I mainly bought it because it was on special at PetPlanet, and worth an experiment).
It's good to find something else he'll tuck into, and not just eat under duress. :thumbsup:
A heap more of that has been ordered, since he's pretty much scoffed the first box now. Of course, Pet Planet are having their annual stocktaking exercise, so ordering has slowed, but hopefully it'll turn up in the next week or so, and if I'm lucky I'll be in, or a neighbour will be. Otherwise it's the inevitable heavy trailer load back from the local Post Office! (There's also a load of other food flavours to experiment with on both him and Zev).
Kai has definitely worked out how to get back in using the RFID cat flap now. I think they always work that out, because food and warmth beckons! He's still not keen on going out through it, I've been shoving him through, which he's not overly appreciative of. Otherwise he'll just sit and stare at it suspiciously.
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I think he's fairly happy with the cat flap in each direction now, although being a cat, he'll always prefer it if a door is opened up for him!
When he was first in the house, he'd hide behind the towel rack until I came and found him. After a few days, he progressed to coming out when I used a friendly voice for a while, and then moved on to peering suspiciously at me from the top of the stairs.
He has now got to the stage where he's obviously either hearing the sound of me arriving outside the door, or possibly the key in the front door lock, and getting so close to the front door, that on the last couple of nights I've bopped him on the head, because he's so close to the door when I opened it!
On a couple of other occasions he's been outside, and close enough to the cat flap (which is around the back of the house) that he's heard me coming in, and there's been a "Beep" from the detector and sound of the cat flap rapidly being opened, followed by a dash through the kitchen and the hall, with a friendly meow and dash up to be petted.
I think both instances suggest that he's pretty accustomed to being here, and happy with me now. :) :thumbsup:
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Ahhh.
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He has now got to the stage where he's obviously either hearing the sound of me arriving outside the door, or possibly the key in the front door lock, and getting so close to the front door, that on the last couple of nights I've bopped him on the head, because he's so close to the door when I opened it!
On a couple of other occasions he's been outside, and close enough to the cat flap (which is around the back of the house) that he's heard me coming in, and there's been a "Beep" from the detector and sound of the cat flap rapidly being opened, followed by a dash through the kitchen and the hall, with a friendly meow and dash up to be petted.
I wonder how long it'll take bobb to get to that stage when I come home. :D
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You'll need to be careful if he does, you don't want to be bopping him on his 'head', do you!
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And you have to house train him first, anyway.
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He's pretty housetrained as it is. :o
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My brother-in-law was still occasionally peeing in the wardrobe after he was married.
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Had she bopped him on the head once, when she got home?
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Oi, this isn't the "Free Bobb to good home" thread. ;D
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Foolishly yesterday at lunch I mentioned that Kai had managed to not loose the collar he's had on since I first fitted him with one, shortly after arriving at Chez TimO.
... this means that he turned up last night sans collar. :-\
I didn't have time to dig out a new one and adjust it for size this morning, but he'll probably be fitted with a spare later tonight.
I think that's still a bit better than Talisker's average of around six weeks.
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Just had a look at Kitten cam.
A neat effect you've got with the view from camera 2 rotating semi randomely every 10 seconds :thumbsup:
How do you do it?
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Oi, this isn't the "Free Bobb to good home" thread. ;D
I wouldn't give him away. :D
Kitty is playing with the shoelace!
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Just had a look at Kitten cam.
A neat effect you've got with the view from camera 2 rotating semi randomely every 10 seconds :thumbsup:
How do you do it?
I really don't know what's going on there. That machine has been up for weeks, so it's quite possible that Video-For-Linux (V4L) has got confused and is going a bit doolally.
I'm rebooting that machine, and I'll restart the camera software then. If that doesn't solve it, then something has probably gone wrong with the camera, which could be annoying.
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The reboot has solved it. It was only the second camera which died, the first one was fine. I think V4L got it's knickers in a knot, metaphorically speaking, but the reboot seems to have sorted things out. V4L doesn't seem to be terribly stable, that's not the first time I've had oddness with it.
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Ahhhhh sleepy ball of kitten.
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The second catcam keeps on dying. I've rebooted it several times, and that isn't curing it, but it's likely that the reboot doesn't actually cause interruption of power to the camera itself, so a proper power cycle when I get home may solve things.
Conveniently, Zev is snoozing on Camera 1 today, so we're not missing anything! (Watch her move away now).
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There's a new shot of Kai over in the Gratuitous cat pics (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=144.msg1074171#msg1074171) thread. He's not as easy to pin down as Zev (sometimes literally!), so I've got less good shots of him.
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It's funny how you don't notice things which change gradually, but I just realised how much his tail has changed.
When I first got him, his tail wasn't very furry, a bit sparse, and a bit spiky (you can that in some of the early shots), and was one of the things which didn't match up to the descriptions of Maine Coons and Norwegian Forest Cats (and I think he's got a substantial amount of some species of Forest Cat DNA in his makeup).
Looking at him earlier, I realised that his tail is now smooth and well furred, and positively luxuriant.
I'm guessing this is possibly down to him being a well fed cat of luxury these days, so he has longer to sit and clean himself, and consequently his furs condition is improved. It could also be that an improved and more regular diet is also helping with that.
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Looking at some of the shots I've taken of him, I couldn't help but compare a couple:
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/KaiBeforeAndAfter_thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/KaiBeforeAndAfter.jpg)
Click image for bigness.
Admittedly the lighting isn't the same, which effects the images somewhat, but the more recent shot on the right definitely looks a bit chubbier, and with more fur. I'm sure he's looking better fed and healthier now.
Edit: Possibly a slight better comparison here (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/KaiBeforeAndAfter2.jpg) (and here (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/ZevAndKai/KaiBeforeAndAfter2_thumb480.jpg) for a 480 pixel wide version, like the above image).
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And less annoyed :)
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Do cats ever not look annoyed? ;D
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TimO, That's amazing!
You can see the early photo where Kai's cheekbones are sticking out, his nose looks dirty and wet/runny and in the new photo his face has filled out, he's cleaner and healthier looking nosewise.
Awesome! He's a beautiful cat isn't he, very striking!
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Compared to the early shots that loafheads posted in the first thread, he's also a lot less skinny looking.
A lot of it is simply that he's been well fed, so he's filled out a lot (I suspect he's become a little overweight, so I'm being less generous with the food now). He's obviously looking after his fur a lot better as well.
The earlier face shot does look a little gaunt, although the two shots are taken with different cameras, and lighting, so you have to allow for that a bit as well (although I tried to equalise the contrast and brightness a bit).
I'm still very curious to know what breed he is, or is a mix of. The three ones which he looks like the Maine Coon, Norwegian Forest Cat and Siberian are all similar looking to my unpractised eye (not surprisingly, because they are all Forest Cats!). The Maine Coon is a much larger cat, so he's clearly not a pure bred Maine Coon, but he could be a cross. Size and colourwise, he could be either of the other two, but the web pages I've looked at aren't really adequate for me to make any distinction. Whatever he is, that heritage should means he's fine if we have any snow!
Solace Farm: Differences among the Siberian Cat, Norwegian Forest Cat and Main Coon (http://www.solacefarm.com/Diffsib.php)
Chat Siberiens: Comparative between Siberian, Norwegian forest cat and Maine coon (http://www.chatsiberien.net/index_langEN_comparatif1.htm)
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... and he's lost another collar, which probably still keeps the average time above Talisker, and at just under a month doesn't challenge Talisker's minimum time of slightly less than a week (but I'm sure he's willing to see if he can beat it!)
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When I get in, both cats are around, and very friendly, because they're looking forward to their supper!
Today, it was a case of "Hang on you two, I need to go to the loo", and as is his want, Kai hammered up the stairs in front of me, straight into the bathroom, and did an incredibly well controlled four paw skid on the bathroom tiles, stopping having spun around, facing me, in a very "Well, what are you dawdling for?" fashion!
It was very impressive.
If Zev did the same thing, she'd probably plough into the bath and sit there looking dazed. She's not really worked out the fine details of running around (and more importantly, stopping) yet!
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I found Kai sleeping in the heated cat bed this morning. :thumbsup:
When I first had him, and he was constrained to the bathroom, the bed was in there, but unplugged (no plugs in the bathroom!) and he used it, and obviously found it very comfortable.
Since he's been out of there, and more recently Zev has also been out of her bedroom, I've never seen either of them in it, although it's been turned on, and warm. There was some evidence that it had been used though, it gained a sort of "sleeping cat shape", and had some additional cat fur in it.
This morning was the first time I found Kai actually using it, although the moment I started wandering around, so did he! He's asleep on the floor about two foot behind me at the moment. They both seem to like to be around wherever I am, so I guess he (or she) only really uses the bed when I'm not in the house.
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Unusually, Kai isn't eating this morning. He wasn't in the house when I got up, but opening the kitchen window and clanking the bowls together brought him in almost immediately, so he wasn't far away.
I put there food down, and he ignored it, wandering off, which is unheard of. I've put his food aside (so Zev can't eat it). If he doesn't want it, I'll give it to Zev as second breakfast before I leave.
At the moment, he's curled up in the cat bed, and miraculously Zev is leaving him alone.
I'm guessing he's just feeling a little ill. I did accidentally step on a paw yesterday, but I checked that at the time, and there was no evidence of pain when I handled each paw.
He doesn't like being picked up and handled, but he's never been an enthusiast of that anyway, just tolerant.
I was planning on going out today, so I'm still going to do that. I don't think there's anything I can do to help him at this point.
If he's still the same tomorrow morning, I'll take him to the vets.
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Could be just a furball? That sometimes makes 'em go off their food for 24 hours. :-\
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Well, having come back from the Dickens ride, he's a bit more active, both him and Zev greeted me, and he seemed moderately enthusiastic about some food. I gave both him and Zev their normal portions and he relatively slowly ate about half of a can of cat food (he'd normally inhale an entire can). Once he clearly wasn't going to eat any more, I left Zev dispose of the remainder (I had to pick her up to stop her pushing him away, and tucking in!)
I think he's still a bit off, but feeling a bit better, purely based on him being a bit more active and actually eating something.
I'll just have to see what he's like tomorrow morning. If he's eating something then that'll be OK, but if he refuses to touch food again, I'll have to make a decision based on his demeanour, whether to take a trip to the vets.
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Actually he's gotten progressively better as the evening continued. He asked me for food (well much meowing at me in the kitchen), and fairly rapidly scoffed an entire can of cat food. He (with help from Zev) also scoffed a couple of Sainsbury's cheap copies of a Weebox chew.
I don't know what the problem was, cat 24 houri lurgy, or a dodgy rodent, but it seems to have mostly passed now, and he's back to his normal irascible style. He even tried to whack Zev as she passed the cat bed (it's at the top of the stairs), which he wasn't even vaguely inclined to do earlier.
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Hmm, still not totally back to normal. He and Zev have been wandering around as normal (ie following me down to the kitchen, mildly fighting etc) and were both their normal <Audrey> "Feed Me" </Audrey> selves.
However, Kai didn't finish his breakfast, that admittedly was a chikeny flavour, which seems to be his least favourite. That doesn't normally stop him from eating the lot however (I didn't pick that flavour it was just the first one to come to hand from the stockpile).
Ho hum. At least he is eating, so I'll just attribute the lack of enthusiasm to a still mild upset stomach, for whatever reason. Otherwise he seems healthy and broadly active (as much as a domestic cat is active this time of year!)
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On returning home this evening, I've had to clear up at least ten lots of cat vomit, most of it definitely from today, although some may have been from last night (in the spare bedroom that I don't generally go into).
He's almost certainly thrown up everything he ate this morning, and probably some of the dry cat food I left out (although at a guess Zev has eaten some of that too). Since he's probably been outside, he may well have thrown up out there as well. At least some of it suggests he was trying to go out, because there's a trail all the way to the cat flap!
Luckily, like most cat vomit, it was relatively dry, so hasn't really caused any damage, not that my carpets haven't seen cat vomit before, and luckily they aren't exactly expensive.
He doesn't seem to be exhibiting any signs of being terribly ill, and is moderately active, although clearly not his normal exuberant self. He's mostly just retiring to the heated cat bed and sleeping. He had a slight appetite, but mostly he just ate the jelly bits from the cat food I tried on him, and left most of the bits of fish.
Vomiting once or twice could be a hairball, or something similar, and if he had a full appetite, I'd not worry, but basically he'll probably have had no food stay inside him for 48 hours by tomorrow morning, which is quite a while for a cat, and possibly he could be getting dehydrated (it was hard for me to tell with Talisker, but Kai is covered in too much fur to reliably grab a fold of skin). If he was looking less happy, I think I'd ring up the emergency vets, but his manner seems more or less OK, so I don't think it's desperately urgent yet.
So, I think the cat flap is going to be closed tonight, so he can't wander off and hide anywhere, and he's off to the vets first thing tomorrow morning. I'll ring them up when they open, and take him straight in.
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Oh dear. Vet sounds sensible.
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Ugh re vomit. I hope the vets have some idea of what's up tomorrow. Poor Kai.
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I've just been checking on the route to the emergency vet, in case I need to do something tonight. It's 6.8 miles away in Caterham, and almost entirely uphill. About 450 feet of up, so it averages out to about 1 in 80 for about half an hour, towing a cat on a trailer. I really hope I don't need to do that tonight!
(It's almost certainly not going to be necessary, Kai isn't exhibiting any signs of distress, although I suspect he's feeling a bit green around the gills).
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I've just been checking on the route to the emergency vet, in case I need to do something tonight. It's 6.8 miles away in Caterham, and almost entirely uphill. About 450 feet of up, so it averages out to about 1 in 80 for about half an hour, towing a cat on a trailer. I really hope I don't need to do that tonight!
(It's almost certainly not going to be necessary, Kai isn't exhibiting any signs of distress, although I suspect he's feeling a bit green around the gills).
I hope Kai is better soon. Perhaps, if a trip is necessary, it might be easier to get a taxi, but let's hope it doesn't come to that.
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If it was the middle of the night, it might be easier to cycle than try and find a taxi! Seven miles towing the trailer doesn't really faze me, and I could be out of the house in five minutes. If I had to find a taxi company that was answering the phone in the early hours of Tuesday morning, and then wait for a taxi to get here, it may well still be faster to cycle! (I have adequately stupid bike lights for cycling on dark roads, and have a lot of experience at night riding). Sorting out the route is just extreme paranoia on my part!
This would however be highly unlikely, because I'll almost certainly sleep through until the morning, and in all likelihood so will both the cats.
Kai doesn't look that bad. He's possibly holding his head a bit low sometimes, which cats do seem to do when they're feeling a bit ill, but on the flip side, he is washing himself, which is a good sign, since they'll also stop doing that if they are feeling really ill.
In fact, he's just wandered downstairs to see what I'm doing, which is a good sign that he doesn't just want to slump down in his bed. He is possibly going to be annoyed when he realises that I've blocked the cat flap though!
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Well that's a relief, the vet thought it was probably just hair balls. It's probably exacerbated by his hair getting much longer than it was, and fleas. He's also heavy enough now (about 4.6kg) that he needs the larger size of flea treatment, so that may also explain why he was suffering from them. I had missed the most recent flea treatment, but only by a couple of weeks.
He gave Kai a couple of injections to help settle his stomach, and some Katalax cat laxative. I put the Katalax in with a small portion of food, just in case he didn't eat everything, but he scoffed it all down. I've fed him a bit more, probably almost as much as he would normally have for his two breakfasts, and it all went fast. :thumbsup:
Whilst they were scoffing food (Zev was just having her normal second breakfast) I also administered their flea treatments.
So, hopefully Kathy was correct, it was just hairballs, although not having had a cat quite as furry as him before, I didn't realise it could be such a problem. Talisker occasionally coughed up a fur ball in the house, but generally it was just one fairly dry bit of vomit.
I should probably also start brushing him, to help remove the fur, before he does. Does anyone have any thoughts or recommendations on cat brushes?
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I should probably also start brushing him, to help remove the fur, before he does. Does anyone have any thoughts or recommendations on cat brushes?
It's mostly about what the cat will tolerate, of course. My uncle accidentally adopted an enormous semi-feral ginger tom (who decided that the stack of racing car tyres covered in an old blanket in his garage would make a good winter snoozing spot, and never left). He was incredibly wary of humans, but for some reason would allow my uncle to brush him - with a wire brush! He enjoyed this immensely, and would roll around purring like a tiger. Unfortunately, he didn't really understand about retracting his claws, so this was best done while wearing welding gauntlets.
Beyond that, we used to have a knobbly silicone rubber thing that was much more effective at collecting loose hair than a traditional brush. It was a square-section tube reminiscent of a giant sticklebrick, stretched over a rigid plastic inner to give it structure. Eventually it got trodden on, shattering the inner plastic. This made it much less easy to use as a brush, but meant the cat could carry it around in her teeth and drop it at your feet as a subtle hint.
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Ethel-the-Gummy can vomit up large furballs (adorned with partially-digested kibble) every 36 hours in moulting season, and she's only got short hair! Luckily she loves being groomed and petted, so when she's going through a bad patch I try and brush her every evening while she sits on my lap. The amount of fur this removes has got to help! I use one of those little wire "slicker" brushes (available from all good pet shops). I've tried both cats with a rubber "Zoom Groom" but Ethel is uncertain about it, and Emmie hates it.
When Ethel has a furball brewing she becomes reekingly flatulent. At this point we feed her vast amounts of furball paste. Otherwise she gets given the paste daily until the vomiting is no longer prevalent.
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The Katalax seems to be fairly easily available, so it may be worth me introducing that into his diet on a semi-regular basis. In the past I've also noticed that Iams have a "Hairball Control" variant, and I wonder if one meal a day of that would work similarly (and varying his diet with some dry food, could possibly be a good idea anyway).
I've seen rubbery cat hair gloves, and various types of brush (some based on rubbery knobbly structures), so maybe I'm just going to have to experiment and see what he'll tolerate and accept, and which helps to remove hair.
Since I've got him, his fur has just got so much, well, furrier than it was. That's probably a mixture of better diet, as well as the weather getting colder, so he naturally becomes more furry.
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Hairball control food is very efficacious, but very high fat. We had to stop using it when both our mogs became obese. :-[
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Pippin & Mojo love their Zoom Groom. I aim to brush them most days but it probably ends up being every 2 in reality, they can vom up quite a lot of hairballs....
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Pleased to hear that puss is feeling better.
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Awww poor Kai, sorry to hear he has been poorly. The trouble is with diagnosing hairballs as a cause of vomiting is you cannot actually tell that it is that from examining the cat, it's usually a bit of a guess. IME cats who vomit because of them tend to only do it intermittently and a maximum of once or twice a day, not epic vomit all over the place. Hopefully he won't start up again once the injections from yesterday wear off!
A good way of controlling hairballs in a long haired cat is to give them a small amount of Katalax (say 1/4" from the tube) a couple of times a week in their food. This should keep them at bay. If they bring any hair up then increase that to 1/2" daily for a few days. Zoom Grooms are quite good, but you can achieve a similar effect by rubbing your cat with a slightly damp hand to get off dead hairs. It's always harder to groom their tummy and armpits since some cats just won't let you, and this is where tangles often form.
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A good way of controlling hairballs in a long haired cat is to give them a small amount of Katalax (say 1/4" from the tube) a couple of times a week in their food. This should keep them at bay. If they bring any hair up then increase that to 1/2" daily for a few days.
Thanks for that, it's useful to know some numbers, rather than just dosing him with possibly rather larger than ideal amounts of Katalax!
Zoom Grooms are quite good, but you can achieve a similar effect by rubbing your cat with a slightly damp hand to get off dead hairs. It's always harder to groom their tummy and armpits since some cats just won't let you, and this is where tangles often form.
Luckily whilst Kai isn't really into being a lap cat (he's only ever curled up on my lap once or twice), he is very tolerant, and that's good when Zev annoys him, so he will let you do things like plonk him on your lap and brush him (or indeed inspect his paws, or give him a pill).
Zev is much less inclined to allow that sort of thing, and can easily turn into a ball of scratching claws. I'm hoping this will improve with age! Luckily brushing with her isn't quite so important, being quite short haired.
He was better this morning. He ate almost all of his breakfast, although left a bit at the end. It may simply be that he's still not quite back to normal. I'm continuing to give him an inch or so of Katalax twice a day, which is obviously a good dosage compared to what you're suggesting for more normal day to day preventative purposes.
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A good way of controlling hairballs in a long haired cat is to give them a small amount of Katalax (say 1/4" from the tube) a couple of times a week in their food. This should keep them at bay. If they bring any hair up then increase that to 1/2" daily for a few days.
Thanks for that, it's useful to know some numbers, rather than just dosing him with possibly rather larger than ideal amounts of Katalax!
Don't fanny about! Give him a dose of Picolax... :demon:
;D
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I think Kai's worked out that he doesn't like the taste of Katalax, and has actually started to try and eat around it, when he finds it buried inside his meal!
I tried the vet's suggestion of putting it on the back of his paw, so he'd have to wash it out, but I didn't smear it on well enough, so he flicked a good amount of it onto the kitchen floor. Some was left on his paw, and he didn't half give a disgusted look when he licked his paw, and obviously didn't appreciate the taste.
I'll try and better job of smearing it on his paw tomorrow, but it's more or less the end of the dosing that the vet suggested, so I may just put a small amount on the back of his paw in future (as suggested up thread by feline), well rubbed in so he can't get rid of it, other than by licking it clean!
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For cats that don't like it (it is very like Marmite, they either love it or hate it, even funnier, it actually tastes like Marmite too!) the other method of getting it into them is to put the dose on your index finger, then in pill giving technique open their mouth with your 2nd finger and wipe it onto their tongue. If you aim for the back bit of tongue there are fewer taste buds there. The knack is for your finger to be in and out before a bite is possible, so be fast. They seem unable to spit out Katalax. In fact, cats cannot spit at all, which is probably a good thing :D
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Ah, I hadn't thought of trying that. I'm used to that sort of thing from giving Talisker his pills, so it's possibly worth a try. I never got bitten by Talisker, but he did occasionally manage to work the pill around and let it drop out, if I didn't quite get it at the back of his tongue and trigger the swallowing reflex. I knew that it had gone in wrong, because there would be a very determined look on his face, and you could see he was working the pill around prior to getting rid of it! He was an idiot however, and invariably dropped it on the kitchen floor near to me, so he just got grabbed and it was popped back in again. ;D
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Yay, that technique worked this morning. :thumbsup:
It took me a couple of goes to get most of the Katalax on his tongue, so it possibly wasn't as far back as would minimise the taste, but he only looked moderately annoyed, and I did it just before breakfast so that they'd hopefully be salivating as much as possible, to help increase it being swallowed asap. It also only really works with the small dose which you suggested would be good as a regular amount, rather than the larger amount I was feeding him last week.
With a reasonably compliant cat like Talisker or Kai it certainly works OK, but I wouldn't want to try this with Zev, she wouldn't stay on her back for long (which is the easiest way to get them in a position where they can't fight back too much!)
He doesn't seem too annoyed with me, he's sat on the landing watching me (and Zev) at the moment.
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Heh, glad the trick is working. It did take two of us to wrangle Zev when she decided she didn't like eye drops, so we went for the con her into relaxing, scruff and go and scritch her before she noticed but that did require about 5 hands so the 4 we had were just about enough. I'd not have wanted to piss her off (again) as she's sharp and will make sure you know it.
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Yes, unfortunately she's much harder work, so I have to be prepared to take a few scratches.
Luckily she's short haired, so I'm hoping that she won't suffer from furballs to the same extent as Kai, and hence won't need frequent dosing with Katalax via my fingers. Having said that, on the final dose in his food, which Kai partially refused to eat (hence my wiping Katalax on his paw), Zev scoffed the lot, so she isn't particularly averse to eating Katalax, should I ever need to dose her with it.
The few times I had to do something she doesn't like, such as feeding her worming paste, or inspecting her paws (when it was initially slightly injured), I've ended up being slightly injured.
Kai is a big fluffy teddy bear of a cat, and even when he growls you can handle him quite easily. Zev on the other hand is a nervous ball of sharpened claws! She's more of a lap cat than him, but isn't big on being picked up.
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That was quite amusing.
I needed to go to Sainsburys, and as he has a few times this week, Kai shot to the front door to leave the house with me (he could easily go out his cat flap at the back of the house, but heah, whatever). Rather than wandering off to eyeball some of the wildlife, or challenge one of the other local cats, he actually followed me down the road. Towards the end, he got a bit nervous of the traffic on the road at the end of our road, as well as being very curious about the fronts of the houses we were walking past, so decided to go no further.
Twenty minutes or so later, when I got back from the shopping, he hadn't got a lot further back to our house, and I could hear him tinkling in someone's front garden. When I called his name he bounced out, and followed me back down the road, and into the house, and is currently having a good nose in the living room, with occasional bouts of warfare with Zev.
He very nearly managed to walk to heel, and was better at it than some dogs I've known!
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It's worth getting a Zoom Groom just for the massaging effect. Ginger from next door visits just for his massage. And so does his cat.
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That was quite amusing.
I needed to go to Sainsburys, and as he has a few times this week, Kai shot to the front door to leave the house with me (he could easily go out his cat flap at the back of the house, but heah, whatever). Rather than wandering off to eyeball some of the wildlife, or challenge one of the other local cats, he actually followed me down the road. Towards the end, he got a bit nervous of the traffic on the road at the end of our road, as well as being very curious about the fronts of the houses we were walking past, so decided to go no further.
Twenty minutes or so later, when I got back from the shopping, he hadn't got a lot further back to our house, and I could hear him tinkling in someone's front garden. When I called his name he bounced out, and followed me back down the road, and into the house, and is currently having a good nose in the living room, with occasional bouts of warfare with Zev.
He very nearly managed to walk to heel, and was better at it than some dogs I've known!
My cats do this too, although it can be a problem when they follow me all the way to the village then look most put out when I want to go into the post office and they do not. They sometimes accompany me when I take the dogs out by bike on their Walkydog. I look like the frigging pied piper with 2 dogs and 2 cats in tow!
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That was quite amusing.
I needed to go to Sainsburys, and as he has a few times this week, Kai shot to the front door to leave the house with me (he could easily go out his cat flap at the back of the house, but heah, whatever). Rather than wandering off to eyeball some of the wildlife, or challenge one of the other local cats, he actually followed me down the road. Towards the end, he got a bit nervous of the traffic on the road at the end of our road, as well as being very curious about the fronts of the houses we were walking past, so decided to go no further.
Twenty minutes or so later, when I got back from the shopping, he hadn't got a lot further back to our house, and I could hear him tinkling in someone's front garden. When I called his name he bounced out, and followed me back down the road, and into the house, and is currently having a good nose in the living room, with occasional bouts of warfare with Zev.
He very nearly managed to walk to heel, and was better at it than some dogs I've known!
My cats do this too, although it can be a problem when they follow me all the way to the village then look most put out when I want to go into the post office and they do not. They sometimes accompany me when I take the dogs out by bike on their Walkydog. I look like the frigging pied piper with 2 dogs and 2 cats in tow!
You just need a couple of hamsters to complete the set. In their balls, naturally....
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My cats do this too, although it can be a problem when they follow me all the way to the village then look most put out when I want to go into the post office and they do not. They sometimes accompany me when I take the dogs out by bike on their Walkydog. I look like the frigging pied piper with 2 dogs and 2 cats in tow!
You just need a couple of hamsters to complete the set. In their balls, naturally....
That would be very "Bolt (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397892/)". ;D
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/BoltMittensRhino.jpg)
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My cats do this too, although it can be a problem when they follow me all the way to the village then look most put out when I want to go into the post office and they do not. They sometimes accompany me when I take the dogs out by bike on their Walkydog. I look like the frigging pied piper with 2 dogs and 2 cats in tow!
You just need a couple of hamsters to complete the set. In their balls, naturally....
That would be very "Bolt (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397892/)". ;D
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/BoltMittensRhino.jpg)
I musn't let my daughter see this thread, she has been hankering after a new hamster since hers died last year :-X
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Kai has just returned from a bit of a wanderjahr.
I last saw him on Thursday morning, and he hasn't turned up for any food since then.
Cats often disappear off for a while, and he's both chipped and tagged, so I wasn't too worried, but I was starting to wonder this morning where he had gone, and considering changing his status on the chip website.
I always clank the bowls around when serving their meals, it's how they know nosh is up, and I've been doing it more than usual, so he can hear, and hopefully return. He appeared almost immediately at breakfast time, so obviously was not that far away (although the camera archive shows no evidence if him coming in overnight).
I wonder where he's been? Possibly in the hot weather, with his heavy coat, he's found somewhere cool to loiter, but that doesn't really explain why he hasn't been coming back for his food.
I've temporarily blocked the cat flap, and will give him second breakfast in a while, and unblock the flap at the same time. Hopefully the food will remind him of where he gets the good stuff, so he comes back for his meals at least!
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Kai has just returned from a bit of a wanderjahr.
I last saw him on Thursday morning, and he hasn't turned up for any food since then.
Cats often disappear off for a while, and he's both chipped and tagged, so I wasn't too worried, but I was starting to wonder this morning where he had gone, and considering changing his status on the chip website.
I always clank the bowls around when serving their meals, it's how they know nosh is up, and I've been doing it more than usual, so he can hear, and hopefully return. He appeared almost immediately at breakfast time, so obviously was not that far away (although the camera archive shows no evidence if him coming in overnight).
I wonder where he's been? Possibly in the hot weather, with his heavy coat, he's found somewhere cool to loiter, but that doesn't really explain why he hasn't been coming back for his food.
I've temporarily blocked the cat flap, and will give him second breakfast in a while, and unblock the flap at the same time. Hopefully the food will remind him of where he gets the good stuff, so he comes back for his meals at least!
I'm glad to hear that he is home and safe. We had a cat that would periodically wander, even though he had been neutered. Perhaps Kia is an explorer too.He obviously knows where home is; he's come back. He wouldn't if he wasn't happy.
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That's a relief he's home safe. He could have got himself shut into someone's shed, garage or outbuilding, this is a favourite trick of my Rico who nearly died after one episode where he disappeared on a Tuesday and came back dehydrated and starving the following Tuesday in very hot weather (Wednesday is bin day in the town, he must have been shut in somewhere someone keeps their bins, and no amount of walking the streets calling for him had got us any response).
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I don't think he was locked up anywhere, since he was reasonably clean (he's not always the most pristine of cats!), and didn't seem to be all that hungry, because Zev still finished her breakfast before him.
I reckon he's been getting food from wherever he can, I know he visits at least one of my neighbours for their cats food!
I kept him in for a while, and then unblocked the cat flap whilst they were eating lunch. They both disappeared off then, although Zev's just reappeared.
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Updated Kai's status on PetLog to "Lost", since I haven't seen him since Saturday midday, when he went out again. :(
I'm not not sure this will make much difference, since presumably if anyone found him, they would have checked his chip ID anyway. I don't know whether he'll reappear when the weather gets colder or wetter, but he seems to have given up on me feeding him.
Zev seems a touch more clingy, she's sleeping on my bed pretty much the entire night. She's there when I go to bed, and still there when I get up, and is very sensitive to the slightest noise, stopping and listening very attentively, presumably when she thinks she's heard his bell.
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At that age, Josh used to go on 4-day expeditions. When he came back he'd sleep for two days straight (only getting up for meals). As he got older he became more domesticated.
Hector, on the other hand, has only left the back garden once or twice, had a sniff around the drive and then gone back in. It doesn't help that a female blackbird* has got it in for him and chases him in through the cat flap.
*turns out the sparrowhawk didn't get her after all - it was eating something else
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At that age, Josh used to go on 4-day expeditions. When he came back he'd sleep for two days straight (only getting up for meals). As he got older he became more domesticated.
Hector, on the other hand, has only left the back garden once or twice, had a sniff around the drive and then gone back in. It doesn't help that a female blackbird* has got it in for him and chases him in through the cat flap.
*turns out the sparrowhawk didn't get her after all - it was eating something else
Blackbirds make for very good parents. Feisty little devils.
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Zev doesn't seem to go far, she's mostly in the cat flap with about 30 seconds of me banging the bowls together, which is the sound they know means food! (When I wash them up, inevitably they clang a bit) I don't think she goes much further than the back garden, and occasionally down the side passage to the front garden (or slightly less overgrown weed area as it should more accurately be known).
I suspect she'll start to wander a bit more, as she gets older, and a little less nervous. She seems to be getting used to stuff a bit more already than she was a few months ago.
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I hope Kai returns soon and he's OK, it's horrid not knowing where they've wandered off to and if they're OK or not.
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It's a worrying length of time to be missing, but given he did similar just before I would be hopeful he will return safe after another adventure. His history of being an adult entire male will have given him a wanderlust that he probably wouldn't have had if he had been neutered as a kitten and that probably increases the chances of him doing things like this. Some cats simply rehome themselves somewhere with no other cats and an elderly person home all day who feeds then tuna! They tend to pop back to their previous place to sample the cuisine from time to time though. Fingers crossed he shows up very soon.
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... His history of being an adult entire male will have given him a wanderlust that he probably wouldn't have had if he had been neutered as a kitten and that probably increases the chances of him doing things like this. ...
Yes, I'd guess it's likely something like that, especially now the weather is warm and dry, so he doesn't necessarily need a nice warm cat bed to curl up in.
... Some cats simply rehome themselves somewhere with no other cats and an elderly person home all day who feeds then tuna! They tend to pop back to their previous place to sample the cuisine from time to time though. Fingers crossed he shows up very soon.
That's also possible, especially since he does seem to be a social cat, and likes to be near to where I am. I guess even in that scenario he may yet reappear if he gets taken to a vet, and they check him for an RFID chip (if for example someone wants to get him chipped).
I'll be in the house most of this long weekend (excepting the FNRttC tonight), so he may pop in at some point, if he's still in the vicinity.
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Fingers crossed, Tim.
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We used to have a male cat who'd been neutered as a kitten and he still had wanderlust - he'd quite often be away for several days at a time, then come back with new battle scars. So don't give up hope. He might just be off having cat adventures.
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Well, that was a little odd.
I just got in, a little earlier than I have been this week, and he was waiting for me by the front door! That's a little unusual in itself, I think that's only happened once before, normally he'll let himself in via the cat flap around the back.
He came in, and scoffed down some supper, with Zev, who seemed ambivalent about seeing him.
Then he wandered up to the front door, and waited for me to come and let him out, which isn't something I've ever really done. I've let him out very occasionally when I've been going out, but mostly he'll come and go via the cat flap. I wasn't going to open the door, but needed to get something from my pannier (and the bike was by the door), and he became quite aggressive, very unusual for him, growling, and even gave me a small scratch on the arm.
Eventually he got the idea about the cat flap, and left that way. I opened the back door, since neither of them is exactly keen on the cat flap if they can avoid using it. He came back in for a bit, having a brief wander around downstairs, before going back out again. He growled a little at Zev, but neither of them did any paw waving or proper arched back and furry ball of fuzz.
I wonder if he's been in someone's house, where he's been dependent on them letting him in and out of the front door? He's still wearing his collar and tag, so it's not as though someone's taken him in as their pet.
I guess he's been wandering about, getting food where and when he can, and possibly in houses along here, similar to this one, but going in and out via the front door.
I think I'm just going to have to get used to him appearing and disappearing a lot, when the weather's nice and pleasant as it is now.
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Happy to hear he's back
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Glad to hear he's back Tim.
Time to get the soldering iron out & molish a kitty tracker...
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Glad to hear he's back and hope he doesn't wander for too long as that does sound stressful for you.
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I suspect he's gone off again for a while. Once I get back from the FNRttC tomorrow, I'll be in the house most of the time until Wednesday, with the long Jubilee weekend, so it'll be interesting to see what he does. Having now had two progressively longer wanders, I guess I'll just have to wait and see, and just assume that he likes going off like this, so may only drop in from time to time. It does save on the cat food expenditure though!
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This is interesting as of 3 weeks ago, one of mine has suddenly taken to disappearing for the entire day. She would go out when I got up & not return until night 16-18 hours later. Her sister gets quite anxious when it's dark & is in & out looking for her.
I took to locking them both in for a few days & whether a coincidence or not, it's helped.
Neither of mine are chipped, have collars or have been spayed :/
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... or have been spayed :/
So, when are the kittens due?
(or have you developed some form of feline contraception?)
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They are both over a year old & still not pregnant!
We do want one to have kittens, if they both end up with a litter, we'll easily re-home them!
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Tim, check if he smells of perfume. Josh was a right tart and used to go in other people's houses for the evening to be fed and stroked. He also used to stretch himself across the pavement and wait for the post lady at a certain time in the morning (when we had an early delivery).
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Tim, check if he smells of perfume.
Or cigar smoke.
Or cannabis.
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Tim, check if he smells of perfume.
Or cigar smoke.
Or cannabis.t
You seem to know a lot about this!
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I was befriended[1] by a cat that smelled of cigar smoke in our Sheffield house.
Barakta has the story of the cat with the cannabis habit...
[1] Or, to be more precise, while moving in, I sat down for a rest after unloading the first van load, and found her sitting in the middle of the living room like she owned the place.
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They are both over a year old & still not pregnant!
We do want one to have kittens, if they both end up with a litter, we'll easily re-home them!
That's a bit miraculous, if they have outside access. I know three people who recently adopted kittens, only to find that they were already pregnant (one is Valiant (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=57585.0) of this parish).
I wonder if your two either have some sort of medical issues, or do you live very isolated from others ? (although male cats will travel miles to find a female in heat). Cats generally get very easily pregnant.
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The vet was surprised too!
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I'd say that a female domestic cat who couldn't get pregnant, would be a valuable animal to breed from ... except ... ;D
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Face it, you have lesbian cats.
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Cannabis cat story as told to me by the owner during a mutual stay in hospital. Middle aged woman mother of 2 teenagers noticed that whenever anyone visiting had a smoke the cat would become very friendly and start sniffing at the smoke. Eventually her sons told her why, the cat had been theirs for a while in a shared flat before being given to her when they couldn't keep it for landlord reasons.
Basically teenaged/early 20s young people as they may be inclined to do having a fair amount of cannabis had had a lot of it about and someone had decided to see what happened if the cat was given a blowback. It liked it so whenever they had joints they'd give the cat some and that cat learned how to ask "mither" for a blowback!
The cat couldn't tell the difference between joints and cigarettes so would jump on anyone smoking a cig thinking it was weed. The woman realised this was why the cat had been quite so jittery when it moved in with her at first as it was probably suffering nicotine and cannabis withdrawal.
No idea if this is true or not, or even if cats can even get any reaction from nicotine/cannabis as they have very different metabolisms from us.
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Fat Freddy's Cat?
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I just had a brief Google to see if there's much information of the effect of cannabis on cats. There's quite a lot of anecdotal discussion that suggests cats are reasonably often exposed to cannabis smoke without any short or long term obvious toxic effects. There's some suggestion that cat's do like the smoke, but also some discussions that suggest THC (the predominate psychoactive constituent of cannabis) is very rapidly absorbed in the primary user, so that the exhaled smoke will have relatively low levels left in it. Given that cats are so small, compared to humans, it's possible that even these relatively low levels may have some effect on cats. Of course, it's also possible that cats simply like the smell, and it may have no psychoactive effect on them, but that's going to be hard to measure, short of giving cannabis to a cat, and plonking it inside a scanner to see what the effect on it's brain activity is!
Of course, a lot of the discussions degenerate into arguments which are clearly partly related to the relative pros and cons of cannabis use by humans, and I doubt there have been many people who have done formal studies on the effects on felines and canines, when it's hard enough to do this sort of work on humans.
On the face of it, however, it's plausible, since the brain of most mammals are going to be biochemically similar, I wouldn't be surprised if the effect on cats was similar to humans.
Neither of my two is going to get any chance to get access to anything more psychoactive than alcohol, and that only by accident if they somehow manage to drink my beer or whiskey. Whenever I've let them sniff a bottle, they've looked quite disgusted, so I don't think either of them is likely to become an alky!
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Kai has just come back again, and is hanging around a bit longer than would be necessary just to eat lunch.
He actually popped in via the cat flap, about half an hour after I gave Zev a sort of late brunch, early lunch, so it was probably spontaneous, and not in response to the clanking together of bowls.
He's been wandering about, checking out things, and just stopping to watch me, or have a wash, so fairly normal cat behaviour. He seemed unhappy at the front door being closed, and growled a bit at the cat flap, even though it was unlocked, and he could have gone out through it, having just entered that way.
I unlocked the back door, and have left that open, which seems to make him more comfortable. It may be he wants an easy exit if Zev starts being trouble. He's made a few small growls towards her when she's got too close, but there's been no outright warfare yet. She's been following around, and keeping an eye on him.
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I wish I knew what cats use as logic. So after spending several days away between visits, he's spent a fair amount of today in the house, wandering off, and then reappearing. He's had several meals here, except breakfast, and is now curled up asleep in his favourite cat bed.
To all intents and purposes, he's resumed normal service, pretty much where he left it off.
I suspect at some point he's going to do the same thing again, and bugger off for a while, and I have no idea what's likely to trigger that. I just hope he doesn't do at some time where I'm about to put them both into a cattery whilst I leave the country for a week or two, because he's going to potentially find food a bit thin on the ground if he does.
Maybe I should start building an automatic RFID metering cat feeder for just such an eventuality.
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Don't take it personally Tim! Just remember you are his pet human (or one of them), and not the other way around ;D
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That sounds like the same behaviour as one of mine. Lasted about a week, now back to normal!
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Well, he wasn't around when I got up, and hasn't appeared even with lots of bowl clanking. Zev's had her breakfast now and has buggered off. I will wait and see if today is going to be like yesterday, or whether he's gone off again. I reckon both are plausible eventualities.
He's obviously a cat who likes his freedom to roam.
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Just a quick update on his roaming. Over the last few months I've seen him fairly randomly. Mostly I'll see him about once a day, but he can be gone for two or three days with no sight of him, and sometimes he'll barely leave the house for several days. I suspect he's still reliving his days of being entire, and wandering around trying to get his paw over (possibly successfully, but with no issue (for all meanings of that word!)). He has come in with the occasional scratched nose, which tends to support that theory, since he'll likely end up in scraps with others for the ladies favours. :)
Sometime this week, he lost his collar and tag, which had been on him since December. That was a pretty good run. He has then excelled any previous records, by loosing the collar I put on him this morning, before he came back for the evening meal. I reckon that was less than eight hours, which improved upon Talisker's record of about four days by quite a bit. He's got another collar on now, I wonder how long this one will last?
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Interestingly, he has been appearing for most meals over the last week or two. I'd say he's missing less than one meal a day, although which can be a bit random. He normally has at least one breakfast, I don't think I haven't seen him for at least one in quite a while (first breakfast is when I get up, second breakfast just before I leave).
Very unusually for him, he appeared and slept on my bed for a fair bit of last night. He took over the prime position, which is where Zev tends to sleep, so she had to sleep on the other side. I, of course, was stuck with a cat on both sides for quite a bit of the night, so had a crick in my neck this morning! That's probably only the third or fourth time he's slept on my bed for any significant amount of the night, and the first time for months. I would have thought that during this warmer weather they'd be more inclined to go out at night and hunt, and sleep during the day when it's too hot to do much exercise.
He is obviously doing quite well with dead mice. He's caught at least four that I've seen, in the last week. The last was this evening when he appeared just after I got in, and wanted to bring a dead mouse in with him. I convinced him to drop it and come in for supper, but I think he went and found it again afterwards!
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*demands update*
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Not a lot really. I'm not even seeing him every day at the moment, but the weather is still very mild and mostly dry. I last saw him a couple of days ago for breakfast, but it was a very fleeting visit, and he shot straight back out the cat flap once he finished. He didn't even stop for a nose about, or wash, which he generally does. He's lost his collar (again), so I've got a new one ready for the next time he appears, just to give him that 'owned' look.
I guess he's getting well fed somewhere, and possibly bedding down overnight as well, although he seems to appear more easily if I make "breakfast sounds" relatively early, which is suggestive of him having been turfed out overnight, and not having been let back in yet.
There's obviously always a bed for him here, and he can get in or out via the cat flap, so he can always come in if the weather is too cold or wet, and he can't find somewhere else to go.
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As I was tidying up after doing some work in the back garden, Kai appeared this evening.
He was quite nervous, but came in and scoffed some dried cat food that I put down for him.
Zev was a little bitch, and managed to upset him, so I had to sit there with her on my knees, progressively getting more and more angry. I think she considers the house to be hers now, and resents it whenever Kai appears, which of course makes him less likely to come back. :-\
He's less friendly than he used to be. Initially he let me pick him up, but then growled and spit a bit (any other cat would have clawed or bit me, but he's surprisingly well behaved, even when very annoyed), so I put him down and let him have the food. After that I couldn't get close enough to him to get the spare collar on that I had ready, because he's lost the last collar I put on him.
I can't help feeling he seems to be getting a little feral, which suggests that maybe he isn't being fed by another house, but is either subsisting on wildlife or finding scraps of food from other sources (bins etc). The park nearby probably provides a reasonable supply of small animals whose eventual demise is likely to be "squeak, crunch", but there are a fair number of cats around. He didn't seem to be very hungry. He ate the cat food readily, but not massively rapidly, like a cat with a big appetite, so I don't think he's going hungry.
It's a bit odd, because for many months he and Zev seemed to get on mostly OK. Now they can both be a bit aggressive towards each other, although that may just be lack of familiarity. He did sniff around her rear, and then lost interest, which makes me think maybe he's just wandering off in search of females to "acquire", even if it'll no longer do him any good, just a practice he got into in the past, and continues to do.
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I've just posted these images here for the sake of completeness, they're also in the Gratuitous cat pics thread.
Kai has spent a lot more time around the house this weekend, although whether that's because of the poorer weather today, or possibly because wherever he normally disappears to is away, I'm not sure. Hopefully it's a trend.
He lost his most recent collar a few days back, and I've yet to put a new one on him, because between him and Zev, they've now exhausted my supply of spare collars.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Kai/KaiDoorway2_thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Kai/KaiDoorway2.jpg)
In his new favourite sleeping location, the door from the hall into the living room, looking suspiciously at me!
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Kai/KaiDoorway1_thumb480.jpg) (http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Kai/KaiDoorway1.jpg)
Another shot, equally relaxed.
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... and for comparison, compare these two shots, taken by Loafheads, just over twelve months ago. He is so much fluffier now, and possibly a bit tubbier as well. ;D
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Kai/small.php?file=6006665945_a02f373637_b.jpg&size=480)
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Kai/small.php?file=6007206038_3ff55be64b_b.jpg&size=480)
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He came in this afternoon, limping, and hasn't been overly active ever since. Just finding a location and sleeping all day, isn't exactly unusual for him (or any cat!), but it's not a good sign. He was very unhappy when I picked him up, and is very mucky and smelly, so not cleaning himself very well. He also doesn't have a great appetite, and Zev finished off his supper for him.
This all says to me that he's hurt something, but I can't work out what, so it's off to the vet tomorrow morning. I've had to switch the cat flap over to Vet Mode, which means incoming cats only, so I need to put a spare litter tray out, and make sure both are clean and fresh for use. Zev has been chucked out to use the loo, and she can let herself back in when she's done.
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Poor little guy. At least he's back with you so he can be looked after.
Knowing cats, he'll be back to normal in the morning though!
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:( Fingers crossed the poor chap is OK.
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About 80% of cat ailments seem to be fixed with a night in (human) bed.
In contrast to Kai, Hector, who was a farm kitten, is the most domesticated cat imaginable. He rarely ventures outside the garden and prefers to lounge about on our beds or the sofa.
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Well, we will see tomorrow. I'll get up good and early, so I can call the vet up when they open, and if necessary cart him straight in.
If he's eating with his normal gusto, and not reacting badly to being handled, then it will all be back to normal, otherwise it's best to let the vet poke him.
I'm reasonably happy to pay for a checkup, even if the vet says there's nothing wrong with him, rather than worry about him. Once I go to work, if there's a problem, the vet will be closed by the time I get back, and getting to the emergency vet is a fair cycle away, towing a trailer with a heavy cat, uphill for 6 miles! (plus I may have left a miserable cat at home all day).
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If he's eating with his normal gusto, and not reacting badly to being handled, then it will all be back to normal ...
Well, he seems a lot happier this morning. He slept downstairs all night, at least I didn't see him, but Zev has always favoured sleeping on the bed, and he only rarely has.
He is moving much more easily, and whilst I did see him limp once, he's mostly walking "cleanly", and happily. I did pick him up, and attempted to inspect his paws, and he wasn't too unhappy about that. He seemed to be inclined to complain more when I touched his rear left paw, but didn't cry.
Breakfast was scoffed with the normal enthusiasm, so he's got his appetite back.
Overall, I think he's good to go, and I'm not going to take him to the vets. I've unlocked the cat flap, and let him out, and he trotted out at his normal speed, so I think he's as healthy as I could hope for. I doubt he'll be back this morning (ie for second breakfast), but hopefully he'll return this evening, as he has been most evenings recently.
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So, he had his MOT today, and is apparently healthy, and good for another twelve months with his vaccinations.
He's now about 4.8 kg, which is very slightly heavier than he was at the last checkup (basically when he was neutered).
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After a week of only occasional visits, since the weather has become slightly cooler this evening, he's returned a couple of times. He seemed keen to hang around a bit more, but Zev was generally a bit difficult, although this just seemed to be her in a mad cat mood, since she continued like it even after he'd gone out.
He's disappeared off outside, and hasn't come back yet, but it's not as cold out yet as it's probably going to get for the next few days, and with his fur, he's well insulated against chilly weather, so I'm not too worried.
I do have a new collar to put on him, but he's clearly a little bit upset at being inside at the moment, getting a bit nervous when I'm near him, and even growling a bit (but not attacking me, which is good). I haven't grabbed him to fit it yet, since I don't want to make him even more uncomfortable about coming into the house. Hopefully when the weather gets colder, he'll get more used to coming in again, so it'll be easier to get the new collar on, and give him that "owned" look.
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I've just "re-acquired" Kai, by getting up early, because I know he'd appear much more easily then. He was happy enough with getting breakfast, but is extremely unhappy now, at not being allowed out. Luckily this is limited to growling a bit, and hissing at Zev if she annoys him. He's laid back enough that even very annoyed it's possible to pick him up, so in a few hours time it shouldn't be too much effort to get him into his carrier.
I last saw him at the start of the week, but was worried that if he's been getting food from a neighbour, he could be out of luck over Christmas, if they went away, so he's off to the cattery with Zev shortly.
It looks like he's lost his collar since I last saw him, so I'll put a new one on him when he comes back next week. I'm leaving off doing that now, since he's pissed off enough at not being allowed out as it is!
He seems entirely healthy, as he has every time I've seen him recently. Obviously he's eating well, although given his annoyance at being indoors, I think he's largely been an outdoors cat, presumably nicking food from the neighbouring cats, when he can.
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Last year, when I needed to take the cats to the vet (for their vaccinations and checkups), or cattery, I was lucky, and managed to easily "acquire" Kai. Before Christmas he appeared within a few minutes of getting up early, and banging the cat bowls together with the back window open.
No such luck today. I'm going away for a few days, and have booked the cats into a cattery, but even though the cat flap is in Vet Mode (ie it allows cats in, but not out), Kai hasn't made the slightest appearance. I last saw him at Sunday lunchtime, but not a squeak (or meow!) since.
Ah well. I'll leave the cat flap in it's normal mode, and a large bowl of dry cat food and water out, should he pop in while I'm away. I'll only be gone a couple of nights, so he should be fine.
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That was me being prematurely pessimistic!
Kai just made a bit of a bobo, and came in. :thumbsup:
Interestingly enough, he seemed to be following Zev. She came in about a minute before him. I'd let her out, to see to her post-breakfast ablutions, and she'd been gone for forty five minutes or so, which is typical behaviour for her.
Of course, they've now got a couple of hours to comfortably hide. It took me about twenty minutes last time to find them both, they're not entirely stupid. :)
Kai is somewhat pissed off. He's doing the low growling thing, with an occasional hiss, since he's just twigged that the cat flap is locked. With any other cat that would worry me, since you'd keep well away. With him, it just means he's very unhappy, you can still pet him, and even pick him up!
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I've only seen Kai occasionally so far this year, even when it was cold and snowy outside. I suspect he's been visiting when I've not been around, because on some days the dried cat food dropped dramatically faster than on others, which I'm attributing to him eating it, as well as Zev, who isn't as keen on dry food as him.
As I was leaving this morning, he trotted past me on the bike, seemingly in a half arsed attempt to chase after one of the other local cats. He was happy to stop and be scratched briefly, although clearly not particularly enthusiastic about trying to get me to go home and feed him.
He's still healthy and well fed, so finding plenty of food somewhere, I suspect a combination of the dry food I leave out, the neighbours cat's food, and local small rodents whose life is likely to end as "squeak, crunch".
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Recently I've started seeing a lot more of Kai than I had previously.
After a cold and occasionally snowy winter, when I haven't seen much of him (surprisingly) he's suddenly started appearing a lot more. The other day he was in the house when I came home, and this morning he was waiting for me and Zev to appear for breakfast (Zev tends to be asleep on the bed until I get up, although she does often seem to disappear during the night, presumably off hunting).
For the last couple of weekends, I've also been seeing him a lot more, since I'm in the house a lot more than during the weekdays, and the dried cat food has been dropping down much faster than it does normally, and Zev isn't a big enthusiast of dried cat food.
I can't help wondering if some other source of food for him is no longer available, whether one of my neighbours have moved (although I haven't seen any moving vans), or more likely, they've done something like fit a restricted access cat flap, to avoid feeding the entire neighbourhood of cats!
Zev's also been better behaved when he's around, which is a good sign. She's obviously mellowing with age. :)
He seems perfectly healthy, clean, and an appropriately round domestic cat shape, so he's obviously still happy and well.
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As I was leaving this morning, he trotted past me on the bike,
He has a bike???!!!
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Also he may have cleared the locality of easily catchable squeaky crunchy things.
I had a previous cat which would re-appear more often when she managed this.
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He's definitely around a lot more now. He's been in the house quite a bit this weekend, and not just for food, although that's clearly a drive, since he's been scoffing most of the food I've put down for him.
I think there's a little bit of friction between him and Zev still. Even though they'll pass each other without claws or fur flying, she mostly notices when he comes in, and has to wander off and check things out, which I think he finds a little aggressive. She was far worse as a kitten, and would chase his tail at the slightest excuse!
He's always seemed relatively unaggressive, although he has turned up with a scratched nose more than once, but I think he does tend to avoid any possibility of a fight with Zev, so will leave the house rather than let her get too annoyed.
It seems like he's lost somewhere that he liked visiting, like a compliant neighbour, presumably with a cat / cats that are friendlier than Zev is. I know when loafheads was feeding him, that was because loafhead's cat brought him home, so he clearly gets on OK with some cats, but Zev obviously isn't that big friendly ball of furry happiness towards other cats.
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He's still continuing with the whole itinerant cat thing. I see him several times a week normally, generally more at the weekends, and any other time when I'm in the house more (like today's Bank Holiday).
Very occasionally he'll appear when I make cat feeding sounds out the doors, but that's a rarity! This evening he just appeared when it was around Zev feeding time, so they got fed together, which isn't that unusual, more than half the time of that I see him it's in the morning or evening when it's meal time, and his appearance encourages me to feed them both, and if Zev hears that he's come in, she'll be up to check on him.
From the rate at which the dried food drops down, I'm pretty sure that he's appearing most days when I'm at work, or overnight. Interestingly, he generally prefers cheaper cat food! When he doesn't finish the wet cat food, it's often the more expensive Schesir stuff which he leaves. When he was being fed wet food by me regularly, he used to inhale the Schesir, as Zev still does, but these days he prefers the cheaper Purina Gourmet gravy cat foods.
He is still relatively friendly, although once fed he'll generally trot off out the cat flat and disappear. He was in the house when I got up last week, but I suspect he'd been having a bit of a furball issue, and was looking for some comforting. After he ate, he did the cat coughing up something bit, but didn't actually produce anything. Since he's had furball issues in the past, and I haven't had much chance to get any catalax inside him recently, it's possible that it's been causing him a little bit of annoyance again, although he seems to have been alright since then.
Neither him nor Zev have lost a collar for a long while (yes, I know, tempting fate!)
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He's continuing to be around a bit more often. He'll sometimes turn up for every meal at the weekends, and I'll see him more during the midweek. Today he's been around for both breakfast and an evening meal.
I suspect he's not being fed by a neighbour quite as much as he used to be, hence having to resort to actually coming home! On most days when I don't see him, the dried cat food drops more significantly. He still appears to be perfectly health, he looks sturdier than when he was first here, and his fur is still in good condition.
Occasionally they'll be a little bit of minor aggression between him and Zev, but it's nothing too violent. The other day I saw him raise a paw in warning to Zev, when she tried to walk a bit too close past him, but generally they just seem to keep out of each others way, and that seems to mostly work.
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At the moment, I'm seeing Kai about once or twice a week, sometimes more at the weekends, but he's mostly keeping to himself. Sometimes he'll meet me at the front door, and roll around on the ground so he can be petted.
He did that today, but once I opened up the front door, he was right into the house, and was eating the dry cat food immediately, barely taking much notice of Zev. I cleaned up a couple of bowls and put down a wet food supper for the two of them, and they both tucked in. That's normal for Zev, but Kai often eats more slowly than her, and sometimes will even leave some, which Zev will soon clear up.
Kai ate everything, and left an almost perfectly clean plate, which Zev was pushed to find anything else to lick out afterwards. He did leave then, but the dry cat food was far emptier than it normally is, especially since I filled it up this morning.
I wonder if he's managed to get himself locked into a shed or similar for a few days over the weekend? It's rare that he empties every bit of wet food I put down for him, he often prefers the dry stuff, but it looks like someone had also demolished the dry cat food, and Zev isn't a great enthusiast of that, so rarely eats that much of it.
I hadn't seen the dry food go down much over the weekend, so that also suggests he hasn't been around much for a few days.
Oh well, I know he's around, and seems mostly happy at the moment. He's a big ball of fluff, so it's hard to tell exactly how skinny he is under all that fur. He didn't seem inclined to eat any more of the dry cat food (yet), so I'll see what it's like in the morning, just in case he's stuffed himself full of it again overnight!
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He did it again last night, appeared at the sounds of me turning up, waited as I folded up the Brompton, and promptly went straight into the house, ignoring Zev's slightly outraged looks. He then tucked into the dry food, and the waited for me to serve up supper, so he could eat that and then complain about being expected to use the cat flap. ;D
I think he's just roaming further afield in search of acquiescent female company, and then returning to refuel from the dry cat food, or wet food if his compliant cat feeder is around. I saw him wander up the side of the house, under the back garden fence gate, and then sit down in front of one of my neighbour's houses to have a wash, and look back at me. He seems happy enough, and appears perfectly healthy and content. The dry cat food levels are going down a little erratically, so he's obviously only appearing and using the facilities, on a random basis. If I'll pet him, his happy enough to let me, until he's had enough and will wander off.
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You should fit a GPS tracking collar!
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You should fit a GPS tracking collar!
It's on order. ;D
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You should fit a GPS tracking collar!
It's on order. ;D
I really can't believe it's taken this long...
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It's harder to do than you'd think. You need a GPS receiver, and GPRS module, antennas, and a battery capable of powering it for a moderate amount of time, all in a unit which a cat can comfortably wear and carry around. There have been dog ones for a while, but they're simply too bulky and heavy for a cat.
Having said all that, the cat sized one has yet to appear, the last I heard, they were having manufacturing issues.
When it turns up, I may test it on Zev first, but I think that will just tell me that she doesn't go a lot further than the back garden!
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It's harder to do than you'd think. You need a GPS receiver, and GPRS module, antennas, and a battery capable of powering it for a moderate amount of time, all in a unit which a cat can comfortably wear and carry around. There have been dog ones for a while, but they're simply too bulky and heavy for a cat.
Yeah. Cats vary in size quite a lot, too, and Kai is presumably 50% fur.
I note the ones used on the BBC programme were data loggers, with a simple radio beacon so they could be tracked down the old fashioned way when lost, rather than any GSM type stuff. And in spite of some clever power-management strategies, the battery life was still fairly limited.
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Yes, Kai is largely fur. At their last annual inspection and service, at which point Zev would have reached full adult size, Kai was only very slightly heavier than Zev, he's about 4½kg and she's about 4kg, even though she appears to be quite a bit smaller.
The plus side of all that fur on Kai, is that collars don't need to be that tight, the fur acts as a very efficient "ratchet"!
There are cat locators which are just RF transmitters, which operate with a simple direction and distance tracker. That's fine for finding a cat, but doesn't really give you a long term track of their roaming.
One of the advantages of a GSM/GPRS unit, is that should the cat manage to loose it, you've got a chance of getting the expensive unit back! (unless the battery has run out).
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I wonder if BBC Horizon have any spare cat GPS units available?
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He's gone back to being a very occasional visitor. I only see him about once every week or two, mostly at the weekends, when I'm in the house (and awake!) for longer. He's clearly coming in on most days, since the dry cat food normally drops during the day, but occasionally doesn't, presumably because Zev isn't that keen on it.
He appeared this afternoon, and had a bit to eat, but wasn't overly hungry. He nosed around the kitchen a bit, with Zev watching him carefully before wandering back outside. He's not overly worried about me, but also not terribly friendly. I've noticed he's happier about people, like me, when outside. Indoors he can be a bit nervous, especially if I get between him and the catflap, I suppose I'm blocking his escape route.
They're both going to need their annual vaccinations and checkups (him more than Zev, since I don't get to look him over that much), so I guess the cat flap will need to be switched over to incoming only one day, and I'll see if I can catch him!
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Kai sounds to be living a great life, and that's what matters. By the way, this thread needs more pictures. Pap him on his rare visits!
It's interesting that Kai prefers cheaper cat food. So does my mum's cat, Daisy. She will tolerate the expensive brands but would sell her little moggy soul for a packet of cheapo Aldi VitaCat.
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Yes, he seems happy, which as you say is what is important. I'll have to get some photos of him, when I catch him for his visit to the vets! (I need to check when the vaccinations are due). He'll find himself with a new collar at the same time. ;D
He still looks healthy with nice fluffy fur, which is far better than he did originally, so he's either found someone who'll let him into their house, or given the very mild weather, may well be happily staying outside.
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I've been trying to catch Kai all week, he needs to go to the vet, partly for his annual checkup, but also so his vaccinations can be kept up to date.
After having the cat flap on incoming only mode (aka Vet Mode) since Monday evening, it has failed to catch him. I've had to let Zev out manually, so there was no risk of him escaping, should he come in.
The cat flap didn't work, but this evening, when I was walking back to the house, I spotted a familiar cat a few houses up from mine, sat on the pavement. He was happy enough to be scratched, and rolled over to have his tummy tickled, and wasn't too annoyed about being picked up, until I had to hang onto him with one hand whilst I got the keys out and unlocked the front door.
He got about as aggressive as I've ever seen him then, but didn't manage to quite escape or squirm into a position to claw or bite me, but it was close. If that had been Zev, I definitely would have lost blood, and I doubt I could have held her.
He's sat by the blocked cat flap at the moment. As well as having it set to Vet Mode, just in case he could force his way through (possibly damaging it in the process!) I've got a piece of wood across it, and an old car battery holding that in place. He has managed to move the wood a bit, so I've put a large cardboard box across it all as well, which should stop him being able to fiddle with it. In the past, he has managed to get his paw behind the wood, and use the leverage to move whatever weight I've put in front out of the way.
Food doesn't particularly interest him, he's ignored the bowl of cat food I've left near him (Zev will have it if he doesn't!), so he's obviously not hungry.
The vets do open on Saturday morning, I'll see if there's any chance of them looking at him then. Failing that, he'll have to wait in all weekend!
Zev's disappeared upstairs, well out of the way. I don't think she was overly impressed by the growling and insistent meowing. :)
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After getting up at the crack of dawn, so I could ring the vets the moment they opened at 8am, and be prepared to leave immediately, I got an appointment at 11-30.
The vet checked him over, and he's as healthy as he's ever been (ie fine). He got his vaccination shot, and was given a worming pill, so that's him sorted for the immediate future.
His weight is currently 5.2kg, which is a slight increase over previously, but not exceptional, and there's bugger all I could do about it, given that he's getting most of his meals elsewhere (either nicking the neighbour's cat's food, or hunting). He's managing to keep his lead on Zev, since she's a "mere" 4.75kg.
Funnily enough, after spending the last 12 hours trying to dig his way out through the locked cat flap and back door, when I got back and let him out of the carrier, even though the cat flap was clear and unlocked, he didn't attempt to leave! I showed him that the flap was open and he wandered out. Five minutes later, when I went back into the kitchen, he'd come back in, and was tucking into the breakfast which he'd failed to eat earlier (and amazingly Zev hadn't scoffed!)
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Maybe he's got a really short memory of who's cat he is ;D
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Maybe he's got a really short memory of who his slave is ;D
FTFY :thumbsup:
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Of course, I haven't seen him since Saturday, although I think he's been around a bit, by the rate of dry cat food use.
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Time to resurrect catflap cam?
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Possibly, but I have IP shortage issues, and setting up the webcam eats up several (of the five I have). There are solutions, but they all have problems, not least of which is the time needed to sort it all out!
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IPv6 catflapcam? :D
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IPv6 catflapcam? :D
That's one option (although I don't think the webcam itself will "do" IPv6).
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I saw Kai out front of the house, this evening. I'm probably seeing him about once a month now, and he looks healthy, is friendly, but not keen to hang around and be petted. Since it's approaching annual checkup and vaccination time, I may hit the local houses with a flier saying "Has this cat adopted you? If so, he needs his vaccinations".
I don't think I'll be able to catch him again, so it's either up to someone else, or I'm afraid he is on his own.
I just managed to get a fleeting shot of him, as he passed the front gate, where my bike was propped up, with the rear camera still running. He's the white and black blur!
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Kai/Kai20140902.png)
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I saw Kai last night, but it was too dark to get an image. He was sat on one of my neighbours walls this morning, so I pointed the bicycle camera at him, and got a shot, albeit not a very good quality image. He still looks healthy, but was clearly suspicious of me, and not willing to be approached further.
(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Random/KaiOnWall_20141016.jpg)
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Over the last couple of years, I've been seeing Kai very approximately once a month or so, he generally keeps away from me, and if Zev sees him sniffing around the back garden, she'll go out and stare at him, until he wanders off.
I had to replace the old cat-flap, so he's not programmed into the replacement, and can no longer get into the house, unless I let him in.
I hadn't seen him for several months, but yesterday saw him sunning himself, lying on one of my neighbours front steps. That was a bit of a relief, because I was worried that something had happened to him, unbeknownst to me. He looks healthy and well fed, so is clearly still acquiring food from someone other than me.
(http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/small.php?size=480&file=P8100551_crop_adj.jpg) (http://balius.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/cats/P8100551_crop_adj.jpg)
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He certainly looks well fed :) It's good to see he's OK.