Cool Cats

Another post about cats, in the shameless pursuit of blog-stats – but first….let me tell you about my dog. My dog eats peanuts.

It started innocently enough, with a handful of peanuts, for me – and a forlorn, mooching dog in front of me. ‘Offer him one.  He’s a carnivore.  He won’t take it.’ But he did, and another, and another….  Now it’s a daily ritual – he gets 8 or 9 peanuts, and I get to read my newspaper in peace.

The wife decided to cut off his soft dog-food, and feed him only hard kibble, to help clean his teeth. He has allergies to grass.  I give him an antihistamine a day, to cut down on his scratching and licking.  I used to put them in his soft food – now what??  Put a dab of peanut butter on the end of a kitchen knife, embed the pill in it, and scrape it off against his front teeth.  Schlurp, schlurp!

Dogs will come when you call them. And they’ll be happy.
Cats will have someone take a message and maybe get back to you.

I should paint a yellow line down my spine, not ‘cuz I’m chicken, but because this guy has taken to walking on my back (and Shimoniac’s). Like the peanuts, it also started innocently.  I stopped and knelt on a step, just below the half-landing, going upstairs, to pet and skritch him.  Somehow he oozed around the corner, up a couple of steps, and walked through the railing, onto my back.

I don’t know if he’s petting me, like I pet him, or establishing dominance. Now, whenever I go to the basement storage room, he jumps up on the freezer to get ruffled, and walks all over my back.

An exposed back is not safe! The day he leapt from the landing as I bent over at the bottom of the stairs to put my boots on, was….interesting.  I often kneel when I clean out the litter tray in the basement.  To have him pounce is not unusual.  To have him do it, just as I stand up, has him clinging to my shirt.

Then one night I did it with no shirt on, That required almost a whole tube of antiseptic cream, and sleeping on my stomach for a couple of days.

If I walk past this needy big fellow on a table or TV stand, he often reaches out to pull me in. He’s the most trusting, and loving of my cats.  When we snuggle (almost every evening as I read), he licks my moustache and eyebrows, and rubs his face against my glass frames.  He lies on the back of my chair and licks/grooms my hair.

Our little female has helped herself to some of my chocolate milk a number of times, when it’s sitting on the end table beside my chair, minding its own business.  She’s lost a lot of teeth, so liquid nourishment is good for her.  A couple of Christmases, she’s also sampled eggnog.

I’ve left out one of my cats, and I have lots more interesting information about cats, but you’re already looking at me the way I look at Jehovah’s Witnesses, when they come to call, so I’ll just end with a bit of feline humor.  Have a chuckle or two at the expense of cat owners/lovers, and come back soon.

Signs that your cat is the owner and you are the pet:

1. You get up as many times as they demand to be let in and out of the room.
2. You feed them tiny pieces of food, which you go through the trouble of cutting up, whenever they stare at your plate of food.
3. You run the faucet for them whenever they feel like playing with water (never mind the fact they have a filtered water fountain).
4. You hold them for however long they desire to stare out of the window (usually 5+ minutes).
5. You let them redesign the household any way they want. (Books on the floor instead of shelves? OK!)
6. You feed them treats whenever they forlornly play with their empty interactive treat toy.
7. You get up to play with them whenever they pounce on you, even if you are in the middle of writing an important email/blog/essay, etc.
8. You let them choose the side of the bed they want to sleep on first and sleep on whatever space they designate to you.

If more than four of these are true, you are the pet.   😆