Cat discussion thread

[Grimalkin]

         I am interested in hearing about your cats. How do you play with them, funny things they do. Introducing them to your other pets, behavior problems and solutions.

        I do have a question. My kittens are six months old and one suckles on his brother. I don't know if that is a bad thing. Brother does not seem to mind it. I have read conflicting opinions on this. I am concernd of it creating sores and lesions. Anybody experience this?

      

              

[PennySycamore]

Yep, my two orphans used to suckle each other and I has a cat years ago who sucked on my neck.  (I had cat hickeys for a while.)  The sucking is okay if they don't injure the other's little penis.  Some cats have had their penis bitten off and the poor kitty has to be euthanized.  (I'd think this would be less of a risk with 6 month old kittens.) It is very common especially amongst orphaned kitties.  Bitter apple spray can help.  Didn't stop my boys though.  Good luck!

The babies are beautiful, btw!

[Curious]

2 hours ago, Grimalkin said:

         I am interested in hearing about your cats. How do you play with them, funny things they do. Introducing them to your other pets, behavior problems and solutions.

        I do have a question. My kittens are six months old and one suckles on his brother. I don't know if that is a bad thing. Brother does not seem to mind it. I have read conflicting opinions on this. I am concernd of it creating sores and lesions. Anybody experience this?

      

              

Long haired tabby cats!   They are so pretty     I wish my tabbies were long haired.  I miss having a calico/torti and a long hair.

All you people getting new kittens are slowly wearing down my resolve not to get a new kitten until the 2 cats I have now pass on.  

[clueliss]

I had an older male cat (the daughter of a friend of a friend rescued him from being kicked around a high school track - he was the happiest cat ever) and another cat (semi tamed by my step father who had a magic touch, she tolerated me).  the younger cat used to suckle the older male cat.  He let her.  They were happy.   

[EyeQueue]

Great thread! I want to play!

Here's my cat:

We got him when he was about 4 or so months old. A friend of mine had several feral cats hanging around her house (because she would feed them), so when she noticed two tiny kitties, she took them and raised them so they could end up in good homes.

We ended up getting this one from her. He's now about 4, and has turned out to be quite the character. He's very social and very whiny. He's attached to my SO, even though he's not much of a cat person at all. He likes to play fetch, and will chase down hairbands and bring them back to you pretty much for as long as you're willing to keep going.

He has a 6-foot-tall cat tree that he enjoys hoisting his fat self up on, and liberally attacks when both sets of feet. He also enjoys lying in wait to ambush unsuspecting family members as they walk by, and jumping up and nipping at people's thighs.

[ILoveJellybeans]

My kittens are just a bit older, and I haven't seen them suckle eachother, but they all suckle on me, sometimes all three at a time. Seeing one doing it attracts the others, and soon more and more kittens pile on. Mittens has a fondness of licking her sisters butts though. 

[Grimalkin]

3 hours ago, Curious said:

Long haired tabby cats!   They are so pretty     I wish my tabbies were long haired.  I miss having a calico/torti and a long hair.

All you people getting new kittens are slowly wearing down my resolve not to get a new kitten until the 2 cats I have now pass on.  

     We were hoping for black cats, I was secretly dreaming of a tortie/black sibling duo. After lots of research and questions I decided on younger cats and more than one. I figured young cats would adapt better to a busy house with kids and a dog. I would hate to have a cat that hid under the bed all the time because he was scared of the noise. 

       At the shelter we were playing with some black kitties but they scratched the heck out of my two eldest girls. These guys kept catching my eyes but other people were looking at them. The staff bought them to the play room and they did well. Other people wanted one or the other but we got them because we were willing to take both. yhey were relinquished because of allergies. Today is the first day they are loose in the house and slowly meeting our pooch.

          Funny thing is that my husband was done with pets and said no way are we getting a cat. Not sure what changed but he realized we all wanted one and it wasn't really fair to us. Now the cats are drawn to him he loves them he has slipped and said we should get more a few times. He also suddenly rememberd his Gran had cats. How many I asked. She had dozens. Apparently she fed all the homeless cats in Ireland. Lol.

[Curious]

Cats have an uncanny knack for finding the person in the room that least likes cats and deciding they are new best friends

My husband had never had a cat and I moved here with my cat who was about 4 or so at the time.   It took her less than 5 minutes to decide that I was no longer necessary and she had found her soul mate in him.   I had no trouble convincing him that I needed a kitten after he STOLE my cat that I brought with me.

ETA:  Here is a picture of my current girls when they were kittens.

[Tikobaby]

They're so sweet!  We have only two boys left out of our once large herd of inside cats. They are quite old and spend most of the time sleeping.  Still have one boy yardcat who lives in our fenced yard and never goes out and we have two regular Traveling Toms who come for food and some attention and soon go on their way until the next visit.  

[clueliss]

Sometimes, cats also flock to the known cat lover.  Me.  A few years ago I visited a cousin on my dad's side.  I hadn't seen that side of the family in a long time.  My Uncle and Aunt live with this cousin.  They were the source of some of my early childhood cats.  

So I visited cousin D and the Uncle/Aunt.  And had 3 cats laying all over me and one on the floor.  She apologized.  I told her I was in heaven.  At least one of the herd - possibly the one on the floor - was known for being a bit antisocial with strangers.  

[19 cats and counting]

@Grimalkin your babies look like my late feline headship Tabby (who passed in 2011).  I travel too much to have kitties now, but I'm envious of all who do have them.  

Tabby was a loudmouth until the very end (long, drawn out meow that I wish I had made into a ringtone).  In his prime, he was quite the furry little serial killer.  And his morning routines were accurately depicted in the original 'Simon's Cat' video on youtube (Cat Man Do).  

[RosyDaisy]

My feline headship, Eli

Make no mistake, My husband and I are under his authority as helpmeets. I'm not even kidding. Eli is in charge.

[RosyDaisy]

Eli is a rather strange cat. He doesn't purr and only meows occasionally. He doesn't like canned food at all. He' s a ground dweller, and the top of the couch/chair is his height limit. He will only play with toy rats without catnip. He turns into a docile, compliant cat at the vet. I guess since he always get's a clean bill of heath, these are just quirks and part of his personality. I love my little headship!

[DaffyDill]

3 hours ago, RosyDaisy said:

Eli is a rather strange cat. He doesn't purr and only meows occasionally. He doesn't like canned food at all. He' s a ground dweller, and the top of the couch/chair is his height limit. He will only play with toy rats without catnip. He turns into a docile, compliant cat at the vet. I guess since he always get's a clean bill of heath, these are just quirks and part of his personality. I love my little headship!

With the catnip thing, apparently only some cats are affected by it. My ragdoll girl doesn't care for it at all. We have a little tub of grass in the house that we replace every two weeks or so, and I got one that was half grass, and half catnip.The catnip went untouched  I'm yet to see what the new kitten thinks of catnip.

I have to say, Eli is a rather handsome chap  Don't tell him though, it may go to his head  

[Tikobaby]

4 hours ago, clueliss said:

Sometimes, cats also flock to the known cat lover.  Me.  A few years ago I visited a cousin on my dad's side.  I hadn't seen that side of the family in a long time.  My Uncle and Aunt live with this cousin.  They were the source of some of my early childhood cats.  

So I visited cousin D and the Uncle/Aunt.  And had 3 cats laying all over me and one on the floor.  She apologized.  I told her I was in heaven.  At least one of the herd - possibly the one on the floor - was known for being a bit antisocial with strangers.  

All cats are magically drawn from all over the neighborhood to Mrs. Baby.  Feral cats end up following her like dogs and our housecats worship the ground she walks on...(with good reason!).  

[Grimalkin]

2 hours ago, DaffyDill said:

With the catnip thing, apparently only some cats are affected by it. My ragdoll girl doesn't care for it at all. We have a little tub of grass in the house that we replace every two weeks or so, and I got one that was half grass, and half catnip.The catnip went untouched  I'm yet to see what the new kitten thinks of catnip.

I have to say, Eli is a rather handsome chap  Don't tell him though, it may go to his head  

So does your rag doll flop when picked up? So cute! We put the kitties in my eldest' room and our pup is with us walking around sniffing and trying to figure it all out.

[EyeQueue]

7 hours ago, RosyDaisy said:

Eli is a rather strange cat. He doesn't purr and only meows occasionally. He doesn't like canned food at all. He' s a ground dweller, and the top of the couch/chair is his height limit. He will only play with toy rats without catnip. He turns into a docile, compliant cat at the vet. I guess since he always get's a clean bill of heath, these are just quirks and part of his personality. I love my little headship!

My kitty actually purrs the vast majority of the time. We initially thought something was wrong, but he has a clean bill of health, so I guess he's just happy (??).

He is also picky about food. We've changed food a couple of times, and he has refused to eat it. He also does this thing where he picks chunks of his wet food out of his bowl and puts it on the ground and then only eats part of it. He makes a huge mess, so we now have him eating in a CostCo box with a mat underneath his food dishes.

He will also eat 100% nitrite-free white meat turkey. I kid you not--we've tried to give him little niblets of other lunchmeat, and that's all he'll touch.

[DaffyDill]

57 minutes ago, Grimalkin said:

So does your rag doll flop when picked up? So cute! We put the kitties in my eldest' room and our pup is with us walking around sniffing and trying to figure it all out.

She sure does  Although at the moment, because we have a new kitty, she's on high alert. She watches Callie a lot. I swear she is saying "Don't touch my stuff". Our kitten is everywhere in the house now, but still is put into the ensuite at night, which she is very good about. I'm just paranoid Husband is going to leave the lid of the toilet up so she drowns in it or something. Kind of irrational, I know, but she is SO curious!

23 minutes ago, EyeQueue said:

My kitty actually purrs the vast majority of the time. We initially thought something was wrong, but he has a clean bill of health, so I guess he's just happy (??).

.../Snipped

Cats purr for a number of reasons. Happiness, and as a stress release. Apparently cats have been known to purr when they're in pain as it's a calming thing. Mother cats can purr when feeding kittens, too.

I don't think the purring thing is completely understood yet.

[Curious]

19 minutes ago, DaffyDill said:

I'm just paranoid Husband is going to leave the lid of the toilet up so she drowns in it or something. Kind of irrational, I know, but she is SO curious!

She probably wouldn't drown as they can apparently touch the bottom when they fall in.   How do I know this, you might ask.

When Orion (my old girl who passed away a couple years ago now) was a kitten she was zipping around our apartment doing those cat zoomies and she raced into the bathroom.  I heard "splash" and a soaking wet kitten FLEW out of the bathroom like she had just been lit on fire.

After I stopped laughing, I made sure she was ok.  The only thing hurt was her dignity  

[ILoveJellybeans]

My kitties love people, and seem to pick out the people who don't like cats. Those people will be sat there awkwardly while a cat tries to make them get up close and personal with her butthole. They like pens and pencils, if anyone tries to write, they will have an instant cat on their lap trying to eat the pen. They also love bags. If anyone leaves their bag on the floor, there will be cats climbing into it. A friend of mine once put her hand in her bag to get something, and jumped out of her skin because there was something furry in there that moved. It was hilarious. One time my sister slept over, and she woke up to a cat sitting on the pillow staring at her.

[Grimalkin]

I read cats like bags, mine don't seem interested. My nine year old sleeps in a loft bed and we are trying to figure out how to construct a way for them to get up and down easily. Will get a cat tower one of these days.

[Walking Cat Bed]

Tessie is a little over a year old. She was just under two months when I brought her home.

She is a loon.

Unlike my roommate's cat, Tessie LOVES cuddling under blankets. Her favorite thing is having a blanket draped over the corner of the couch so she has a cave to sneak into and curl up. It's her favorite kind of nap.

 

[singsingsing]

My two favourites, Teddy the dog and Toby the cat. They're my grandparents' pets. Grandparents' pets are kind of like having grandchildren, all the fun and none of the responsibility. 

[PennySycamore]

3 hours ago, Walking Cat Bed said:

Tessie is a little over a year old. She was just under two months when I brought her home.

She is a loon.

Unlike my roommate's cat, Tessie LOVES cuddling under blankets. Her favorite thing is having a blanket draped over the corner of the couch so she has a cave to sneak into and curl up. It's her favorite kind of nap.

 

Are you sure Tessie isn't part dachshund?  They LOVE to bury under blankets!

ETA: @singsingsing, we had a dog named Toby in the 80s.  She was a Jack Russell.

[AuntCloud]

My lovely Jube, who we lost a month ago, was *my* cat. She followed me around, hopped on the sofa or bed whenever anyone was there, and was not into toys or other cats. The house felt so empty after she passed, we brought in these two.

Janie and Annie are a mother and daughter aged 7 and 5. They were very timid when we brought them home, they love hiding in the linen closet or under the bed, and are probably part Siamese as they're tiny and svelte (8 and 7.6 lbs, compared to the Jube's 11 lbs). They do the mad-dash, purr and talk to each other, and Annie still scampers when I walk by. Both adopted Cloudlet #2, to her delight, and still don't look like they are 100% comfortable. It's only been 2 weeks so we will give them more time. 

Grimalkin, your new kitties are beautiful - may you have many happy years together! I want to smooch all the other cats as well. When I grow up, I'll be a crazy cat lady.