On Cats

[eastglosmog]

Good grief, do people need an app to do everything for them?  I am quite capable of understanding what my cat wants without having to ask my phone!

[Tony Teague]

12 hours ago, eastglosmog said:

Good grief, do people need an app to do everything for them?  I am quite capable of understanding what my cat wants without having to ask my phone!

 

Quite agree, and if you want to get to know your pet you especially don't need a bit of technology in between.

I think this is just another development to encourage people to hide behind their 'device' - even when at home, and to make them totally and utterly dependent upon having a phone in their hands.

My advice is always, turn it off!

[Reorte]

I'm certainly no fan of phones everywhere doing everything, so I agree with the above two comments, but I assumed from reading the article that it probably was intended just to be a bit of fun rather than a useful tool. Although nothing would surprise me.

[alastairq]

These past few weeks my garden and outsheds...and vehicle awaiting the attention of my welding machine.....have become inundated with a variety of cats. Coming from, so I thought, I know not where?

 

Next doors garage cat, a venerable elderly black female, once lithe and slim, now displaying a slight middle age spread, I know about.  She is not inclined to be fussed or attended by anyone....she occasionally goes inside next door...but soon exits when the family noise gets too much.

She has a cat flap into their garage, and normally sleeps & eats there …but she is very well known locally for clearing out rats , mice & rabbits....very welcome given that behind my plot, and the other side next door, there are countless chickens. So her diet is largely self-caught.

She likes old land rovers....and , it seems, my old Daihatsu 4trak.

 

Currently [when I get a round tuitt]...the 4traks rear floor is out, pending attention with a welder....and she discovered this.  OOOOOH! says she, and nips up inside from underneath, to find the driver &  passenger seat very cosy and comfy, thank you very much. Out of the howling wind & driving rain....but she generally goes back home [next door] of a night...especially after the hoardes return from school, work, etc.

 

There is also a visiting grey& white individual, who, during the summer likes to snooze under the end of one of my trailers...dry, warm in the sun, out of the wind, etc. Occasionally they bump into each other, when things get a bit noisy.  Usually a sharp word from me silences things, and provides each with the excuse to part company.  [Black cat has been neutered, I know..T'uther lad has been seen to as well, I think. He doesn't make tommy smells at all.]

 

Anyway, a few weeks back, during the foul weather, I noticed a lot of new , obviously younger, visitors.

Next door, I know, had given a home to a half blind ginger & white house cat.....it appears he's now been told to go outside during the day, when no-one {?} is home....He wanders around into my garden looking a bit lost [as well as odd], but my ex took some phots of him, and he now has a bit of a following on Instagram.   

 

There is a small, petite tabby who hangs around with the old lady black cat...wherever the black cat snoozes, the tabby is not far away [including, in the 4rtak]....I guess the elderly black cat has become the matriarchal figure....as there is a tortoiseshell & white petite cat that hangs around too...and has been known to snooze in the 4trak out of the weather with the other two as well...I assume they know each other....???

 

Then there is the skinny black cat with the white tailtip, who has discovered a hole that was enlarged by a tortoiseshell and brown cat, in the bottom of my coal shed door [no coal inside, just a sack of spuds, some kindling, stored tyres and FIAT seats...]

There's  tabby and brown fella with a flattened face who likes to hunt for mice in my back garden....he is tolerated by the matriarch as well.....

 

My ex [#3] suggested someone had hauled up and dumped a load of unwanted cats in the vicinity...but I think it may be, next door have emptied the cats protection cattery...?

 

I am loathe to go ask, in these trying times....and rarely am able [or willing?] to catch the mum on the way in or out....to ask.

 

I don't feed them [or anybody else's cat, for that matter], but my garden is kid-free and dog-free....which may account for its popularity?

 

Mostly, I think, the matriarch has taken the others into her care, and shown them the best places  to hunt, and snooze, and hide from the weather?

 

Oddly, little or no catshit to be found......the only one I know who does a dump in my garden [front] is the half blind fella...and he doesn't really stop long...think he hangs around their front door till homecoming time? Easily disposed of when I have the pressure washer out. [Not the cat]

 

Trouble is, next door are music fiends, and play in bands , so often during the week, their house doesn't see anyone till late on....they have a small dog too....gran comes round to see to his needs....I hope?
Weekends I rarely see them all, aside from the matriarch....[the cats, that is] when everyone is home all day.

 

They used to have an old ginger tom...again an outdoors cat, never let anyone near him, except when I was having a nice bacon sandwich for lunch, sat outside....then he'd be there...very friendly...bit of a no-nonsense lad he was. Tough as old boots, obviously been in the wars a lot...Would never back down from anything....would actually do the sideways advance with 4 murder-mittens ready, towards any passing dog-on-a-string. Rather than take cover under any convenient parked car.....dogs walkers in the village knew to keep their prides-n-joy on a very short leash , otherwise they got their pooches a lacerated face for their thoughtlessness.     Absolutely none of the village dogs wanted to be between their owners and the ginger tom, when passing....funny to watch, really....

Bless him, he passed away a couple of years back....He used to always be seen trotting homewards with a limp rabbit in his teeth....no need to feed him at all [although they did, of course]....Now the rabbits are somewhat rampant round here...especially as we can't really go out shooting the things.

 

So, currently I'm swamped with cats....which I don't mind at all. Live & let live, me.....even trying not to disturb the toads living  on my patch...

 

Shame I don't have the same views about people?  

Must re-charge my cattle prod.

[big jim]

2 black kittens left still looking for homes 

 

[didcot]

When a pillow isnt available!

[Classsix T]

5 hours ago, didcot said:

When a pillow isnt available!

Are they just dozing like that? I just wonder what happens if one or both goes into kitty deep sleep and start dreaming of chasing mice!

 

Mia's not so bad but Roxanne would really get into it like she was having a fit, usually waking herself up in the process!

 

C6T. 

[didcot]

They sleep like that! Marble, not in the shot, is brother to the Cookie the ginger cat seen in the picture and they will lay with a head resting on the others back.

[Sidecar Racer]

[big jim]

Busted! 

 

hank tries to sneak past the ring doorbell long after he should have been in for the night 
 

[Tony Teague]

After having to say goodbye to my girl-cat Cleo just 4 weeks ago, I was obliged to take the very tough decision to take her brother Tolly on his last journey to the vet this week; he had lost a significant amount of weight in recent weeks and a fast growing tumour meant that there was no way he was going to make any kind of recovery.

 

 

After 16 years he had become my best mate and I shall miss him, and Cleo, terribly.

 

Tony

[Red Devil]

Two of ours, the grey two, Bobby in her natural haunt, the woods over the road and Teds in hers....an Amazon box....

[Sidecar Racer]

[SHMD]

I'm glad that cat wasn't ginger.

 

If it was, then the mental scarring of the image of Donald and Melania sharing a bed, would be too much to bare!

 

 

Kev.

 

[4630]

Here's our 'Buttons' out on patrol in the back garden last week.

 

All small rodents are fair game in this very small part of West Yorkshire, and she has a great 'hit rate'.  

 

 

She can be a bit psycho at times and is definitely not a lap cat, but she's very much loved.

[sir douglas]

i dont miss waking to find a mole on our back step

[Michael Hodgson]

28 minutes ago, sir douglas said:

i dont miss waking to find a mole on our back step

 

Think yourself lucky he doesn't bring it in alive and then let it go!!

 

Our late lamented tabby used to stand outside the back door asking to come in.  He would immediately use the litter tray then demand the door be opened to let him back out.  But then I also prefer to have an inside toilet rather than burying it in next door's garden!

[Harlequin]

Here's my beautiful cat, Carrie, taking possession of the line today:

 

And here's the carnage behind her:

 

"Derailment? I don't know what you're talking about!"

Edited December 4, 2020 by Harlequin

[J. S. Bach]

16 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

Here's my beautiful cat, Carrie, taking possession of the line today:

She reminds me of Tip, a friend's cat and his trolley layout:

 

 

[TravisM]

Here's my two hairy monsters who were born in my wardrobe at my former landladies house.  Tiggy Woo (ginger and white) and his sister Woogles relaxing after having a mad 5 minutes, tearing up my freshly made bed.  As they've been mine since they were hours old, or should it be they've controlled me, I've included a couple of "awwwww" pictures when they were a few weeks old.

[duncan]

7 hours ago, Harlequin said:

Here's my beautiful cat, Carrie, taking possession of the line today:

 

And here's the carnage behind her:

 

"Derailment? I don't know what you're talking about!"

 

Wasn't me guv, it's the tail wot dun it  (in a devon accent) !

[SRman]

On 30/11/2020 at 22:52, Sidecar Racer said:

 

You should try it with two cats! Somehow, I seem to end up with both of them on me at night: sometimes just one or the other, sometimes both at once. Occasionally one will lie on my other half, but not so often.

[eastglosmog]

This is Badger as an 11 week old kitten, the day I decided to buy him:

And this is him and Tilly the day I brought them home, 2 weeks later:

[Pete smith]

One of my friends was woken up in the night by a tremendous row coming from the kitchen, with accompanying breaking of crockery .Upon arming himself  with a suitable implement  he turned on the light to find his  black cat dragging a fully grown cock pheasant through the cat flap to join the hen that it had already introduced to the kitchen. 
They later enjoyed a game pie. The cat would sit in the rafters of his workshop and watch him make real steam locos and when he played the theatre organ would hastily disappear.
I lost our cat Purdy a few years ago. She was found wild on a USAF base and would have been about 2 when we got her from a rescue centre. She would murder for prawns and lived to be 24 years old.

pete

[steve1]

Vis-a-vis the flow chart about Is Your Cat Trying To Kill You?

 

steve