On Cats

[JZ]

The late Kitt, on the rare occasion that I caught two of my cats in the same picture.

[JZ]

[Harlequin]

How to tell if your soil is warm enough for sowing seeds:

I think that means, yes it is!

 

The time-honoured country ways are always the best. 😄

 

Edited April 15 by Harlequin

[Sidecar Racer]

 

 

[Sidecar Racer]

[Sasquatch]

Cats. Personally, I don't know how anybody could live without one.

 

Over the course of 30 years I've had 15 in total. All very different and full of life. Each has their own story some of which are worthy of the time to share.

 

Currently we have two. Both gay males! Merlin the black (dominant one) is much older and the most well behaved of all 15. He's a very handsome guy that we found at the cat relocation center. He'd been in there far too long; the black ones always seem to be the last choice for adoption. Merlin's also quite a soldier having to deal with bad asthma caused by wildfire smoke and his partner Skatoosh, the speckled orange one.

Skatoosh is the complete opposite and who's behavior takes quite a lot of putting up with. I would hazard a guess to say that as a kitten he was deprived of food. I've seen this in people, always stealing and begging even though they have a fat gut. Growing up starving will influence one's behavior for the rest of their life! We cannot teach this cat to say off of the kitchen tops he knows to check for the skat-mat before getting up there and will take anything. We have found chewed up avocados, bananas, leftovers and kitchen towels that have a hint of the smell of food on them. He'll eat almost anything, is quite fond of bananas and will kill for the water from the tuna fish can! He's at the bedroom door crying to be fed bang on 5am every morning too.

Despite his naughtiness Skatoosh has one of the strongest, loveable characters you could ever imagine and is an absorbent of all things stressful. I only have to look at him sometimes and the worries dissolve away like magic!

 

Merlin declined to be photographed on the grounds that he only does videos these days!

There's more cat stories if you want to read more I could tell you about Poubelle (which is French for trash). Or Capone, Poubelle's mentor.

[Sasquatch]

On 12/04/2024 at 06:40, Sidecar Racer said:

'Tis ok to introduce a cat to a household with dogs but it rarely works the other way. Imagine; "putting the managing director back on the shop floor" sort of deal!

[amdaley]

We put a cavapoo pup into the middle of 5 indoor cats.

They get on great.

One of the cats & the dog are the best of friends. The rest of the cats don't bother with dog.

[admiles]

20 hours ago, Sasquatch said:

Cats. Personally, I don't know how anybody could live without one.

 

Over the course of 30 years I've had 15 in total. All very different and full of life. Each has their own story some of which are worthy of the time to share.

 

Currently we have two. Both gay males! Merlin the black (dominant one) is much older and the most well behaved of all 15. He's a very handsome guy that we found at the cat relocation center. He'd been in there far too long; the black ones always seem to be the last choice for adoption. Merlin's also quite a soldier having to deal with bad asthma caused by wildfire smoke and his partner Skatoosh, the speckled orange one.

Skatoosh is the complete opposite and who's behavior takes quite a lot of putting up with. I would hazard a guess to say that as a kitten he was deprived of food. I've seen this in people, always stealing and begging even though they have a fat gut. Growing up starving will influence one's behavior for the rest of their life! We cannot teach this cat to say off of the kitchen tops he knows to check for the skat-mat before getting up there and will take anything. We have found chewed up avocados, bananas, leftovers and kitchen towels that have a hint of the smell of food on them. He'll eat almost anything, is quite fond of bananas and will kill for the water from the tuna fish can! He's at the bedroom door crying to be fed bang on 5am every morning too.

Despite his naughtiness Skatoosh has one of the strongest, loveable characters you could ever imagine and is an absorbent of all things stressful. I only have to look at him sometimes and the worries dissolve away like magic!

 

Merlin declined to be photographed on the grounds that he only does videos these days!

There's more cat stories if you want to read more I could tell you about Poubelle (which is French for trash). Or Capone, Poubelle's mentor.

 

In the absence of your Merlin I offer you the loan of my Merlin....

 

Nothing gets in the way of snoozing time!

 

 

[The Pilotman]

I recently acquired some Really Useful Boxes so that I could rehouse all of my rolling stock from the banana boxes I’ve been using up until now. In no time at all, one of the boxes was being examined for suitability as a new sleeping location….

 

 

 

[Classsix T]

I'm currently attempting to clear the junk out of the railway room...the former lounge that started to look like a refuge for Miss Haversham's unfinished Parkside Dundas kits and aborted layout detritus...

Mia was most interested in my rummaging, more than likely because although I've not (yet) found the decomposed corpse of any of her rodent captives brought in from the garden, their occupation in the space whilst still alive is apparent.

 

C6T.

[Sasquatch]

This is Poubelle. Taken with my son when he was a toddler.

 

The two of them became inseparable. Poubelle guarded, watched, slept and played with him right up until he started school. Capone the older cat (who lived up to his name) sort of fathered Poubelle who grew into the most intelligent animal I've ever come across. This gives rise to my favorite cat story.

 

When living in Belgium I arrived home one evening to learn that one of the 6 cats and dogs we had at the time had pulled down the budgie cage. Sheila's mate Shirlock had flown off out of the door when my ex had got home. (She always blamed Trigger the Boxer but that's a whole other story). Our cottage was across the road from a farm with fields all round so my search was over rather quickly. The ex-wife exclaimed that Shirlock was long gone because this had happened at lunch time, and I was wasting my time. 

 

This was midsummer, Max was in bed before sunset and his mum was watching the box which left me to deal with all chores before dark. Poubelle was laying in the road soaking up the last rays and didn't come in when I first called so I dealt with everything else; Chickens etc.   Last of all I opened the gate and indicated to the big white cat that he had to come in out of the road now! 

Instead, he stood up and got me to follow him up the road some way to the end of our hedge. I remember saying to him "OK this is nice just the two of us out for a little walk". Then he sat down in the middle of the road and proceeded to clean his claws like he had just made a satisfying kill or something. "That was a short walk Poubelle". I said. That's when he looked at me like I was stupid and stared pointedly into the hedge. "Shirlock"!  Not only did Poubelle know where he was, he had made no effort to take him for a snack and waited in the right place to catch my attention at the right time like he knew that the bird wouldn't fly off! 

 

Shirlock was snuck back into the cage in silence hoping for that surprise element the following morning at breakfast and Poubelle received a tasty snack from the fridge!     

 

 

[grahame]

Marley pretending to be a tyrannosaurus rex:

 

[Michael Hodgson]

6 hours ago, grahame said:

Marley pretending to be a tyrannosaurus rex:

 

That is a cat with real character !

[Tim Dubya]

[Michael Hodgson]

8 minutes ago, Tim Dubya said:

That's probably because half the letters were addressed to some place called Luik

[Markwj]

Screen shot taken from yesterday’s Blackpool gazette, next time I get to Fleetwood Freeport May have to visit her.

[Nick C]

She looks just like our Benji!

[JZ]

Stroud has it's own cat and it has it's own Facebook page.

[franciswilliamwebb]

On 19/04/2024 at 14:53, Tim Dubya said:

 

Perhaps if they'd tried 38 we'd now be living in a very different world 🤔

[Harlequin]

When Bruno is in a manic mood he charges up trees at high speed. Here he is in my cherry tree:

 

Up in one of my apple trees, he was biting off the flower buds, just for fun (or to annoy me, perhaps). Maybe I could train him to thin out the apples later in the year...?

 

[Captain Kernow]

'Very interesting, but stupid!'...

 

[Michael Hodgson]

4 hours ago, Harlequin said:

 

Up in one of my apple trees, he was biting off the flower buds, just for fun (or to annoy me, perhaps). Maybe I could train him to thin out the apples later in the year...?

 

 

I have a plum tree that suffers from wood pigeons eating the flowers.  We don't let the cats out because of the busy main road nearby, and it seems you're confirming that letting them out to chase the pigeons away would be rather pointless anyway.

So if I want fruit this year, I'm going to have to buy a 12-bore.

[Michael Hodgson]

2 hours ago, Captain Kernow said:

'Very interesting, but stupid!'...

 

 

Very good of you to build an ornithologist's hide for your cat

[Sidecar Racer]

8 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

I have a plum tree that suffers from wood pigeons eating the flowers.  We don't let the cats out because of the busy main road nearby, and it seems you're confirming that letting them out to chase the pigeons away would be rather pointless anyway.

So if I want fruit this year, I'm going to have to buy a 12-bore.

 

That will only do more damage to the tree than the pigeons .   😎