On Cats

[didcot]

Apologises if this has been done already but being a cat person and afraid of dogs I thought I'd start a topic on cats. So to start with we have Max who as you can see is an 0-paw-0. As blue cross rescue cat. A grumpy cat who is 10 in October when I hit half a century. When I was off ill some years ago he would curl up on the bed with me. We are both grumpy, so get on well

Edited August 11, 2020 by didcot
Typo

[didcot]

Next we have Pepper. She is a little sweety. She adopted us one cold Christmas. 2015 I think. She used to lay in the gutter and I nearly drove over here a few times on my way to work. Her owner was away alot and left the garage open for her. I opened the door to put rubbish out late one night and in she came. When we moved her previous owner let us take her. She's  my lap cat.

 

This is Marble. Not the brightest of cats. But he loves our youngest boy Sam. He tends to take over Sam's bed.

 

[didcot]

This is Cookie to the left, brother to Marble. He always looks so sad, but again loves Sam.

 Lastly Winter, bottom of the photo. A Maincoon cross who turned out smaller than we thought. A bit of a fluff ball.

 

As you can see they all run along quite well. We make sure they are in at night. For our peace of mind and to make sure they are well, fed and watered. 

[Chrisr40]

My kind of topic. This is Robbie a cat who decided he would live with us a few years ago. Very talkative and fond of a tickle under the chin. Loves to explore, particularly cupboards, the loft and preformed ponds apparently.My best friend when I have a bad day.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Chrisr40

[didcot]

They seem to know when you have a bad day, I seem to have a lot. It's like a second sense. Being stuck in lockdown and shielding they have been a real comfort. When we have the log burner lit during the colder months all five stretch out line astern in front of it.

[sigtech]

Lovely animals - I see that just like our cat (Ashley) they are not really enjoying the extreme heat- it can't be much fun wearing a fur coat!

Somewhere I remember reading a statement to the effect that 'there are two types of people in this world; Cat lovers, and the underprivileged.... 'another one is 'Dogs have Masters- Cats however have servants...'

Regards

Steve.

[Chrisr40]

Robbie is having ice cream to cool down..yes he is spoilt

[4630]

22 minutes ago, sigtech said:

'another one is 'Dogs have Masters- Cats however have servants...'

Regards

Steve.

 

That is so true, if our cat Buttons is anything to go by.

 

[didcot]

I love the icecream. 

Yes ours are all flopped out on the floor. I bought them a water fountain from Amazon. Cats are attracted to running water. It filters the water and is higher than a water bowl.

Pepper gets urine infections and regularly passes blood, so anything that makes her drink is worth it.

 

[didcot]

Curled on on the Great Western Echo. No respect. 

 

[Chrisr40]

15 minutes ago, didcot said:

I love the icecream. 

Yes ours are all flopped out on the floor. I bought them a water fountain from Amazon. Cats are attracted to running water. It filters the water and is higher than a water bowl.

Pepper gets urine infections and regularly passes blood, so anything that makes her drink is worth it.

 

Robbie is loving the pond for that reason, not sure the fish are over the moon about it though

[petethemole]

This is Tigger. He's 14 and a bit, we got him at age one from a little girl who didn't want him because he'd grown up and wasn't a kitten any more.  He's feeling his years now and can't jump up very high, so his nights of exploring the neighbourhood shed roofs and fences are over. Getting him to come in at bedtime sometimes took a while.  He can still get on a chair or bed though.  He's currently flopped out on the upstairs landing carpet, which I suspect is the coolest spot in the house.

 

[big jim]

My wife helps manage a cat rescue so we get loads of cats through our door on a weekly and monthly basis, we have kept 2 of them and it looks like we will be keeping the latest one too as he has made us his home 

 

we have Lola....

 

and fae.....

 

 

and now hank.....

 

 

up until December we also had mike, a Maine c00n who unfortunately had a heart attack and had to be put to sleep 

 

Some if the other rescues we have had recently range from a family of kittens to an old boy who was found living in a clothes donation skip, he had mouth issues so wasn’t cleaning himself and became matted, he came to us freshly shaved and stayed until he was able to be re homed which with a non litter trained 13 year old cat was a challenge but we did it, he now lives in a huge Manor House in Cheshire! 
this is clooney 

 

and the Windsor’s, a whole family abandoned with their mother, luckily she wasn’t particularly maternal or the kittens close so it wasn’t a problem splitting them up for new homes 

 

so expect lots of pics from me in this thread! 

[Reorte]

Here's Amy, coming up to six years old. Even in this weather she sometimes sprawls herself out or curls up in a convenient cardboard box in the porch at the back of the house, which turns into a greenhouse in this weather, don't know how she does it!

 

 

[Andy Hayter]

We are rather like you Jim except that no one wants to take on cats - there are enough around.  So we are effectively running a cat sanctuary.  Having picked up a kitten at the weekend we are now at 22 cats in the household.  The oldest is coming up 15 years the youngest around 6 weeks.  

 

We have discovered that a number of people in the village realising that we look after cats, will encourage any stray cat to go in our direction.  There is always access to food and water and so if they do not end up being too aggressive with the incumbents they will find a niche and settle in.  Best example of this was a couple of years ago when our neighbours who own a second home here asked us if the kitten they had been looking after for a few days was ours.  No.  Well he's there in your garden now.  We cannot look after him back in Paris, can you look after him?   So we agree.  Their neighbour from the other side then says, we had him for a few days before he went to the Parisiennes house.  I think I saw him with his brother.

3 days later this neighbour then comes up the drive with another bundle of fluff (his "brother") - You would not believe the trouble I have had catching him!  Thanks a bunch - said of course with a big smile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Allegheny1600]

As a major cat lover myself, I thank you all for the gorgeous pictures in this thread - I may have something in my eyes!

I always consider myself bi-petual(!) but cats will always come first for me.

Here's Peanut, our rescue from Greece;

As our original vet said, "He just wants to eat!" - from a little (feral) kitty, he was introduced to our Bengal girls, who self regulated their food and he shot up to nearly 10 kilos!

We have managed to control him and get him down to just over 8 Kg but he's not keen on reducing his intake. A friendlier and more playful cat, you could not wish to meet, he loves to simply be near me.

[big jim]

Looks like he’s been on the steroids!!

 

as for bengals, we’ve had a couple of those stay through the rescue, a very vocal cat, one of them was with us as she was given as a gift to someone who didn’t want her!
 

 

[SRman]

Our current pair of terrorists are Hattie and Sykes (identical twins named after the comedy duo!). They are not allowed anywhere near the trains as  they are too destructive.


IMG_20171101_182504 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

[BR60103]

This is Rudi.  Taken probably in the 1980s. No longer with us, of course.

 

[iL Dottore]

Although I am a big dog lover (“Fie, get thee behind me, Satan!” I hear you cry), I also enjoy cats and cats put up with me.

Many years ago I was doing some theatre with a good friend of mine who is a cat owner (two rescue cats) My friend was acting as my assistant director and the play was set in Ancient Egypt. So, to say thank you to her for her work, after the show I bought her a life sized replica statue of Bast - the Egyptian Cat goddess.

To make a long story short, my friend later told me that she placed the cat-sized cat statue on top of one of her large hi-fi speakers. Of her two rescue cats, one completely avoided the statue; the second - after about half an hour of deliberation, - jumps on to the speaker and tries to out stare the statue! After about five minutes of ineffectual glaring, the real cat unsheathed her claws and gave the statue an almighty whack across the muzzle. Upon the absence of any kind of reaction from the statue, my friend said that her rescue cat gave a sort of a feline shrug, jumped off the speaker and completely and studiously ignored the statute from then on.

Finally, may I say “well done“ to Big Jim and Andy for opening their hearts and homes to so many cats.

I firmly believe that we have a moral duty of care to those animals that we have domesticated, especially the dog and the cat - without whom it is unlikely that man, as a species, would’ve done as well as it has done.

[big jim]

My wife has lots of bast figures strategically placed around the house and none if the cats will go anywhere near them!

 

 

[SRman]

We had one of our previous cats, the much-loved Lucy, for just under 17 years. She also was not allowed on the layout, having destroyed several Ratio signals, and eaten half of a plastic motorcycle plus the Merit school mistress.

She was very much a "people" cat, and greeted visitors at the door, and sat in the middles of meetings with lots of grumpy old men around demanding attention (model railway and model bus meetings).







p.s. That was Lucy demanding attention, not the Grumpy Old Men, although some of us ... I mean, THEM ... also demand attention!

Edited August 12, 2020 by SRman
Postscript added

[SRman]

After Lucy, we were given a semi-feral kitten who caused me a lot of blood loss. He eventually settled down to be a very affectionate boy, who was also very good with the model railway and was allowed in as he always tried to help. He was not at all destructive. Any stalled locomotive got a gentle push to get it going again.

The first few photos show Toby assisting with a test strip of track when my present layout was only just starting construction. 

The subsequent series shows him assisting with test running a folded figure-8 layout I had repaired and restored for some friends down the road from us, for their grandchildren. Hogwarts Castle derailed on a high speed test (well, kids are going to run things flat out, aren't they!), so Toby came over to investigate then prodded it to try to get it to go again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 12, 2020 by SRman

[Johann Marsbar]

At least my cat - Isobel, age 15.5 now - knows to keep off the tracks, as it is more comfortable on the ground....

 

She does have a loco named after her though!

 

[Gopher]

Here is Lucy, I think she is a Bengal cross..  She is a stray who came to stay.  Turned up in our garden a few years ago when she was approx 18 months old.  

 

Cats Protection managed to track down her previous owners - who claimed they had re homed her but could not remember who with.  So we adopted her (actually she adopted us).  No-one wanted her.  She is very affectionate, and hard to imagine why anyone would simply dump her.  We have two other (older cats).