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Went to the pound yesterday. They got a ton of kittens in. My wife wanted to name him Max. I kept calling him Guybrush Threepwood. She now calls him Guy. It was funny - I tell people his name and just like the game. They slaughter it.
(http://home.comcast.net/~munsons/guybrush1.JPG)
And he likes to play the gamecube.
(http://home.comcast.net/~munsons/guybrush2.jpg)

omfg cute kitty.

Get some wavebirds. They're only $17.99 used now at Gamestop.

I now want a kitten.

Okay, I wanted one before.  But I want one more now.

The problem is that I want a kitten. Not a cat. A kitten. A cute hyperactive thing with big eyes and a penchant for jumping around and making cute fuzzy noises. And sleeping in shirt pockets and things like that.

Cats are just big, lazy, and sometimes mean. I love them, but not enough to own one.

I actually do want a cat.  But I want a kitten first.  Luckily, that's the order they come in.

Then your house smells like pee and you have nasty little hairs on you.

That's why I didn't get one.

That's why I get female cats (pertaining to the spraying/smell part at least).

Females have their own little attitude problems, but at least they don't make a stinky mess of the place.

My cat Desmond (who I've mentioned before as Not The Favorite) is a big fat bastard, but because he was separated from his mother when he was 2 weeks old, he is developmentally stuck at kitten. He's 2.5 yrs. old but still cries like a baby, needs to be held all the time and constantly roots around for a nipple in my armpit. I can hold him like a baby and he just purrs to high heaven. But he was definitely cuter when he was a kitten.

If you neuter a male early the propensity for spraying goes way down. Boy cats are definitely attitudinally superior to females.

btw, snowbeast just got pwned.

Cute kitty!  And good taste in game consoles to perch on too!

Congratulations on your good taste in pets - that's a seriously cute looking kitty.  :)  I highly recommend Feline Pine (http://www.felinepine.com/), with a bit of baking soda sprinkled in there to keep the litterbox smell down, btw.

Sorry, nothing can top my Cayman for cuteness.  Especially not some ickle feline.

(http://coeurdefeu.com/hosted/cayman0905sm.jpg)

Your local pound is like a Netflix for pets.  Return it when you are done and get a new one.

Cute kitty! His ears look like my cat's when he was wee one. Everyone thinks he has bobcat or lynx in him- big ears and 20+ pounds.

Nothing pwns the Snow Beast!

Cute pussy, though.

Schild if you want a kitten who stays that way I would recommend ferrets. They are like perma batshit insane kittens for life. Funny little critters and very kittenish all the time hehe including the dagger sharp little teeth.


kaid

Plus you get that great "ferret" smell.

I think you can recreate that 'ferret smell' by pissing in the corner of the room repeatedly.

Wow, someone responded with the "ferret smell" problem before me."

Yea, they suck. And they're ugly compared to kittens.

No way, they're not ugly!

(http://nicelytoasted.net/cheese/albums/longleatnewforest/ferret.sized.jpg)

Awwwww

That said, yeah they can stink up a joint.

(http://photos.nondot.org/2001-08-25-Miniature-Golf/full/07%20-%20Networked%20Kitten.jpg)

I said "ugly compared to kittens."

That RJ-45 was not crimped properly.  FOR SHAME.

Matters not. The cat's going to chew through it five minutes after he finishes running it under the carpet, through the walls, etc..

ftr, you can litterbox-train a ferret and have them de-scented.

I dunno... that ferret is pretty cute.  The kitten's cuter, but SO cute it makes the ferret seems ugly?  I think not.  See, it's all a matter of degrees.

If the ferret's cute rating is 7, then a kitten would need at LEAST 21 cute points to make it look ugly.  I don't think there's anything in the world with 21 cute points (maybe those little sootballs from Spirited Away), and I'd say most kittens hover around 12 to 13 cute points.  For comparison, cute human babies only get 3 cute points, 2 if they're not especially cute.

Baby quails and ducklings have 11 cute points.  For a fully grown creature, an adult ferret's cute rating of 7 is quite impressive.

Some kittens have a cuteness rating that can't be measured with any modern instruments. Have you ever seen them play with a cheap wool rug? Perhaps a towel? And then heard the noises they make when they're hungry. I'm talking little tiny week or two old kittens. They are cosmically cute.

Yes kittens are cuter than heck but then they get to be older cats and they become disdainful statues that glare at you until you give them more tuna.

(http://www.innmates.com/images/sleeping.jpg)

 Ferrets are similar if stinky but they pretty much stay kitten insane their entire life although they do seem to get less bitey with age.

It honestly all depends on how you raise them.  My cats love me.  One cat is a bit skittish (a tad crazy too) because a) it's female and b) was likely abused as a kitten before my wife's parents got it.  The two kittens I've raised to cats (one is still only about a year and a half old) are both very affectionate and I like them better as cats then as kittens.  We have another cat that came with the scaredy cat and we call it our "dog".  It's extremely affectionate and thinks the world revolves around my wife and I.  Yes, I have four cats and massive allergies. 

As kittens they were just funnier and a bit cuter.  They're also more tiring and destructive.  The thing is, once you're tired of the kitten, just don't stop paying attention to it. Boring, mean cats are likely a result of owners that stopped giving a fuck.  Maybe I just have a way with animals, but my ex-roommate has 4 cats also and none of them are mean wackos either.

For some other issues brought up:
My cats have never sprayed, ever.  Most kittens are spayed or neutred before you get them.

Your house doesn't need to smell like cat piss.  A) Buy good litter. B) Find a spot for the litter pan that's just not out in the open. A crawl space, laundry room or downstairs bathroom can work.  The garage also works. C) Put some sort of air freshener near the litter.  Those fan driven ones work well. D) Clean the goddamn litter.  I've seen a lot neglegent owners who just don't keep their litter clean.  Yes, a cat is going to pee on your fucking rug if it has to stand in a mountain of piss and shit to use the litter.

Other tips:
Buy a good vacuum. The Dyson Animal does wonders for picking up animal hair.

When buying a kitten, pick one that's active but not fucking psycho.  Don't pick the kitten that's sleeping the entire time and doesn't really care you're there.  If you're deciding between two kittens in the same cage, wait until they start wrestling (they always will).  Pick the winner.  Large kittens become large cats for the most part.  So if you want a hulking behemoth (which I recommend), keep that in mind.  Get boys if you want an affectionate cat.  The female cats seem to have more quirks and neurosis than the males.

Anyhow, yes, I'm a cat person.  I used to be a dog person, as they're all I ever had growing up.  Still love them.  I miss my miniature schnauzer.  :cry:

I'll leave you with a picture of the youngest cat (Ivan the Terrible) as a kitten:

(http://home.comcast.net/~tescobedo/Ivan_2.JPG)

Rasix gives pretty good advice (except he forgot to mention to check for things like ear mites and whatnot). My cat Bock, The Best and Most Excellent Cat in the World (a 7-yr. old blue Maine Coon) was born at a cat farm. When I saw him I thought he was the most beautiful kitten I'd ever seen - all steel blue fluff and sage green eyes. I picked him up and he did the most amazing thing: he just sat there in the palm of my hand. He didn't squeal and try to get down, he didn't scratch and cling to me, he just sat there looking at me. When I brought him close to my face, he head-butted me. That's why I named him Bock (German for billy-goat). When he was a baby he had those adorable little kitten-palsies and was too clumsy to be able to really head-butt like a goat, but now he rears way up on his hind legs and rams his little head into your hand when you put it out. Sadly, he was the runt of the litter and so he's only 12 pounds instead of 16-18. He goes on walks around the block with me like a little dog, comes when I call him and chirps to say hello when I come home. I  :heart: my Boo-Boo.

Oh! Here's a really effective trick for dealing with a kitten who is keeping you awake at night with their antics. Just grab 'em by the scruff of the neck and give 'em a good dousing under the bath tub tap (warm water). Set them on a towel and they will bathe themselves to get dry, exhausting themselves in the process. Then they crash out and you get to go back to sleep.

Preach on, brotha!

Interesting tactic. Probably better than the typical crazy half naked guy chasing the cat down the hallway planning on punting it out the window. Not that I had to raise my sister's kitten for three weeks in a one bedroom apartment or anything...

And no, I never actually punted it out the window.

You guys are making me really miss my cats by the way.

I usually just do a pump fake with a bedroom slipper and my cat heads for the hills long enough for me to get back to sleep. Eventually he will crawl up onto my wife and lay on her chest while putting his paws in her mouth. Nothing like a 21 pound weight on your chest when you are trying to sleep!

Yeah my cat does the old pat your face with her paw till you wake up routine, but really her most annoying trait is she will spill any drink that is left in a place where she can get her paw in it.  Which is retarded when you consider the fact she is terrified of all things liquid.  Hell we can't even put ice in her dish on a warm day because she's scared of the ice.

I wish mine were afraid of water.  They love it.  So using a squirt bottle or gun doesn't work for training.  We're actually about to order one of those "air cannon" things from Thinkgeek (shoots a ball of air) because they hate it when you blow on them....we're hoping that this keeps our youngest from treating our huge bookshelves like Mt. Everest. 

I'm tired of waking up to WHUMP!!!! when he decides that a specific hardback law textbook doesn't belong on the shelf any more.

I think I have the best wakeup trick of all time.  My cat uses his sandpaper-like tongue to lick my eyelids.  It's a kind of pain at 5am that I can't even begin to describe. 

Cute pics btw.  I rescued both of my cats from the local shelter as adults (one a 6 year old purebred Manx, the other a 3 year old gray tabby) and they are the best pets I've ever had.   

That sounds simultaneously unbelievably cute and hilariously irritating.

You should train your pet the same way you would train a child; with your fist.  Key is to knock them in the face when they least expect it.  Puuuuuuuurrrr <WACK> watch cat run!
I few of these and I promise they will not mess around with you.  EVER.

So - update.

He sat on my lap last night for 2 hours watching me play EQ2. He only tried to hit the keys for the first 30 minutes. Then he just stared. Then again - he's on heavy anti-biotics due to a horrid 4 pack a day smoking habbit for 20 years cough.

I was amazed at the de-fleaing pills they gave him at the doctor.  Litterally 10 minutes after they gave it to him, they started dropping off him.

Children are our future, they are not here to be paraded around as cheap entertainment. I am outraged and sickened that you would use your kids in this manner.

Did I mention how cool it was to see the flleas falling off him?  Of course then I though... "OMG!!! he's been in our bed!!!!"

My sister's cat's thing was sitting on your chest when you were sleeping, and licking the moisture around your nostrils. Damn freaky feeling to wake up to.

My cat never did the nostril licking thing but she LOVED to sleep on peoples chests. Usually when she did she would purr so loud she just resonated with it. Very odd waking up feeling an odd buzzing only to notice you have a 15 pound cat staring at you purring.

My cats other favorite trick was to sleep in the window above my head. To bad her favorite way to leave her roost was to plant her feet on my forhead. Nothing like being in a deep sleep and having a cat paw planted on your head.

Does anyone know if it is actually true that adult cats with get jealous of babies and jump up on them and suck the breath of out them?  My mom firmly believes that and was VERY uncomfortable that my aunt and uncle and their newborn had a cat in the house.

Sounds like an old wives tale. Cats are very territorial though, you can read some good articles on the net about helping them get along.  Basically it takes a couple weeks (from my experience) for the cats scent to mingle and for them to stop killing each other.

It is bunk (http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/catsuck.htm).

god I can't believe people still buy that old Victorian myth. Didn't check WAP's link, but it is thought that cats who have been observed to sit on a baby are either a) licking the milk from baby's mouth or b) actually protecting the infant from rats or mice that were near the baby for the milk (as was commonplace in Victorian times). The only bad connotations new parents should have about cats is with toxoplasmosis, but that's only a concern during pregnancy (and is the reason pregnant women should never clean a litter box).

While cats won't suck the breath out my cats I have had really do enjoy sleeping ontop of peoples chests. Whenever my mom would nap my cat would be on her purring on her chest within about 10 minutes. For an adult this is no big deal for smaller kids it could be an issue. Its not that their mean its just I think that they enjoy the warmth and the motion of the breathing as they purr like crazy if you let them stay there.

kaid

One of my cats absolutely hates anything closed. He daily goes around and opens:

A) All the drawers in my dresser and night tables.
B) All of the kitchen cabinets.
C) Any human style door that is partially closed.

He then spends an hour or two working on the human type doors that he has been through before, knowing that there just must be something really cool on the other side since it's closed. I literally walk around the house every day after getting home closing up everything again.

Oh, and I can't get either one of them to stop drinking from my (indoor) hot-tub. One woke me up in the middle of the night with this huge SPLASH, and then a RAARROORWW!, as he couldn't find a spot to get back out again after he fell in. I've gone back to putting the cover back on so they don't drown :(

Bock opens doors and cabinets, too. He's also got doorknobs figured out, he just lacks the opposable thumbs to fully execute the maneuver. But the little fucker tries.

Yeah wtf is up with that door thing?  My cat also likes to get inside cabinets and shut the door.  Fucking hi-larious.

The look on their face when you have found them after they have locked themselves in and you open the door is especially cute. It is kinda like: "WTF what took you so long, this is all your fault, you know, not mine."

My parents' cat does the look everytime she screws up something like it was my parents' fault that she dropped on the floor while climbing mount bookshelf for the umpteenth time.

Oh I love this cat. It is just sad that I cannot have one of my own because I live in a small apartment and are away most of the day.

Jeff

Has anybody else noticed that most cats suffer from ADD? With our cat it usually goes like this: Do something rather dangerous like balancing on the very narrow balcony rail when something very interesting happens then "Oh shiny" while completely forgetting the dangerous situation she is in. I seriously do not know how many of her nine lives she lost while doing something like that.

[edit] proofreading FTW

My mom's cat has opposable thumbs.  And knows how to use them.  Shame he was neutered, he could have spawned a new race of supercats.

My old cat used to open doors by reaching her paws under them, grabbing them and pulling. If the door was closed she would just shake it for a while until it got annoying and you were forced to open in. She would also routinely climb up onto the roof of our garage and meow at a bedroom window until someone let her in. She liked to sit on people's laps but when she did that she would reach her paws up to their chest and knead them with her claws for a while. We found her as a stray when she was a year old or so so I guess she was never properly domesticated. The way we found her was she got on our roof and meowed at us through a window - I guess she stayed with what worked. (Don't fix what ain't broken)

I went to visit my mom recently and across the street lives a 3-legged cat. Watching that thing run is the weirdest thing. It moves at a 45 degree angle, klind of skipping to the side. It's really bizzare looking, but it's actually quite fast.