Cat thread

[FatuousTwat]

Do you call him PER SEE OOOS like the guy in GTAIV?

[Le0]

cat are so awesome, I wish we could get one for our flat, but I'm alergic to them apparently :(

So, make friends with someone with a cat, and pet it for small amounts of time each day. Then wash up. You'll acclimatize. I'm currently trying this with all the dogs around here, I'm to the point where I only cough a bit, and my eyes don't water as much.

Or do what I did, get a fluffy kitten, and live in an enclosed space with it for 6 months. Weekly baths for the cat kept the dander down a bit, but it was mostly just getting used to it.

Well my GF's parents got a cat and I always go pet him a bit, cause he's awesome but then I often get my eyes watering or buttons appearing on my hands :(

[rattran]

Pet him for a bit, then go wash your hands and face. Repeat each day.

Buttons, eh? That's a new one to me.

[Xuri]

Rub your eyes with a kitten daily. I'm sure the entire "allergy" thing will eventually pass, because cats are awesome.

[ClydeJr]

My wife and I have 2 cats. About a week after we had started dating, Deb calls me up and asks, "So how allergic to cats are you?" One of her friends was taking a walk and this tiny dirty pile of fur comes stumbling out of the bushes. My wife was thinking about getting a cat so this was a great opportunity. After washing all the dirt and fleas off, the dirty pile of fur turned into a tiny kitten:

He's grown up in the past nine years to be a big 15 pound cat.

He's been an indoor cat his entire life. Luckily he's always had someone around so he always had someone to play with an keep active. However when my wife decided to go back to work, he didn't have anyone to play with and started getting a little wide. We starting planing on getting another cat for him so they could play together. Luckily, a cat wandered a warehouse where Deb worked and was completely unafraid of humans, but very starving.

We brought her home and thought we'd have a nice couple of cats. Unfortunately Phoebe brought some stowaways, five of them. About a week before we were going to get her fixed, we noticed that she was putting weight in a weird way (all in her belly). Turns out she was about a week or 2 pregnant when she showed up at my wife's work. Deb got to play midwife. Me? I went to sleep. We found good homes for all 5 kittens which was good.



Phoebe stayed a tiny cat (6 lbs) even though she gets plenty to eat. Here she is trying to adopt my daughter as a pet.

[Signe]

I expected this thread to be adorable but it's exceeded all my expectations! 

[Morfiend]

Damn Clyde, your cat looks just like my cat. Although I think "Eddie" is a big bigger, pushing 18.5lbs. Although that probably is the most common looking cat. Pic incoming.

[Morfiend]

Eddie and Ellie named for Oedipus and Electra, its their world, we just live in it.




Good morning, are you awake, hi, hello, play time? Oh your up. Feed me.







And his neurotic sister. Ellie.

[Righ]

I need a better camera.. or at least one with motion stab. technology since apparently my wife has the DTs.

You just need more light. The camera chose a high sensitivity and slow shutter speed. But yeah, if you want to take pictures of moving subjects in available light, you may need a camera with better controls or a faster lens. :)

[Merusk]

Controls?  It's a 5 year old 3MP point and shoot. There are no controls. 

[Nebu]

Eddie looks just like the striped, gray tabby I rescued from the pound five years ago.  He's the best pet I've ever had. 

My other cat is a white manx.  She's a great lap cap and very affectionate.  I find it interesting just how different their two personalities are. I also love the reaction when people first see her.  "What happened to her tail???"



Note: this isn't her, but the pic looks just like her.  I'm terrible with cameras.

[Rasix]

Ok, since everyone seems to love cat pictures. Here are mine:



Max is the mom and dad of the bunch.  Also, as you can see, the most photogenic. Great cat that basically acts like a dog.  Follows you around anywhere and loves to be sitting and sleeping where ever you are. All of the cats adore him and he's rarely alone.



Ivan is the youngest.  Still thinks he's a kitten.  Loves to hide under things and ambush anyone.  Terribly shy around strangers, however.  The only one really that is. 



Not many good pictures of Harry by himself.  You can't see it here, but he's the largest of the bunch.  He's a full head taller than any of the other cats and weighs 16lbs.  He's killed just about anything smaller than him that has ever made it into the backyard. Unfortunately, he's got that upper respiratory infection and it can flare up at times.



Jasmine is a polydactyl with 6 toes on her left and 7 on her right.  She's really attached to max and has just recently in the past couple years started becoming very social.  We think before my inlaws got her (we took in Max and Jasmine in college) she was abused and wouldn't let anyone get near her except females in the family. She wouldn't even let males take a step toward her.  Now she lets me pick her up whenever and is very affectionate.

Yah, I've got too many cats. We did take in Max and Jasmine because they were the cats in the place we were renting from my inlaws (used to be her dad's commuter house when he worked in Tucson and they lived in Phoenix).  I used to be horribly allergic also.  Max is like a walking plague to anyone that has even the slightest cat allergy.  However, years of being around it has basically numbed me to them.

[rattran]

Necro'd for a pic. It was cold this morning, so they're all fluffed up. Otto Spooky and Fess.

[schild]

god I kinda wanna visit now

[Sky]

Go go basement cats!

[NiX]

I wish my cat didn't shed so god damn much.

[apocrypha]

Daily combing is the only answer. And hoovering    Actually ours are shedding a lot less since we changeed their diet, but "a lot less" still means that Sputnik in particular throws of vast clouds of CPU-fan filling fluff.

[Jain Zar]

I've thought about getting a cat, and my dad tried to convince me to get one when he was still alive.
I've always been worried about all the various stuff plugged into walls and cords and the various toys and bits I have laying about would either get shredded by kitty or hurt kitty.
Plus worrying about taking it to the vet, or providing enough attention and care and all.  (Not to mention getting it spayed/neutered and various health bits would cost some bucks.)

Am I overreacting? 

We never owned cats growing up as my mom hated them, and its been about 10 years since our dog that we owned from like 83-99 passed away.

I might be capable of owning a fuzzy pal now, but there are so many questions.

[apocrypha]

All of those things are easily dealt with.

Cats are very trainable (to an extent) - play with them regularly with specific toys and shoo them off when they play with things you don't want them to and they'll stick to those toys. Give them a scratching post from an early age and encourage them to use it and they'll eventually use that instead of your sofas. Keep an area in your garden as bre earth and regularly clear the shit out and they'll end up just pooing there (mostly). Spend a few $ a month on vet insurance and you won't get huge unexpected bills.

In general cats are easier to have as pets than dogs, imo. They don't need taking out for walks every day for a start! And you can always ask the assorted cat nuts here for advice :)

When I moved in with my gf 6ish years ago she was really concerned about having my cats move in too. She was worried they'd fuck up the garden and destroy her soft furnishings and carpets. We now have a section of our garden enclosed completely in a wood & wire cage to grow veg in which we don't want the cats shitting around and digging up and she's not even vaguely bothered any more about the damage they've done to the sofas and things (I've failed to train my cats to use scratching posts, my bad) because she's come to love the cats so much that the rest of it just isn't important.

I'd say go for it, as long as you're okay with the fact that they're living creatures that need care and attention and that you may end up making some small compromises and changes to your life & home, and are prepared to accept the responsibility of looking after them properly.

I think the biggest problem most people have with cats is what to do with them when they go away on holiday. We're very lucky, we have great neighbours who are more than happy to feed them every day if we're away, but it's something you should think about if you do decide to get a cat.

[Hawkbit]

In general cats are easier to have as pets than dogs, imo. They don't need taking out for walks every day for a start! And you can always ask the assorted cat nuts here for advice :)

It's night and day, really. 

I grew up with dogs at my parent's house; we always had at one or two at any time.  I was pretty indifferent about cats until I met my wife and she had two cats.  I got used to them, even though both of them were assholes.  So I ended up getting my own cat.  He's passed on now, but when he was alive he grew up to be more of a pet than any dog ever could be.  Greeted me at the door every day after work, would lay the length of my chest cuddled with me at night.  Simply awesome. 

We've had two dogs (currently a 4 month old German Shepard) and the sheer amount of work involved is staggering.  Raising a child is easier than a puppy; that's not a joke.  You literally can't take your eyes off them for a second for the first six months.  Hell, for weeks 8-12 the dog needs to go outside roughly every two hours.... so one of us was sleeping on the couch the whole time, waking up for 10 minutes and then going back to sleep.  This is a great dog, but it's going to be the last one I have.  It's too much work to get it where you want. 

With all of the cats we've had over the years (2-3 at any time, all indoors), we pretty much showed them the litter box, the scratching post and their food/water.  They figure it out from there.  Yes, there's an occasional chewed cord or destroyed curtains.  Anything important you put away.  But they pretty much train themselves if you brush them and pay attention to them. 

And yes, vacations are a pain.  With a dog you've either got to board it or leave it with friends that will really take good care of it.  Cats though, someone can stop in for 10 minutes a day to feed, water a scoop the box and they're good to go. 

After being a dog person for the first 2/3 of my life, having cats for the last 1/3 has shown me that I'm truly a cat person, no matter what.  There's nothing like watching a cat hunt something. 

*oh, and don't declaw your cats.... imagine having your fingers cut at the second knuckles.  That's what you're doing to them.  If you have a pet, dog or cat, prepare to have some of your stuff destroyed.

[Reg]

If you're just going away for a weekend you don't even need to get a neighbour to look in on the cat. I just leave out a huge bowl of food and water and he's fine for two or three days.

About the declawing... Was it in this thread that someone mentioned laser declawing? Supposedly, it's much less painful than the old-style surgery. I investigated it a little and found stories both in favour and against it. Although, the vets saying it was no better tended to be the ones who hadn't invested thousands of bucks in the laser machine.

I had my first two cats declawed old style and I really had no idea how painful it was for them. My current cat isn't declawed and he hasn't been so bad. They do the most damage when they're kittens and you can't get them declawed until they're at least six months old anyway.  Still, if I was sure that laser declawing was humane I'd probably go ahead and get it done.

[Sky]

I was worried about a cat destroying my stuff. When I was a kid, we had tons of pets but they were never really allowed in my room. Bart's been great, though. He knows to stay out of my spaghetti tangle of cords, leaves the guitars alone, doesn't play with the wireless mouse, etc. He does occasionally start getting into stuff he shouldn't but he does it knowingly, he'll bat at something then look at me - it means he wants something, either attention or his dish is empty or there's a squirrel he wants me to look at.

I would never declaw a cat. It's cruel and dangerous if they get outside. You can clip them if you're worried about scratches, but even then it's risky if they get out and have to fight. Bart is really good about his claws, and he LOVES to use them. The only negative stuff is when he jumps, he digs in his back claws. I've just adjusted and learned to live with it, since it rarely is noticeable (on clothes, my skin is another matter). As far as actual scratching, he has a post and a designated rug, he never scratches anything else.

And you can train cats to a degree. Use a firm NO, and only use it when he's engaged in the prohibited activity. Not when he looks like he might, you have to be patient and wait for him to actually start getting into trouble before using it. And give him a second to process it. Then repeat a slightly louder firm NO. Never use his name when scolding and never, ever hit or lunge, because a lunge is a chase game to a cat. They will get into prohibited things just to get you to chase them. The firm NO works great for Bart. You're not supposed to let them bite/scratch your hand, but I do let him play with my hand. He knows it's only me that he's allowed to do that with, and he knows what his limits are. Again, a firm NO and then I get up and ignore him. Nothing teaches a cat faster than ignoring him...though that's also when they want to get into things to get your attention.

Couldn't have gotten him at a worse time, I had just bought the house. Hadn't moved in, so I fenced him into the front room and he had to stay there during all the construction. I ended up staying in the house in a sleeping bag most nights so he didn't feel abandoned (he was a stray we found outside the library, so I was worried about that). I put in as much time as I could with him, playing and just being there, but it was real tough with a full-time job, moving and renovating. But he turned out amazing, I've had several cats when I was a kid, and Bart is by far the best. Hangs out and drinks beer with me, greets me at the door with a big stretch (won't bother waking up for my fiancee, heh), watches me play EQ, sneaks in to curl up with me every night. Perfect cat, not clingy, not too aloof.

[Signe]

I wouldn't declaw a cat either for the same reasons as Sky mentioned.  So far my cats have been pretty good at only destroying things they're allowed to destroy.  We have a really large open floor plan downstairs and we've designated one big area as the play room.  I bought a really cheap 6' x 9' rug (hand woven by what is probably hard working Taliban women) and we play on it several times a day.  That, and the condo, castle, whatever it's called, is where they scratch.  I also trim their claws once a week.  It really does help. 

I don't know what I'll do when we have to go somewhere for any length of time without them.  Magenta would probably cope fairly well no matter what, but Lister would despair no matter what we did.  He only likes us and he doesn't like when we go places.  It would be painful for him to be boarded, too.   I think I've gone too far in spoiling them - especially him.  He copes poorly. 

They might not tear things up, but they do this sometimes: 



It's so funny to watch, I can't get angry!

[Engels]

Ok, not all kitties are trainable, even if you get them young. They may have had a bad mother, an abusing environment, who knows, and even if you catch them at a young age, they may simply be unresponsive to training techniques. I have two cats, siblings, one male the other female. The female responds to verbal 'orders', such as the firm "No" Sky mentions but the male has a very advanced case of selective hearing disorder and short of charging him like a crazed gorilla, he's gonna do whatevs.

Also, declawing a cat is like taking its soul. Do not do it. Even if your cat's going to exist in an apartment with no need for self-defense, etc, its just too much part of what being a cat is about. Claws are part of the bargain.

If you think that a scratched up piece of furniture is a deal breaker, as in,  you will give the cat away if you can't get the cat to stop clawing up things, then I think you need to reconsider. 70% of the time, you're going to have a cat that can be trained not to, but sometimes it just won't work out and giving a cat back because it does things a cat does seems pretty lame.

[MisterNoisy]

They might not tear things up, but they do this sometimes: 



It's so funny to watch, I can't get angry!

The fix is to put the roll on the other way (underhand/unroll from the back).  They'll still spin it around over and over, but you don't end up with 30 feet of tissue strewn about the room(s).

[Signe]

No, no.  You must NEVER put the TP that way around!  It opens a gateway to hell!  Srsly.

[rattran]

When I first found my vet here, in with all the discussions of neuter/spaying, and recommendation for which vaccines to get and which to skip, was a very firm "We don't declaw cats, so if you want that you'd better just find another vet." They have all the nifty laser surgery stuff, chipped both kittens for $10 each, and don't charge for routine checkups. ymmv, but finiding a good vet makes cat ownership much easier.

And yeah, be prepared for kittens to shred/chew stuff until they learn the scratching post is for that. Teach them to fetch (plastic gallon container pull tabs work great) or some other game you can play every day to keep them from getting bored and into trouble. And having 2 or 3 means they always have someone to play with. The best part of coming home after being away for a few weeks for work is how happy the cats are to see me. The worst part is how they've covered my bed in shedded fur.

[apocrypha]

None of my cats have ever done that 

I'm gonna encourage them. That should be a fun way to waste an evening. And several rolls of toilet paper.

[Engels]

Your cats are happy when you get back from a vacation? Ours have always punished us by sulking, or peeing in a suitcase.

[rattran]

Your cats are happy when you get back from a vacation? Ours have always punished us by sulking, or peeing in a suitcase.

Generally they're happy, then shun me for a bit. After getting home a few weeks ago, they've never gone into the shunning bit. Oscar (the last pic) has been following me around constantly, and lying across the keyboard each time I sit at my desk. Makes it hard to type.

[Falconeer]

My oldest cat. Name's Quake.









Still him like 5 years ago.



On a funny note, I am hosting a South Korean girl for a few days and today when Quake started pouncing and purring on her she seemed happy and said: "Wow, I have a dog back at home, and I love him... but this is weird, you know, this is the first time in my whole life I touch a cat..."   

[Sky]

No, no.  You must NEVER put the TP that way around!  It opens a gateway to hell!  Srsly.

True story!

I am hosting a South Korean girl for a few days

[Falconeer]

I am hosting a South Korean girl for a few days

You would like my life now. Used to suck single parenting the boy from 0 to 14 though. Quake (the cat) was there, he knows.

[Engels]

Love the brown tabby, Falc. They have awsome personalities I have found. Also, we now know you're a computer neck-beard nerd! <points and laughs>. Then again, I am not hoisting korean girls so maybe I should stfu.

[Teleku]

I am hosting a South Korean girl for a few days

You would like my life now.

Tell us more 

Alas, I haven't lived with a cat in a long while, though I really miss it.  My other always had a cat or two around the house when I was growing up.