sanwah68 |
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My sage advice for chistmas tree protection, surround it with a baby's play pen. We are lucky as our two British Blues don't ravish the tree, though the little girl thinks she is a present and nestles amongst them. However a former cat thought the tree was a great toy...hence the play pen.
In the spirit of the thread...funny cat story...a former boyfriend of mine had a couple of cats, but one, a Burmese named Cally, just loved me and used to sleep with me anytime i slept over. One morning i woke up on my back with Cally's head nestled under my chin and her body stretched out along my chest. The amazing thing, she was inside my pajamas...to this day I have no idea how she managed it without waking me up.
Kirth Gersen |
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Teleport, it must be, as several tails (yep still doing that gag) that have been told here, including one of my own, can only feasibly work with teleport, so, clearly, that is the answer. Cats are all level 9 wizards with teleport.
They're boggles. They can dimension door at will through any framework, doorway, or opening.
Imbicatus |
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Thee are cars out there too. I've lost four cats growing up because they went in the road, never again.
I am lucky enough to have a large elevated screened porch, so all of my kitties have "outside" access, but they don't have to worry about being prey or hit. They also don't have access to the birds and squirrels they want to murder, but occasionally one of the ever present Florida lizards will get inside and I'll have to rescue one of them from the mighty feline hunters.
GM_Beernorg |
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Owww, good call Kirth!
Have not lost a cat to the road, as we do have inside/outside cats (Honey Bee and Big Momma Misty, neither will tolerate being inside all the time). Thankfully our street is quiet and has very little traffic. But glad to hear the screen porch brings your fuzzies both amusement, nature time, and possible lizard snacks while keeping them safe to boot!
thejeff |
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Thee are cars out there too. I've lost four cats growing up because they went in the road, never again.
I am lucky enough to have a large elevated screened porch, so all of my kitties have "outside" access, but they don't have to worry about being prey or hit. They also don't have access to the birds and squirrels they want to murder, but occasionally one of the ever present Florida lizards will get inside and I'll have to rescue one of them from the mighty feline hunters.
I've got a similar porch. She likes it, but it's not the same as actually being out.
Nor entirely risk free apparently. A week or so ago, something hit the screens hard enough to tear a hole in the center and pop one of the corners loose. No idea what it was or if it was some critter after the kitty or what, but a bit freaky.
Kirth Gersen |
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I cat-proofed my porch in PA and the kitties happily spent the above-freezing months (all 5 or 6 of them*) out there. Here in TX I have a little walled-off area that's open to the sky, but the floor of it is concrete and they don't really like it out there, and it's also too hot out there for them for roughly 10 months out of the year.
Bonzer did jump off the porch a couple of times before I cat-proofed it; the first time, he ran out into the street; the second time, he made a beeline for the neighbor's yard and the two German shepherds in it -- I can only assume he either thought they'd be good playmates, or fun to try and kill (or both). Since he'd be sadly mistaken in either case, I was forced to curtail his escape.
*EDIT: Months, that is, not cats. Egad!
GM_Beernorg |
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Oh yes, many of our foster kittens through the years have enjoyed, "join foster dad in the bathroom while he is errrr, taking the Browns to the Super Bowl. Step two, launch self into pants and boxers. Step three, freak out and run away, except, they can't, cause they are tangled in my unmentionables. That is still better than certain things our Russian blue likes to interrupt, a thing that involves lots of clothes on the floor...(funny, yeah, mood kill, you betcha!)
GM_Beernorg |
Hmmm...goblin dogs are a thing, goblin cats...that could work, and have been looking for a way to work "fur bombing" into a PF monster.
Zoe, the white ninja, has mastered the art of fur bombing all clothing, while still looking her best. I swear, she and my spider discuss the trade secrets of offensive uses for hair/fur.
Orthos |
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My cats would very regularly claim my clothing mid-exchange before I turned the bedroom into a no-cat zone.
The weirder thing is that the bathroom has always been a no-cat zone, so they're always eager to get in there any time I have the door open for an extended period of time. What's weird about it is that their thing to do is sit in the tub. Not really doing anything there... just sitting in the tub. Don't know why. I guess because it's cool (temperature)?
Rynjin |
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My lovely 7 year old short-haired calico (Rosie) is usually very regal, retrained, and well-behaved. Still, she has a few little quirks.
Most prominently, she LOVES carrots.
But not to eat.
No, she just rubs on them, plays with them, rolls over them, and so on. Every time I bring a bag of baby carrots or whatever home from the grocery store she knows immediately, and comes running. I usually toss the bag on the floor for her and she'll rub up on them. Gets it out of her system while the bag is still airtight sealed, so she's not pestering me once I've already opened them.
She loves carrots more than catnip, and she loves her some catnip too.
I am lucky enough to have a large elevated screened porch, so all of my kitties have "outside" access, but they don't have to worry about being prey or hit. They also don't have access to the birds and squirrels they want to murder, but occasionally one of the ever present Florida lizards will get inside and I'll have to rescue one of them from the mighty feline hunters.
Same, though I don't usually get to save the lizards. By the time Rosie finds one, it's already over. Misty (2 year old grey longhair) I could save them from, since she's a pretty inept hunter (content to just follow them around and watch), but Rosie could be in the circus the way she pounces on and then juggles the poor bastards.
*Smack smack TOSS* straight up like 5 feet with her paws and *NOM* with the mouth, repeat until she gets bored.
Sissyl |
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We had a little attention whore. She was a very social... but otnay ootay ightbray. As a consequence, she laid down in an untraficked road crossing on a vacation island, bared her tummy, and waited for pettings. From anybody. More and more kids accreted. And of course, nothing bad happened, but I have never seen a cat so unworried about strangers.
JonGarrett |
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When I was a kid, I was helping my sister in her yard and had noticed her cat was in the upstairs window, watching with usual feline disdain at this work business. She wasn't even fully grown, however, so my sister decided to go get her out the window. As she turned a seagull flew by, as the flying crap bombers often do when you live by the sea. All of a sudden we heard it skwark in horror and this huge bird slammed between us, the cat having dived out the window and onto it's back to drive it into the concrete. The bird was dead as a stone, it's neck having been broken, and the cat was smug as all hell.
Krensky |
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My old roommate's one cat used to like being used as a pillow.
In that he would crawl and squirm his way under my head while I was sleeping or just lying down, curl up as best he could under my skull, start purring, and fall asleep.
The other one, however, would pounce on my ankle with all four sets of claws and teeth and just go nuts while I was heading to the bathroom in the middle night and half asleep.
He then whined pitiably when this plan resulted him being kicked off my ankle and down the hall by the lizard part of my brain.
Kobold Catgirl |
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A week or two ago, I came into our dining room, where we have two chairs on either side of a woodstove. I noticed that our cat, a very pliable Siamese who will let you cradle him in your arms like a baby, was lying on one of those chairs.
Belly-up.
With all four feet sticking straight up in the air, like a cartoon roadkill specimen.
I stared at him, bemused. Then I went to the other chair and got on my laptop to do standard online timewastey stuff.
About twenty minutes went by when my sister came in and saw this situation. She was pretty entertained, and started seeing how sound the cat's sleep was. It was when I heard her remarking that she could actually pull back his lip to show his teeth that I started to wonder.
I got up and walked over. The cat lay there on his back, eyes closed, resting against the back of the chair.
I poked him. No response.
I said his name. No response.
I poked him again, then pulled him out towards me. He was stiff as a board, and did not react. He just flopped over on his side.
Oh, god, I remember thinking, this can't be happening. I can't believe this—
Then my sister said something loud and he raised his head curiously. I breathed a sigh of relief.
GM_Beernorg |
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LOL, bat hamster.
And hamsters are indeed cat food, our maine coon somehow got the wife's dwarf hammie out of his cage, and made hamster tartar. I felt bad, but that is what happens when rodents mix with cats. Strangely our cats that were around during the years we had rats were afraid of them, but the rats loved the cats, licked them, and tried to ride them like bulls (which looks exactly as hilarious as you think it does!)
Bjørn Røyrvik |
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Bezekira refused to drink from a bowl. Leftover shower water in the tub or out of a vase - nothing else. We eventually cottoned on to the vase thing and just used that as her drinking vessel. Several times we tried to reclaim it and use a normal bowl but she refused until he vase was replaced.
She also exhibited absolutely no interest in the Red Dot of Amusement. In the words of Gollum "string or nothing" was her apparent motto for playthings. Jingly balls, wind-up mice, those rolly things with tails, ping-pong balls; nothing worked except a human dangling a piece of string.
She was also a bloody useless hunter. She brought a half-dead sparrow and dead shrew once, but I think the sparrow hit a window and the shrew had in all likelihood just woken up after winter and was still groggy.
Starfire was a feared hunter. On the small side for a cat, she would regularly come home with magpies and crows as big as she was, and on at least one occasion a rat slightly bigger than her. When she moved to my grandfather's farm the mice and rats there had not seen hunters for generations and were kind of brazen about running around the basement and barn in full view. The kitty was so amazed at the bounty she didn't know where to begin. They learned, but not before there wasn't much of a mouse problem anymore. She was put to sleep at the age of 24.
captain yesterday |
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When my daughter first got her hamster, our dog would try to get the door open and sniff at the cage, we'd assumed he was hungry, and discouraged it.
A few months later she escaped, so we did all the steps, etc. As I was putting my daughter to bed I noticed the dog was acting peculiar sticking half way out the bed intent on a brown fuzzy thing, I totally thought I was gonna have to bust out a pick axe and spend all night digging a tiny hole in the tundra.
Nope, just giving her a bath, turns out he was just helping her escape the whole time, they were totally BFFs :-D
Edit: and that's it swear, smurf on my heart
Aranna |
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When Sammy was younger she was a skilled climber. I would often find her on top of bookshelves, above cabinets, or in rafters... The tree in the backyard though... She climbed right to the top and couldn't get back down. I had to send my then boyfriend up to get her. Which he did for me but I felt really sorry since Sammy sunk her claws into him really deep.
Rennaivx |
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In the long and storied tradition of cats drinking from strange places, I was in the kitchen a bit ago and turned to find my cat on the counter next to the sink, head in the sink, taking drinks from the bowl soaking in there. And not "filled it with water 30 seconds ago" soaking. More like "I set it to soaking a day and a half ago and forgot about it" soaking. Mind you, her large water dish in the living room was three-quarters full. But no, apparently the dirty dishwater's more up her alley...
Goldmyr |
In the vein of cat monks, I have a rather good hunter named Luke. Completely black. Bright yellow eyes. Spends most of the summers outside. If I let him out during May-September, I can count on not seeing him for days at a time, as he would spend them with his cat gang, a group of strays that he had brow beaten into being the leader of.
Now, our neighbors have a dog, named Mojo, a rottweiler. One day, Luke jumped the fence. Mojo ended up seeing that and charged towards Luke, but the cat charged the dog as well. He dodged the teeth and got underneath the dog's legs. Took a big bite out from behind the dog's front leg. That was the end of that. Mojo limped away. Poor dog needed stitches.
Not sure that counts as funny, but it was amazing.
Game Master Scotty |
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Growing up my mother always had birds. Finches, parakeets, and cockatiels. Her first cockatiel was an adorable juvenile she named Sweetpea. After we had him for a year, I got my first pet, an albino guinea pig I named Snowball. Mom let this bird out of his cage every morning and let my pig roam about the house as well. Often the two would be on the floor, Sweetpea riding his pig around like a horse as she wallow about.
For some unknown reason, mother belived it was nessary to bring in a cat.
So, she adopts an orange striped tabby and named him Garfield, because, of course she does.
Now, the cat would often cuddle with the pig, never a problem.
The bird, well, less so.
Sweetpea would fly down to the floor, bold as can be, March right up to this cat. Seven ounces of bird verses twelve pounds of cat. Crest fully upright, wings spread wide, body low, belly nearly on the ground and HISS
and make a ruckus.
Everytime, the poor cat wound run. My mother finally had to put him in a new home, as the bird and then the pig would chase him through out the house. The pig owned the floor and the bird the air, no place was safe for him in the end.
A few ounces of bird and and five pounds of pig, both possible food items, bullied this cat into a nervous breakdown.
Must be a family thing to aquire defective cats.
Sissyl |
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My friend's dwarf schnauzer had a neighbouring bully cat. When the dog couldn't get to her, she sat just outside the door licking her paws, enjoying the panicked barking. Then one day, the dog got out. Quick as lightning and twice as mad, the dog charged! The cat, used to running outside, ran from the dog for a while. Eventually, she looked at the dog and just sat down.
The dog ran up to her, after years of enmity, and... looked uncomfortable. Didn't bark. Just... peered at the cat, who looked back. And the dog went back inside again.
Orthos |
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In the long and storied tradition of cats drinking from strange places, I was in the kitchen a bit ago and turned to find my cat on the counter next to the sink, head in the sink, taking drinks from the bowl soaking in there. And not "filled it with water 30 seconds ago" soaking. More like "I set it to soaking a day and a half ago and forgot about it" soaking. Mind you, her large water dish in the living room was three-quarters full. But no, apparently the dirty dishwater's more up her alley...
I have this exact same problem with Eclaire. "Your water bowl is full! Stop drinking out of the soaking frying pan!" At least she has the sense to not drink it if there's soap in it.
I figure she just really likes the taste of watery eggs and/or bacon grease.
Set |
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I lived on a farm, and we had a dozen ish 'farm cats' that pretty much took care of themselves, and one house cat, Menu, an old Siamese who was traditionally vocal and imperious, and, in some way, ancestor to most of the others.
She was 'queen' of the farm, and the dogs knew to leave her alone. Every morning, we'd go out to feed the animals, and she would tag along with us to the grain barn, where there were often mice to be found. New dogs would make the mistake of nudging her butt with their noses and she would spin around and take a slice out of their nose.
One day, one of the cows nudged her, and she spun around, thinking it was a dog, and got her claw stuck in the cows nose. It jerked it's head and she flew at least ten feet, landing and looking around in all directions like 'what the hell just happened?' before running off and hiding for the rest of the day.
Aranna |
Someone mentioned fish in a different thread and I remembered my first and last fish tank. I was so happy it was going to be the perfect thing for my family room. I got the tank and set it all up added my fish. Unfortunately Sammy (who was a young kitty) was also happy... Not because it looked great but rather because she was getting her own private fish pond. I was very disappointed when I got home and found the tank empty of fish and Sammy looking very well fed.
GM_Beernorg |
I think that was my exotic pets thread, and as a serious fish keeper, and cat rescuer, I have learned a valuable lesson, secure glass tank tops are a must, and they should be installed with some way to secure them to the tank itself (i now use very small eyelet screws, which are easy to remove, have a short length, to avoid rusting and contamination of the tank, but keep my glass tops in place no matter how big a feline decides to try for sushi)