Saturday’s Kitties

When mine sees other cats outside she yells at me until I come and look, circles around being very dramatic, and generally acts like she’s very upset by my failure to make the other cat go away. It’s hilarious. Not so much when it was a possum that she saw, though, then I was freaked out too.

Holy crap that’s adorable.

I’ve had a few cats that made that noise, it’s not so unusual.

I’ll throw in a few thoughts! Even though i’m like a snail here, late to the party (not sure why you’d invite a snail to a party).

The attacking-while-petting is probably cat play behaviour (see the classic “venus hand trap” for a great example) as mentioned. CassandraSays said it best, removing the happytimes might discourage it. Or more happy play times involving string or mices so he’s had his fun for when you want to have petting times (though that might just make him more playful for petting times rather than less, every cat is different).

On other stuffs:

My cat took up the habit of scratching at the front door (and she scratches chairs sometimes too). Loud noises or water (stuff that causes surprise without harming the cat) seem to work to discourage it (though I doubt you’d want to be splashing water all over your apartment). With the water, you don’t need to even splash the cat itself with it, since most are freaked out by water at all times (unless they’re one of those weird cats that likes water).

I try not to actually spray the cat though since that seems a bit mean, but since she freaks out over water even if it’s sprayed like a metre away from her it still has the effect.

Although when I did my animal management course (hah, I could probably help more if my brain wasn’t a sieve 😛 ), we were always told you have to be a bit careful with that sort of discouraging (adding a negative thing, as opposed to just removing a positive thing as in what CassandraSays.. says) so that the animal doesn’t associate you with the bad thing instead of the action.

With the annoyances at the wrong times, cats tend to just do what they want and don’t understand human schedules (unlike with dogs who can be trained quite well). If they want something, they want it now, and they don’t care that they just made you get up at 3am. You probably can train a cat to be less like that, but it would just be more difficult (and you’d have to start by not giving in to the cat, which is obvious, and hard if it’s being an elephant in the middle of the night and you just want to sleep).

I have similar (though a lot less severe) issues with food with one of my cats (same one again, pesky thing) where sometimes (admittedly, rarely) she’ll just overeat and throw it up all over the floor. I have two cats as well so that compounds the issue, since the other one will either only eat a little of the food you give her or turn her nose up at it entirely, at which point you need to be on the ball to stop the other one scoffing both sets of food. We also try to stick to strict feeding times so we don’t overfeed them, but they still bother us for food whenever the fuck they feel like it.

Overall, kitties are a frustrating pain in the arse. But they’re cute. 😛

And just as I post that, the previously mentioned cat decided that it was time to meow randomly and loudly in the hallway at 2am because it’s time to go out for a pee. 😛

Cats and weird noises. I think it’s time for this again:

Must remember to tell Mr. C that he’s actually a woman. Maybe I can do it tomorrow when he starts talking about his cat.

@Cassandra- I posted a couple pics of him a bit up-thread. He’s all black and has tall ears. He has green eyes (one eye is part-red in the iris, though). He also has some tabby-like stripe markings if you look really close. I think he might be part Abyssinian because of his shape, but he’s also kind of chunky so I can’t really say.

I’d let him outside, but we’re so close to a greenbelt area where there are a good number of skunks and raccoons, plus we’re also close to a highway. To make things worse, our apartment neighbor has this huge tabby male cat who is a HUGE asshole and picks fights with every other cat around. I know it’s horrible because cats love time outside, but if I let him out, there are too many things that I’m worried will hurt or kill him.

Tip from the (male) black cat owning FWB — lighting is helpful for good cat pictures (of course, he does lighting design, so that’s his stock answer).

Stephen — a dude, who likes cats! The horror!

Shade — “not sure why you’d invite a snail to a party” — this is why — can’t not invite that to a cuteness party!

Nanasha, I’m just going to put in my two cents:

the cat we adopted has really changed in personality as we’ve had him for longer. He’s really neurotic and needy, following us around meowing loudly all the time (he’s very vocal) even when he’s been fed, groomed, played with, etc. This wouldn’t be such a big deal but sometimes people have to be sleeping in the apartment (my husband works graveyard, our daughter needs naps, etc) and 99% of the time, the place he wants to be meowing loudly is the room in which a person is trying to sleep, or he’ll stand by the door and bang/scratch the door until he’s let in.

He sounds bored or maybe lonely. My young male cat was like this ALL THE TIME, until my boyfriend and his cat moved in. Now they bug each other. How often are you two home? When you’re home, do you make a point of playing with him? I wouldn’t recommend letting him go out where you live, but you could try walking him on a leash. Or get another cat.

He’s also gotten a fair amount bigger- we were told he was about 2 years old when we got him, so we’re pretty sure that’s full grown, but now he’s gotten bigger and longer.

This is normal. The shelter could have been wrong about his age, or he could just grow slowly–I know Maine Coons take up to two years to reach their adult size.

@Sgt Grumbles – my cat totally does that. The first time he did it I was so completely charmed and blown away. See, his name is Clark (for Clark Kent) and I call that his Superman pose. I’ve never managed to catch a picture of it because he does it mostly lying on the bed next to me and the second I move it’s gone, but I do so love it. I named him Clark years before he ever did it!