Saturday’s Kitties

@VoIP- there are always people home- my husband works nights and I work days, so a person is usually at home. We do play with him a lot, but he often gets bored with play and just wants to follow and meow (and beg for food).

I have been told by many people I should get a second cat, but I’m not sure how my first cat will do if we introduced another animal (he’s had inappropriate urination problems in the past due to stress, we think), and I’m currently pregnant with my second child and we only live in a one-bedroom apartment. I’d either have to let them outside or get two more litter boxes (rule of thumb is 1.5 boxes per cat), and I just don’t have the room for that at the moment.

I may consider getting a second cat (or kitten) when my second child is past infant stage and I can focus on socializing a new kitty and our living situation hopefully involves a larger place (because otherwise that’s just not fair to the kitties). But for now, that is not an option.

And as I’ve said before, there is no way I’m going to get rid of my cat. He’s generally a good little guy, and I would hate for him to go back to the shelter and be euthanized just because I can’t stand a little meowing. But I don’t want him getting outside and get mauled by a raccoon or hit by a car either.

Nanasha–I second the opinion that another cat might be in order. Our first cat really stepped down her demands for playtime after we got a second cat. They aren’t particularly friendly to each other–the humans are still the favorites for cuddles–but they’ll chase each other around the house and pounce on each other in play.

On the other hand, kitty 1 still woke my dad up at 5 am this morning to put fresh water in her (full) waterdish, so… cats will be cats.

Also, the picture of the cat guarding your daughter was so cute.

But in the end, it’s your life, and your call.

When she was just starting to walk and still crawling around, he endured her clumsy petting (not to hurt him, but she just wasn’t very coordinated) and never took a swipe at her, even when she was “patting” him on the head.

Human babies share certain features with other young animals, such as really large eyes, big heads, and small noses and mouths. He could tell that she was, let’s say, a “people kitten” and cut her some slack.

I’m now going to call all human babies “people kittens.”

Nanasha, you’re lucky that your cat likes children. When my parents brought me home, one of their two cats pooped in the middle of my new bedroom (to make his displeasure known) and the other wasn’t particularly social at the best of times. The pooper cat eventually ended up living a child-free existence with my grandmother.

@Argenti- I would love to make a cat run, but our backyard area is shared (by the weird lady neighbor who owns the mean asshole cat who likes to fight with EVERYTHING), and she seems to think that anything and everything in the yard and parking lot area is HERS. I tried putting up a little water table under the stairs for my daughter to play with water toys, and she freaked the fuck out even though she wasn’t doing anything with the area at all. It also doesn’t help that she has weird ideas about what cats ought to do and she thinks that her cat just wants to “play” when he’s rending other animals with his claws and yowling angrily at them.

I’m really hoping that within the year, we can move into my grandmother’s old house (my family has said they’d really like me to do that, but it would first take me transferring my job up north and that can take awhile and has multiple insurance things that I’ll have to sort out which is why I’m trying to wait to do that until after I give birth). My grandmother has a really cool house (and we actually used to take our cat up there when we visited for the weekend and stuff- my grandmother loved him and he was always very respectful and never ran under her feet like he seems to always run under mine) with a lot of space for kitties to play. Unfortunately, she passed away last year, so my sister has been living there and keeping things up/weirdos from breaking in. But my dad and all his brothers say that they’d really like a family living there, and mine fits the bill. Plus if my cat were to be outside, there’s a nice gated driveway that gets plenty of sun, a carport to climb on, and a beautiful old fig tree. Plus, no nasty neighbor cats. And with the extra space, we could probably adopt a new kitten to keep him comfortable…although I’m not sure what kind of kitten we’d like to get. I think that Scottish Folds are absolutely adorable, but I’m not really all that excited about people who breed for a genetic defect and besides, I feel like giving a shelter animal a home is probably much more urgently needed to keep animals from being killed simply because of overpopulation.

Does anyone have any suggestions about what kind of kitten would be the best to get to compliment an older male cat (breed/female/male, etc)? I don’t want to adopt another animal in the future and then have my cat totally freak out and not be able to deal with it.

So hopefully, with any luck, everyone will be happy with the move…it’s just a question of getting to that point.

Nanasha — your neighbor sounds like a piece of work. As far as cats that don’t do anything, Maine Coons are the lump of the species (idk if you’re someplace warm or more Maine like, they’re a thick furred cat, they don’t really do heat). Cats can and will jump straight atop most fences btw.

To add to the kitty Prozac comment – my mom’s cat has massive anxiety issues, with a lot of the symptoms Nanasha mentioned, and the vet’s had her on buspirone (Buspar) for the last couple of years. It’s made a huge difference for her.

Argenti: Aww, that snail! 😀

Tiny turtle!

They said “We’re so cute, we’ll act all cute if you give us monies.” Whores!