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Pet stories
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 8:48 pm
by Regulator
Lullabelle wrote: ↑5 years ago
Dunckle was teasing our cat with a red dot
I get really annoyed when Jon does that with Jack - it gets him so wound up. Jon only does it to tease him...
Re: This made me laugh.....
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 8:53 pm
by Rutabaga
I'm struggling to think of any other reason for it, to be honest.
Re: This made me laugh.....
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:15 pm
by Dunckel
Rutabaga wrote: ↑5 years ago
I'm struggling to think of any other reason for it, to be honest.
Weight loss.
Merlot is overweight, she is on prescription low energy/high bulk food and we have to encourage her to be as active as possible, given that she refuses to go outside.
Re: This made me laugh.....
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:17 pm
by Lullabelle
Regulator wrote: ↑5 years ago
I get really annoyed when Jon does that with Jack - it gets him so wound up. Jon only does it to tease him...
We do it to make her move! She needs exercise , once we have stopped she walks away, forgotten.
Re: This made me laugh.....
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:28 pm
by Rutabaga
Ok, I admit defeat in her case.
Re: This made me laugh.....
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:31 pm
by Joan
I've been reflecting on "the crazies", the way cats suddenly get a look of mock terror in their eyes and then run like mad to the far end of the house. If you follow them you can easily end up playing chasey with them. In fact, I believed I taught my cat to play chasey as a kid, and then I saw two kittens playing the same game, and realised he'd* taught me.
Anyway, my theory is that a cat only needs to hunt every few days, and can survive even longer without if necessary. They can literally spend the rest of their time washing themselves in the sun. But to be a successful hunter, you need to be able to sprint. So Darwin has provided kitties with a spontaneous HIT session, to keep ready for the chase.
I'm guessing Merlot doesn't get the crazies?
*Wellington turned out to be female. Long story. I have never been able to change his pronouns.
Re: This made me laugh.....
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:40 pm
by Dunckel
Joan wrote: ↑5 years ago
I've been reflecting on "the crazies", the way cats suddenly get a look of mock terror in their eyes and then run like mad to the far end of the house. If you follow them you can easily end up playing chasey with them. In fact, I believed I taught my cat to play chasey as a kid, and then I saw two kittens playing the same game, and realised he'd* taught me.
Anyway, my theory is that a cat only needs to hunt every few days, and can survive even longer without if necessary. They can literally spend the rest of their time washing themselves in the sun. But to be a successful hunter, you need to be able to sprint. So Darwin has provided kitties with a spontaneous HIT session, to keep ready for the chase.
I'm guessing Merlot doesn't get the crazies?
*Wellington turned out to be female. Long story. I have never been able to change his pronouns.
On the whole no, she's 9.
Her mother was hit by a car when she bearly weaned, so she didn't get to learn many cat skills. The up side is that she has never killed anything, on the down side she has little curiosity and is content to spend her life parked by the radiator.
Re: This made me laugh.....
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:42 pm
by Joan
I'm going to split this off into it's own thread
Re: Pet stories
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 10:25 pm
by Joan
So I split it because I want to tell the Wellington (hunter not misgendering) story.
Wellington was the opposite of Merlot. He was a fierce hunter. We don't know his history as he decided he wanted to be our cat when he was fully grown (hence the misgendering). He had a window nailed open 12cm or so, so he could come and go as he pleased. One day my mother was deep cleaning the room my teenage brothers shared. She moved a bed and there was something disgusting under it. It was biological, and clearly it was not something my brothers had put there. It was just a disgusting mystery. Mum cleaned it up, and we were all disturbed.
Some time later, we witnessed Wellington killing a possum. Possums are squirrelesque but intelligent and cat sized with no defences against cats. After killing it, he surgically eviscerated it, removing 2 organs - the intestine and ...bladder maybe. Yup, the two things we had seen under Andrew's bed. The cat had killed one of these marsupials in the night, then carried it's corpse in my parent's window, down the hall and under my brother's bed, and then presumably eaten every bit of it fur and skeleton, just leaving two organs to mystify us.
My parents removed the nail. Wellington was now sleeping outside (bad for the environment, but it was the 70s).
So, at night we'd put Wellington out before the last of us went to bed. He normally came in via the back door, and (probably because he turned out to be female) he needed to share his kills. My bedroom was just next to the backdoor, so only I would hear him. This happened multiple times, but I will share one example.
I'm asleep, but awoken by Wellington miaowing by the back door. I recognise the particular miaow. He has something in his mouth. I get up, poke my head out the window. Yup. He has a Budgie in his mouth. They are native to Australia, but not common around here. It's almost certainly an escaped pet. Presumably it made a break for freedom a few hours ago. Right now it is fine. Distressed, but still very much alive. I praise Wellington. What a good cat you are. He keeps miaowing. It's clear he's not going away until ... I do ...something. I get out of bed. I unlock the wooden back door. There's still an transparent flyscreen/security door between me and the cat. I can see what is happening. There is a very healthy Budgie in his mouth. It's tweeting like mad. I assume it was sleeping in a tree and Wellington plucked it like an apple. I say thought the fly-screen, "Good kitty". He makes another miaow. Not knowing what to do, I finally open the fly screen door. Wellington now knows I have seen him and bird, so he bites its head off ....and then proceeds to eat it like a chocolate bar. In a moment, the bird is gone. I lock the door, go back to bed and stare at the ceiling until the sun rises.
Re: Pet stories
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 10:44 pm
by Dunckel
Eughhhh! Those hunting habits sound too familiar, Merlot's predecessor was a prolific hunter and a mostly outdoor cat. She became expert at bringing home a mouse and eating the whole thing except for the liver which she would leave on the carpet for an unsuspecting big toe to find.
I am glad that Merlot is clueless about wild food.
Re: Pet stories
Posted: Sat Apr 13, 2019 10:08 am
by Lullabelle
Yesterday I was outside putting the washing on the line, Merlot came out with me and climbed part way up a tree in our garden, she hasn't done that in a long long time.