Pets chit chat thread

[anunitu]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

That is a nice Cat as they call it "Condo" lots of places to hang..

[Munin-Hugin]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Thanks to Turkey season sales...

I just got this for Smittens, who is both a climber and a hider

(seriously, $80? awesome--if I made one, it would cost more than that in stuff...we'll just have to vacuum the heck out of it, and its going in the kids room)

I've been thinking of making something like that for my girls. Luckily, after cleaning out the attic I have plenty of sturdy wood, and from work I have a pretty much endless supply of very thick cardboard tubes. Add to that some rope and carpet remnants, and voila!

[Rae'ya]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Not exactly. My dog was vomiting for two days, and he felt warm (but wouldn't let the vet take his temperature, so I don't know if he had a fever for sure). When it is walk time, he's still just as active as normal, but when it's not, he just gets lazy and sleepy. So I think the vet just thought to treat stuff on all sides just in case. But tbh, after 24 hours of cough syrup, he seems almost back to normal. But I've already paid for the injections.

:/

It's always important to finish a course of antibiotics once they've been started, even if the original symptoms have settled down. Try to use the daily visits as positive experiences... most dogs actually don't mind injections... it's the visit, the exam and the temp taking they don't like. Get the tech who's giving the injections to be happy and friendly with low-stress approach techniques and take some bits of chicken to use as treats (chicken is gentle on a recently-vomiting stomach). Daily visits is a really good opportunity to build their confidence and do some counterconditioning. If he's trained, remember to use that while you're there so he knows what to do... familiar tasks help them to be more comfortable in new situations.

I'm glad he's feeling better.

[volcaniclastic]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Thanks to Turkey season sales...

I just got this for Smittens, who is both a climber and a hider

(seriously, $80? awesome--if I made one, it would cost more than that in stuff...we'll just have to vacuum the heck out of it, and its going in the kids room)

You 'mericans. I thought that was a great deal, clicked it, and out of curiousity, decided to see how much the 'free shipping' was to Canada. $80 cat house, $140 shipping.

[Rae'ya]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

I've discovered another thing that has changed here in the house that may have started to cause the aggression between Sheriti and Nephthys (tow of my three). Along with a new space opening up in the house for them to explore and try to claim, a cat toy that hasn't been around for a while (a catnip mouse, though the catnip is so old as to be impotent) was found while I was cleaning under the couch. They both play with it, and perhaps they are getting into fights over rights to the toy. OR, the introduction of a new toy is ramping up their rambunctious natures and it's bleeding over into their interactions.

Sounds like anxiety to me, which is the usual culprit in cats who suddenly show aggression to others who they previously got along with. And yes, your work in the attic is likely to be the culprit. Cats are very sensitive to change and you'd be surprised what sets off anxiety in them. The most common symptoms we see are urinating in inappropriate places, overgrooming and agression towards others in the house (pets or humans).

Multi cat households don't really have territory disputes, because the house is shared space ('territory' in cats is much more complex than people realise). But changes to that shared space can upset the fragile dynamics of pairs or trios of cats. Then you get anxiety and dynamics problems, which can sometimes settle with time and sometimes escalate.

The first thing I would do is get a Feliway diffuser or two going in the house. It's a synthetic pheramone which often makes a big difference in multi-cat-house issues. Also make sure you have enough litter trays (four, if you have three cats) and have them in at least two separate places. Also make sure there are at least two separate feeding and two separate watering stations. Even if your cats have always shared happily, when there are dynamics issues, the division and sharing of resources becomes a point of contention and contributes to the snowballing of any anxiety present. 'Resources' in the cat world are food, water, litter trays, sleeping spots, survey spots, sunning spots, the cat flap and sometimes human interaction (but ironically, usually not). They aren't getting along at the moment... don't force them to eat, sleep and poop together.

[thalassa]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

You 'mericans. I thought that was a great deal, clicked it, and out of curiousity, decided to see how much the 'free shipping' was to Canada. $80 cat house, $140 shipping.

:/ now that sucks!

Hmmm...If you weren't next to the Arctic Circle, I'd consider that an excuse for a road trip to Canada!!!

[Rae'ya]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Thanks to Turkey season sales...

I just got this for Smittens, who is both a climber and a hider

(seriously, $80? awesome--if I made one, it would cost more than that in stuff...we'll just have to vacuum the heck out of it, and its going in the kids room)

Great find, Thal! THAT is what you want from a cat post/gym... two different covering materials (hopefully Smittens likes them), tall AND wide, survey spots and hiding spots, multiple levels and big enough for more than one cat. These are the kind I recommend... but very few people want to spend $200 so they buy the cheap useless ones instead. $80 with free postage is WAAAY to good a deal to pass up!

[Shahaku]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

It's probably going to take 2-3 weeks to get our kitten in for a spay/neuter and shots. And I am going to need to get him a flee/tick bath ASAP. I just hope he transitions into the great indoors well. I'm so excited right now.

I'm leaning toward something like this: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Go-Pet-Clu...-Tree/23215431 for a cat tree. But I do want to get to know him first. If he's not overly fond of climbing, I might just get him some hidey holes. We'll see. My husband put the Xmas tree up today so he'll have something to climb on.

[Rae'ya]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

It's probably going to take 2-3 weeks to get our kitten in for a spay/neuter and shots. And I am going to need to get him a flee/tick bath ASAP. I just hope he transitions into the great indoors well. I'm so excited right now.

I'm leaning toward something like this: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Go-Pet-Clu...-Tree/23215431 for a cat tree. But I do want to get to know him first. If he's not overly fond of climbing, I might just get him some hidey holes. We'll see. My husband put the Xmas tree up today so he'll have something to climb on.

A few tips for transitioning outdoor cats to indoors...

- if you can afford it, get a Feliway diffuser. You guys have probably realised by now how much I love this stuff... because it really does help.

- put dirt in his litter tray. Just regular dirt from outside. I recently did this for a patient at work who'd been in hospital all week for a blocked bladder and still wasn't peeing, which had everyone worried. He was an outdoor cat, so I went for a walk to find some dirt for his litter tray and he peed in it that night. Outdoor cats pee in dirt, not the fancy stuff from the store. Once he's using the tray, mix in some commercial litter and reduce the dirt slowly til he is changed over. Don't expect him to know what a litter tray full of cat litter is for.

- confine him to a small room at first, preferably one that's easy to clean and has no carpet. He's an outdoor colony tom moving into a house that doesn't have cats in it... he's gonna spray. Use an enzyme cleaner to clean it up, not ammonia.

- DO NOT feed him ad lib... he'll get fat real quick, especially once he's desexed. Feed a measured daily ration, preferably out of a food ball. It might take him a while to get used to the food, but my experience with people who adopt strays is that they usually scoff the food immediately and then get fat very quickly.

- he's used to drinking out of fish ponds and muddy puddles... give him options when it comes to water until you find his preference. Plastic vs ceramic vs glass... fresh vs standing... deep vs shallow... he'll need options.

- he'll be used to scratching trees or old hession sacks or the vinyl seats from the old broken down car or whatever... try to bring that into whatever you get for him.

- this is not a house cat, this is a farm cat. He MIGHT know what to do with toys and scratching posts and litter trays and water bowls... but there's a good chance he wont. You'll need to teach him.

- provide him with as much familiar stimulation as possible... dirt in his litter tray, somewhere he can have a dust bath, pots full of grass, things that he would encounter outdoors... he's young but he's past the kitten stage and will already have habits and preferences of his own. Cater to those as much as you can.

- prioritise desexing over shots. I very rarely say that, but he's just at that age where putting off neutering even for a few weeks will make a difference. His testosterone is about to, or has just, kicked in... we want to stop it ASAP. His shots can wait a few weeks if they need to, especially as he'll be indoors.

[Jembru]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Dolly got a cat gym from us last Christmas and we just love it. I definitely recommend one for any indoor puss.

I can't remember how to embed youtube videos here, but here's a link to Dolly playing with one of her puppets on her new gym last year. http://youtu.be/kWi0JLIl1M0. This is very tame compared to how rough she gets if you're playing with her on the floor. Also, I've no idea where that right hook came from, but her very first puppet was a pirate with a sword, so we wondered if she's copying the sword motion from him.

[Rae'ya]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

I can't remember how to embed youtube videos here, but here's a link to Dolly playing with one of her puppets on her new gym last year. http://youtu.be/kWi0JLIl1M0. This is very tame compared to how rough she gets if you're playing with her on the floor. Also, I've no idea where that right hook came from, but her very first puppet was a pirate with a sword, so we wondered if she's copying the sword motion from him.

I just want to say that this is 100% completely normal cat play, and to be honest, slightly on the tame side. Floor play then normally includes grabbing onto the thing and kicking with both hind legs, or ambush play. Whether or not claws are out during play depends on a combination of how well you trained your cat in the beginning and their innate personality.

The problem is that people try to play with their cats with bare hands (as opposed to Jembru's puppet system, which is a really good system to allow this very normal play)... but humans are too soft to cope with 'normal' cat play (or normal dog play for that matter). So we think they are being rough or mean or whatever, which is only true some of the time. Some cats play too rough, because they've never learned boundaries and what is appropriate in play. Usually this is hand reared kittens, or cats that were played with roughly when they were cute little kittens. Sadly, humans are very bad substitute cat-parents, because we just can't teach them the social skills and boundaries that mama cat can. If you look at outdoor cats, or feral cats, they actually don't tend to play directly with each other. There may be some chase games and a bit of wrestle with some cats, but the majority of natural 'play' in adult cats is playing with prey, chasing bugs, swatting at hanging foliage and things like that. Humans like one-on-one play, and indoor cats seek it largely because their toys don't move on their own. When you put the two together you have a recipe for the humans feeling like they're being torn to shreds.

The other thing is that cats and dogs learn very quickly to use the methods that work for them. Swatting you on the face at 4am with a bit of claw-contact is a VERY effective method for getting attention, so they do it. Launching at you from a hidden place as you walk past is also very effective. Being quiet and 'well behaved' and never saying peep very rarely attracts much in the way of interaction when they want it. So they do what works. And humans as a species are really bad at a) ignoring unwanted behaviours, b) rewarding the wanted ones (because who's paying attention to the cat when it's quietly sitting behind the couch?) and c) being consistent in our responses. We THINK we're consistent, but we aren't. Intermittant reward is the single most effective positive reinforcement technique out there... if it works never, you stop bothering to do it... it if works always, you take it for granted and the reward loses it's value... if it works some of the time, the motivation continues and you'll try harder next time in hopes that the reward will come. 90% of the time, 'rough' cat and dog play is either normal or is a proven technique for getting your attention.

[Jembru]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Actually, maybe you could help us with something we've noticed. We're quite doting 'parents', the kind of owners who can't help but stop what they're doing and turn attention towards the cat just because she walked into a room. She's often the point of conversation.. more often than is healthy maybe. We have a few boundary rules though.. like we're not allowed to touch her if she is in one of her beds* or under the bed or sofa, and we pretend we can't reach her if she's on the highest platform of her cat gym. We need her to feel that there are places she can go to get away from us. Anyway, we also talk for her so she can join in with conversations, but something we have noticed is that Dolly herself doesn't speak. I mean, she doesn't mew. Even at mealtimes she will just purr and rub our legs.

When she was a kitten, she would make the saddest cry if we were in another room (or she just THOUGHT we were.. like we'd be in the kitchen and she'd start crying at the door to the hall thinking we'd gone out there ^^). We always responded to the cry, so you'd think she'd have made that link that 'sound = the minions obey'. Yet instead she just seems to have grown out of it.

So my question is.. is this a personality thing, or is it because we give her attention so much that she just hasn't found a need to 'speak' to us? Wild cats only mew as kittens right? We know her mummy cat wasn't a very attentive mum, and if you recall we had a few issues with litter training to begin with, possibly because mum didn't use a tray herself, or she just didn't show her kittens how to use it (pure speculation), but they had a bitch and she seemed to have taken a shine to Dolly and her brother. Dolly adores dogs even to this day, so we wondered if this affected her 'speaking' too?

It's not a big deal that she's mainly mute, but sometimes she'll want her litter changed (she's very fussy about her tray, and rightly so I guess, saying as she can't go outside), or want feeding and we'll be too busy to notice her rubbing herself against the table legs.

*The exception being the shelf next to my study area, because I just can't resist. She will only sleep there if I am at my desk, and because she recognises what switching on the PC means, she's often already waiting for me there when I come through with my tea!

[Rae'ya]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

So my question is.. is this a personality thing, or is it because we give her attention so much that she just hasn't found a need to 'speak' to us?

Yeah, this. Most cat vocalisation is an effort to manipulate us*, so if you're attentive enough, or she is independant enough, she doesn't need to do it. My cat Tomas only ever meows for food... and he MEOWS. His mother Casper only ever did this tiny little trilling noise (it wasn't even a mew), usually in greeting my stepdad. Otherwise she never made a sound. I get this question at work a lot too... some cats just don't talk much. Some talk lots. Part of it is personality and genetics... if Dolly was a Siamese she'd be talking no matter how attentive you were. Part of it is what they need to do to communicate their needs to you. Cat to cat communication is mostly body language, posture, things like that. Vocalisation in the cat world is relegated almost entirely to kittens and to arguments. So a largely silent cat is nothing to be concerned about.

*I don't know if you've ever seen the studies into cat-human communication and the way that cats have learned to actually manipulate human emotion through sound. It's pretty interesting stuff.

[anunitu]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

I had seen pics of what I call skyway cat stuff. I don't know many people that would have this much room,or for that matter money to do this,but it sure is cool.http://www.hauspanther.com/2014/01/0...ing-furniture/
Here is a link to a pic..

http://hauspanther.wpengine.netdna-c...Goldtatze5.jpg

[Shahaku]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

A few tips for transitioning outdoor cats to indoors...

- if you can afford it, get a Feliway diffuser. You guys have probably realised by now how much I love this stuff... because it really does help.

- put dirt in his litter tray. Just regular dirt from outside. I recently did this for a patient at work who'd been in hospital all week for a blocked bladder and still wasn't peeing, which had everyone worried. He was an outdoor cat, so I went for a walk to find some dirt for his litter tray and he peed in it that night. Outdoor cats pee in dirt, not the fancy stuff from the store. Once he's using the tray, mix in some commercial litter and reduce the dirt slowly til he is changed over. Don't expect him to know what a litter tray full of cat litter is for.

- confine him to a small room at first, preferably one that's easy to clean and has no carpet. He's an outdoor colony tom moving into a house that doesn't have cats in it... he's gonna spray. Use an enzyme cleaner to clean it up, not ammonia.

- DO NOT feed him ad lib... he'll get fat real quick, especially once he's desexed. Feed a measured daily ration, preferably out of a food ball. It might take him a while to get used to the food, but my experience with people who adopt strays is that they usually scoff the food immediately and then get fat very quickly.

- he's used to drinking out of fish ponds and muddy puddles... give him options when it comes to water until you find his preference. Plastic vs ceramic vs glass... fresh vs standing... deep vs shallow... he'll need options.

- he'll be used to scratching trees or old hession sacks or the vinyl seats from the old broken down car or whatever... try to bring that into whatever you get for him.

- this is not a house cat, this is a farm cat. He MIGHT know what to do with toys and scratching posts and litter trays and water bowls... but there's a good chance he wont. You'll need to teach him.

- provide him with as much familiar stimulation as possible... dirt in his litter tray, somewhere he can have a dust bath, pots full of grass, things that he would encounter outdoors... he's young but he's past the kitten stage and will already have habits and preferences of his own. Cater to those as much as you can.

- prioritise desexing over shots. I very rarely say that, but he's just at that age where putting off neutering even for a few weeks will make a difference. His testosterone is about to, or has just, kicked in... we want to stop it ASAP. His shots can wait a few weeks if they need to, especially as he'll be indoors.

A friend is covering the cost of his neuter/shots as our Xmas gift this year so this will be taken care of ASAP. The clinic sent me a response yesterday scheduling him for Dec 1, so a little over a week from now. We actually already have our Xmas tree up thanks to the hubby's over exuberance so he can climb and hide in there for awhile. It's fake though, so I already know I'm going to have to monitor to be sure he doesn't eat it. I got the plainest litter I could find on my friends advice, but I'm glad for the tip of mixing in dirt. How do you clean it with dirt in it though? Just dump it every couple days and replace it?