Wednesday, August 27, 2014

A Song to Remember

To the tune of a well known classical piece that you all know but you don't know the name of any more than I do (update: It's Blue Danube Waltz, my sister informs me):

My doggie has fleas (bark bark, bark bark)
He gave them to me (bark bark, bark bark)
I gave them to Paw (bark bark, bark bark)
He gave them to Maw (bark bark, bark bark)
and now we have fleeeeas! (bark bark, bark bark)
My maw, my paw, and me, Tallyho.

Except that Apricot is a cat, not a dog; he mews instead of barking, and I don't live with my parents anymore so I didn't actually give them fleas. And the most important part that's wrong: Apricot didn't give me fleas, I gave them to him.

At least, the original fleas probably came in riding on my shoes from the outside, because Apricot doesn't go outside.

This all got noticeable over the past weekend. Suddenly Apricot was scratching a lot, and all over. He was also washing a lot, in unpredictable spurts. Like he'd be walking along and then all the sudden stop and wash his leg frantically. I think he could feel them walking on his skin. (The thought makes me shudder. Ew!)

Then I got the flea presence I suspected confirmed by actually seeing them in the sparse light-colored hair at his temples. I caught and killed one, but due to having cut my fingernails short on Friday night, I didn't have the fingernails to catch the other one I saw.

And of course, if you see one flea, there are tons more where you can't see them. Dagnabit!

Well, luckily for both of us, technology has progressed since Pizza developed a flea allergy and had to be bathed regularly to keep the fleas off him completely. My imagination fails at trying to envision Apricot's reaction to me giving him a bath. He might never forgive me!

Now there is a simple pill that you can give the cat. It's even chewable and treat-flavored (beef, I believe). It's called Comfortis, and is expensive as all get out, but it's totally worth it. You feed it to the cat after he's had a meal, and then for a month, every single flea that bites him, that's the last bite they get. Instant death for fleas! Muha-hah-hah!

Excuse me. Got carried away there.

So Monday I went to the vet after work to get a pill. You can get a 6 month pack, but with his sensitivity to steroids I didn't want to pay for 6 pills if he'd turn out to be over-sensitive or allergic to it.

Now I had an issue: give with a meal. Yes, but what if your cat free-feeds? I don't give Apricot "meals"--I fill his bowl in the morning and he eats it whenever he pleases. However, Apricot himself made life easy for me here. Although he has access to his food all the time, he definitely eats a breakfast and a supper meal. Every night after I finish my supper and sit down to read, he disappears, only to reappear five to ten minutes later licking his chops and appearing quite satisfied.

When I got home I hid his food, just to hedge my bets. The problem is, the pill can make their tummies upset, and they'll throw it up. So you're supposed to make sure they don't have an empty tummy when they eat it, in order to give the pill's ingredients a buffer against the tummy's dislike of it.

It was torment to wait until the proper time, but I knew he wouldn't just go eat because I wanted him to. I had to wait, and watch the poor guy stop and scratch, and have problems playing with the Bird because he kept having to stop and scratch, or stop and lick, and all the time knowing I had the solution waiting.

Finally it was time. Apricot trotted off toward the bedroom where the food is. I followed, which I don't normally do, and he gave me a "what are you doing" look. I produced the food and put it in its normal place before he got over there, but he did see what I did and gave me another funny look. I told him in explaining tones what was going on. Now I've said before, he's getting tired of things being explained to him, and he reacted like I thought he would.

Kind of rolled his eyes and started eating, like, "all right, all right, never mind, I really don't want to know after all." When he finished eating, I cut the pill out of its package (stupid thing looks like you can peel the paper off the back and pop it through the remaining aluminum, but you have to use a scissors to cut it open).

The second the pill was out of the package he started sniffing the air, absolutely fascinated. I asked him if he wanted a treat and put it down on the carpet in front of him (he prefers not to eat from my fingers, and since I desperately wanted him to eat this particular "treat", I was going to make it all the way he wanted as much as possible). He scarfed it right up, even crunching it up while eating it. Cats don't always chew their food since they really don't have the teeth for chewing. Their teeth are meant to tear and rip.

Now I had to keep an eye on him for an hour. He did just fine. Not only did he show absolutely no signs of an upset tummy, but within an hour and a half, there were dead fleas in the sparse hair at his ears. I hadn't realized it would work that fast, and I was very pleased.

By the next morning he was back to not having to stop and scratch every five paces, and by the next afternoon, his fur was all soft again. I hadn't really realized it, but his fur had gone all rough-feeling during the flea invasion. Apparently if I pay attention, the state of his fur can tell me about how he's doing physically.

So I suppose I'll have to spring for the 6 tablets and keep him on monthly Comfortis until the first freeze, and start him up again in the spring. At least he really likes the tablets, and considers them a treat!

Retrospective: Puzzled Pippin

When I lived with my parents I used to put jigsaw puzzles together with my Dad. Pippin was always very polite and we never found any pieces on the floor or found pieces swept aside on the puzzle table to indicate he was playing with them.

Now, after I got Pippin, it did seem to me after a while that my puzzles were taking me longer than usual. Sometimes I would swear that I put those pieces in just yesterday. But since puzzles are like that, and I didn't bother memorizing pieces or taking photos of them (back then I had a film camera so, really no point), I didn't think much of it.

There came a puzzle where I just knew I'd been putting these same pieces in for days now. Really.

It never occurred to me to blame Pippin. Just what would a cat be doing to make me put pieces in repeatedly? I mean, cats just play soccer with puzzle pieces, right?

Yeah, um, no. I saw this with my own two eyes, or I wouldn't have believed it. I came in the room one day unexpectedly and found Pippin on the puzzle table. He was very carefully and cautiously picking out pieces from the edge of the hole (I put the outside together first and work my way inward on puzzles) and then very gently scooting the newly liberated piece to one side, just a little. Once that was done, he'd go to work on a second piece, again lifting it carefully out of its place by perseverance with a paw, and scooting that one aside to join the first.

Apparently, he had decided that since I had such fun putting the puzzle together (as evidenced by the amount of time I spent on it) that he would extend my fun by helping me take longer to put the puzzle together!

I don't remember my reaction, aside from astonishment, but I think I must have said something, probably mildly annoyed combined with laughter, because after that my puzzle pieces stayed where I put them and didn't "undo themselves".

Silly Pippin!

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Cats and Humans: A Tale of Three Kitties

I've had three cats in my life for the long-term (Max doesn't count, in this at least) and I find it very fascinating how different the relationships were with each of them.

Pizza, my first cat, thought he was a cat and I was a human and we were friends, although confidentially I did need a good deal of looking after but that's okay, that's what he was here for. I think Pizza viewed himself more as an adult cat with a baby human, since when he came to live with me I was still a child, and of course he grew up so much faster than I did. So he always had a very mothering attitude with me, as well. But he knew that we were different species and he was fine with that.

Pippin, on the other hand, thought he was a human, albeit oddly shaped. He spent his first four months in a cage (a large one) with his siblings disappearing after three months, and then when he came to live with me he was the only cat after Tiger passed away about six months later. The only cat with three humans. He concluded that he was a human too, just funny shaped.

He insisted on drinking from a cup once he noticed that humans didn't drink from a bowl. When I would take him places with me, he didn't know how to associate with other cats, and ended up making them conclude that he was strange and thus they mostly left him alone. He sat in the front seat of the car like I did, without my having to do much training at all. 

Most of his behavior was modeled after humans, and so training him was easy. I've always had the attitude that the cats can do anything I can. Thus they can be on couches and chairs and other furniture, but they can't walk on the counter. Because after all, I don't walk on the counter. Pippin would sit in a dining room chair next to me and wait until supper was over. On the rare occasion I had something he actually wanted, he would wait patiently until I gave him my bowl to lick out. (Since he had seen that I lick bowls (yes, I know, manners, manners) he was fine doing the same.) But mostly he just sat with me.

I have no idea how he reconciled the food differences. I know he always thought I had something he'd like because obviously I liked it, but when I'd offer him a smidge on my finger, he would sniff it and go, ew, that can't possibly be what you're really eating. Where's the good stuff? And he never did figure out why I used the toilet instead of a litter box like a decent human. He kind of gave up figuring it out after a while. Possibly he attributed that difference to our relative sizes. (Big humans use toilets and little humans, like himself, used litter boxes.)

He never did figure human children out, either. Whenever I took him somewhere public, like Petsmart or Luray Caverns (yes, I took him on a tour of the caverns with me, more than once. He loved it.) anyway, children would be instantly attracted to him with his gorgeous fur and long tail and large size. Most children would ask me if they could pet him, and I'd let them pet the tail that hung down into their reach (seeing as most of Pippin was over my shoulder). A few children actually got their parent to ask me, which I thought was funny, but more appropriate. Nobody ever tried to pet him without asking me first in some way, though. 

And Pippin would look at them and I could see he had his puzzled look on, as if trying to determine if these small versions of "big humans" were actually humans or if they were a different category. Of course he was never around small humans enough to make up his mind, as those events were the only times we'd encounter children.

So Pippin thought he was a human.

Apricot, now; Apricot knows he's a cat. He also thinks I'm a cat, just an oddly shaped one. He has no other humans to compare me with on a regular basis to be able to see that I have more similarities with them than with him. And the humans he does know of (the ones he saw in the shelter and the ones he sees outside and the very few visitors I've had since he came to live with me) those humans don't act like me.

And he's right; I don't behave like most humans. My friends and family probably won't believe this, but in my house I'm actually very silent most of the time. Adult cats don't verbally communicate with each other; they use body language and pheromones instead. So the fact that I don't talk a lot makes me, in Apricot's eyes, more like a cat than the talky humans he's encountered. He is just beginning to talk verbally to me, but mostly he still only does it when we can't see each other.

Then there's the fact that I deliberately learned some cat body language in order to make friends with him from the beginning, seeing as he was so anxious and shy. One thing that most humans don't do is what was called Cat Kisses by the website I learned it from. If two cats stare at each other unblinking (or blinking for only as long as necessary to lubricate the eyes), it's a challenge. They're actually fighting, because if they can reconcile the differences without having to expend energy on a physical fight, they'd rather do that. The first cat to look away loses. If neither cat does, then they escalate things.

But humans consider a stare to be "without blinking" and think that as long as they blink normally, they aren't staring. To cats, that's still a stare. But if two cats want to look at each other and communicate that they aren't a threat and furthermore, they are friendly, they will blink for much longer. Several seconds, even, with each blink.

This is how I first communicated with Apricot as I sat on the other side of the room from him and looked at him. I was telling him I was a friend without having to actually touch him to do it. I still do Cat Kisses and he does them back, which ends up in funny contests of "love you more" which he always wins because the ultimate Cat Kiss is the half-lidded content gaze, and I can't do that (my eyes don't like to stay half-lidded and either close or open completely).

I didn't realize at the time that I was teaching Apricot that I was a cat. I was just trying to help him understand I wasn't a threat.

But now he thinks I'm a cat, which has done nothing to alleviate his fear of humans, but makes our relationship very tight. He thinks petting is allogrooming (that is, "grooming by another") although since at this point he considers I'm a mama cat, he doesn't offer to groom me back (thank goodness. Cats have awfully rough tongues!)

He's actually a bit confused as to whether I count as a mama cat or a sibling cat. I groom him and don't let him groom me back (well, he's never offered, but I'd pull my hands out of the way if he did. That habit drove Pippin nuts because he was trying so hard to return the favor and I wouldn't let him). And I provide the food and clean his litterbox like a mama cat would provide food and clean his butt (thank goodness I don't have to do that ...) 

On the sibling cat side, however, I play with him. Granted, I play with him using toys, but I still play. A mama cat wouldn't play with him. So while he's mostly coming down on the side of "mama cat", he's still hopeful that perhaps I could be sibling cat instead. Or possibly at the same time. After all, I'm not shaped like he is, so perhaps I could be both? (he thinks, hopefully. Best of both worlds, right?)

This is, I think, the reason why it has taken him so long to stop trying to play-bite me. I mean, he still does try, but it's much less now and most of the time he'll remember to stop himself. But before he came to the conclusion that yes, I really don't like it, he was trying a gentler and gentler bite, to find what level would "not hurt" me. I put that in quotes because actually, he never bit me hard enough to hurt after that very first time when it wasn't a playbite but was because I'd messed with his back paws before earning his trust about that.

I just always pretended he hurt me dreadfully when he bit. And he'd get this puzzled look on his face, as if to say now I know I didn't break skin or hurt you this time. Why are you still hurt? 

It is very odd to be considered a cat. He's making the same allowances for me that Pippin did, only from the other end of the viewpoint spectrum. (Bathing in water, toilet instead of litter box, eating at the table instead of a food bowl, etc. Pippin didn't have an issue reconciling the water bath because I actually bathed him every so often. He probably figured that I needed the water bath more often than he did because I was bigger.)

This also means that Apricot thinks I can see him no matter how dark it is. I'm working on that but I've only just started to explain about it. It's still summer so the house isn't that dark when I go to bed. 

Oh, yes, and Apricot is starting to get very tired of me explaining stuff. I forget what it was, but something startled him, so I started to explain what it was, why it made that noise, and why he shouldn't worry about it, and he gave me the cat version of rolled eyes and was all, yeah, yeah, okay, so it won't hurt me. I don't need to know the rest of it, can you just shut up already? and he walked off, not startled anymore. If only he'd believe me about the tv ...

It will be interesting to see what the kittens add to this mix. Since the kittens are raised underfoot with two humans and lots of cats, they'll know they are cats and I am a human, and I'm wondering if they will persuade Apricot to their viewpoint, or if, since he's older (thus wiser in the ways of the world) and me being odd for a human, they'll come over to his viewpoint. 

Well, it is time now to play with the Bird, only Apricot is fast asleep in the crepe myrtle cat tree. I will go see if he's willing to wake up and play. 

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Max Update: Toy Fishing

Max is playing Quarriors with us
For those of you who might be worried about how Max is doing in his new home with my brother, you needn't worry. Max is thriving in the stimulating atmosphere of Chuck's house. He enjoys taunting the dog, playing with his toys, and interacting with his humans, especially Chuck (although Dawn says that occasionally he'll leap up into her lap).

He especially likes shoving all his toys under the quarter round display cabinet, and then watching his humans fish them out with a yard stick or wand toy. He enjoys this so much that he'll sometimes forget to actually play with his toys first and will try to stick them back underneath while the original fishing expedition is still happening. 

There are usually exclamations of indignation over this behavior and he stops with a kind of goofy, "oops, I forgot" expression. Give him five minutes and the closest toy to the cabinet will be played with very enthusiastically and just "happen" to get shoved closer and closer until, whoops, under it goes. And it wasn't Max's fault, really, honest. He's just a cat; he can't be expected to understand what direction a toy is going to go in when he bats at it. Right? Right??

His humans don't fall for this, which is why the fishing expeditions are ever so much fun when they do happen, because his humans don't go fishing until almost all the toys are under the cabinet. 

Is Apricot a Lap Cat Yet?

Last night after supper I was sitting in my chair, reading. Apricot comes over and makes motions as if he wants up on the chair with me.

He's hesitant and unsure, so I encouraged him verbally and kept my hands to myself. I have a tendency to be overhelpful in times like these and I wanted him to jump up from his own motivation. Eventually he did, and curled up on the blanket on my lap.

This was very nice and enjoyable and I thought to myself, perhaps he's coming to see the benefits of being a lap cat!

Only then I realized that the summer storm outside was doing growly thunder all around the house, not very loud, and it had been doing so for some time. Sigh. He wasn't understanding the benefits of a human lap; he was scared.

But hey, fairly big silver lining here. He was scared so he came to me for reassurance. Instead of hiding. And in addition to that, he was pretending not to be scared, all nonchalant and hey, let's curl up on your lap for a while, no real reason. Pretending not to be scared takes effort, and when you're really anxious about something, you don't have the effort to spare. So that means he's doing better with being an anxious kitty.

He stayed for about twenty minutes, until the storm was gone and then long enough to make sure it wasn't coming back. With classic kitty timing, he'd settled in about ten minutes before I finished my book. So there I was, book done, phone inaccessible in my pocket (which he had trapped), and nothing to do. I closed my eyes and rested my head back against the chair and held my hands curved around bits of kitty cat (a shoulder to the right, a hip to the left) and daydreamed happily.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Adorable Apricot

Apricot is truly adorable. This once-feral cat is now completely comfortable weaving between my feet, and even using my legs as hide-behinds to stalk the Bird toy from.

Today he's been in top form. At 5:30 precisely, which is when I intend to start the Bird play but hardly ever achieve it, he came up behind me where I was sitting at the computer desk in the (open-backed) computer chair, stood on his hind legs and bopped me on my butt, saying clear as day, "hey, it's time to play!" So we played.

Later after supper I sat down to read, and noticed he'd disappeared. Now the living room, where my chair is, constitutes half the house, so it's not like it's a big hardship to expect him to stay around. (Three cat trees, four windows, real hardship there, right?)

So I called to him, "If you're not going to stay with me, I'm going to go watch tv." (He won't watch tv with me because the tv sights and sounds scare him. If he wasn't going to be with me when I wasn't doing a scary thing, I might as well go do the scary thing.)

Seconds later he bounds happily into the living room like a large squirrel; bounce, bounce, bounce, and settles in going from window to window. I read my book, and we were both happy with the situation!

Then when my bedtime rolled around, all eight o'clock of it, and I announced I was going to bed, he came over to get petted. I picked him up to hug him. I randomly do this. I'm trying to get him used to being picked up and held. It's still a bit unsettling to him but mostly he's okay with it now as long as I don't walk while holding him. We'll keep working on that.

But anyway, as I gathered him into my arms, he reached up with his nose and head butted me gently in the chin, a cat kiss of affection with a silent purr rumbling his body. So sweet! And so unexpected.

Something I'm beginning to suspect, though ... I think he's sleeping with me at night. Not all of the night, just the middle parts of it, and not actually in the bed with me. On my dresser in the corner there is a cat bed on a towel that covers the dresser top. That towel has been on that dresser since before I had cats at all, since I was a small child.

Well, this weekend when I vacuumed I discovered there was a fair amount of tracked litter on both the towel and the cat bed. He doesn't actually track a lot of litter at a time, so this means whatever's been going on has been going on for a while.

He could be staying there during the day while I'm at work, but he doesn't go there during the weekends during the day, and it seems odd that he would go there while there's daylight and pesky squirrels to watch out the windows. If he was frightened by noise outside the house he certainly wouldn't "hide" in a corner that has two walls to the outside world (noises coming through those walls would be louder than his traditional hideaway under the headboard).

The only thing that makes sense is that he's waiting until the middle of the night when he's sleepy and then coming in and taking a nap there while I'm asleep in bed. Since it's pitch black, I can't see him even when I do wake up in the middle of the night.

I'd like to think that's what's happening, after all. Pippin used to stay with me until I fell asleep and then leave, and I miss that more than I realized. It'd be nice if Apricot was at least coming in to stay with me while I slept.

But he is being so sweet in so many other ways, that it's okay whatever he does for sleeping arrangements. He's finally gotten the idea that I really really don't like being bitten, not even in play fight, not even a teeny tiny bite. So he's been stopping himself before he actually does it; turning his head away from my hand in mid-bite, even jumping up and running off if that's what it takes.

Now I'm trying to get him to understand that I'm not mad at him and I am proud that he's learned to at least try to avoid his instincts. I try to keep a toy within easy reach at all times (my living room looks like a toddler lives here) and if he avoids biting me even though he's riled up and playful, I will pick up a toy and offer it to him to bite instead. He's starting to get the concept that I can hold one end of a toy and he can bite the other, and I'm going to be pleased and happy with him--which was all he was trying to accomplish in the first place.

Not only is he looking forward to his goodnight kiss (he keeps me guessing where he wants this ritual to occur each night, but the crepe myrtle tree is a favorite so that's where I ask first), but he's starting to want a goodbye kiss in the morning, even with me having shoes on. He prefers goodbye kisses to occur on the cat tree, though--that way he's far away from clumsy feet in shoes. (Honestly, I've never come close to stepping on him in shoes. My bare feet, on the other hand (so to speak), have stepped on him twice now. Or is it three times?

He is such a adorable, loving cat. He is so very happy to be here in my house, safe from all the dangers of the outdoors (I'm never going to have to worry about this one darting for the doors!), safe from all the other humans and their unpredictability.

I'm so very glad we were able to find each other despite our anxiety issues. We're both much better with each other than on our own.
Happy to have the window between
him and the great outdoors.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Ants: the Best Snacks

Every year in the summertime I get an influx of tiny black ants into my kitchen. It's because when I replaced the door sweep I did it wrong and there's a tiny spot where it doesn't seal to the threshold. And it was such a pain to replace that a few ants are not enough to make me fix it.

Pippin, I believe, couldn't even see the ants.

Apricot, on the other hand, can see them quite well. The first I knew the ants were back this summer was when I saw Apricot licking the kitchen floor. Luckily the only cleaner I use on the kitchen floor is water or the vacuum cleaner, so it's safe for him to lick the floor. Obsessively. Finally I got down on the floor with him to see what had captured his attention so completely.

Little tiny black ants. He was trying to eat them. Well, ants are edible. In fact, they're supposed to be edible by humans ... not gonna happen with this human, but at least I know they're okay for Apricot to eat. So I helpfully stopped them running around by squishing them with a finger. He quite appreciated my help in corralling his snack!

(I never know if a cat is going to be grateful for the help or annoyed that I messed with their fun.)

I think, judging by his reaction to ants and that housefly he caught and ate earlier, that how he kept himself alive before the shelter was by eating insects for the most part. He was probably born early last year, in March, and I don't think he had much time with his mother because he doesn't know very well how to hunt. But he does know insects and catching them. His ant technique may be slow but it works, even without my help.

Today he was in the kitchen and some ants ventured out from behind the fridge. He licked at them until they scrambled up over his paw to get away, and then leisurely ate them off his paw, like a kid holding a popsicle.

Of course I don't have pictures. I never have pictures of the interesting stuff!

Apricot's Medication

So when we went to the kitty doctor, he was diagnosed with a mild yeast infection in his ears and I got ear drops to fix it. The ear drops are Tresaderm: it's a combination of an antifungal, an antibiotic, and a steroid (to reduce the inflammation that accompanies constant scratching).

I gave Apricot the eardrops twice a day, as directed, starting on Friday, the day we went to the kitty doctor in the morning. He had that bad reaction to the vaccines and hid most of Friday, but by Friday night he seemed to be getting over it.

He never gave me any trouble with the ear drops, although I did have to hold him in my lap on his back--he wasn't going to stay around voluntarily. But he didn't fight me, or struggle to get away.

Yet things weren't right. He was acting like he was feeling worse and worse. Not with his ears, but systemically. He seemed tired and lethargic. Depressed. He started giving me scared looks, even as he stayed with me. He barely played with the Bird at all Saturday.

After his morning ear drops Sunday, he went and hid under the bed, refusing any treats or cajoling to come out. I feel bad, leave me alone. Along with a heavy helping of I thought you were different. You're just like the others.

I felt awful. This was destroying the fragile trust he had in me. (A day later when I was emailing his medical information to the kitty doctor from his time in the shelter, I was horrified to read everything that poor cat went through in ten months: multiple dewormings, multiple bouts of ringworm, plus neutering and capstar tablets for fleas. And then I start in on him? Poor guy!)

That Sunday morning I did some research on yeast ear infections and what the consequences would be should I stop the medication.

Well, for one thing, yeast is supposed to be in kitty ears, just not so much of it. So you can never get rid of it; you can only bring it back to its normal level. And this means it's recurring. Which means that I'm putting him through this misery for what, so it can come back in a month? The cure is worse than the problem!

A bad yeast infection smells, and his ears never smelled bad. And he wasn't constantly scratching except that one time when he let me put a refrigerated cold pack on his ear to cool down the inflammation. So it's not bothering him that much. Not enough to be worth the side-effect of the medication.

Plus, the medication keeps for like a year in the fridge, so if his infection did get significantly worse, I'd have the drops to fix it.

I decided to go with the caretaker side of me and quit giving him the drops. Time has proved to me that this was the right decision (even as the chemist side of me hops up and down frantically screaming you don't stop antibiotics before the full course--that's how you make antibiotic-resistant superbugs!)

Sunday evening he was still lethargic, although he'd come out from hiding during my morning walk (which was when I'd done the research online--love my smart phone). He was almost scared to play with the Bird, because the day before he'd gotten ear drops afterwards (not my smartest move, I'll admit, but I wasn't expecting him to react this severely to them!)

Each day since then he's been a little more enthusiastic about the Bird, a little more enthusiastic about life in general. I hadn't realized how much I'd gotten used to his happy, carefree behavior, until I missed it so much when it was gone.

And in watching him recover, I realized this wasn't just an emotional reaction of betrayal. He wasn't hiding Sunday morning because I'd done something that made him feel bad; he was hiding because he felt so bad he didn't feel like he could defend himself if he needed to, so better hide than risk it.

I blame the steroids. His lethargy and general feeling of malaise sounds rather like a bad reaction to steroids to me.
Sunday afternoon; still feeling tired
But he is finally back to his normal self. Almost. He's doing this strange thing where once or twice when playing with the Bird he'll tear off through the whole house into the kitchen and then come slinking back, like oops. I'm not sure if he's reveling in feeling better, or if he's running off built up anxiety from the dread of having the drops applied after playtime (which only happened once, but that doesn't matter to a panic disorder. If it happened once, it could happen again).

I've gotten so attached to him in such a short time. It's been a little over two months since he came into my life, and already I can't imagine my life without him bouncing around me, underfoot almost constantly as long as I'm walking around the house, playing madly with his toys like he was three months old. He comes over past my chair and pauses, a signal for me to pet him. I can sit on the floor and hold out my hand, cupped in the air at head height for him, and he'll rush over and pet himself with my waiting hand.

When I ask him if he wants a goodnight kiss, he has started leading me to where he prefers this activity to take place. He's most often gone to the crepe myrtle cat tree in the living room, but once he led me to the cat tree in the pink room, and once he jumped up on my bed and acted almost like he was planning to sleep with me that night (he changed his mind, which is just as well because I still sleep like I'm fighting it every inch of the way). But he always wants his kiss, and will shove his head into my face if I'm not fast enough to suit him!

This morning I asked if he wanted a goodbye kiss, as I had to go to work. I was in the kitchen/living room doorway with my shoes on and he was in the middle of the living room. He jumped up and ran to the myrtle tree and raced up to the first cradle which is the perfect height to kiss him. Considering me-in-shoes is still a slightly scary prospect, I thought this was a wonderful compromise on his part.

And I'm greatly relieved that our relationship is back on track.

Friday, August 8, 2014

Apricot and the Kitty Doctor

August 8, 2014 Friday

Apricot had to go to the kitty doctor this morning. I took the whole day off to be with him and hopefully alleviate some of the fear.
On the way to the kitty doctor
Yes, I'm stopped at a stop light, not currently driving!
The actual visit went much better than I expected. I put his harness on him (his "Big Boy Clothes") and popped him into the carry sling (which he welcomed, oddly enough) and attached the hook from the sling into his harness's hook. (I wonder if I try putting him in the sling say, a week from now, what he'll do.)

When I went out the door, he tried so hard to go back inside the house that he twisted himself completely out of the carry sling. Of course the attachment point didn't give, so he couldn't get away from me entirely. But he sure did try.

I sat down in the car, closed the door, and rearranged him back into the sling for a more comfortable ride. Pippin would have hid his head inside the sling, choosing to ignore the outside world. I rather expected the same response from Apricot, given how he behaved in the shelter, and hiding under the bed when I brought him home, but instead he insisted on having his head out.

A lot of the time during the car ride he also had one paw out, over my arm, looking out the window as I drove. He seemed alarmed when we got on a highway and went faster than my neighborhood driving, but I talked almost constantly to him and that seemed to reassure him.

He didn't like the dogs barking at the vet's, but neither do I, and he didn't do anything about it, just kind of flinched when he heard them. He kept looking around, making sure he could see everything. I tried to make sure I wasn't blocking his view of anything he wanted to look at.

So Dr. Brown, our kitty doctor, says he has a mild yeast infection in his ears. (If this is what a mild infection looks like, I would hate to see a severe one!) She gave me ear drops for him. We'll see how that goes.

She says he's probably a year and a half old, which agrees with my thinking on the matter. His teeth look really good, she says, no tartar at all.

And he got two vaccines, the rabies one and the respiratory illnesses one. She said since he doesn't go outside or meet with other cats who do, he didn't need the others. This is good.

He was very happy to be home, but he went under the bed and hid. So I took a nap on top of the bed for about three hours, as I've been very tired the last week anyway. I felt almost drugged, the sleep was so deep, even though I hadn't taken anything to help me sleep. But when I got up, I said, "Apricot, I'm awake," just in case it would draw him out.

Much to my surprise, in a few seconds I felt him brush by my leg! He came out and hung out in the living room while I had lunch, but after I put ear drops in his ears, he stayed a little longer (as if to prove the ear drops didn't have anything to do with it) and then retreated back to the headboard hideaway.

The vaccines make him feel bad, and kitties who feel bad usually hide. They can't let predators see that they aren't up to defending themselves. Thus he's hiding in the safest place he knows.

So this is where we are now. He's under the headboard. He'll come out occasionally when encouraged to, but he retreats back underneath given half a chance.

This isn't fun and it isn't amusing. I'm worried about him. I want my happy Apricot back. He was so thrilled this morning that I was staying home. He lay down on the bookshelf beside the chair while I was reading and purred like thunder. I swear he was almost shaking the chair.

And now he's not feeling well and curled all up and not wanting to interact. It's encouraging that he comes out to be petted. It means he's hiding because he doesn't feel good, not because he's afraid. But I don't want him to not feel good, either.

I'm getting echoes from Pippin not feeling well. He didn't hide, of course, having long experience with me, but it hurts me when they aren't their normal chipper selves. I want to make things better and only time will do that. I wish I didn't have to get him vaccines at all, but his ear infection wasn't going to go away by itself (since it had stuck around for two months now) and I don't think the doctor would have seen him without giving him his law-required rabies shot. Perhaps she would have.

If I had known how badly he'd react, I probably would have tried harder to sneak him through the system without getting vaccinated.

<Later the same day><and you have no idea how lucky you are to be able to skip all the misery of waiting those hours to find this out>

Around 3:30 I went in to check on him and he yawned and stretched and came out from under the headboard. So far he has stayed out this time.

But he is still feeling lethargic and not his usual self. He spent a few moments curled up in his tunnel, which surprised me, since I can hardly even get him to go through it to chase the Bird.
Curled up in the tunnel
He didn't find this suited his concept of defensible shelter enough, though, so he moved to under the desk. The cat who seeks out the hard, cool spots of the house (which are few enough) sought out the foot rest with the heating pad on it to sleep on. This is under my desk; the heating pad wasn't on. But it was still kind of strange to see him search out a location to sleep that is soft and poofy.
Sleeping in the safety of his cave
I stayed on the floor where he could see me and just amused myself with blog reading on my phone. We rested like this for over half an hour.

It was such a relief to have him out again because it meant he wasn't feeling quite so bad. And I felt very touched that he trusted me enough to be out when he still wasn't feeling good

When he roused from his nap under the desk he seemed to be feeling a little better. Incremental improvements. This time I felt okay enough with his situation that I sat down in my soft chair, as sitting on the floor had been taking its toll on certain body parts. It may be carpeted but after a while, it feels like solid rock.

Sleeping on my lap
I was quite astonished when Apricot chose my lap for his next nap. He spent a short nap sleeping by my side on the chair, like he'd done when the fireworks on July 4th were upsetting him. Then after a leg-stretching walk around the living room, he came back and climbed into my lap. I do mean climbed. He's really not much of a jumper.

And there he stayed for about an hour while I finished my book and then played with the phone again (that thing's a lifesaver for not wanting to disturb sick kitties. I'd always get so bored before). It was lovely to have him there ... sad that it was because he didn't feel well ... and confusing because that fur looks so much like Pippin. 

(A digression about the lookalike factor: The receptionist tech at the kitty doctor is named Shiloh, and she knew Pippin well. In fact, she was one of the few people who saw past his "stranger danger" behavior. That day I brought Pippin to the kitty doctor, the day before he passed away, she said that "he didn't seem like his normal social self" and since social is the last thing I'd expect anyone but myself to use to describe him, I was astonished at how perceptive she was. This means I remember Shiloh despite the prosopagnosia making it difficult for me to remember anyone I see so infrequently. 

(As I was paying to leave today, I said to Shiloh, who was admiring Apricot, "kinda spooky, huh," and she knew exactly what I was talking about, and said that yes, it was, just a bit, with the kind of tone in her voice that meant yes, it was, quite a lot. And then she had to explain what we were talking about to the other receptionist tech. Then I pointed out the white thin vertical stripe on his nose which is all Apricot and none of Pippin, and that his eyes (which she said were beautiful) were green instead of Pippin's amber. And that he acts totally different than Pippin. Which I've got to admit here is a great help to me with the whole confusing grief thing.)

Apricot fell asleep on my lap and stayed there for ages, and despite my hunger, I didn't move. He woke up then later, and after he left of his own accord I went to get supper, and he hung out in the kitchen during that. 

He disappeared from the kitchen at some point during supper preparations, so I went to go find him, hoping he hadn't gone under the headboard again. 

He hadn't. Even better, he'd gone back to the bedroom not to hide, but to get himself a bite of food. He hadn't even been interested in his favorite treats all day.

This day has been just as difficult as I imagined it would be ... in completely different ways than I imagined. I'd been worried about the anxiety and fear he would feel taking over and driving him back under the headboard. There was very little if any of that. What drove him under the headboard was feeling sick, which after Pippin (who bore his vaccinations stoically and never seemed bothered by them) I had completely forgotten some cats get to feeling poorly after their shots. And I hadn't really thought about it, because I hadn't wanted to think about it, but the similarities between Apricot feeling sick and Pippin's illnesses of the last year of his life were just a bit overwhelming for me, which might account for my sleeping the sleep of the ... well, sleeping very soundly this morning.

We don't have to go back for a year. And hopefully the ear drops will be effective at some point in the next seven days!

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Stalking the Bird

August 7, 2014 Thursday 
Lying in wait
He is very good at pretending that he is not stalking the feathers. Often he will almost fool me into thinking he's done chasing the Bird, because he'll lie down all nonchalantly and I've been like this for hours. Only seconds later he'll spring up and go chase again.

I believe he's trying to fool the Bird into thinking he's not after it, not really, so the Bird will be lulled into a false sense of security. 

Consider this: he knows I'm the one controlling the Bird. I've seen him trace the string the Bird hangs from back to me. He knows enough to roll on the string to keep the Bird from getting away. So he is not only pretending that the Bird is real, he's also pretending that it can think and be fooled.

That's pretty advanced thinking for a young cat who hasn't had much experience with anything but desperate survival and living in a cat room in a shelter!

And the Title for Clumsy Cat Goes to ...

August 7th, 2014, Thursday

When Apricot first started playing with the cat trees, and climbing up them, he wasn't particularly clever about the pathway he took, and would often go up the hard way instead of the stair-step way the designers of the cat tree intended. He still does this, by the way.

Anyway, he fell off, right in front of me. I didn't react in a mocking or laughing way (I was too worried, plus I know better than to laugh at a cat doing something clumsy) and after a short hesitation, he bounced right back up into the tree. I have mentioned this incident before, I believe.

Here's what happened though. It appears that since he did not have other cats to tell him he was being undignified, and I showed no signs of thinking it was undignified, he has concluded that, as falling on the carpet is soft and padded and doesn't hurt, falling is not something to be avoided.

I have the world's clumsiest cat, I swear. He falls off the cat trees all the time. He never even tries to flip around and land on his feet. Whatever is closest to the floor when he lets loose, that's what hits the floor. It's getting so bad that I have to be careful when I come home and pet him, because occasionally he'll act like he has a tender spot. As in, he landed on it rather harder than he thought he was going to.

He chases the bird up onto the guest bed and off again, and sometimes when he grabs the feathers at the edge of the bed, momentum carries him onto the floor, and he just goes with the fall, clunk onto the floor. It's a good thing I have rugs on top of carpets!

When he wants to be on the washstand beside my bed, instead of jumping onto it, he tries to pull himself up because it worked once before. And it never works and he ends up slipping off and falling on his back on the carpet. (It worked the first time because he jumped and missed, and caught himself, so he was already several inches off the carpet when he hauled himself up by his arms. It doesn't work when he doesn't jump up first and tries to do it just standing on his back legs. Sometimes I have taken pity and lifted him up, but most of the time he seems to want to "do it myself" so I back off and let him.)

None of these falls faze him much. He usually just bounces up and keeps on going, like he's made of rubber.

One time he fell off the side of the guest bed in a rather unusual way. Let me see if I can describe it. He was parallel to the edge of the bed. Both front feet and back feet slipped off at the same time, but since the bed has a comforter on it, the fabric bunched up just a little as he slid and slowed him down, so he came down the side of the bed, still parallel to it, until he hit the floor, all four feet at the same time. And then momentum caught up with him and knocked him over flat.

He did not like that fall and refused to play with the Bird for several minutes after that, apparently blaming it for his fall. He played with it again once the Bird realized the fun was over in this room and went out into the hallway.

But usually, he falls, picks himself up, and off he goes again, undaunted.

He'll leap after the Bird when he gets good and caught up in the chase, and do complete somersaults when he catches it. I've seen him perform double twists in the air suitable for a gymnast and catch the Bird midair, and then he never sticks the landing.

All of this is very active and my camera is no good at catching it. I'd have to set up a video camera on a tripod, aim it down the hallway (which is where the most active acrobatics with the Bird occur), and hope to get something good without destroying the camera as he races up and down the hallway after the Bird. (Considering how often the Bird slams into the walls when I'm trying to get it away from yet another successful catch, I think I'd probably be the one to do the camera destroying.)

But today he was stalking the Bird on the living room crepe myrtle cat tree, and I was taking pictures since he was slow in getting started with Bird chasing today. And I managed to catch a blurry picture of him falling backward off the tree, Bird successfully in his mouth.
The Bird is all that matters!!

Apricot, the Braided Rug Bed, and His Favorite Toys

August 7, 2014 Thursday

I got two braided rug beds for the cats last Saturday. Of course Apricot is still an only cat, so right now they're both his if he wanted.

One of them I put by my chair in the living room. Apricot avoided it other than the occasional sniff. The lady I got the beds from said that sometimes cats who have had to fend for themselves don't like the tall sides, and I could flip it over and push the middle down to make a bed with lower sides and see if he liked that.

All comfy now
Yes, much better. This way the bed got investigated quite thoroughly and then sat in. Repeatedly.

Only I noticed as he got used to this one, he started checking out the other one more. I'd left it intact in the bedroom. And then I noticed he was actually in the other one. As you can see, with the edges flipped over, the bed is smaller and things stick out of bed all night. Well, at least his head and his tail don't fit and he looks awkward.

Since he was in the other one for a short time, he was obviously getting okay with the tall sides concept. So I flipped the one in the living room back to the way it's supposed to be. I could always turn it around again if he didn't like it.

I needn't have worried. He liked it.
The Thinker
(actually he was in the middle of washing his face)
That is what it looks like with him in it when it's up properly. The truly funny thing is, he's on top of two toys.

He has two favorite toys, both given to him by other people. I gotta wonder about my ability to choose cat toys! But anyway, one of his favorite toys is the squeaker mouse. Last night there had been a wood chipper at the house across the street, and it was very loud and very annoying for a very long time, and both Apricot and I were on edge because of it, and neither of us handled it well. 

We were kind of snapping at each other, metaphorically speaking (yes, on his part too). I was feeling a bit on the snippy side, so I tossed his mouse into the braided rug bed so he'd have to fish it out.

Today when I came home from work I found he'd gone one better. He'd gotten his other favorite toy, the rattle mouse Mrs. McFadden gave me for him, and put it in with the squeaker mouse.
Showing off his toy collection
Well, now I'm wondering if I should leave them in there and wait for him to get them out, or wait for a certain length of time and get them out. Perhaps I will collect all the toys in the rug bed when I vacuum on Saturday and then redistribute them all throughout the living room, and that way it won't look like I'm picking on certain toys in particular!


Sunday, August 3, 2014

Foothills Felines Cat Show


The official flyer for the show
August 3, 2014 Sunday (about events on the day before)

Yes, I went to another cat show. No, I'm not addicted to cat shows and I don't plan to start showing my cats (Apricot would hate it and I'm not about to do all the grooming preparation you have to do for the Maine Coons, whenever they arrive). Now I've got the obligatory protesting out of the way ...

But Mrs. McFadden (who I'm getting the kittens from) was going to be there, and well, it wasn't that far away. So it was nice to go say hi again, see the cats she'd brought, and this time I brought money to buy cat stuff from the vendors. Here's a tip for you: you can find stuff at cat shows you can't find anywhere else, and the stuff you can find elsewhere is cheaper at the show. I got two braided rug cat beds and in the online store they were ten dollars more each!

Also, this time I asked more questions and found out a little bit more about how a cat show works. I will share my hard-earned wisdom with you. (Tee hee.) And if CFA or someone who actually shows cats tells you different, blame me, I misunderstood something!

Okay, there are like eight or ten judges at a show. Each judge sees all the cats, as far as I could tell, and each judge issues his or her own winner, second, third, down to tenth place cat for (I think) the "Best of Breed" category. There are other categories, like "Best of Color" but I don't think they get ribbons. And that's where it stops. I rather expected each judge's top pick to go up against all the other top picks and then they have to reach a consensus, but since upon examination that idea does seem a bit silly (why would any of them change their minds?) it makes sense that each judge is on their own, so to speak.

I don't know if the judges at the other cat show were doing this, but the two I watched here were actually explaining for the layperson what they were doing and how things worked, so along with asking questions, I got a bit explained by the judges themselves.


Here she is getting the brown tabby Maine Coon girl to stretch out.
For instance, they don't put two intact males next to each other. So each cat that is registered for the show has a number, and each number is printed on either blue or pink paper, so they can make sure at a glance that the boys are always separated by at least one girl.

Also, there are four classes of cat, and no single cat can be in multiple classes. There's Household Pets, which is just your regular rescued or adopted cat (that'd be where Apricot would be); Premiership, which is where Pippin would have been--these are cats with papers and lineage that are a certain breed of cat, but are fixed cats; and the rest of them, the intact breed cats, get split into two groups: kittens, which is 4-8 months, and everybody else called Championships. I guess the kitten version is Kitten Championship. So each one of those four groups gets a "first place cat" from each judge.

But here's where I think it goes weird. The breeds compete against each other. So you can have a Siamese and a Persian and a Maine Coon and a British Shorthair all in the same ring, all in Championship, and only one gets the first place cat from that judge. What they're doing is: the first place cat is the one who matches their own breed description the best. So while they're competing against each other, they're also sort of not. 

At this point I kind of shrugged and gave up.

There was a new type of cat there, a Chinese LiHau ('lee-wah') which was cool to see, even though it looked to me like just another alley cat! But apparently they are only available in China and the USA, and it was extremely difficult to get them out of China to here. I know what I'm paying for my Maine Coon kittens, and I shudder to think what it would cost to get even one of these babies, since they're so rare! (No, I didn't get a picture of the one at the cat show. But the link takes you to the CFA page about them, and there are pictures there.)
See there at the top? She's just brushed his hair
backwards with her hand and that spray of
white is the underside of his coat!
One judge also demonstrated a "blue silver" Maine Coon for us. Blue is the color gray, and silver means that at the base of the hair, the hair is white. She ruffled his fur backwards, and it was amazing. Silver is sometimes hard to see (like a cream silver; there's not much difference) but this cat had dark solid gray so when she fluffed his hair back it was like a white spotlight. And you can be assured, since this was a Maine Coon, it wasn't skin color we were seeing; their hair is too thick for that!

The other judge I sat and watched.
She's holding and explaining a silver ocicat kitten.
This here (above) is an Ocicat. They have spots, like miniature leopards. But they're related to the whole Siamese / Abyssinian branch of cat-hood, which means they are little athletes and love to bounce off the walls continuously. I think the Ocicats are beautiful, but I definitely don't want one!
A Selkirk Rex
I came across a curly coated cat having a nap in his cubicle. Or her cubicle. The people he belongs to weren't around to ask questions of. I took a picture of him in particular because I'd never seen a Selkirk Rex except in pictures... which doesn't help you any, now does it? It only occurred to me today that this picture was vaguely ironic.

He's only two years old.
Now. This is a two year old male Maine Coon. She's showing the blockiness of his head. They're supposed to have rather square heads. But just look how big he is! And he's not done growing, although I don't think he'll get much taller. I'm thinking my two are going to make Apricot look like a permanent kitten, since your brain always calibrates "normal" to the majority of what you see (two big vs one small will make the big ones look normal and the small one look abnormally tiny). It occurs to me also that I may have to watch Apricot's weight a bit more closely than the other two due to this--if Apricot started getting fat I might not notice since in comparison he wouldn't be that big!

I'm counting on the lazy laidback factor of the Maine Coon personality to keep my house the right size for them. I think I wouldn't have a big enough house for a cat that size who was bouncing off the walls. I mean I know the kittens will bounce off the walls, but they aren't that size yet. 

Buttercup, the cat(s) who play Rion in the Hunger Games
I haven't seen the first Hunger Games movie, and have no intention of seeing it, or the second, but apparently in the second movie there's a cat, who is played by two cats, both of whom were at the cat show for the celebrity draw of it. The lady in red is their person, and the one closest to us is the one that you see the most on the movie. He was a show cat until he was in the movie, and now he won't behave in the ring. She said it was like he's a movie cat now, he can't be bothered with the little cat shows!

He's a Maine Coon as well, and it's good they have a laidback personality. Notice he has two full ears. In the movie, he doesn't; one of them is missing. They did this by taping the one ear down. I'm sure they will also CGI some raggedy edges on the missing ear, but taping it down means they don't have to computer-remove the entire ear from every single frame.

I can't imagine most cats would take kindly to that, however! But apparently Buttercup not only put up with it, but also performed on cue. The lady is talking to a woman with a local news (channel not specified) video camera doing an interview with her, and I just listened in.

Yeah, they have a cop there, just in case anybody tried anything stupid. Isn't that kind of sad? I mean, you have to have someone to protect any movie star, even if it's "only" a cat?

Oh, yes, the fact that there are two of them. Buttercup (the one in front with his butt to us) did all the running around scenes; the other one did all the lying down scenes. There are evidently more running around scenes. I think it's funny that they are demonstrating just why they were cast in that order!

And I shopped, and found more of the rattle mice that Mrs. McFadden gave me one and it's Apricot's favorite mouse ever so if he loses his, I have more! 

I also got a different brand of catnip in a fish shaped cloth toy. Now the lady I got the braided beds from has rehabilitated feral cats, and she said I should probably not put the catnip that comes with the beds into them, as sometimes the more anxious cats don't need the extra "edge" that catnip can give them. I was very glad she told me that.

When I got home and presented Apricot with the fish toy, he actually reacted to it. He hadn't reacted to the other catnip toys I have, but I thought that might be because some of them are old and some of them are "generic" catnip--ie, I bought them at Petsmart or the grocery store--and sometimes generic catnip isn't the right strain of catnip for certain cats.

This seems to be the case with Apricot, but he also got a lot more edgy and aggressive after sniffing and playing with the fish for a few minutes. Of course, you have to understand that by more aggressive I mean he might have attempted to nibble my fingers once or twice more than the usual once or twice. Apricot's such a sweetie that it's hard to get him at all what I would consider aggressive. But he was also restless and edgy, and didn't seem like he was having a fun time.

So I took the fish away. He'd abandoned it shortly after starting to play with it, and couldn't settle down to any toy, like he had to do something but he didn't know what. He didn't care that I'd absconded with the fish. I put it in a plastic bag and will donate it to the cause of hopefully making my friend's cat run around a little more (Pumpkin loves catnip of all sorts, and is a little on the chubby side). 

I got out the Bird wand toy to try to wear off some of the nervous energy the catnip had bestowed upon poor Apricot. Unfortunately at this point it was after sunset, so to play without stepping on him, I had to turn on all the lights, and he kept getting distracted by both the catnip'd feeling and by the reflections in the glass. He wouldn't go in the pink room at all.

He's back to his normal sweet self today, however, none the worse for wear. That's the good thing about catnip. Even if your cat reacts badly to it, it wears off with no side effects (that humans have ever been able to tell, anyway).

But if Miss Paws hadn't told me about ferals and that type of adverse reaction to catnip, I probably wouldn't have realized what happened. Now I know. No catnip for Apricot!








New Cat Furniture Part II

August 3rd, Saturday

It was brought to my attention that in my eagerness to photograph Apricot on the new cat trees, I omitted to actually show you the whole tree at once. So today I remedied that error. I was just going to take two pictures, one of each tree, and post them here, but Apricot was wandering about the living room when I went to do it, and so I asked him if he would serve as a model for the living room tree, and patted the tree as I asked.

He came over, jumped up, went to the first cradle, and did a passable job posing for photographs! I was quite surprised. He usually gives me dirty looks when I start holding the phone at him for pictures. (I can hold the phone all I want if I'm playing on it; using it as a camera and he stops doing the cute thing he was doing.)

Posing on the big tree
And after he stopped posing he started being goofy.

By the way, the living room tree is crepe myrtle wood. I don't know what the kitchen tree is.
Leaning off the edge as far as he can.
It didn't help that I tilted the phone
just the slightest bit so it looks
like the tree is dumping him off
Now the one in the kitchen has not been graced with his presence. It's all right; neither has the other one that's been in the kitchen for ages and was a favorite with Pippin and with Max so it has "cat approval" scent all over it. But this means that I had to take a picture of the tree sans cat. I thought about getting one of my stuffed toy cats down and putting it on the tree, but I figured that would look like desperation on my part!
The kitchen tree, sans cat


A closeup of the pattern on it.
And a cute story to round it off with:

Every night I've made it a routine practice to come out to the living room, which is where he normally goes once I start brushing my teeth and doing other last minute getting-ready-to-sleep things, and ask him if he wants his good night kiss, and then (whatever he says) I kiss him gently on top of his head. He likes this as long as my hair is pulled back and doesn't come forward to smack him in the face!

Last night I did this as usual. When I asked him if he wanted his good night kiss, he got up and strolled over to the living room tree and climbed into the second cradle, not the tallest one, which is right at head height for me, perfect for a kiss without leaning over, and presented me with his head for his good night kiss.

Apparently the tree meets with his approval. Which I greatly appreciate since it wasn't cheap!

Friday, August 1, 2014

New Cat Furniture!

August 1, 2014, Friday

Today I worked as fast as I could, put off as much as I could till Monday, and managed to be able to come home for the delivery of my new cat furniture and not have to go back to work afterwards. Happy dance.

Of course this meant that when I got there, Steve was already there (this never fails, no matter what time I get there in relation to the time I was told they were going to be there). Which meant I had to go in the house first, do an extremely brief meet and greet with Apricot, which he did not appreciate, and then put him in the bedroom and close the door.

He really did not appreciate this. After the trees were set up, one in the living room and the shorter one in the kitchen, and Steve had left to continue his journey to the cat show which will be tomorrow nearby, I went in to tell Apricot it was safe.

Apricot was under the headboard, facing away from the entrance, with his paws crossed in front of him. He would not come out when cajoled to do so. And I began to suspect that only half of it was scared; the other half was righteous indignation. In other words, he was saying in cat language, "hey, you put me in here, so I'm going to stay in here, see if you like it now, harumph."

My suspicions were never completely confirmed, but they were given weight when a treat lured him out. Treats never worked when he was actually scared.

He could smell the trees from there. I could, and if I could, he could. They are made by a guy named Steve from actual trees, and had been in a confined relatively hot van for three hours, thus the smell (warm wood, if you're wondering).

The way the branches curve dictates the placement of the perches. He has a website called Furwood Forest if you want to see the range of stuff he does. It's beautiful, and the pictures don't do the trees justice. Also, they are much bigger than they look. They rather dwarf Apricot, because they're made for Maine Coon sized cats (which is why I got them).

I coaxed Apricot out into the living room. He was very wary of the new tree and didn't want to go near it. He settled for having me sit on the floor between him and it. I was petting him, and he was scent-rubbing his face on my hands. Well, he always overdoes this a bit, and gets my hands wet. Usually I dry them off on his own fur while I'm petting him (turn-about is fair play, right?) but this time I turned and wiped the scent mark on the edge of the first platform.

That got a faster response than I ever expected. He gave me a brief look that seemed to say, "oh, this is mine? Why didn't you say so?" and promptly began exploring it. There was the first hesitant sniff at the edge of the base.

Skeptical
Then he slowly moved up, level by level, investigating and sniffing thoroughly the whole time.
He reached the first cradle.

Trying out the cradle but not fully settled (note the moving tail)

He came down and then went back up again,
leaving me on the floor taking upshots.
This is the same cradle as before.

Being an aloof watcher kitty

Until something caught his attention.
This wary look is more usual for him.
We're working on that.
After he explored the new tree to his satisfaction, he needed a break from the living room and its new thing so he wandered off down the hall to the pink room. There's no new furniture in the pink room, but he did give me the opportunity to get pictures of him doing what I know he's been doing for a week or so but I've never been in the room with a camera when he's doing it. And that is, looking out the window while on the desk.

This was Pippin's favorite morning spot. He'd spend hours there. I'm not sure how I feel about seeing an orange tabby cat stretched out on the desk without it being Pippin, even though I changed up the desk as best I could. Pippin had a blue blanket, not the oriental rug, and the pink padded stuff is new. Apricot doesn't like the pink padded fish.
Looking out ... and looking eerie ... too much the same
And he's not fond of the pink mat, either. It was in the carrier when I brought him home, and despite being on the desk since then, I think he still remembers. I'll probably move it back so he can stretch out next to the window without having to do this whole avoidance thing!
Got closer, and got a more intent kitty look

The other tree is in the kitchen on the opposite side of the picture window from the old cat tree. I figure if I'm getting two kittens, I need at least four places to look out the window. (Three cats plus a choice.) The dining room table is between the two cat trees now, and Pippin always liked to be with. Apricot is leaning more and more toward being with while I eat, although he's not sure about this whole car right outside the window thing. I expect the kittens will, eventually, want to be with, since that's part of the Maine Coon personality traits. Which means eventually there will be three cats jockeying for space and I didn't think the one cat tree was going to work. Let's not give them a semi-legitimate reason for trying to talk me into letting cats on the table!

Plus this tree that Steve already had made was just perfect with the colors and everything for my kitchen.

I said all that to say this: while Apricot did explore this tree somewhat, he didn't go up and settle the way he did with the other tree. He did go up to the top platform, but he came right back down again, and my camera didn't get quick enough focus during this brief escapade to get any decent pictures.
Exploring the base
Later this evening we discovered that the bases of these trees, specifically the big one in the living room, is high enough that Da Bird thinks it is safe from view if it is on the floor on the opposite side from Apricot, and high enough that Apricot buys this as a legitimate viewpoint on the part of the bird. (Apricot sometimes gives me disdainful really?? looks when the bird tries to hide behind something Apricot can see through, like the rocking chair legs.)

So we played round and round the cat tree with Da Bird, and I believe this helped with the whole acceptance thing because after that, after supper, Apricot randomly went up into the tree and back down again, multiple times, kind of just because it was there. 
A new place!

This final picture wasn't of the new trees, but it happened today after the excitement of the trees was all over. In the afternoon I wanted to go to get my hair cut, and I wanted a dress to wear to do so. Apricot had never seen the dress closet door open before. Usually he doesn't follow me into the tvroom where the dress closet is. This time he did, probably because I turned on the light and because it wasn't a normal tv watching time for me.

And oh, boy, look, can I, can I, please can I? he begged, the minute he saw what was inside. So I let him explore the closet, while I put on the dress I'd picked and then sat on the floor and watched him have fun. He's not hiding. He's just crawling underneath the different lengths of dresses and having fun. He came out a couple times to tell me just how much fun he was having, and thank me for it (rubbing my hands with his face) and then back in quickly when I asked him if he was done yet.

He didn't really take all that long before he was done, although he did give the closet door a backward glance as we left the room together.

So Apricot has explored new things today, and had fun doing it. I hope he remembers that the noise and the sounds of another human in the house were then followed by really cool things (even if one of those things really was just a closet that was always here and he just didn't know about it) so that the next time something like this happens, he's more eager to come out and explore!