Post 286: rut sweet rut

Yesterday Andy and Dougy had problems dealing with a deviation from the usual morning routine. I broke away from routine again today. They were not amused!

I usually feed the boys, then watch the news. I fix breakfast for myself at 6 AM, eat, then hit the computer and catch up on Facebook and all the blogs I follow.

Today I fed the boys, then hit the computer. Dougy was very upset. He sat by my computer chair and meowed over and over that I was in the wrong place, that I needed to watch the news! (Of course, while I watch the news, I play “feather toy” with him, so I guess I understand his anxiety!)

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Andy came by and put his front paws on my arm, his way of letting me know I was off base for the second day in a row! He wanted to sleep on the end table by my chair, but (apparently) couldn’t do that unless I was there in the chair. Gad!

You know I stopped what I was doing on the computer and moved over to the chair to watch the news.

The boys settled down. I played “feather toy” with Dougy. Andy curled up on the end table. We were back on track, back in our morning rut, purring and happy again.

Post 285: straight and narrow

I live by my cats’ habits. That’s a given. Today, though, I deviated, didn’t respond to morning routine the way the boys thought I should.

Well, I did get up and sit on the edge of my bed. I was awake already. Andy hopped up on my bed, “happy-pawed” my pillows, purred, until I touched him on the back. Then he jumped on a box where he likes to watch me when I’m playing like I am asleep. I guess he thought I might go back to bed instead of continue to sit on the edge of it.

Still, Andy clearly felt it was time to feed the kitties: he hopped off the box and gently placed his front paws on my leg, stared sadly for a moment, then took up a vigil at my feet. This is one time his paws and my flesh aren’t connected with claws…! Mostly, he’s a mild cat, but he is fussy about being held, touched. You learn how to gauge the moments where it’s OK or not. The claws generally settle the matter. No claws: Andy’s begging nicely for something!

Dougy started his leg-rub routine till I “invited” him to hop on my bed for a good petting. He was in the mood for food, too, so, two-to-one, I knew I had to put out the chow…or else!

Cats fed, I decided to return to bed. Why not? I can watch the news stretched out in bed just as easily as I can watch it from a chair. Actually, more easily!

I hadn’t counted on the boys’ reaction to deviation from expectations. Andy came back into the bedroom, sat down by my bed, and meowed. Ordinarily, he is a quiet cat, a cat that grabs your hand if he’s upset with you – or just playing! Context lets you know the difference, though the mauling feels pretty much the same for “unhappy” and “playing”.

Dougy hopped up on my bed and meowed, too. He’s more vocal, but rarely meows more than once to let you know he’s there. He checked me out: “Nope! Still breathing…!” That’s to say, he doesn’t have to worry about his next meal. Whew! (Or however you say it in Catinese!)

Andy set up a vigil by the door. Pointed in, he expects me to get out of bed; pointed out (presuming I’m on the edge of my desk waiting for my body to decide it can function in an upright position), he expects me to move into the dining room for breakfast. He was pointed in, clearly unsettled that I wasn’t following routine. Same with Dougy, now back up on my bed, without permission first, though we have a routine where I pat on the mattress and beckon him up.

The kitty tag team made their point: No Deviations From Routine Allowed! I got up, and finished watching the news in the living room, in the glider chair with the ottoman I can’t use because that’s where Dougy likes to sleep, and the light stand with Andy asleep on top.

I posted this photo earlier. I can post it every day, though, because this is morning at this home, every day, without deviation. Or else, by cat decree!

Here they are: Dougy on the ottoman, and Andy stretched out on the side table! The kitties must be fed. Yep. Now we sleep in front of the guy we woke up at 2 AM!

Post 279: Peaceable kingdom? Soon enough!

Andy and Dougy both have favorite places to roost and sleep. Sometimes those favorites spots lack sufficient space between them for comfort of one cat or the other, and one brother commits mayhem on the other: tooth and claw, a chase!

Today’s “issue” between Andy and Dougy was the computer desk. Dougy claimed the lower part of the desk first and returned off and on for more loving. A few minutes with me, then he’d leave.

Andy decided to come around between Dougy’s visits to stretch out on his favorite spot, the computer desk shelf. I thought it was Dougy in the low light.

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Andy took a snooze. I pet him on his irresistible tummy and quickly realized my mistake when paws with claws moved toward my hand. In the low light, the mistaken identity took on an ominous twist.

“Gad! It’s Andy! That was close!” I thought, and quickly pulled my hand back before Andy got serious. I’d been warned…! Don’t play “Got yer tummy!” with kittens or they grow up to be tigers that think this is a “fun” game! Watch the video closely….

(See where I set up the future?!)

Then, I heard a little “meow” to my other side, Dougy’s way of notifying me he was there and wanted up. He could have climbed up by way of the recliner, but, well, Dougy’s figured out how to use me as an elevator! I grabbed him and put him on the computer desk by my arm.

Andy noticed. Not OK. No one asked him if he wanted to share the desk with Dougy! He reached down, and pulled a hunk of hair off the area behind Dougy’s right ear.

I pulled Dougy away from his brother, who reached down again and claimed more hair from Dougy’s haunch!

This wasn’t working out, so I picked up Dougy and put him back on the floor. He hopped up on the old computer chair, the one with no back and tons of claws marks from past sleepy times.

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I collected the tufts of Dougy fur and disposed of it. (Dougy eats hair, dang cat! I asked his veterinarian about it.) Andy watched with interest, and hopped down on the lower level by my arm to capture a tuft I missed. I took it away from him. No scalp collections allowed!

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Andy was not amused!

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Not to worry! Andy and Dougy are on good terms again. The tiff lasted a short time. I think Andy just couldn’t ignore the opportunity of taking on his bigger brother from a spot that gave him an advantage! Poor Dougy didn’t swat back, and Andy didn’t do anything more to his brother than he did to me: give a warning to leave him alone while he ruled his roost!

Post 473: very cozy arrangements

What a week! Andy scared Dougy, who scratched me trying to get away from my lap, where I was petting him. I called both cats “bad boys”, which didn’t faze Andy, who’s proud of his “bad boy” status! Dougy was upset for a day, though he slowly resumed his ways.

Yesterday, in fact, Dougy was very clingy, couldn’t get enough of me. For example, he took over my computer workspace and wouldn’t “scootch” over so I could use it without the constant pressure of a happy cat reasserting his claim on me.

I was glad the scratch episode is officially over. Dougy is, after all, my “good boy”!

When Dougy was a kitten, October 2011:

Dougy still thinks he fits where he did as a kitten.

Now that Dougy is a big boy:

Dougy still wants to “scootch” up on my arm like he did when he was a kitten, but it takes some thought.

Gad! Somebody grew up to be a hunky cat!

Post 271: upset

Things go mostly well here, but there are times that show even this household has its moments!

Yesterday, I was in my glider, Dougy was on his ottoman. He is a great big soft furball, and pleasant to pet or hold. He loves the former, and is not real thrilled about the latter.

I’ve learned not to hold either Andy or Dougy longer than they feel comfortable. In past, when they were kittens getting over an illness caused by ingesting an infected grasshopper, they had many baths. Many. In addition, Dougy had to have eye drops for an infection in his left eye a couple of times. They associate being held with stuff they don’t like!

Aw, well. I associate holding them with something I do like, so I hold them a little bit until they start to get wiggly or act distressed. Little by little, they tolerate more holding. Especially since they haven’t had to have a “poop bath” in nearly a year and a half!

They remember, though, they remember….

Yesterday, again, I was in my glider, Dougy was on his ottoman. He was irresistible! I had to hold him! I scooped him off the ottoman, which required prying his front claws from the fabric since he knew what was about to happen: “Don’t love me! NO! Don’t pick me up! You washed me. Washed me in water! NOOOOOO! And you just might do it again!”

Such drama!

I calmed Dougy down with a head rub, then I rolled him on his back to cradle him like a child. Bad move! He associates that position with eye drops! Rats! What started out as a good moment, now required some readjustment of his position to one more comfortable: topside up, and faced out so he could leave at will. For the moment, all was well, then, out of nowhere, Andy hops up onto the side table with a loud clatter! Dougy, frightened, breaks away from my hold and claws my chest with his hind paws in the process.

Andy has lots of practice being a bad boy!

I got out of the chair, and shook my index finger at Dougy: “Bad boy! You are a very bad boy, Dougy!” He ran into the next room. I returned to Andy, by now on my new computer chair that he’s clawed up, where he was, well, clawing up my new computer chair: “You are a very bad boy, too!” Then he ran off to the next room.

I went to the bathroom to clean my wounds and bandage them if needed (it wasn’t), and I reminded the boys they were very bad boys when they came in to watch.

The rest of the day, Dougy acted very sad. He would come around and look like he wanted to get on the ottoman, but then he’d walk away. I tried to encourage him up. By this time, of course, I realized he wasn’t a bad boy, he’d just reacted to Andy’s noisy arrival, and I just happened to be holding him at the time. I reassured him he wasn’t a bad boy, that I was sorry! (I am, too! Poor Dougy is more sensitive to criticism than Andy.)

I got the feather toy out. Well, an extra long feather toy session, and Dougy felt a lot better. I could tell! But not enough to get on the ottoman again. Andy, though, got over it very fast, and stretched out on the end table shortly after “the incident”. He’s cool!

This morning, Andy had a hearty breakfast of trout-salmon mix wet food. In fact, he ate Dougy’s share, too. I fixed more for Dougy since he’d been in the bathroom on the towel in front of the shower when I put the food out. The boys tend to eat together when the food’s on one plate, take turns eating if the food’s on separate plates. Today, the food was on two plates, and Dougy was slow to come in.

I sat down to watch the news, the boys came into the front room to assume their usual places, Andy on the end table, and Dougy, with a little prompting, on the ottoman!

I reminded him that he is a good boy, brushed him (which he likes), and rubbed his nose. For good measure, I got out the feather toy, and played with him for an extra long time! Dougy is doing fine again. Andy got over scolding shortly after the incident happened. The claw marks barely show today, no infection since I know better to clean this type of injury quickly and thoroughly.

They are good boys! I know that, but I hope they understand that, too.

Post 270: same old, same old

One nice thing about cats is they are very, very set in their routines! If you don’t mind the 3 AM wake-up call, living with Andy and Dougy mostly is an easy thing. The only fault Andy has is a thing for clawing my new leather-covered very expensive computer chair. Dougy has his sofa and his ottoman that get the claw treatment.

Thanks to Andy, Louie the Ginger Cat as Captain Me-Ow is tilted in his frame! To live with cats is to accept a certain level of chaos and destruction!

Oh well! Suck it in, Doug! Kitties WILL be kitties!

So, because cats are very, very set in their routines, it came as no surprise that Dougy was on my bed meowing emphatically at slightly before 3 AM this New Year’s Day: “Get up! Get up! It’s ‘feed the kitty time’! NOW!”

Andy stretched out, sphinx-like and as inscrutable, in a dresser drawer I leave open (for the cats, of course). His intent, though, was not in doubt. He was there to back up Dougy if I didn’t get up. Meow!

So I did. “Feed the kitty time, boys,” I think I said out loud as we scrambled over each other to the kitchen. Of that there was no doubt!

Fed, the kitties and I went in the front room to watch the news. Well, I watch the news, and they take over their favorite perches, to sleep. By this time, I’m wide awake, so it’s good I’ve learned to go to bed at sundown so I get some sleep before “feed the kitty time”!

Here they are: Dougy on the ottoman, and Andy stretched out on the side table! The kitties must be fed. Yep. Now we sleep in front of the guy we woke up at 3 AM!

Post 260: cat etiquette

Cats regard it as bad manners to stare at them. They get into a hissy fit, snarl, protest your rudeness, turn their heads away from your gaze, then high tail it when stared at.

I try to mind my cat manners with Andy and Dougy. It promotes harmony in the home. Besides, unlike the boys when one upsets the other by “staring rudely”, I can’t run fast enough to catch the miscreant! (Or run away if I’m staring rudely…..)

That said, I felt a presence a moment ago. I turned to my left, and there was Andy, stretched out on my old computer chair, staring rudely at me. How dare he!

“What’s up, kittycat? Forget your manners?” I asked my boy. I put a double rudeness stare back on Andy just in case he missed my point. He blinked, turned his head away.

“Woo hoo!” I proclaimed moments before I did my staring rudely victory dance. “I beat you at your own game, buster. Stare at me, and I’ll stare at you till our eyeballs dry out. Yeah!” (I did a fist pump to emphasize the victory.)

Andy has no sense of humor and an over-sensitive nature. The staring rudely contest was fun while he did it, but not so when I returned the rude down: He got up and ran into the kitchen.

“I’m just a kitty…” I thought I heard him say. “Meany!”

Now I feel bad. I’ll go out to the kitchen and give him some Greenies, the boys’ favorite treat! (Dougy must have read my mind. He just walked over and gave me a tail brush, his way of letting me know he expects some sort of service. Or treat!)

Post 259: bedside manner

Dougy often stops by my bed when I sit on the side in the morning. He’ll scratch on the box spring (bad boy!), stretch, give me a look that tells me he wants to hop on my bed but is waiting for my OK.

The sign he’s waits for is a pat-pat-pat on the mattress, my hand signal to him to jump up and join me. Once he has the sign and jumps, he always lands with a thump and one “meow”!

I then pat, stroke, scratch, and talk with him. He gets all excited and walks back and forth, tail up, making contact with my hand and side till I start a nose rub, something both boys really, really like! (Persians have a difficult time reaching that spot after all!)

Today, during the back-and-forth business, I thought I heard something. I leaned closer to Dougy, and realized all this time he’d been purring!

Purring! PURRING!

That may not be a big deal to most people, but I am totally deaf in my right ear because of an infection when I had shingles in 2007. My left ear “works” but ringing in it sometimes cancels out subtle sounds…like Dougy’s soft purr. Yet there he was, rumbling like a freight train this morning, probably every time he “asks” to hop on my bed and I play our little ritual out, just not loud enough for me to realize he reacted to the ritual with a purr.

Today, though, I finally caught a slight hint of a sound, leaned closer to Dougy, and heard that soothing, happy sound of a happy cat!

Happy cat, happy me! If you don’t hear, then hear, it is a miracle, a joy I can’t describe!

Post 258: paparazzi problems

Andy and Dougy know one thing: That black rectangular thing pops a bright light when it’s pointed at you. Dougy gave me a cutey pie look today. I brought out the camera, and he did what the boys do every time: He closed his eyes at the exact moment the flash went off! So much for cute! Doug 12 18 2013

way too early

Andy and Dougy did it again: They convinced me it was “feed the kitties time” when it was actually only 2:00 AM! When this happens, there’s not much point in turning over and going back to sleep. The boys make sure of that. [For anyone reading my blog a first time, “feed the kitties time” is 3:00 AM, as determined by Andy and Dougy…!]

Andy jumps up on the corner of my bed, stares in my face a moment to see if I’m still breathing, my eyes are open, and – most importantly – if I look like I’m getting up to “feed the kitties”. It’s time, you know. If I ignore him, he hops off the bed and comes back in a few short minutes to repeat the process.

Dougy is more assertive. He hops up on the bed, sticks his face on my face, determines if I’m asleep or fooling, kneads me, hops up on me, walks up and down my body till he finds the one spot least comfortable for me to have a cat perched, and perches. Dougy generally wins, but sometimes finds a spot where the extra pressure feels good. I win then and get a little extra sleep!

Today, though, Andy managed to win the game. I must have been sleeping lightly. One arm was over the edge of the bed. Dougy was sniffing it while Andy was giving me that creepy look he gives me when checking me out. (“The human is a meat bag. We must keep that in mind for later!”) Maybe Dougy did something in concert with wee Andy, something I missed. Anyway, I got up to deal with the starving feline population in my bedroom. In the dark, I could sense their little tummies pinched up to their backbones, they were so hungry.

Oddly enough, they were hungry when I put out their dishes of wet food. Usually, one or the other eats first, then the other one comes in to eat, lion style. I guess. Today, they both just plowed into the food at the same time, regardless of which cat brought down the antelope so got to eat first.

It’s still way too early, 3:22 in the morning, but I’m up. I fed the cats. It’s Saturday. I’m a retired guy. I’ve no social or business obligations today. I’ve read my e-mails, watched a few videos on YouTube, and wrote my blog post. Why the heck am I not back in bed? Tell me! I can’t come up with one good reason I’m seated in front of my computer when I could be stretched out in bed, warm and toasty on this cold (-9 degrees F; -23 degrees C) December morning.

Good night! Or should I say, good morning?