Stories About Pets

He needed the point on his "Weird Shit To Make Your Person Do" Bingo card.

 

I can believe that! I think he's doing pretty well.

 

This is our Saffydoodle, from when she was a few years younger than she is now. She's a rescue cat, and will usually only deign to let my mum stroke her. No-one is allowed to pick her up at all, and if she wants to go through a door you have to open it then stand well back before she'll go near it. She likes pooing just outside her litterbox to let us know she cares, and brushing her fluffbutt up near your face if she thinks you have food she'll want - which is usually only cat treats, she's not all that keen on human food.

 

I woke up late today (at 10.30 pm) so Jesse didn't come in, he's probably upstairs. I miss him so much though, even if he does drool on me. He usually curls up against me on the couch and purrs until he falls asleep.

 

I opened the door around 7am and Jesse was waiting under a bush, watching the door. I wonder how long he'd been there, because he immediately ran inside and bristled his tail and yowled at me. He seemed pretty annoyed. But he ate and calmed down and he's been curled up on the couch next to me for a few hours, asleep. He doesn't usually stick around this late in the day, but maybe he's making up for lost time.

 

@Mattias There might be something that worries or scares him outside. His behavior makes me think that he needs to feel safe, and indoors with a human is safe.

 

Thank you for telling me! I hope he wasn't outside all night, poor cat. My brother usually lets both the cats in in the evening, but that may not have happened. If I go to sleep at a weird time I'll set an alarm for before sunset so I can make sure he's indoors.

It seems like I don't have any more empathy for cats than I do for humans, their behaviour totally baffles me. But I still care how they feel.

 

It's pretty typical to be baffled by cat behavior, especially if you aren't used to cats. They have their own particulars of body language and behaviors that are very different than that of humans or dogs, so any experience with reading humans or dogs doesn't translate well. Even growing up around cats I had to read up on their behavior as an adult so I could understand it much at all.

(And then one of my cats is such an oddball I still find myself baffled a lot of the time... XD)

 

I'll see if I can find a book on cat behaviour at the used store in town. Jesse is a lot different from our other cat, but his behaviour may not be atypical for a cat. There's a lot of things about him that I wonder about. He has a weird habit of aggressively licking my hand. And he lays on his side and kneads the air, that's kind of funny.

(We got the cats to be barn cats, but Jesse eats so much cat food that I suspect he isn't catching any rats. Our other cat's a mouser, but I don't think he is. That's fine though, I'm not going to blame a cat for not "earning his keep." People do that to me often enough and it's terrible).

 

I end up infodumping on my cat a lot, oops.

 

@Mattias I have heard that cats are better hunters when they're not hungry, actually! When they are not hungry they are more capable of waiting out the prey and do not have to do things out of desperation.

 

Hmm, that's interesting! Makes sense. Maybe he just catches them and doesn't eat them. He's never brought any prey indoors (unlike our other cat), but who knows.

 

May I introduce you to Miss Primrose Stripey-pants Schwartz.

She joined my household about two hours ago.

I wuv her!

 

image is broke!

 

Better?

 

Yes! Omg what a cute!

 

@Ink What a sweetie!

 

We got a new camera and Mitten wanted to investigate the pop-up flash. She's a bit quiet at the moment, but she just horked up a mammoth hairball today so hopefully she'll be back to her boisterous self soon.

 

Foggy's favourite toy is his cowcow. He likes to wrestle with it and sleep with it and bite its nose.

EDIT: HELP HE'S STILL BEING CUTE

 

One of our cats sees me hold up my phone to take a picture of her and turns her head, every time. Not just a little bit, as far as it goes so I can't get a picture that isn't terrible. I swear she knows what she's doing. I posted a picture of her doing it on Instagram today, but that's only funny once.

So my Instagram is almost entirely pics of the other cat (and flowers, I photograph a lot of flowers), except on the rare occasion where I catch the first one sleeping. But she clearly doesn't want her picture taken (do cats even understand what photos are though?), so I haven't been photographing her recently. People were starting to wonder what happened to her. Nothing, she's just stubborn apparently.