Pet(s): Photos & Discussion

[riley702]

RIP, Rosie. My Mom's 20+ yr-old outdoor kitty died yesterday. She was Dad's cat, and he died in 2003. She's been fading since autumn, but she's so skittish that we felt taking her to the vet would traumatize her. I didn't want that for her last memory - screeching in terror. Mom agreed. Over the weekend, my nephew found her shivering on the porch instead of tucked away as usual and he and Mom made a towel nest for her. She was unresponsive later, so Mom brought her in. Normally, she'd protest, but she didn't. She spent her last day warm, refusing food or water. She was a terror on the local mice, moles, voles and rabbits. Frolic at the Rainbow Bridge and Dad should be along shortly to get you. <3 <3 <3

Edited January 2, 2018 by riley702

[riley702]

In brighter news, tiny runt Pearl is blossoming into a long-legged beauty. I'll post pics later, but right now, she's loving on me. She LOVES people - you come near her, and her face lights up, she starts purring LOUDLY, loving and rubbing on you. She is the happiest thing all the time.

[Mindthinkr]

@riley702 I'm so glad that your Mom was able to get her in and give her a comfortable last day. That's a lovely image of her and your Dad being reunited. My condolences. 

[theredhead77]

@riley702 I'm glad your mom was able to give kitty a final day full of love and warmth.

[Barb1959]

My dear sweet kitty of 13 years had to be put to sleep the day after Christmas.  He was my buddy...he was given to me by my son the month after my husband of 45 years died.  He has been my comfort for so many years and I miss him so,  He was a British Shorthair and so beautiful.  

[Mindthinkr]

@Barb1959 I'm very sorry that it was time to let your furry friend go. Cats are such a comfort. 

[emma675]

Barb1959, my heartfelt condolences, I'm so sorry.

[riley702]

@Barb1959, I'm so sorry. I do wish they lived longer.

[walnutqueen]

@Barb1959 - I am so sorry for your loss.

[bosawks]

Snow!!!!!  Someone is definitely having more fun than I am....

[bosawks]

Now look who’s pretending to be regal....

[riley702]

Last set of kitten shots! They are about 16 wks old now.

Finn is the largest and gets snipped on the 30th.

Pearl is still just barely bigger than Wren.

Wren is the smallest. But possibly the smartest. She thought that maybe staying in the carrier would make the vet overlook her. No such luck!

Pearl the long-legged beauty. She's come a long way in the past 2 months. She has a slight kink in her tail, and she whips that thing around like she's using it to talk.

Edited January 4, 2018 by riley702

[Mindthinkr]

@riley702  They are adorable. It makes me want another kitten even though my house is full. Lucky new owners! Oh, My girl cat also likes to play the 'I'll stay in the carrier and turn my back as if I can't see them maybe they can't see me' philosophy of avoiding the vet too!! 

[riley702]

We're keeping all of them.

[Mindthinkr]

3 minutes ago, riley702 said:

We're keeping all of them.

I'm jealous. 

[bilgistic]

They're growing up so fast! They look like they're old enough to go to elementary school when they were just babies a few weeks ago. *sobbing*

[Sandman87]

Now that winter is here and the house is colder, Mom's cat has become an expert at burrowing under the covers:

Last week I ended up accidentally burying her upside down in a pile of blankets on the floor when I stripped the sheets off for laundry day. She was not amused. And it's become necessary to pat the bed down before sitting on it now, just to be safe.

In other news, she now likes to shake hands from time to time.

She'll look at me and raise her paw up over her head to let me know it's handshake time. All I have to do is stick my hand out. Who says you can't teach an old cat new tricks?

[theredhead77]

2 beds, a giant couch, 2 kitty condos and the cat-cat likes to sleep on the hard floor.

[DeLurker]

On 1/4/2018 at 2:23 PM, riley702 said:

We're keeping all of them.

I suspect they decided they are keeping you!

[bilgistic]

My girls have finally decided it is indeed too cold to lay in the window seat and are cuddling with me (read: laying on my legs so I can't move or laying smack in the middle of the bed so I have to straddle them or lay on the edge of the bed). They are so damn cute. They almost always cuddle together and I can't stop taking pictures. I know I've posted half a dozen already, but here's another.

Bonus action pics! Mama first then daughter.

[Mindthinkr]

@bilgistic I am envious. I wish my kitties snuggled together. When one is sitting with me, the other comes to join, only to get a swat from whichever one was there first. Yours also have lovely shiny coats. 

[bilgistic]

I purposefully wanted a "bonded pair" so they would always have a friend, play together and cuddle. My late boy and girl kitties (three years apart, not related) just tolerated each other. Little Mama does get irritated with Little Girl once in a while. LM growls at LG sometimes when LM is in the top of the cat tree, in the window or in the chair in my bedroom, and LG comes to invade her space. But 95% of the time, they are either cuddly or playing.

It's so amazing to see such pure love between animals. The way they are and how my late boy kitty loved me and bonded to me so much just affirms to me that animals truly have the capacity for and experience love and other emotions--sorrow, joy, excitement and more.

[walnutqueen]

1 hour ago, bilgistic said:

t's so amazing to see such pure love between animals. The way they are and how my late boy kitty loved me and bonded to me so much just affirms to me that animals truly have the capacity for and experience love and other emotions--sorrow, joy, excitement and more.

For sure.  My old boys were quite taken aback when I brought home a rescued (from the side of a busy street), de-flead and vet checked stray kitten, who is now my last remaining indoor oldster, named Babalu.  Back then, he breathed life and playfulness back into this old house, and befriended every single one of my peculiar old boys.  When he was a kitten, he discovered the wonders of my soulcat Beanie Baby's male nipples, which he'd suckle loudly for extended periods of time, while Beanie Baby just splayed out shamelessly & purred.  Eventually, my Babalu baby became frustrated with the lack of milkage from said male nipples, and took a nip.  Then my Beanster would issue a Yelp and give the most stern & expressive side-eye to the poor little kitten.  They were fast friends until the bitter end.  Babalu became my death watch kitty by default, and he performed that duty with a grace and love I could only aspire to.

As a matter of fact, Babalu has become my second soulmate in life.  He has seen me through the loss of 7 cats and my dear old Mum, and is a 24/7 source of delight and comfort to me.  

So, there you go - I just got all misty again, didn't I?

[Spunkygal]

Hey kitty lovers! I am cleaning out my freezer and have a couple of bags of frozen salmon and halibut that I had forgotten about. There are no seasonings on the fish. But the fish has been in the freezer too long for my liking. Is it ok to offer the fish to my wonderful neighbors to bake and give to their kitties? I hate throwing food away! But I don't want my neighbors to be insulted. I just thought it might be more nutritious than canned food, but I don't know. Thanks!

ETA: I would give to my dog, but she's a senior citizen with health issues and is on a strict diet. 

Edited January 8, 2018 by Spunkygal

[walnutqueen]

22 minutes ago, Spunkygal said:

Hey kitty lovers! I am cleaning out my freezer and have a couple of bags of frozen salmon and halibut that I had forgotten about. There are no seasonings on the fish. But the fish has been in the freezer too long for my liking. Is it ok to offer the fish to my wonderful neighbors to bake and give to their kitties? I hate throwing food away! But I don't want my neighbors to be insulted. Thanks!

ETA: I would give to my dog, but she's a senior citizen with health issues and is on a strict diet. 

Your neighbors may be asshats, without an appreciation for the gesture, but there's no harm in trying.  I got wild Alaska salmon steaks on sale just before my fridge threw a compressor, and I had to ditch almost everything in it.  I baked all that lovely defrosted and questionable salmon & set it outside for the cats, raccoons, possums & skunks.  They had several heydays.

[riley702]

@bilgistic, your girls are gorgeous! You're so lucky to have them.

@walnutqueen, your story reminds me of a couple of videos I saw recently. Short backstory: "Grandpa Mason" is a grizzled former feral who was brought in by a rescue for treatment of terminal renal disease. The sweet surprise is that he adores kittens. Whenever they have rescue kittens on the video feed, they let them interact with Grandpa Mason and he lets them nurse on him. It's pretty darned adorable.

 

[Mindthinkr]

@riley702 That white kitten sure had a loud motor! Thanks for sharing. 

[bilgistic]

That was so sweet!

Little Mama nursed another litter after Little Girl's while they were still at their foster mom's house. LG tries to nurse on LM a few days a week, but Mama isn't having it. She delivers a firm but gentle kick to the noggin. No more milk duty for that tired mama!

[DeLurker]

13 hours ago, walnutqueen said:

  I got wild Alaska salmon steaks on sale just before my fridge threw a compressor, and I had to ditch almost everything in it.  I baked all that lovely defrosted and questionable salmon & set it outside for the cats, raccoons, possums & skunks.  They had several heydays.

Did you light candles too and put on appropriate soft music for them?  Kidding, but that was the choice I would make too.

Kook greatly amused my family over the holiday break.  At my Mom's house, the floor plan has two entries to the kitchen - breakfast nook - family room area.  To keep him out of the area when it was high traffic time, I would set up barriers in the doorways.  A laundry basket, a box or two, ...anything that is large enough to send him the message Do Not Pass.  It doesn't matter if he can actually walk over it without straining or could nudge it aside, if a barrier has been put up, he treats it as if it is an impenetrable wall.  At home, he'll usually go lie down somewhere if I tell him too, but at her house and with a constant flow of people in and out, it kind of short circuited his brain.

[walnutqueen]

32 minutes ago, DeLurker said:

Did you light candles too and put on appropriate soft music for them?  Kidding, but that was the choice I would make too.

Kook greatly amused my family over the holiday break.  At my Mom's house, the floor plan has two entries to the kitchen - breakfast nook - family room area.  To keep him out of the area when it was high traffic time, I would set up barriers in the doorways.  A laundry basket, a box or two, ...anything that is large enough to send him the message Do Not Pass.  It doesn't matter if he can actually walk over it without straining or could nudge it aside, if a barrier has been put up, he treats it as if it is an impenetrable wall.  At home, he'll usually go lie down somewhere if I tell him too, but at her house and with a constant flow of people in and out, it kind of short circuited his brain.

You are much stronger than I, Gunga Din.  One look at the sad-eyes doggie face on the other side of that barrier and I'd be feeding scraps (Oh, who am I kidding - I'd be setting the table for the critters and ushering out the humans to fend for themselves at the local fast food drive-thrus).  ;-)

Edited January 8, 2018 by walnutqueen
fat fingers, morning, take your pick!

[JTMacc99]

Does anybody here use some sort of circulating water dish for their cat(s)?

Luna has, unsurprisingly, discovered that she likes drinking from faucets when she catches somebody at the sink. So maybe I should just get her a circulating water bowl.

[Bastet]

I don't, but when I researched them for a friend several years back, the best were the Drinkwell and the Pioneer fountains.  They were both available in stainless steel or ceramic (preferable to plastic, since it can harbor bacteria, although with moving water that's less of an issue).  The Pioneer was best if you have hard water, because you can actually get to the motor to keep it clean; the Drinkwell had much more limited access, so with the mineral accumulation from hard water, the motor wore out faster on that one.

No clue if all of that is still true.

[bilgistic]

I still have Bilgisticat's fountain (Pioneer, stainless steel). The girls have zero interest in it. He had kidney disease, so he drank a lot of water. He was always into water from a young age. He would drink my bathwater. (Gross, I know.) I recommend the model. It's pretty easy to clean. It comes completely apart (even the motor), is dishwasher-safe, and the cheap replacement filters worked for me.

Edited January 8, 2018 by bilgistic

[ABay]

This is the one I got. It's similar to @bilgistic's--from Pioneer, stainless steel, easy to clean.

[JTMacc99]

Thank you everybody. I'm wondering if Luna would use it, or if she would check it out and then insist that having somebody turn on the sink for her is the superior option.  Cats... 

The stainless options look superior to what I remembered, so I'll check them out as well as any ceramic options.

[bilgistic]

Bilgisticat definitely still wanted to play with and drink from the bathroom faucet, but the fountain was enticing to him.

[harrie]

We had a Drinkwell fountain for our cat(s); but we went through a couple of them through the years, so I'd probably vote for the Pioneer model.  For the cat for whom we originally bought the fountain, the sound of the trickling water was very attractive, and she never looked back at the bathtub (her water source of choice to that point).  I found that the trickling water sound helped me sleep, too (the fountain was in the hallway outside our bedroom). 

[Bastet]

That Drinkwell in the link, the 360 model (only in stainless steel) is what one friend has and one cat loves it while the other ignores it.  The Pioneer in the first link, the Raindrop model, is what the friend I was researching these for decided on.  New cats by this point, but between those it was bought for and those she has now, about half used it.  So, same odds.

If you don't have hard water - we do here, very hard - it's just a matter of which water delivery style you think your cat will like best - a more subtle flow or a more obvious fall from spout to bowl.  But I think not being able to clean the motor, and thus going through them faster than need be, is just negligent manufacturing, and with hard water it will be an issue sooner than later.  So if I ever get one (I have a tabletop fountain on the buffet in my dining room, so as long as I keep that, cats have the option, but only Baxter was ever really into it), I'll likely go with the Pioneer just on principle.  But, if I didn't have that fountain, and had a cat who was really into that more-pronounced sound of falling water, the Drinkwell seems the best choice out there and I'd just resign myself to replacing it earlier than I should have to.

[DeLurker]

20 hours ago, JTMacc99 said:

Does anybody here use some sort of circulating water dish for their cat(s)?

Luna has, unsurprisingly, discovered that she likes drinking from faucets when she catches somebody at the sink. So maybe I should just get her a circulating water bowl.

I considered one, but realized that if the cat drinks out of it, the dog will too which would require a much larger fountain...and more floor space which is at a minimum.

[riley702]

We have dogs and cats. There is a dog-sized water bowl and food bowl combo, slightly elevated, with a dish towel underneath it. The cats go help themselves. The kittens climb up on the elevated rim to drink, and one of the adult cats likes to stick her paw in, lick it off, and repeat. I have a glass water bowl in my room for my kitties, and the kittens come help themselves there, too.

[JTMacc99]

In my house, the cat has access to rooms that the dogs do not. I would definitely put the water in one of those rooms just like I do for her food bowl.

And while I'm not sure if the dogs would even attempt to drink from the cat bowl, I am definitely sure I'd want the clean running water bowl to be not in a labrador shedding zone.

[theredhead77]

15 minutes ago, JTMacc99 said:

In my house, the cat has access to rooms that the dogs do not. I would definitely put the water in one of those rooms just like I do for her food bowl.

And while I'm not sure if the dogs would even attempt to drink from the cat bowl, I am definitely sure I'd want the clean running water bowl to be not in a labrador shedding zone.

Does such a place truly exist?

[DeLurker]

19 minutes ago, theredhead77 said:

Does such a place truly exist?

Somewhere over the rainbow.

[JTMacc99]

Heh. 

Dogs are banned from the upstairs in my house. No dogs in bedrooms. 

Having said that, even the upstairs suffers from a lot of second hand labrador. 

[walnutqueen]

1 hour ago, JTMacc99 said:

In my house, the cat has access to rooms that the dogs do not. I would definitely put the water in one of those rooms just like I do for her food bowl.

And while I'm not sure if the dogs would even attempt to drink from the cat bowl, I am definitely sure I'd want the clean running water bowl to be not in a labrador shedding zone.

 

1 hour ago, theredhead77 said:

Does such a place truly exist?

 

1 hour ago, DeLurker said:

Somewhere over the rainbow.

A pet furless life is one not worth living.

[JTMacc99]

7 minutes ago, walnutqueen said:

A pet furless life is one not worth living.

I'm not ruling out one of the poodle mixes in my future, just to cut me a slight break.

(Who am I kidding, I'll probably get a pair of golden retrievers next.)

[walnutqueen]

Just now, JTMacc99 said:

I'm not ruling out one of the poodle mixes in my future, just to cut me a slight break.

(Who am I kidding, I'll probably get a pair of golden retrievers next.)

Yup,  The long silky ladies' hair that clogs the shower drain, or the men's beard trimmings that clog the bathroom sink are actionable offenses, yet totally tolerable when shed by a beloved pet.

[Moose135]

Did someone say "cookie"?

[walnutqueen]

34 minutes ago, Moose135 said:

Did someone say "cookie"?

There oughtta be a law against the kind of cuteness that makes me squee.

[bilgistic]

@AgentRXS, how are the hedgehogs? Did they get adopted out?