From the "cat threw up in the washing machine" thread dedtired linked: "If the cat barfs frequently, take it to a vet. The cat,not the barf."

I don't know about anyone else, but my vomiting cat has been exhaustively tested. The multiple vets he has seen cannot find the cause. For now, the only "fix" is to give him a low dose of prednisone every other day, and even with that, he vomits 1-2 times/week.

My darling George decided at 4:45 this morning that I needed to wake up and pet him. He woke me by scratching my face, then he kept trying to get me to pet him while I was in the bathroom trying to stop the bleeding.

It's a good thing they are so cute! LOL

Donna

My cats have only ruined one thing. Unfortunately, that one thing was my very expensive Silhouette shades. I kept them down during the day to block the sun, and it seems I was also blocking their view of a chipmunk nest. I see it as my fault for getting such fragile window coverings for the best viewing windows in the house. A dog would have done the same thing.

My cats are way more important than any stuff I have. The joy and companionship they give me far outweigh the pulled threads, patina of fur, early morning wakeups, petrified hairball under my desk, etc. It would be cold comfort indeed to have pristine decor without the purrs, leg rubs and little welcome committee to greet me whenever I walk through the door.

I was away for two nights, and one cat missed me. He insisted on sharing my pillow all. night. long. which my 7lb dog doesn't care for. He also likes to rub the top of my head, pulling out some hair now and then (accident, I'm sure) and nibbles. Hoping he is back to foot of bed tonight. DH said he tail was in flapping across his face all night when he tried to face my direction. Gotta love 'em!

Allison, not the flapping tail in the face!!!

I have a piano keyboard on a stand in my bedroom. It has a folded towel over the keys to keep out dust and cat hair. I know you are all envious of me. :p

Zephyr knows that jumping on the keyboard and walking across it will wake me up. Twice he has unwittingly (perhaps not) turned the keyboard on and stepped on the button that plays band samples, loudly. The only good thing was it scared the $*** out of him. Figuratively speaking.

How do cats know when you're awake? This morning I woke up at 3:30 - just 'cause and couldn't get back to sleep immediately. One of the cats - the one who is in charge of getting them both fed - I swear, heard the change in my breathing from down the hall and coming charging down in to the bedroom and on top of the bed and sat on top of me purring his fool head off. He figured it was breakfast time.

I finally got up at 5 and fed them but when he comes crying for dinner at 4:00 this afternoon because he's hungry he'll have a heck of a long wait because dinner isn't until 6.

blfenton, it's a mystery, but they know. Cats are on a whole different wavelength.

My cats woke me at 5 this morning too and their dishes were empty, which is not always the case. Today what got me was claws scraping the wall. These are the only cats I've had who do this and it's the worst sound, like nails on a chalkboard.

Well, after reading this, I know that Princess Posie is about the best cat ever !! She scratches her post and rarely anything else, she is clean and neat and never feels the need to mark anything. She cuddles and purrs everytime we pick her up. She does NOT like strangers, so we have to "send her to her room" (my sewing room) when we have company, but she doesn't hold that against us :^) She helps me with EVERYTHING that I do, and is a wonderful alarm clock...6:00 AM on the dot!! Plants are of no interest to her, but she does love to snack on a flower. Guess we had better give her special treats tonight!

I have loved all of the stories! Thanks AJ for creating this post!

Blessings,

J

I should have told you all that I planned on being petless. We used to have 3 cats, 2 dogs and a bird. Still have the bird (25 year old cockatiel). Four years ago, we put down the last of the cats (he was 18 1/2). The bird got seriously depressed and wasn't his old self. You see, he's always had a cat around. So, after three months of dealing with a bummed out bird, I decided it was time for another cat. Then Parker (grey one) found us. Wandered up to my husband while working (he drives a delivery truck), skin and bones (literally) and rode around on his shoulder all day. Brought him in the house and the bird perked right up. Added the black and white two years later. Bird is back to his happy self and has many more years left. So.....we'll have cats until these two monsters (said with all the love in the world) depart.

I'll try to post some of my favorite pictures of the cats....been having trouble with that lately.

What a wonderful thread. I've enjoyed reading all the stories.

i know I referred to my boys as the evil twins, but that was done in love. When my sweet KoKo was a pup I called her Devil Dog as it seemed applicable at the time.

I was at Petco Saturday getting kitty litter. As I always do I went over to look at the cats that are up for adoption. There was a boy that could have been Simba andToby's triplet. If I knew, I and three cats, wouldn't be looking for new digs because of DH throwing us all out I would have put in an adoption application. It always makes me sad to see the sweet kitties that need a home.

I built two feral cat shelters a few weeks ago for DD2. There are, rather were two adults and four kittens. Then three kittens, etc. Now it's only one kitten, probably 4-5 months old. She saw a new cat few days ago but not again since. The lone black cat is getting closer to her to eat (she feeds them daily). I told her I would get a trap from my parent's house to catch him/her if she finds a home for him/her. She has two Calico sisters and three dogs - her HOA limit is 2 pets. She and her coworkers have only seen two hit by cars, so we think coyotes might have gotten the other ones.

blfenton, my cat is deaf and even SHE knows when I wake up.

Bluebell66, Is it possible your kitty has developed an allergy to something she's eating? My vets couldn't figure out why my cat was vomiting, either. I figured out she'd become allergic to fish. Now she can only eat pate cat foods, specific dry foods, and nothing with fish, fish oil, or kelp. It wasn't easy to narrow down, but she feels so much better now even though she wants to eat the fishy stuff. Hope that helps. All cats are special!

You can take the stray off the street, but you can't take the street out of the stray. Checking out the compost.

One of our cats is allergic to fish and turkey. I now read her labels closer than our food. Solved her issues though. Nutro brand chicken or duck pate is all she gets now.

Auntjen, that pic of your cats sleeping together is precious.

One day my Nahla was walking slowly toward their food/water dishes when out of nowhere, Dipsey runs past shoving her out of the way. Dipsey proceeds to take a cat position to eat. Nahla, sitting behind her with ears back, suddenly reaches over and bites Dipsey in the butt and walks away. That'll show her! No, Dipsey just tucked her butt a little and kept on eating.

"Tuck your butt and keep eating." That seems to me like a good mantra for many things in life! LOL!

What a great thread; I enjoyed all of your posts!! Somehow, without intending to (my husband “hated" cats when we first got married), we've ended up with THREE of them! They each found us in various ways and managed to melt my husband's heart-- the oldest 10 years ago (when he was 5-years-old), the other not quite a year ago when she was a tiny, starving kitten who literally showed up on our doorstep on a freezing cold morning.

Other than furry curtains and litter boxes to keep clean, I can't complain too much about their ways. Our oldest cat stopped using the litter box about 2 years ago, so that was the most challenging situation by far. He started peeing on anything soft left on the floor, except for the 2 area rugs we had before the peeing issue started (any new rugs we tried to introduce were immediate pee targets). I finally embraced his choice by setting up 2 "litter boxes" that consist of flat trays covered with a cloth diaper or rag, which we throw in a diaper pail and replace each time he pees on one. I cloth diapered my kids and still had the set up for it, so washing diapers for a beloved cat every few days hasn't been a big deal. The main drawback is explaining to guests why there's a tray with a rag on it in the corner of our dining room... I'm sure some people think we're nuts, but we love our little old man :)

Thankfully, our neighbors are cat friendly and most of our neighbors allow their cats to play outside. Our "baby" (who's about a year old now) likes to chase grasshoppers and flying insects, and the older 2 just like to lounge on the back patio nowadays. I think having the freedom to run around and enjoy the outdoors might help them to behave a little better inside. The older 2 scratched at upholstered furniture when they were younger, but switching to leather couches put an end to that. Our girls like to sharpen their claws on the living room rug (an Oriental), but thankfully it rarely shows and when it does I can trim the pulled fibers with scissors and it looks as good as new.

My sympathies to those of you who've recently lost pets. With a 15-year-old cat and 14-year-old yellow lab, I expect we'll be down a couple pets within the next year or so. Here's our little old man, grooming his little sis:

Our youngest was so traumatized from whatever she experienced out there as a tiny kitten that she refused to go outside for 8 months, but now goes in and out daily. Here she is relaxing under her favorite evergreen tree:

We lost our 15 yr old Brittanyon 8/6. It still ripes my heart out every day!

It's been fun to read all the stories, and I'm sorry for all the losses. I agree with K Sissy, it really rips your heart out and for a good long while after the fact. I did want to come back and say that for all my complaining way upthread, my cats have been so good about the Christmas tree. They all love to sleep under it, but not one ornament has been touched in the almost 2 weeks it has been up. I've been pleasantly surprised!

Have a story from the other day. New little girl kitty is very stealthy and has gotten quite bold. Bought some small blueberry muffins from Whole Foods. Woke up to find one was missing and box ripped open. I found the lower half of the muffin under the coffee table, so I was vacuuming at 7 a.m. to get the crumbs. Then after DH fed her dinner before I got home, she vomited up the cat food and the blueberries on the LR area rug. At least she vomits up what she shouldn't eat. However, we are now worried that we are going to end up someday at the emergency vet for an intestinal obstruction. We now have to be super careful what is left out and all dishes go immediately in the DW after dinner, and pots and pans washed.

I had 3 cats (now only 2) Cat #1 likes to scratch the woodwork around doorway. I've encased it in plastic 4 ft up from floor. Cat #2 is an aggressive carpet scratcher. I've tried every type of scratching post you can think of, she prefers the carpet, my carpets are a total mess. Cat #3 was a furniture scratcher, my loveseat is in tatters. Cats #2 and #3 also like to chew on the Christmas tree, I've had both real and artificial, doesn't matter, they chew both kinds. They all enjoy trying to climb my sliding door screen, its full of rips and tears. No sense replacing any of these things because they'll just be destroyed again. (Husband repaired the screen in the door and in less than 5 minutes from installing, one of the little darlings put a nice, big tear in it) No, we can't have nice things with our cats. But, we love them just the same. Cat # 3 passed away a year ago, I still miss her. The unconditional love they give us is compensation for the damage they do.

Well, somebody broke the tail off one of my nativity kitties this morning. Can cats be in the "doghouse"?

I think it can be repaired with some super glue.

Donna

Our Russian Blue cat, Dipsey, has decided to Snack on the artificial Christmas tree.

Batting at the ornaments is ok, but eating the tree is not. Perhaps I need to spray the lower branches with something she won't like.

Auntjen, I like your picture, surely there was a barn cat in the stable!

I saw this and thought of this thread:

10 benefits of having a cat

I'm taking a 9-month course at my church that spans 4 years. Next week we are doing something different before the Christmas break: each of us is writing a story as one of the attendees of the Nativity. People are doing Mary, Joseph, the infant Jesus, shepherd, etc. Me? I'm doing the cat. Yes, there was a cat at the Nativity, although this one didn't ated ur savior. :p

Ack! I cannot seem to insert a pic anymore. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks!

Dawn, I think this site may be having some issues. Others have alluded to "gremlins" in the system over the past day or so.

I received this is an email from a friend this morning, who has a house full of cats (and don't worry, those babies are adored and not about to be taken to the pound as threatened):

Came home last night and the
beautiful nativity set that I have owned 15 years now has 1 broken
donkey, 1 broken drummer boy and baby Jesus was thrown across the
room. Not sure how this happened since the scene was below the Christmas
Tree. I suspect a big fight broke
out!! It’s a good thing it’s Christmas cuz mama may
take them to the pound ;-) LOL

lol, thanks for the reply. I've been trying to upload a pic for a few days straight from my computer. I can upload to my ideabooks, but then every pic is embedded in my comments, has a big honkin' green link back to my ideabooks? I don't see this with other people's pics.... I'll keep trying :)

Trying again ....

My ornament wreckers:

Gosh, so glad to see that we are not the only ones with scratched furniture, barfed on rugs, no table cloth and live plants. We have four of the little devils and the two older ones are not too destructive. The youngest who is now five is a dervish that runs through the house like his tail is on fire and knocks lots of things over in the process. Him and the next one up in age take great pleasure of biting through shoe strings. No shoes with laces can be left out. They also chewed through the blind cords and we now have cordless blinds. The middle fur child should have died of a bowel obstruction by now as hes eaten several square feet of blankets that another cat threw up on and we were not home to catch the mess right away. He must have really strong digestive juices.

Here is a video that I took of the little one about three years ago. He travels that way almost daily like this now.

I feel like I have a weekly countdown of what has been broken or put away after a near miss.

earlier this week my Simba destroyed a dried hydrangea arrangement that I made at the end of summer. Dried hydrangea makes quite the mess when kitty decides it's almost as good as catnip. The silver teapot that it was in is put away and none of the hydrangeas could be salvaged.

A few days after the great hydrangea caper I heard a noise while I was in the library and knew one of the evil ones was into something. DH called into me that Simba had knocked a bowl to the floor. The bowl was actually a Waterford vase that my dear first husband gave me. How it survived the crash to the floor is beyond me but the flower arrangement was removed and the vase is put away.

I love my little rascals but they have broken more items in seven months than my children did in all their growing up years. I just hope the crazy, out of control behavior calms down soon.

DawnT, they look completely innocent to me.

And no gifts under the tree because of this....

Well, MY last cat was the world's best helper... Here is Cloe helping me with the draperies and art arrangement.

Simba and Toby decided to help with silver polishing and Christmas wrapping. Everything takes twice as long to do with their help but they are a hoot! How can you not love those sweet, innocent faces?

Simba and Toby look like naughtiness personified! Gosh, they're cute! :-)

These are so funny! My DH told me yesterday that George was walking on my quilt frame with three feet on one pole and the fourth on the pole below it. How he balanced, I don't know, and of course he wasn't able to get a picture!

Donna

The normally hesitant and quiet Ms Ashley cat could not resist the rope dangling from the patio shade cover outside the window any longer.

One foo foo do dad less to dust and a vintage wood window to repaint.....

Oh Kippy! I am envisioning a terrified cat racing away. Poor dear was probably scared to death. Sorry about your foo foo do dad and vintage window, though.

My cats are 12 and 13 and the crazy behavior has slowed down a bit, but not completely. My Christmas tree lights do not light on the bottom of my tree, due to the chewing of the tree. I don't dare plug it in for fear of them getting electrocuted. But they do love to snooze under the tree, looking like sleeping angels. Its when they're awake that they are little devils!

We lost both our cats 2 years ago, within 4 months of each other (they were litter mates). Zen and Zoe were 17, a Siamese and Manx mix. It's especially hard because we got them this time of year:

I could never keep any plants around, or any flowers in a vase within reach of Zoe. She loved to chew on them, which would lead to the inevitable crashing of a vase or flower pot. And doing laundry was always a challenge:

For everyone upthread who has lost a pet, my heart grieves with you. Yet they bring such joy. And for all of you who still have cats, dogs, iguanas or whatever, give them an extra hug.

Beautiful cats, leela. So sorry for your loss.

I was gone earlier today and thankfully my daughter was home. Both our cats were on top of the dining table. They had knocked over my flower vase filled with water and Christmas flowers. Hopefully the laptop hubby left there will be ok. I've been lucky that our cats don't get in the washer or dryer, and I've never seen them in a laundry basket of clothes (But, who knows what they're doing when when we're away!)

This is where they usually like spending their time...or sleeping, of course.

Oh leela, seeing your precious babies and knowing they are gone makes me so sad. I think especially so because they remind me of my two best buddies.

How I Loooooove these cat stories!! I couldn't help getting a few tears in my eyes but so many more laughs!!! At 73, I can't say I ever remember a time I didn't have at least one weaving in and out of my legs, tail up, meowing either for attention or food. A few even tried to use me as a scratching post !lol

My bff in IL takes in rescues, and at the moment has 21 or 22. The 100 yo historic home she bought 9 years ago came with 2 separate garages, one housing the majority of the kitties, the other is used for storage, but she always keeps the big door open a foot at the bottom, and knows *other* critters take part in the 'vittles' also. Sthe has either 4 or 5 in the house, one being a mama cat w/7 kittens, the very start of her rescue 'mission'. She gave away 2 of those kittens(after neutering!),and never stopped regretting it. They have all found a forever home with her. Her vet/food costs are insane, and when I visited in the summer we found worms in one of the litter pans, and in a two day period, took every cat into the vet to be dewormed. That was $400. It's neverending work! Whenever I call she's scooping, feeding, or rocking one of them in the old rocking chair that was moved out to the garage. She also donates to almost every animal organization known to man, even if it's only $5. She's a one-woman rescue shelter, and I wish I were closer to help. We always say we like animals more than people because animals can't help their situatuon, but people usually can.

Aw, leela, I'm so sorry! They were such beautiful cats. Yours is the only other cat-in-the-washer picture I've seen (I have one of my cat George in ours). And that's not a greenhouse window, it's a cat spa! LOL

Gibby, yours are beautiful, too!

Designsavvy, I'm glad the water damage wasn't worse! Can they see the chipmunks from the table? Is that what got them going?

Donna

The chipmunk lives in our retaining wall/flower bed area just around the corner from our basement patio door. We put sunflower seeds out and, as you can see from the chipmunks cheeks, he stocks up for each trip. Lol.

Drives the cats crazy.