Spoiled Rotten Kitties Live Here

You think children are bad at Christmas? They are in the stores and they want, want want. They get excited and over tired and pout. I don’t care what the song says about not pouting or crying it happens. They are just overstimulated.

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Well my 3 cats would put any child to shame. Hard to believe it when they look so innocent.

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You heard about Rocky’s attack on the Christmas tree

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and Buddy’s destruction of my winter wonderland but wait till I tell you the rest of the story.

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I have been thinking about getting one of those toys they advertise on the late night infomercials called Cat’s Meow.

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Its supposed to entertain all cats. I was hesitating because they already have a  similar toy and they have no interest in it. But I was wandering through the “As Seen on TV” section at CVS and low and behold…there was the Cat’s Meow and they were 2 for $19.00. Same price as TV but no shipping this way. So in a moment of weakness I bought them.

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Cat’s can’t read so I brought them in the house and set them on the table. I figured I’d open them up on Christmas. What I want to know is  how do those 3 cats know that it was something for them in the boxes? They zeroed in on them immediately. It didn’t take long before the plop, plop of the boxes landing on the floor came to my ears. Sure enough, the boxes weren’t just on the floor, one was being pushed around while the other one had a cat perched on top of it. (I didn’t give in. They still have to wait.)

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Rocky has had a heat lamp for about a year now. He is the only one of the 3 cats that ever paid much attention to it. He lounges the day away basking like a sun lover at the beach. There’s a story behind the heat lamp but I won’t bore you with it now. Suffice it to say  that I got the result I was looking for so it was a good investment.

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The problem now is that Smokey has started trying it out. The first time, about a month ago , was only for a couple of minutes and then he moved on. But about a week later he was under it again and Rocky wasn’t happy about it. Now as soon as Rocky gets down, whether to get a drink of water, or something to eat or use the litter box, Smokey is right there to take over and he isn’t giving it up when Rocky comes back. This is causing Rocky to become very distressed but he shares his annoyance with me instead of Smokey. Rocky follows me around meowing and getting underfoot until Smokey gets down and relinquishes the sunlamp lit perch. Tonight the only way Smokey got down was for a handful of kitty treats.

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Does this mean I need to get another sunlamp now for Smokey? And what a coincidence that he’s doing this right before Christmas. (I want, I want, I want)

Who says cats aren’t smart?!

Bring on the Heat

Last year I was trying to figure out a way to make my orange cat, Rocky (you may know him better as Editor -in – Chief )DSC_0342ab

relax and stop over grooming. I started using Feliway which is a pheromone diffuser and that seemed to help some.

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Rocky also like to “escape” out into the hall where he happily chirps at the sun spots and rolls on them.  My apartment is on the shaded side of the building so I don’t get too many sunspots. I began to think I was depriving him of a basic cat right, to lounge in a sun spot. This  got me  to thinking about how lizards and reptiles like to bask in the sun. So on a trip to Petco I picked up one of the sun lamps they use in the reptile cages.

Rocky took to it right away.

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Then suddenly, this spring he seemed to lose interest. I turned it on for him  a few times and he’d sniff around it and then walk away. I had no idea what had changed but I wasn’t about to waste electricity running a heat lamp he wasn’t using. Neither Smokey nor Buddy showed any interest so I packed it away.

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The first really cool, fall weather finally hit today. About noontime Rocky started wandering around meowing quietly. It was a very sad, plaintive kind of meow. Then he hopped on the desk and got in my face. I took a time out to pet him but that didn’t seem to satisfy him.

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Then a light bulb seemed to go off. Could he want his heat lamp? I pulled it out and plugged it in. After a couple of experimental sniffs he stretched out and was down for the count.