<p>Argh, I had to take an unplanned break form CC to deal with the potted plant knocked over by the feline companion. The mess was spectacular - the dirt exploded out of the pot all over the grey carpet by the TV stand! I wish I had a video camera running - the explosion would have looked great in slow motion. Thank goodness Mr. Dyson handled it well leaving no trace of the disaster.</p>
<p>This is the same kitten who wakes me up every morning at 3 am by purring into my face and walking all over me. Too bad this was the cutest cat at the shelter and the only one H was not allergic to at all. I would have chosen one of the fat, sleepy cats. Of course, H and I adore her, so she gets away with everything. :)</p>
<p>So if you are considering adopting a shelter cat, get the adult kind. They are the best.</p>
<p>Have fun with the Christmas tree this year! Well, eventually she will turn into an adult cat!</p>
<p>And being an adult doesn’t necessarily stop the antics and give you a full night’s sleep. We have a sliding door in our bedroom and particularly in the nice weather, they scratch to go in or out oh, maybe 7 times a night! Then if something doesn’t sit well in their tummy, and they need to get it out, that seems to happen in the middle of the night, too. My cats are 12 yo and 5 yo.</p>
<p>Bunsenburner, I feel for you…I have 4 cats one of which is deaf and didn’t get the memo on keeping quiet while we sleep. He does all sorts of things to get my attention in the wee hours of the morning.
Kittens are cute but I am with you on getting the older more mature cat. The last one I got was a retired show cat …if I got him first I probably wouldn’t have 4 cats. He has the best personality of any cat I have ever seen. Everyone loves him when they come to our house , even some of our non-cat liking friends</p>
<p>I lost my wonderful adult kitties this year. So this little feline lady is filling the void in my heart whlie wreaking havoc at my house. She slept through the entire night for the first time without bothering us. Giving her a full can of her favorite cat food for dinner and then playing with her until she dropped breathless seemed to help.</p>
<p>This year, I’m planning to cement my Christmas tree into the floor and use plastic ornaments only (the Radko stuff stays boxed for a couple of years). :)</p>
<p>Even if I feed my Ziggy late in the evening before I go to bed, and leave him with plenty of dry food to munch on, he still, more often than not, will do his best to wake me up at 4:00 or 4:30 am. First he’ll vigorously scratch the side of the mattress and my blanket. If that doesn’t work, he’ll either sit on my chest, or perch on the headboard behind my head, and tap me repeatedly in the face or on the top of my head (whap, whap, whap!) – fortunately, he doesn’t use his claws! – until I wake up. Then, if I do feed him (instead of tossing him out of my room and closing the door, which I sometimes do), he’ll come back afterwards, sit on my chest again, and expect to have his cheeks and chin scratched. All very adorable, but it can be hard to take when I know I have to get up in a couple of hours.</p>
<p>Donna</p>
<p>PS: The only time he ever completely knocked over the large potted plant in my living room (it was at least four feet tall at the time) was when he was still a kitten, the day I brought him home from the vet after he was fixed. I think he was mad at me! He’s always been a big (not fat) kitty and a good jumper (he’s sometimes able to touch the tops of doors when he jumps and reaches up as high as he can), but how he managed to tip it over, I still have no idea.</p>
<p>Our kitties were babies last Christmas, so of course we had the tree climbing going on all the time. One night we were just sitting around when all of a sudden, a kitten shot straight out of the middle of the tree. Two seconds later the other kitten followed. I wish we had that on video.</p>
<p>Yes, I did see that and I think I even posted a link to that video (on Yahoo videos) here in the Cafe a while ago! Here is the real Simon’s Cat :</p>
<p>My shelter cat was adopted at age two, nearly 12 years ago. He still has his kitten like moments.
When we brought him home the kids were still small, so I would lock him in the basement at night - it was finished. I lured him down there with some tasty canned cat food and he could prowl all night without bothering anyone.
A few weeks ago I splurged on my cocker spaniel and spent $80 for a new dog bed and cover at LL Bean. It’s polar fleece on one side and the cat loves it! Sprawled out he takes up the whole bed. The dog lays on the floor next to him.
I am allergic to cats and if didn’t get locked up, he would be crawling across my face in the wee hours.
My twenty-something lives in the basement now and he takes care of her - ;)</p>
<p>Break kitty of the habit of walking all over you at night while she’s still small. Our adorable little kitten (who had disproportionately large ears and paws when we got him) has turned into a sleek behemoth of a loveable former Chicago Street Cat… and it really hurts when all twenty-two pounds of his muscled snuggliness walks up the length of my body to purr in my face when I’m trying to sleep.</p>
<p>I’ve awoken to my DH (the poor guy has a propensity to overheat at night anyhow) moaning and mumbling in his sleep, having kicked off all the covers, with a very happy cat sleeping on his head. I removed the boiling cat, repositioned the covers, and DH resumed a peacefully-sleeping state.</p>
<p>Best to encourage the cat to stay off the bed whilst sleeping goes on.</p>
<p>My two Ragdolls (3 1/2 and 5 months) get along during the day, but start fighting ON THE BED at 5am. The older one seems to be grouchy when the kitten wants to play. The growling and hissing gets the Golden Retriever upset and he starts barking and jumps on the bed. The 15 year old Maine Coon doesn’t care about any of it and ignores it from his perch on my pillow.</p>
<p>MomOfWildChild, your bedroom is just like my sister’s bedroom! Except she has two sphynx kittens (appropiately named Goblin and Gollum), an old Persian cat, a shepherd and a pug who are walking all over her every night. She does not mind - she is a veterinarian.</p>
<p>Aren’t these cats something else? Our big boy also likes to sit on us, give love bites, breathe in my face etc. at 4:30. He’s 10. I let him sleep in the basement a couple of nights a week. There’s an old couch down there for him to sleep on.</p>
<p>Our old cat was nocturnal for many years which made for some late night antics that would rouse us. My little fella dog never could remember that she was the one slinking around at night and would go charging, barking and in a furor when he heard her. Drove my H nuts. I don’t think getting an adult cat would take care of that problem. Our cat didn’t act that way until she was older, and then she settled down when she was elderly.</p>
<p>The kitten was just a perfect cat last night - she slept curled up in a ball next to me, not on top of me. Did tryptophane from the turkey do the trick? Next time I’m shopping for her cat food, I’m getting her turkey dinners.
Today we got a call from the shelter inquiring about the well-being of our adoptee. May be I should show them my Petsmart receipts, especially the one for the cat tree H got her? She is being spoiled rotten here!</p>
<p>This thread brings back so many memories of when I had cats years ago. I’m allergic to them now, so H & I got a dog. He had a bad habit of waking me up very early in the a.m. by sticking one of his large paws directly over one of my eyes. I guess he figured that eyes must be open to have a human to do things for him. I invariably woke up in a panic, because those claws are kind of prickly, even when well-trimmed. I quickly showed him how I disagreed with that behavior, and he stopped doing it. Now that he is gone, I would love to have that paw in my eye again.</p>
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