<p>The dog lovers got me to thinking that we cat people have plenty to talk about too! Problems, funny stories, or just tell us about your feline family members.</p>
<p>Here’s a starter question: What are your cats’ names and how did they get them?</p>
<p>We have Mippy, short for Milipio, which was something D came up with when we were playing madlibs and she needed a nonsense word.</p>
<p>Sabine, a character in a book D read in HS.</p>
<p>And Josie, a “friendly, jaunty” name according to nameberry, and one I’ve always liked. (Yes, I finally got to name one).</p>
<p>When we got Sabine, DH suggested “Tater.” Needless to say, he no longer gets to vote.</p>
<p>Maybe this weekend I will get two kittens. The cat of my heart died at 19 in July of 2011. I am ready to start again. I feel like someone should give me a kitten shower. I can’t wait-- who will they be?</p>
<p>well, my grand kitty- D’s 5 year old short haired white and black rescued cat- is a longterm member of our home. D lives abroad. she plays catch and fetch. and meows very loudly and purrs very loudly too. the vet guesses she is part asian. she is kinda funny looking with a small head and pear body. i taught her how to sit for a snack. of course we love her.</p>
<p>We lost our kitty about 6 years ago. My family’s dog is not cat friendly so we’ve been catless for a while. My roommate is getting two cats on Friday. Oh boy. We’re already fighting over them. I want them fixed ASAP (they’re about 3 months). My roommate insists that the vet said to wait at least 1 year. She’s full of it. I don’t have much of a say though because I’ve already told her I can’t afford to contribute to the cat’s expenses.</p>
<p>Owner of 3 nutty cats here…All named by my daughter (the extreme animal lover)
Jenna (often called Jenna-Benna, or Jen-Ben) she is truly crazy, Sweet little Niki, and Topsannah (prairie flower in Comanshe Indian) often called Topsy for short.
LasMa-our Josie was a beloved Chocolate Lab who watched over my daughter obsessively when she was young.
Does anyone else speak to their kitties in baby talk? I find myself doing this and can’t begin to understand why! I never spoke “baby talk” to my child…I am becoming as crazy as thery are!</p>
<p>Love my “baby girl” ( katie93 haha) cat. She is a big fat indoor cat. She loves food. We try to control what she eats. But when she doesn’t get enough, she eat a plant and promptly throws up or follows me around staring at me or meowing. She s a PIA and we all love her dearly. </p>
<p>I also have a grand-kitty. He is a brat. Wrecked havoc when visiting last Christmas as a 4 month old kitten. Broke a mirror, knocked over a lamp, dug up plants. But he is adorable and is callied Hemingway because he has 6 toes on all four paws. He wasn’t so adorable when he ate and destroyed a 14k gold chain I gave to D1. Especially with the currant price of gold! He gets into things he shouldn’t be able to. Sigh.</p>
<p>We have 3 dogs and 3 cats!
The cats are:
“Tucker”- a grey boy who was named for T.Tucker, the Welsh Corgi in Rita Mae Brown’s mystery series (I know, it makes no sense, but…). He is completely my D’s cat, and she left for grad school two weeks ago while Tucker stayed behind. It’s not going wonderfully as he misses her more than I do.
“Figaro”- my hefty black cat who was named for my favorite opera, Le Nozze di Figaro. My daughter is an aspiring opera singer who is now in grad school and opera has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. Figgy has turned out to be grain intolerant and now dines on expensive, but pure, Tiki Cat, cat food- not as much trouble as it sounds because at least he’s not throwing up any more. He is a cuddly, plush, ball of love with a massive purr that he shares freely!
“Stanley”- This grey striped kitty with white paws got his name in response to D’s room mate’s cat, Stella. D’s room mate decamped, leaving Stanley behind and D “donated” him to me! No problem though, because this little 2 year old is fun and loves to play.</p>
<p>My cat “Peaches” is a mostly white calico who will be 14-years-old next month. When we first got her from the pound “foster caregiver” (person who takes multiple animals home), she went missing for a day. On the way to my parent’s house one chilly day, I heard a faint “meow” from somewhere in my vehicle as I was heading out of my neighborhood onto a busy street. I pulled over, searched inside my car, and then opened the hood of the engine compartment. She was huddled up next to the battery, scared to death! Lesson learned… don’t allow your cats access from the house into the garage via a kitty door!</p>
<p>I have two at home for the time being. Abby’s my oldest daughter’s 14 year old calico that I inherited when she moved west. She’s never been a lap cat but as she gets older she’s become more affectionate. She was a stray before we took her in, and still escapes now and then. She has the ability to disjoint all four legs and lay absolutely flat on the floor - at only 7 pounds, she is really flat; scared me to death the first time I saw it. She also, for some odd reason, likes to hop into the tub and chase her tail. Does not chase it any other time; done this the entire 13 years we’ve had her.</p>
<p>Kitten is my younger daughter’s cat. She ran onto her porch during a major storm two years ago today. The landlord said that it could stay until they found a home for it, but a week later the girls overheard the landlord and a woman who was not his very pregnant wife in the other apartment in the house. Kitten was then able to stay (blackmail saved a black cat). Kitten caught a mouse the other day and lovingly left it on the daughter’s pillow. She is a very vocal cat, but has been pouting all week because the daughter is away. She eats everything and anything.</p>
<p>Kittens 24/7! Mama is Hazel; gray is Taz (boy); mostly black is Sylvester (boy); white with black on head and two black spots is Marvin the Martian(boy); mostly white, with a bit of ginger and black on head and tail is Penelope (girl).</p>
<p>Rescue cats, including the adorable Looney Tunes litter you currently see on the kitten cam, are spayed when they reach 8 weeks and 2 pounds. Female cats can go into heat at 4 months of age, so you definitely do not want to wait until the cat is a year old unless you want kittens or a kitty abortion. Three months old? Take them in to be spayed/neutered now.</p>
<p>I have 2 kitties. (Last week I had 3 but one was just visiting while her owner was away on vacation.)</p>
<p>Cat #1 was a stray who I’ve had for 18 years now. Zero is 20 years old. (Vet swears he doesn’t look a day over 14 ) DH named him Zero because the kitty didn’t cost us anything. (After we spent nearly $1000 on vet bills three years later when kitty was hit by a car, Dh wanted to rename him KillaBuck.) Zero is very handsome long haired lilacpoint Ragdoll. </p>
<p>Once to cheer me on my birthday, Zero brought me a live wood rat and dropped it on my foot, startling both me and the rat. The wood rat saw its chance and ran into the house. It took me week to catch it. (Around here wood rats are known bubonic plague and hanta virus carriers so I was rather less than pleased by my birthday gift.)</p>
<p>Cat #2 was adopted from a shelter as a 8 month old. D2 named him after her then-favorite musical singer. He’s a medium haired brown mackerel tortoiseshell mostly-Maine Coon cat who grew up to be huge (16+ lbs) cat. He’s my lap cat.</p>
<p>Ok all you cat lovers. I have Googled, I have asked online, asked friends, asked the vet. No luck.</p>
<p>How do you stop a cat from barfing. Mine seems to mostly barf up kitty kibble and it stains the carpet. We need new carpet soon and I would love to not ruin that!</p>
<p>Cats barf. It’s in their job description. And they also manage to barf on the carpet, even if 90% of your house is uncarpeted. Frequent brushing to keep down the amount of hair that’s swallowed may help. And if your cat is barfing because he gulps his food (I have one of those), I’ve heard that putting some large marbles in with the kibble–too large to swallow–will force the cat to slow down as he picks out the kibbles.</p>
<p>We have two middle-aged Ragdolls (long haired, blue eyed) who have asked to remain anonymous. They weigh around 15 pounds each, which is normal for the breed. I just watched a Today show segment featuring a cat in need of adoption who weighs 30 pounds! He was owned by an elderly man who just let him free feed dry food all day, then became too ill to care for him. The shelter has him on a low carb, wet food diet, and he’s already lost 3 pounds. He looks like a fluffy couch cushion. I don’t even want to think about the litter box issues.</p>
<p>We only have 2 right now, but usually have more. None have seemed to find their way to my back porch lately.</p>
<p>Nukat (pronounced new cat, because he was, well, the New Cat). Beautiful black and white who managed to find my back porch about 8 years ago. Have no idea where he came from - he just sat out there, very emaciated and cried. He was about 10 months old. He is a talker (which is good I guess as that is how we found him). He also has some sort of genetic issue with his teeth and has ended up losing all but 4 or 5. My toothless wonder!</p>
<p>Tigger - he was an adoption through DD’s employment. She works with developmentally adults and had a client that had been living independently and now needed to move to a group home. She had a cat that could not go with her. I said ok, put our name at the end of the list of possible adopters. Well, you know who they called first! We went to pick him up and found this morbidly obese cat. His head looked far too small for his body! He was so heavy, we had to support the bottom of the cat carrier. Of course when he got here, he was too nervous to eat for awhile, so that helped him lose weight. And coming from a small one room studio to a sprawling ranch, he got far more exercise. He has dropped at least 15 lbs and is one of the sweetest cats we have had. He came just 2 weeks before we had to put H’s beloved St. Bernard down and after that, Tigger really took to my H. It was like “You need me and I need you.” They are so smart.</p>
<p>My vet recommended giving cats Metamucil (or the equivalent generic) using a liquid syringe. Scruff the cat and give them a couple of shots in the side of their mouth. This should eliminate some of the barfing up of hair balls.</p>
<p>MommaJ is right! We had a Russian Blue, wonderful, friendly outdoor cat that would stand on the wood flooring and lean over the oriental carpet to barf. After he passed away at age 19, we adopted Kiki, a sealpoint himalayan. We learned enough at that point to keep him indoors. We found a product called Petromalt, he loved it and it prevent the barfing. Has anyone watched the TLC show, “My Cat from Hell”? Jackson is wonderful with the cats.</p>
) DH named him Zero because the kitty didn’t cost us anything. (After we spent nearly $1000 on vet bills three years later when kitty was hit by a car, Dh wanted to rename him KillaBuck.) Zero is very handsome long haired lilacpoint Ragdoll. </p>