Wordless Wednesday - Kitten Time

Foster kitten update time!

We haven't had a good post about the kittens in a while. They are currently of age that their personalities are starting to come out and we get to know them better. For a short while we had very intersting weights, Sparkle overtook Garp as the biggest kitten and she was 1 3/4lbs, Garp weighed in at a respectable 1 1/2lbs and Tucker took up the rear with 1 1/4 lbs.  Their weights have gone up since then and Tucker is now just shy of 1 1/2. They will be going back once he hits 2lbs, so very possibly the beginning of next week or the end of it (or later if I can't bare to give them up for a few extra days)

I am really enjoying them now that the need to do a full load of laundry every day stage is gone. They are all ankle buffers, making it near impossible to walk through the kitten room with any speed (unless they are eating).  They are eating about 16 oz of food a day, and still have not figured out that dry food is food. Part of me feels like I should force the issue, but since I'm 'not a fan' of dry food for cats, I feel like not pushing it is giving them the better start. I write up adoption cards for all my kittens featuring a photo and a little bit about what they like and what they eat, and I can tell the shelter they just never accepted dry food.. which is completely and utterly true.

As is typical with motherless kittens, someone even attempted to use the dry food as litter (Tucker) but the bowl was too small, and the blanket was oh so close and tempting. I do think they started playing with it as I saw nuggets around the room for a while, but recently nothing.

Garp is a lover.. He is actually quite ridiculous in many fashions. He is ridiculously cuddly. He is ridiculously handsome with those blue eyes that are oh so slow in turning, and he is RIDICULOUSLY photogenic. You probably can't tell from the shot above, but I spent time time trying to get a nice photo for possible Christmas cards, and frankly he bowled me over. He also purrs like a motor boat. He will not stay here as a member of The Crew, but oh is he vying for a spot.  He is also ridiculously good at trying to escape - which is why the baby gate is now up in the kitten room if you happened to notice it on the dropcam (or see link at the top of this page).

Tucker is the cutest thing. He is the fluffiest and the softest. I was told there was one add on (not three individual orphans as I originally suspected) so I am guessing that he and Sparkle are siblings. Their eyes are the same color. He may well be the runt, or he may just have had such a rough start with that worm that he's just that far behind. He likes attention and he likes being petted but if you grab him and snuggle him close he quickly starts looking for an exit. Oddly enough neither he nor Spark purr.. I'm not sure I've ever heard either one of them do it. They are happy, but they have yet to connect making the purr noise with the happy feeling. I keep bringing Garp around when he is purring, hopefully they catch on.

Sparkle.. oh Spark.. she is a spit fire!  She likes attention, she likes nomming on things, she likes attacking belt loops and watches and earlobes and ponytails.. she likes to be in the middle of the action, where ever that is.. One thing she does NOT like?

This ferret sweatshirt.  This can go take a long walk off a short pier as far as she is concerned. After I very quickly took these pictures I picked her up and coo'ed over her and gave her kisses and I found she was shivering a little, so I took it right off. It is perfectly kitten sized, but being that it is designed for a ferret it is a little snug. Not uncomfortable snug, just it took too long to get on and off for my liking - and Sparks. Because I was feeling a bit silly (I mean don't you have to feel silly to put a sweatshirt on a kitten?) I tried one more thing..

Long walk, short pier lady.. now..

But seriously, this one she took much better, but again she is a busy busy girl and she really prefered playing, and I respect that, so off it came and off she went.. I ask so little of them: they don't die, they eat food, that they don't die, and they use the litter box eventually.. that I think 5 minutes of silliness isn't too much to ask (and if she had been shivering before I put her down for the photoshoot I would not have gone through with it. She did not freak, she did not have clothing paralysis, she just sat there looking a bit put out (as seen above) and suggested we not do that again - which I listened to fully)

An addition to the Kitten Room

I have been looking for an inexpensive nightstand for my new guest room, so I went to the local storage facility's annual yard sale over the weekend.  I didn't find a nightstand, but I did find something I could not resist. Maybe I should have, but seriously, who can deny this face?

Now sadly he has had a pretty hard life up to now.. his mane is a little shoddy, his feet don't all reach the floor, and if someone knows of a good giraffe neck brace, "Raff" here really could use it.

But I have a thing for giraffes, (and turtles and polar bears) and he was only $20, so I couldn't really resist, and darn it if he doesn't look adorable in the kitten room..

I am hopefully I can keep Raff's head up the same way I fixed Happy Bear with a bit of dental floss and a needle, but the metal wire that holds it up has been disconnected from the body, so I am not sure.  Doesn't really matter because I think he is adorable just the way he is.

NBC's The Secret Lives of Pets is hogwash #PetCrazy

So I was looking for things to watch the other day and saw that NBC was airing an hour long special on the Secret Lives of Pets.

Are you a pet lover? Then don’t miss The Secret Lives of Pets on @DatelineNBC tonight at 10/9c. pic.twitter.com/H2anblJanK
— NBC (@nbc) September 11, 2014

I saw the Today Show do a segment on cats earlier in the week, so I was interested to see where they were going with this. Let me say this, I think the show was justification for Hoda Kotb to talk about her dog for an hour.

My biggest problem with this show were the cat 'experts'. John Bradshaw is the director of the Anthrozoology Institute at the University of Bristol in England and is touted as the author of “Cat Sense” making him sound like he is a cat expert. Looking at NBC's own profile of him though, he also studies both. This will make a bit more sense when I get into this.

They also tout Martha Stewart as a cat expert because she has a line of cat toys and has four cats.

The third expert they have seemed a bit more legitimate, but she got very little air time. Mieshelle Nagelschneider is a Harvard trained cat behaviorist (They have cat behavior classes at Harvard? really?)

Okay, so why am I calling this show hogwash? Not even a minute into the show, you hear this:

Hota: Some people when they look at cats, they think, they don't care about us..
Martha: I don't think they do care about us

This sets the tone for the entire show (save for the segment by Mieshelle and the bit by Jackson Galaxy, but those don't talk about how much the cat cares)

So Mr. Bradshaw doesn't think a purring cat is ever a happy cat. The bit on the TV (sensationalized you know) with a great big negative sign over the "Purring cat = Happy Cat"

The purr doesn't actually mean happiness, the purr is there to get you to do something. It is an instruction.

Seriously? Now granted, I will go with the fact that a purring cat doesn't always mean it is happy. Cats purr to self soothe, but I highly disagree with his assumption that it is an instruction.

So how about Cat with Toy = Cat at Play?  They say no to that one too. Mr. Bradshaw says they are hunting.  Well yes, yes they are. Cats hunt. Is anyone shocked at that? What does he expect them to play pinochle? Why does he think that they can't play at hunting? This part really REALLY gets me:

Bizarrely we found that if a cat is hungry it will play more intensely than if it is fully fed.

Why is this bizarre? The cat was designed to hunt to get food, so it is designed to want to hunt more the hungrier it gets... so this is inherent. Nothing bizarre about that..

So about 25 minutes into the show Hota does a voice over bit that says

but if you really want to figure out cats, there is really only one thing to know. They are LONERS. Solitary and territorial. This means while they may like living with you, hanging out with cats is often a different story. Can you say "Cat Fight" (insert videos of cats fighting here)

and back to the interview with Mr. Bradshaw

Hoda: is it a good thing to have multiple cats living in the same environment?
John: Well if you set about it the right way, you can do it, but it is not something that anyone should set out on lightly

Okay, yes, but you shouldn't set out on owning any pet lightly, period. And while I've never had dogs, I doubt you should set on having two dogs in the same environment lightly either. But back to the show. Enter a woman with three cats that do not get along. In the segment she is sitting on the floor holding two cats, one in each arm, forcing them to be with in inches of each other. They have Ms. Nagelschneider come over and say feeding them all in the same spot is a problem and you should feed them all over the house, upstairs and down stairs, east and west because they are solitary hunters and would eat alone. She then finds problem with playing with all of the cats at the same time again mentioning how it brings out aggression. I have always fed in the same general area. I hate side by side bowls, but I feed all of my cats in the kitchen, but then again I meal feed instead of free feeding. And play might bring out aggression in the beginning, but done properly it drains energy out from a cat and helps them learn about each other and helps them 'speak the same language' if you will. Like Jackson Galaxy likes to day: Hunt, catch, kill, eat, groom, sleep.

I do like her quote about litter boxes though: Where in nature do cats all go and urinate and defecate in one spot? As well as her quote about the cat owner: She wanted to learn to think like a cat, that is the perfect cat owner.  Yup, I can't agree with that more.

Then the show goes on to talk about the "special gifts" of cats and dogs and they have a hero dog that saved its owner when she was stuck in a canyon. And a dog who is a service dog for a young girl, and then a cat who senses when people are going to die. So dogs are heroic and cats are morbid? How about the story of Tara? or Slinky Malinki?

The show ends with a "which is the better pet" segment where they get opinions of people on the street. They even did a poll on their Facebook page according to the show. I don't know how many of you watch NBC news not-news segments, but if you do, you will have come to realize pretty quickly they are very dog centric over there. I am not shocked in the least that the fans of NBC's facebook page are dog centric. But to then go on to say..

Hota: it has come down to this dogs vs cats which makes the better pet
John: A pet for most people would be a dog, if you have the time to look after it
Hota: did you just say dogs were the better pets?
John: for people who have plenty of time to look after them. For people who do not have so much time, it's a cat.

This is the 'cat expert' that they have had on several times, touting him as a cat expert, and he is saying if you don't have any time get a cat?  Seriously? Doesn't he know the more time you invest in a cat the more loving and responsive your cat is going to be? People who think cats are loners and have no use for you are people who have cats who are loners and they have no use for their people, because the people have trained them not to depend on them for affection. As someone who starts out the day with four to six cats on her, purring, snuggling, cuddling, in one great big cat pile of love, it FLOORS me when people say cats are loners and aren't affectionate. (Now for those of you who think they just want something, please know my husband gets up before I do and feeds the cats, so they are wanting nothing but to welcome me to the day)

The dog expert Brian Hare gives one of the better quotes in the cat vs dog 'debate' on this show. He said: That's like asking me if a hammer is a better tool than a screwdriver. Well done Brian.. well done indeed. It is very very true. Cats are so different from dogs that it really is an apple vs orange issue.

They end the show with Martha Stewart. They like her because she has a line of pet products for both cats and dogs (and also more likely because she works a lot with NBC [is she partnered with them? on contract? I couldn't find an answer on a quick google search, but you know they are affiliated because she shows up on the Today Show a lot])

Hota: we asked people which were better pets. Clearly people think dogs make better pets than cats.
Martha: well because they're needy, and they are obsequious
Hota: the people?
Martha: well both, so a dog will come and put his paw on you and look at you with those soulful eyes and want to be, want to be nurtured. (said in a loving nurturing way, like one might talk to a child) A cat couldn't care less. (said with almost dismissal or even disgust) 

I find it fascinating how her whole body language changes when she talks about dogs and when she talks about cats.

Martha: I like the idea that cats are independent, as opposed to dogs who are totally dependant. Cats come and go, they will be cuddled when they want to be cuddled and they will not be cuddled if they don't want to be cuddled.
Hota: Some people when they look at cats, in general, they think they are lone rangers, that they are a little haughty, they don't care about us..Martha: I don't think they do care about us. I really really don't. I think they will put up with us.

Why is it qualities you admire in a person (not cuddling when they don't want to) are traits to be put down when they are held by a cat? When you invest time in a relationship, that relationship blossoms. Cats are like little mirrors, and they give you back what they take in. As I type this, I have five cats surrounding me. I have had to kick Jack and Muffin off me more times than I care to count because I didn't want them messing up my typing. At this very moment he has his paw on me and he is looking at me with those Puss and Boots eyes.  Kit is snuggled up with my husband, her absolutely favorite place in the entire world to be. She loves him with reckless abandon. Fleurp has now shown up.. so we have six..  I wouldn't say my cats are obsequious, because they are not here to serve me, but they obviously love me and my husband and want to be near us whenever they can.

Shutterfly Photo Book

If you don't have a Shutterfly account, you are missing out. They randomly email me codes for free photo books, and I really enjoy putting these together. I have quite a few of them now, which is really nice since all of my photos are digital and sit on my computer and I have nothing to share with anyone who walks into my home with out these.

Sadly I always seem to wait until the very last minute to put them together and it tends to stress me out. If I were smart I would cull my photos every few weeks/month so I didn't have to search for images and then put one together.

I am seriously considering spending some time culling through my thousands upon thousands of photos to make a foster kitten book.. wouldn't that be fun to see several hundred kittens in one book?? Only problem with that is when I started 12 years ago I didn't have a digital camera, and then when I got one it was a less than one megapixal so the photos I might have are pretty grainy. Well it would still be fun, although it would be a HUGE project.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly photo books offer a variety of layouts and cover options to choose from.