Cutie has an uncanny ability to know when she is scheduled to go somewhere. I could bring the other cats to the vet, and she wouldn't panic at seeing the carrier, but when it was her turn, she was nowhere to be found. We were living in an apartment in Fayetteville, North Carolina one year. It wasn't a large apartment and we didn't have a lot of furniture. Cutie was scheduled to see the vet at 10 am so I brought the carrier in the day before, hoping she'd get used to it, and not assume that it was for her. She wasn't at all worried when I brought the carrier in, although her mom was. When I got up the next morning, Cutie was there waiting for breakfast. Then at 9:30 when it was time to head to the vet's, she was nowhere to be found. She wouldn't come when I called her, and she wasn't deaf then. I couldn't find her anywhere, and couldn't imagine where she would be hiding. I called to postpone the appointment, and got another one at 11 am. Still no Cutie. After having to cancel that one and make another for another day, at about noon, Cutie was at the food dish as if nothing were the matter.
I finally got to go downstairs to my office at 8:30 pm. When I got up to eat supper, Lydia bailed on me and went down to her heated bed in my office. So she's still with me, but she has to share me with the other two cats, who are in other heated beds. I'll still get about four hours work in today, and that's fine.
That's Cutie in the bed by herself, then Lydia and Ella in the same bed. I am not sure how that happened because it's a first, and I predict a fight between Lydia and Ella before long. In fact, paws have already been raised.
Awww...Sweet! I really enjoy reading your posts on your "fur babies" and everyone else's too. I like how you bring out their personalities so that I feel like I know them too.
Ella is grounded for a day. I let her out this morning and, since it has been cold today, I figured she'd want back in after just a few minutes. But I checked on her and didn't see her. I gave her fifteen minutes, then called for her. She didn't come. I wasn't too excited because we do have a heated shed that she can get into, so it's not like she was going to freeze to death unless something had happened to her. A half hour later, still no Ella. By then I was concerned so, after calling and whistling for her, I dressed up and went out looking for her. I walked along the railroad tracks, where she sometimes goes, and to a vacant lot that used to house a taxi service, calling for her along the way. I couldn't find her, so I went in to get my wife, since Ella will sometimes respond to her, probably aware that it has to be serious if she goes outside looking for her. She still didn't answer. I walked along the tracks again, and then checked the front of the house, where she rarely goes because she's afraid of cars, which is one good thing. Then I went to the side of the house, which hasn't been shoveled, and she was staked out by our fire escape steps, apparently stalking some critter that had made a home there. She was so intent on her predator duties that she didn't even seem to notice that I was there until I touched her. She was just around the corner from our back door, so there's no way that she was unable to hear me calling for her. She usually hears me when she's a block away. Often, I will see her jumping the fence from the street on the other side of the tracks after I call for her. So she's grounded for the rest of the day and tomorrow. That usually gets results. She will be very obedient to my calls for a while.
We have been getting some small red squirrels, as well as our usual gray squirrels, lately and they have just learned that Ella can't get them through the window. She was frantic this morning, scratching on the window, and slamming the window with her paws, and the squirrel would look up at her every once in a while, but otherwise kept eating at the feeder. Then my wife let Ella outside. I knew what she was going to do and was watching for her to come up the fire escape stairs to try to pounce on the red squirrel. I wouldn't want her to know that I had intended to work against her but I was prepared to warn the squirrel. There was no need for betrayal on my part though, because the squirrel heard her coming. I saw the squirrel look over at the steps, see Ella working her way up, and then jumped to the tree with Ella in hot pursuit. So far, she hasn't had any luck with squirrels. She has pretty much given up trying to catch a gray squirrel. Instead, she annoys them and they annoy her, but she doesn't seem to view them as prey anymore. Being so much smaller, she does exhibit her usual predator stance when it comes to the red squirrels though. I don't want to discourage her from doing what comes natural to a cat, but I don't want her to kill any of the red squirrels either.
I remember when I first found my last kitty. Someone had thrown her away in a Tide soap box, so I named her Suds. Michael and I were both working in offices outside of our home, so poor tiny Suds had to spend most of her early days in an unused bedroom, at least until she got big enough to defend herself from the 24 pound male cat my husband had. Within a few days, Michael set her up with a kitty lounging bed attached to one of the windows. By the time she was big enough to be let out of the bedroom, Suds was chattering in squirrel speak. She would also exhibit squirrel maneuvers like running up the walls, and shooting herself out of our male cat reach by jerking herself sideways. She lived well into her 20's, but she never stop the squirrel speak.
@Ina I. Wonder, that's funny. Ella spends hours studying the squirrels but she's not a kitten, and is perhaps not so easily influenced.
I have to admit that I've been wanting another cat, but I feel it's not fair to the cat, because it would probably outlive me. I've been thinking about trying to talk Bobert into 'us' getting a kitty. I think even Izzy would like a kitten for company. All my other dogs loved having a cat around for a playmate, and they were large dogs. Although going on five years old, Izzy still hasn't gotten over nine pounds, and most of our cats weighed more than 10 pounds. But nothing can compare to funny antics of a cat.
To be honest, that's a large part of the reason why we've been making a point of socializing our youngest cat. The two older ones don't really like anyone other than me, but Ella wants to be friend with everyone. So, while I don't anticipate dying anytime soon, if Ella had to find a place to live, she'd probably fit right in.
My wife has some cat treats that Ella particularly likes. Cutie and Lydia don't like them, so Michelle keeps them at her desk. Today, while Michelle was away from her desk, Ella came to get my attention, tapping me on the leg, then waiting by my office door for me to follow her. Assuming she was asking to go out again, I told her no, it was dark and she can't go out after dark. But I followed here to see if maybe she was going to tell me that Lydia had thrown up somewhere, which she does. Instead, she went up on my wife's desk and tapped the cat treat can. Had I done what she was asking, there would be no end to it but the evolving communication skills interest me.
It must be spring. Cutie went outside. She is on our second-floor fire escape, where I feed the squirrels and birds.
I need to rearrange my mess of an office. I have a couple of new bookcases that I bought a month ago and still haven't put together, and I have to do that. But also, I have a table in my office with a couple of cat beds on it, and a storage bin beneath it with another cat bed. They like to be here in the office with me, but this arrangement is taking up entirely too much room. The placement of my television right now doesn't work well either, largely because Ella has knocked it down three time already and put a big gash in the screen the last time She likes to catapult off the top of my television in order to get up to the top of my desk, which has a bookshelf on it. So I am going to finally put the bookcases together. Replacing a couple of short ones that I have now with these higher ones will give me some more room, so that I can put my television on a shelf that I am now using for books. That should be out of Ella's way. Since I don't like televisions with a gash across the screen, although I bought this one only a few months ago, I ordered another - a smart TV this time, which should mean that I won't need to hook up the Roku to it. Then, to get to the point of it, I am replacing the table with a cat tower. If it's like the last cat tree that I bought, it will be six months before any of them will dare even touch it, but eventually they might get to like it. One problem that I can envision is Cutie taking up residence in the lower level and not letting her sister pass through it to get to any of the upper levels. Ella will be able to jump to the third level if she has to. They already have two very large cat trees, and Ella has beds on shelves up near the ceiling all over the place. Here's the picture of the cat tower from Amazon. I can promise that neither my office or my cats will ever be so well groomed.
I spent the whole day today cleaning out my office, and I am not nearly done, although I was able to move in three more bookcases. However, I also put the cat tower together. It wasn't too hard. The instructions sucked and I put it together wrong the first time and had to disassemble it. But it's there. Cuties and Lydiia haven't even shown their faces in the office since I began cleaning though, and Ella wouldn't go near the new cat tower. She'll probably scope it out tonight after we go to bed though. The thing on top is the case, not the tower itself.