Ella & Bubba

How is he unplugging stuff? If he's pulling the cords with his teeth, it's not gonna end well (my sister lost a chihuahua that way.)

 

No, mine haven't done that. However, whenever I have a kitten, there's a period in which I have to keep my cords covered so that they aren't chewed on, more for the cats' protection than the appliance.

 

Ella, as we were packing for our last trip.

 

Bubba got out today. I didn't close the door securely, I guess. He hid underneath the car for a few minutes, then ran across the yard as fast as he could, ran back, chased a squirrel up a tree, then rolled over on his back for me to pick him up and bring him back in. I considered leaving him out for a little longer since he was being so nice, but Ella was glaring at us from the window so I knew she'd expect the same, but without the cooperation.

 

For some reason, when cats get older, they have more trouble with their nails. Probably, they aren't doing as much climbing. Although we have several dedicated scratchers around the house, Ella gets her nails stuck in the blankets in bed or in the fabric of our chairs, so I have to trim her nails from time to time. The problem is that she will let me do only one at a time. I can get one of them done while she's still trying to figure out what it is that I'm doing. After that, she's done with it. No more.

Bubba doesn't have that problem, just as Ella didn't when she was Bubba's age, but I tried trimming his nails once since he was paying so much attention to me while I was trying to trim Ella's. He bit me.

 

I had trouble with using the toenail clippers with Poodle, and my Chipper hated it. I found a cheap little nail grinder on Amazon and since it was on sale, I thought it was worth trying it .
It works great, and Poodle does not seem to mind it at all, and there is not the likelihood of clipping too short and hurting him with the grinder.
You can use it either with or without the cover, depending on which part of the nail you are grinding. I like mine without the cover, except that Poodle has gotten his long ears stuck in it once or twice; so I have to put his ears in a ponytail to protect them when I am using the trimmer.

It does make a little noise, but not much, and it charges right up with a usb-c cord. I think that it is definitely worth trying for either a cat or a dog. Here is what mine looks like, but Amazon has a good variety of them.

 

Here's some pics of Bubba not long after we got him, but after we had rid him of the respiratory infection he had when he came to us. Bubba was never in the least bit timid.

 

Bubba plays rough, but only with me, and that's because I let him. Without warning, he will attack me with all his claws and teeth engaged. I refer to it as turning into a badger. He's only playing and, while I do end up with some minor scratches, it looks a lot more vicious than it is. He's trying not to hurt me, but I think he hasn't noticed that my arms don't have layers of fur for protection. He never does that with Michelle, and, although he annoys Ella (on purpose), he's pretty gentle with her.

 

Bubba is often picky about what he eats, and he'll leave half or even all of the premium cat food that I give him in the bowl, uneaten, seemingly because it doesn't rise up to his standards for the day. Usually, that food goes out for the stray cats, who will willingly eat it. But if it looks particularly nasty, like today, given that it sat there all day, all night, and part of the next day, I'll dump it in the compost box rather than subjecting the stray cats to such nasty food.

Repeatedly, Bubba will then rummage through the compost box eating that stuff that he wouldn't eat when it was fresh and in his own bowl, as he did a moment ago. He does the same thing with other foods. When I'm eating something, he will often beg. But if I give him a piece of it, such as the chicken that we had for supper the day before yesterday, he will turn it down. I have never seen him actually eat anything that I've offered him from the table. In fact, I have cooked chicken scraps for him, minus any spices, and he'll turn that down too. However, I found chicken bones on the floor downstairs, from chicken that Bubba had dug out of the upstairs compost box, eating all of the chicken and leaving only the bones. Keep in mind that he hadn't eaten more than a few bites of the cat food that I gave him before we left for Bangor.

Bubba was born to a barn cat and, although we got him when he was very young and barely weaned, he seems to prefer scrounging for food to having it given to him.

Ella is far more refined. She sweeps the floor in the library, where she has her private space, with her paws, leaving it in piles for me to pick up, and she'll lead me to those piles so that I pick them up. She never rummages through the trash or the compost box.