Taco truck has given us hours of fun. Target has a whole line of fun cat scratchers that are shaped like buildings or vehicles. Our big fat cat loves to sit on top of it… but he collapsed it. I had to go to a craft store to get balsa wood to reinforce the structure LOL
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Poor Uncle Milo. How embarrassing. Here’s the news from the tabby ranch.
I left the sliding door open because it’s so hot up here and the pest control team wanted to stay outside. My bad. They left me a large rat tail and yuck, innards right under the dining room table. Usually they just leave the entire rat on the patio. (The rats here are huge and they tag team it for hours). So I get to do a clean up on aisle 5 and hope to god I don’t hack up a hairball because rat guts are GROSS.
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bleh! well, I guess congrats to the pest control team for another successful hunt? At least your kitties are useful and are trying to contribute to your ‘dinner.’ My spoiled indoor fatties have a hard time killing a bug hahaha
If you kill the bug then it is no longer any fun to play with. Silly human.
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haha I guess my perspective was WAY off. Only one even tries to play with the bug. The older two simply can’t be bothered. Bugs shumgs - I’ll wait for the fancy feast.
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I’ll throw this one in: So the other night I see Baler patting at something on the floor that has clearly run between the couch cushions that I had dropped. I lift them up and out runs a large black spider but he just looks odd. He flees as Baler watches. Baler then returns to looking under the cushions. (sometimes he isn’t that bright lol). A little bit later I look on the floor and there is some strange looking …thing there. I look closer and it’s a spider leg. No wonder Mr Spider looked wierd. He had 7 legs not 8. Now I have an angry 7 legged spider loose in my house. Thanks. #catsareuselesswithbugs
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One habit that Sabra, the Ultimate Cat, developed which I was less than pleased with. She was a remarkable cat, #1 in my lifetime, but even she had her moments now and then. One night, I had just come in the front door when a spider ran across the floor in front of me. Being shod, I dispatched him. Sabra had been coming to greet me, and she stopped, sniffed the flattened corpse, then looked at me with clear respect. I could almost see the scorecard, a la judges at an event. Wow! What speed and precision of technique. 10!
From that day, Sabra never again killed a spider. No, she would herd them to me, even clear across the house, through several rooms, then stand back to watch me perform. She never failed to be impressed when I would stomp one. I enjoyed that game a lot less than she did.
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(to the tune of without me by eminem) Guess who’s back… back again … Marlow’s back… tell a friend
These kitties like making me look silly I guarantee it. Last night I decided to leave Marlow’s cage door open while I had the babies upstairs and I opened the garage side door so she could let herself out. her babies are going well with eating food and she just looked miserable in that big dog crate, so I thought she would literally jump out and return to her outdoor cat buddies.
When I came back down to the garage she was cowering under the table that held her cage. Its right by the big garage door, so I opened the door and out she went. I thought that was that and her babies would adapt to being ‘on their own.’ Its worth nothing that Daisy was staying overnight at the vet for her spay surgery last night, so it was like a baby kitten party with no
At night check, I heard a LOT of meowing at the garage side door. It was a familiar cat voice. Yep. It was Marlow. She had her 3 hours of outside fun and wanted back in.
I opened the side garage door and she struts in, and starts rubbing her face on daisy’s playpen and cooing at daisy’s babies. Her kittens are in the far corner of the garage - so I trying to herd her over there, but little spicy Marlow has turned into a gentle soul and wants pets and rub on my legs. what the fruitbat. Make up your mind cat! I tried to get her to go back outside but nope. She wanted to stay in the garage. There was no way I wanted to let her roam loose in there, so I had to pull down the spare dog crate, bait it with one of her babies (who kept running out) and she finally walked into the crate and ate her dinner.
ugh. I think I’ve just been played by a cat.
What I’m trying to decide is did she come back just for the free & easy meal, or did I rush the weaning? Her babies were happy to nurse on her, and her 2 last teats were really full of milk when she came back. I hate to break it to her, but she can’t have it both ways - coming and going in and out. Its all or nothing babe, I don’t want you bringing more fleas in when I work really hard to get the cages and babies flea free, plus I’m not risking her taking the babies outside with her. No way, not after the $$ and time I have spent on keeping them healthy, socializing and generally making sure they do not become street cats.
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It’s a long thread. Has she been spayed yet? Did she just want out so she could hook up with some cute Tom? Are you going to be in this for Marlow Round 2?
Oh there is no way in hell I would even entertain letting her out if she wasn’t spayed. Trust me, I have TnR’d 8 cats from this location. No reproducing on my watch!
She was spayed about 10 days ago, so is healed up. She could be fairly aggressive /scared and generally miserable in the crate despite being a pretty decent mom. So now that her kittens are over 7.5 weeks old I figured now would be the time to send her back outside to her colony. I have neither the time, space or resources to foster a feral adult cat. The rescue I work with is BURSTING with kittens since out local shelter nixed their TnR program. No one has room to try to see if this mom, or the other mom who I paid out of pocket to get spayed today will be good housecats/ adoptable. I hate it, but returning them to the colony is really my only option.
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@BatCoach Guilting you friends into fostering the mom’s has not worked yet? If there was ever a time to guilt friends, this seems like the time.
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@BatCoach I figured as much, but had to ask.
Maybe she’s trying to get you to rethink the housecat angle 
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ugh. sadly most of my friends are allergic, or have BIG dogs. ITs a challenge to find home for adorable baby kittens, much less a 2 y/o street tabby with a tipped ear and shady history.
I think the service at “Hotel de la Garage” is just too good. She was unusually sweet trying to come back in. She never has let me touch her that much, but I would be grumpy if I was confined to a dog crate too. Kind of like how animals shut down when at the pound, but blossom and open up when they are in a proper foster home out of the cage. Wish I had a mansion filled with cat rooms and could take them all in and give them a soft place to land.
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been a while since I’ve posted an update. I’ve tried to evict marlow one more time last week. It worked for 2 days, then she snuck into the garage as I was leaving to work and parked her tabby ass by her old cage. She knew I had 2 choices. Let her back into the cage, or grab a broom and chase her out. I caved and let her back in. Her teats were HUGE and I’m sure they were not comfortable. I’m a sucker.
5 of the 8 kittens are over 2lbs now. Marlow’s “Monsters Inc” babies will be 9 weeks tomorrow, and Daisy’s “Toy Story” babies will be 10 weeks on Friday. Both Marlow and Daisy are spayed, ear tipped and vax’d so I can release them back to the colony when they & their babies are ready.
Daisy keeps letting herself out of the playpen and WANTS to go outside, but little boy Buzz is still SO dependent on her. He is 1/2 the weight of his brother, and has just been a sickly kitten. The only thing he reliably does is nurse. He eats some wet food, laps up some KMR, but I just can not get him excited about eating big boy food. I have had some luck with Gerber, but he just doesn’t eat anything with gusto. He’s been on 2 separate rounds of clavamox, and was wormed with Panacur like the others but he’s just not as healthy as the others. His sister Jessie was lagging behind weight-wise too, then one day decided that canned food was THE BEST and has been gaining 30g a days since. I keep trying different brands and textures hoping one is the magic bullet for him, but for a 9 week old kitten, he weighs less than 600g. He plays and socializes , but gets so tired so quick compared to the others.
I am going on a vacation mid-july, so working w/ rescue to arrange “vacation fosters” and getting these guys on the waiting lists for their spay/neuter surgeries. Both mamas will be separated from their babies and turned back out to colony before then. 2nd round of vaccinations lined up for July 2. When I get back from vacay these kitties will be all ready to go to new homes!!
Here are their new head shots!
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Awwwwwww. Those huge ears on all those kittens ! Thank you for the update. I was thinking about you and your efforts yesterday @BatCoach… and just popped in to see you updated.
some of them are going through a gangly stage. Randal is all legs! Personalities are coming out. Sully and Mike are the tuff guy brothers - they can’t wait to tackle their next adventure and are bold as brass. Celia is the super smart observer. Woody, Bo Peep and Randal are the snugglers and cuddlers. Jessie is a beauty queen diva, and lil Buzz is the tiny runt who wants to stay with mom.
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There is a super special place in the hereafter for you @BatCoach. Seriously. Enjoy your vacation !
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And thank you again to you and everyone else who gave advice about neutering Chester. He’s still here. Sometimes he will come into the house at night to cuddle ( I lock the keen dog up) but he’s not real interested in living inside full time. I bought him
A cat condo for the porch and anytime it storms he hauls boogie into it and waits for a handful of Temptation treats. He’s sassy as hell. And definitively has decided this is his home.
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