Herd your cats here

[Larimar]

I have a renewed Cat.  24 hours and Orestes is back to his quirky self!

Yay! Glad to hear it.


This morning I discovered OrangeGuy and Twerp playing with something on the dining room floor. It proved upon investigation to be a black widow spider! How it got into the house I have no idea. I confess to freaking out some. I stomped the spider and got rid of it, and then called the vet, saying I didn't know whether either of the kitties was bitten, and asking what symptoms to look for. The vet said redness and swelling at the site of any bite, and that the kitties would likely be licking at it because it would bother them. The vet also said if they started acting sick to bring them in immediately. However, she also said that black widow bites are actually not fatal to cats or dogs. This surprised me, but was good news!

I've been monitoring OrangeGuy and Twerp closely all day (not difficult under lockdown!), and they've seemed fine. At this point I think that they were not bitten. Whew!


Larimar

[OneMoreYear]

This morning I discovered OrangeGuy and Twerp playing with something on the dining room floor. It proved upon investigation to be a black widow spider! How it got into the house I have no idea. I confess to freaking out some. I stomped the spider and got rid of it, and then called the vet, saying I didn't know whether either of the kitties was bitten, and asking what symptoms to look for. The vet said redness and swelling at the site of any bite, and that the kitties would likely be licking at it because it would bother them. The vet also said if they started acting sick to bring them in immediately. However, she also said that black widow bites are actually not fatal to cats or dogs. This surprised me, but was good news!

I've been monitoring OrangeGuy and Twerp closely all day (not difficult under lockdown!), and they've seemed fine. At this point I think that they were not bitten. Whew!


Larimar

A black widow!! OrangeGuy and Twerp are brave hunters indeed! Glad to hear that are OK.

Ricochet earns top marks in Core Cat Skills (CCS) 452: Catch ALL THE THINGS! But, I don't think she's tangled with a black widow (at least not that I've seen). She does do her best to keep our house rodent and bug free, though. She, with an assist from Ninja, has felled a handful of mice since we moved into this old house with a very unfinished basement.  Yesterday, I found her hanging out in the basement, and she looked up at me, grinning, with a bug leg hanging out of the corner of her mouth.  I left her to her kill.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I have a renewed Cat.  24 hours and Orestes is back to his quirky self!

Yay!

[Puget]

The cats have now had two class sessions of their accelerated summer session I lab course Going Outside 101: Habituating to Harnesses Indoors. Panther boy is adapting to wearing his PPE very well, and can even climb the sisal post wearing it. Little calico had a little trouble in the first session involving flopping over and trying to escape, but has since decided that wearing her PPE is worth it as a precondition to working with catnip. I'm optimistic that they will both pass and be able to move on to Going Outside 102: Actually Going Outside, which will involve field trips to the backyard.

[Parasaurolophus]

I have a renewed Cat.  24 hours and Orestes is back to his quirky self!

Whew!

[mamselle]

You guys do realize you've got it all backwards with the course structures, right? (Funny as they are...!)

I mean, they're probably all laughing their ears off at humans thinking they're teaching cats anything....

Meanwhile they're teaching us CAT 101: The Constant Care, Feeding, and Provision af Safe Environments for Your Cat.

...Sorry to burst your bubble...

M.

[Larimar]

You guys do realize you've got it all backwards with the course structures, right? (Funny as they are...!)

I mean, they're probably all laughing their ears off at humans thinking they're teaching cats anything....

Meanwhile they're teaching us CAT 101: The Constant Care, Feeding, and Provision af Safe Environments for Your Cat.

...Sorry to burst your bubble...

M.

LOL! You have a point! Hm, HerMajesty is probably about ready to flunk me.

This morning I discovered OrangeGuy and Twerp playing with something on the dining room floor. It proved upon investigation to be a black widow spider! How it got into the house I have no idea. I confess to freaking out some. I stomped the spider and got rid of it, and then called the vet, saying I didn't know whether either of the kitties was bitten, and asking what symptoms to look for. The vet said redness and swelling at the site of any bite, and that the kitties would likely be licking at it because it would bother them. The vet also said if they started acting sick to bring them in immediately. However, she also said that black widow bites are actually not fatal to cats or dogs. This surprised me, but was good news!

I've been monitoring OrangeGuy and Twerp closely all day (not difficult under lockdown!), and they've seemed fine. At this point I think that they were not bitten. Whew!


Larimar

A black widow!! OrangeGuy and Twerp are brave hunters indeed! Glad to hear that are OK.

Ricochet earns top marks in Core Cat Skills (CCS) 452: Catch ALL THE THINGS! But, I don't think she's tangled with a black widow (at least not that I've seen). She does do her best to keep our house rodent and bug free, though. She, with an assist from Ninja, has felled a handful of mice since we moved into this old house with a very unfinished basement.  Yesterday, I found her hanging out in the basement, and she looked up at me, grinning, with a bug leg hanging out of the corner of her mouth.  I left her to her kill.

OrangeGuy and Twerp say thank you.

Yay for Ricochet and Ninja! And yes, leaving Ricochet to her kill was a good idea. Sometimes it's not good to ask too many questions!


Larimar

[OneMoreYear]

You guys do realize you've got it all backwards with the course structures, right? (Funny as they are...!)

I mean, they're probably all laughing their ears off at humans thinking they're teaching cats anything....

Meanwhile they're teaching us CAT 101: The Constant Care, Feeding, and Provision af Safe Environments for Your Cat.

...Sorry to burst your bubble...

M.

So true, so true.   

Ninja has us enrolled in Feline Monkey Servant 150: Providing a Feline acceptable Lap through Larimar's college.  The passing criteria appear to be: !) have a blanket on your lap, 2) initially give head scritches, and 3) don't move or touch the cat until the cat is ready to get up. The last one is where we continually fail.

Ricochet has us enrolled in Feline Monkey Servant 365: Critical Thinking--Figure out how to interact with the cat so as not to freak out the cat. The problem is that she refuses to supply us with a rubric.  We suspect we will be continually enrolled as long as she rules us.

[OneMoreYear]

Ricochet's interact-with-the-humans chip apparently got turned on today.  She has twice jumped into my lap, flopped down with a level of awkwardness only demonstrated by newborn foals who don't know how their legs work, and purred while I gave her head-scritches for five whole minutes.  She looked utterly pleased with herself each time. This will likely never happen again. But I'll take what I can get. She has now returned to a more obvious nap location--inside a cloth grocery bag.

[mamselle]

Maybe you'll even get a few extra-credit points for providing the cloth bag...

M.

[Larimar]

Congratulations on your progress in Feline Monkey Servant 150: Providing a Feline acceptable Lap!

[Puget]

Good progress OneMoreYear!

I think Panther Cat is trying to cure me of the snooze button habit I've developed working from home, or more likely he has decided that overnight as an almost unbearable length of time to go without monkey servant attention. As soon as my alarm goes off he has started  jumping up on the bed and  head butting me while purring loudly directly into my ear. This gets me to wake up but doesn't exactly encourage me to actually get up, which is just fine by him. This is a big improvement on his previous tactic, which was to knock things over and attack plants till I got up to chase him out of the bedroom, so it's fine by me too. 

Sometimes his sister Little Calico joins us, but more often she plays Hungriest Cat in he Whole Wide World with the saddest possible tiny meow  till I get up and feed them.

[OneMoreYear]

Congratulations on your progress in Feline Monkey Servant 150: Providing a Feline acceptable Lap!

The problem is I don't know how to replicate this success because I have no idea what was different about my lap today. Will take more data.

I think Panther Cat is trying to cure me of the snooze button habit I've developed working from home, or more likely he has decided that overnight as an almost unbearable length of time to go without monkey servant attention. As soon as my alarm goes off he has started  jumping up on the bed and  head butting me while purring loudly directly into my ear. This gets me to wake up but doesn't exactly encourage me to actually get up, which is just fine by him.

Awwww!   The late fluffy calico was also a failed alarm clock. Around the time I needed to get up, she would rub her head on my cheek, purring softly, then settle her fluffiness on my chest and go back to sleep. I am not a morning person, and was then reeeeeaally unmotivated to get up.

[statsgeek]

We finally got to meet StatDad's latest feline, who is a complete love, and I stocked up on headbutts and purrs.  I need a kitty!  StatSpouse and I are close to adopting again, just waiting for some logistics to fall into place.  (We've been without since we lost LittleBoy in January.) 

[FishProf]

Perhaps Elektra will be cured of her escapism as she just made herself spend a cold and rainy night outside under the porch.