Just a little spoiled??

Some times I feel bad because I don't let my kitties go outside. Some people are very much for this for various reasons that I totally understand. After all it is a bit of a natural habitat for a hunter/cat. They can chase pray, climb trees for exercise, ect...  I just can't seemed to get passed the dangers that lurk outdoors. It does not help that a kitty I had many years ago was insistent on going outside. She came back very ill and passed away, she had gotten into something poisonous. I also fear that they will be hit by a car or attacked by another animal or many other icky things that I prefer not to think about. I am not always able to sit down and play with the babies... I do have two teenage girls and a house to keep clean and a yard to work in. I do try to have things available for them to play with. The cat trees are very popular, mostly for sleeping on but they do run up and down them and use the scratching post. I try to keep toys around, I have to be careful of what I choose for them, my 105lbs golden retriever likes to chew up balls if they are plastic so I have to get them the fabric ones or the squeaky mice. I hang ribbon from the back of a chair that they will bat around. They really love when we play with them with a teaser or a laser. The other day I was at Walmart... they have a laser that you can hold or set on a table and leave the house and every so often the laser will turn on for the cats to chase. I finally broke down and bought that because the majority of my cats love the laser.

                               (I love this picture, GiGi is playing with a bell on the end of a spring.)

 I know that some fur babies are far more spoiled than mine, I am working on it. I do feel mine have it pretty good. We purposefully place bird feeders near or on windows that the kitties are able to sit and watch them from.When its not bird feeding time though we occasionally turn on "The Pet Sitter"

This video is made for cats, it is hours of birds, mice, squirrels, fish, all kinds of fun things that they love to watch. Sometimes they even go behind the TV to try to find the things that they see on TV.

Gracie is always very curious.

Recently I was watching Must Love Cats on Animal Planet and they did a story about some guys that made an app for the iPad for cats. I thought it looked cool but did not act on it right away. A good friend of mine and fellow cat lover bought the app for her cats and told me how much they loved it.

Needless to say I had to have it... Boy do they LOVE it!!!

And of coarse they are always welcome to lounge where ever they would like...

                                                               In fact it is encouraged.

Kitty Playground...


Its no secret cats are very curious. They love to investigate high and low. Most cats really enjoy being up high as Jackson Galaxy would say a "Tree Dweller" cats that enjoy being down low he refers to as "Bush Dwellers" Our house has some high spots that my cats have loved to make their way up to, top of the refridgerator, tops of the kitchen cabinets, the overlook of our two story foyer. When we decided to get a fourth cat we knew that they would need more high places... more to share. A cat tree (or cat furniture) was our solution. They can get pretty expensive but I found a place on the internet that has a lot to choose from at reasonable prices. allpetfurniture.com.

This is the first cat tree that we got, yes they use it, I could not find a picture with them on it. It is in our master bedroom, the cats love it for a few reasons they can climb, get up high even jump to the top of the TV cabinet (they love that). They also get a great view of the birds we even have a bird feeder right on the window.

As I mentioned above we have a two story foyer. I was looking thru a cat magazine and came across an ad for a wood spiral staircase made for cats with a perch. This was a birthday gift for me last year. It is one of my favorite gifts...

This piece is 9 feet tall so the cats can get really high, I think this piece is a favorite of a few of them as well.

When we decided to keep Suki and her 4 babies we decided we need another cat tree. I went back to petfurniture.com to look for a large one. This is what we picked.

Dad putting it together.

Milo

Gracie

Milo again...

Cooper

Mia and GiGi

I think they kinda like it...

I hope so anyway...

CALL ME CRAZY... or maybe just Crazy Cat Lady.

Seven cats is a lot I will admit but everyday I can count on at least seven smiles. In October of 2011 two little kittens started to show up around our house. My heart always goes to the kittens. I love adults cats but kittens are small and "helpless". I put out food for them knowing that this would turn into a perminate venture, thats all good. Eventually their mom showed up with them so I kept her fed aswell. I am very finicky about my cats, I don't like any of them to go outside there are to many bad things that could come of it, I am just not willing to take that chance. I was however okay with Suki, Tidbit, and Rio (yes we named them) being outdoors technically they were not really ours (haha). My husband and I decided that we needed to get Suki spayed so that their would be no more kittens. I tried a few times to catch her, no luck. She came one day to eat and I knew when I saw her she was pregnent. We tried several more times to catch her, no luck.We decided to leave the garage door up a bit with bedding available in case she wanted to come in to have her babies. We put a plastic box outside with a towl as another option. She chose the bushes in our neighbors yard... the one with two dogs. I tried to take them to our house in hopes that she would follow. She would not, so I had to put them back because I was afaid for them to go to long without food. She took all four of them to the woods behind our house to hide them from me. I wrote on the calendar so I could track their age. Suki would come to eat 3 and 4 times a day, we made sure she got all the food she wanted and everytime she came to eat I told her bring your babies to me and I will help you with them. I said it ALOT! About 4 weeks after they were born, Easter morning... I went out to feed everyone and while standing in my garage I could hear a small meow. I followed the sound and found piled in a corner 4 small kittens. She had brought them all to me. They all looked really good, shes a great mom. Their fur was soft and theirs eyes were clear. About 2 weeks later they did get a little virus but even that is gone now. Three Black and one gray... a little black one stole my heart we had decided early on that we would keep her. Her name is Mia. We had Suki spayed and in the 4 weeks time that we had to house her we have not only fallen in love with her but with the other three. The shelters are overflowing with cats right now so we then decided that we would keep all of the kittens... and Suki.  Suki is still very unsure of the inside of the house, we are working to make her comfortable in her suroundings and with the rest of the animals, we are really hoping that she decideds to keep us. Our house would not be the same with out her.

Tidbit

Rio

Suki

GiGi

Cooper

Mia

Fergie

Beautiful Suki with GiGi

Potty Trained????

No Such Luck!!!

                            No, Grace just loves to watch the water spin and spin and then go down.

Every time I go to the bathroom I am followed in by my sweet little Gracie. She patiently waits for me to finish then she hops up on the toilet seat to watch the water spin and go down. Thank God she has never fallen in. Well curious as cats are... she began to wonder why the fun of the spinning had to stop so she trys to make it spin again by putting her paw into the water (thank God it is the clean water). She then figures out that she really does not like to have the water on her paw so she flicks her paw getting water everwhere. Having 7 cats I was very thankful that only one had aquire such a habit.

                                    WRONG AGAIN!!! Bigs just has to have a paw in everything....
                                                          Ya Gotta Love em!!! And I Do!!!

Light at the end of the tunnel.

We have had a very yuckie Kitty Bug going thru out house for the last few months. Yes months. I hate to put the blame on any one kitty (I love them none the less) but... we believe Sadie brought it in the house. First because she was the first to be sick with a VERY high fever and her third eyelid was showing. The showing of the third eyelid makes me so sad, it is not pretty to look at.

In this picture it is pretty mild, at times that white cover would cover 1/2 of her eye.  Milo and Bigs got a touch of it but Simon was the next to get it and he got hit pretty hard by it. The third eye lid, fever, and diarriah, lots of it. We took Simon to the vet and had a DNA test done to find out what it was. Well it had a long name that I can barley say much less spell. Anyway know knowing what it is we were able to research it. It is aquired by a cat drinking dirty water (or eating somthing with the bacteria in it). Sadie came from a colony so likley she was drinking dirty water and eating God knows what. And it matches with all of our babies symtoms and then some. No way to treat it just support the symptoms. It is also long lasting with intermitent reoccurance. So Simon begins to show improvement. Then my Tigger gets it... this is not good because to say that Tigger is not a good vet kitty is an understatement.  Tigger went to the vet a few months ago for a regular check up. He was hissing and growling and swatting at the techs. He pooped himself... finally my vet looks at me and says the only way to get a really good exam on him would be to sedate him. They can do a light sedation and then do a reversal so that he can go home with me, so I agree. They get him sedated and bring him back in the room put him on the exam table and start checking him over. Next thing we know we hear him growling and hissing, UNDER SEDATION!!! then the little turkey swipes at the vet... she jumps backwards and comments somthing like "amazing he still has that much spunk with sedation".

Knowing all of this about my little man I really did not want to take him to the vet because he gets so stressed and I did not want to add to it but about the 3rd day in I could tell he was not doing well and I was worried about dehydration so I loaded him up and off we went. On the way to the vet he howled and peed in his crate which then got all over him. Got to the vets office and they open the crate and pretty much stick him with the sedation needle, 2 seconds later he has diarryha all over himself.

Just as he is showing improvement from this yucky virus he gets a cold, Thank God for L-lysine. It is a vitamin/herb from the health food store. My vet has always recommended to start with this and if no improvement is seen to then bring in the babies. He is on the mends and beging to act like himself again. I could not be happier.  Now just waiting for another one to get it, it is highly contagious so it is to be expected. What Fun!!

Did you know:

You can check a cat for fever by touching the tips of their ears. If they are warm (or hot) you might want to call a vet. You can also check your cat for fever with an ear reader thomometer, they tippically run normal at around 101/102 degrees.  (Sadie was 105 when I took her in)

You can tell if a cat is dehydrated (just like with people) pull up on their skin if it goes back slowly they could be dehydrated.

Cats gums are typically pink, if they are white that means that the cat is pale.

Showing of the third eye lid is a sign of illness in at cat.

Mommy's Little Helper

Tigger, ya gotta love that cat. Cats are curious by nature and Tigger is no exception. In fact he has his nose into more than all of the rest of the babies combined. I have had Tigger since the day that he was born. I had found a ferrel mother with brand new babies (still wet). I brought them home and took care of them, Tigger was the only kitten to survive. I guess this is why he gets away with getting into everything.

Tigger likes to help me put away the towels.

Fold the laundry.

Inspect the shower to be sure that I have cleaned it good enough...

Putting away the dishes, can't even get the kids to do this.

Gets the laundry basket for me...

So we can unload the dryer.

Puts away the grocery's, again where are the kids??

Pest Control, one of my personal favorites.

Making the bed...

Checking for dust bunnies, he is sure to find them on top of the fridge...

Helping JJ unpack from camp, he missed her.

More Laundry... it's never ending.

I love my Tigger... but not so much at 2:30am when he opens the panty door and helps himself to a midnight snack!!!
( He needs to learn to be more quiet, the bag of chips makes a lot of noise.)





   






Growing Up Bigs

Bigs, the newest member of or furry little group of friends is growing up way to fast. He went to the vet today for a follow up and booster shots. We first got Bigs on May 16th when I took him to the vet a few days later he was .7 lbs. Today 3.4, He is alowed to run around the house all day now with the other babies and he really loves this. He has bonded well with Sadie and Gracie likley because they are closer in age to him. They are both under a year old, him being about 3 months old now. Its fun to watch him learn to do things. When he first started to venture out of his room  he would not even concider going down the stairs then when he did attempt it he had to basically jump down one step at a time. Now he tears up and down the stairs without even a thought. To climb the cat tree in our bedroom was out of the question now he scales the sides and jumps around it like he owns the joint. In my last blog I talked about how when we introduced hard food to him he loved it so much that he would growl at anybody that came close to the bowl (I have this on video but for some reason it would not load onto the blog and work, I am sorry, it is really cute). Well this week KK went off to camp again and he is doing so well with all of the other babies that we decided not to leave him in a room at night by himself, this of coarse went over BIG with him. Now he thinks he is all that... the first night he slept in my bed with me curled up by me most of the night (heaven for me) I know that he just misses his KK. Anyway... Tigger decided that he would like to join us and jumped up (at about 4am) well Mr. Bigs did not think he should have to share so he began to growl at Tigger keeping him at bay by my feet. Laughter at 4am, I will take it anytime.

Sadie, Bigs, and Gracie taking a nap.