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Cats: They Own You


A True Kaniggit

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15 hours ago, Yet another Arya ! said:

New year, new cat! I picked up a young female cat at the shelter yesterday. She was depicted as shy, fearful little thing, bullied by bigger cats, who jumps at the slightest noise.

She cried a lot this night, searching for her former cat friends and the shelter volunteers. Now she mews, purrs, runs, plays, and climbs everywhere! (the fridge was deemed funnier than the cat tree).

But since yesterday, it seems she did not sleep at all (I had a very bad night, she wanted to play with me, clawed me, even headbutted me...), I observe her since and she never stops moving.

So until proven otherwise I have an insomniac cat.

 

Nah, she's found her forever home and she knows it. It will just take her a few days to get acclimated and settle into your routine. ☺ Good luck!

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Just got my cat a backpack carrier for hiking. I like it -- makes for much smoother transport than a regular carrier. I plan on taking him on walks with it. He "excessively vocalizes" for food in order to boredom eat methinks... so hopefully taking him on walks will help his boredom.

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On 1/25/2020 at 3:50 AM, Yet another Arya ! said:

New year, new cat! I picked up a young female cat at the shelter yesterday. She was depicted as shy, fearful little thing, bullied by bigger cats, who jumps at the slightest noise.

She cried a lot this night, searching for her former cat friends and the shelter volunteers. Now she mews, purrs, runs, plays, and climbs everywhere! (the fridge was deemed funnier than the cat tree).

But since yesterday, it seems she did not sleep at all (I had a very bad night, she wanted to play with me, clawed me, even headbutted me...), I observe her since and she never stops moving.

So until proven otherwise I have an insomniac cat.

 

Update!

How’s Somnia (Nia) doing? 

Finally settled in?

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Yes @A True Kaniggit, she eventually calmed down and now she is exactly what one can expect from a cat: a nice creature that runs, plays, hunts, sleeps, purrs, cuddles...(with the right quantity of everything).

Last but not least, after more than one week with me she is still alive (and in great shape): she broke the record of my previous cat (who died after only one week).

@Ice Queen: I am interested in hiking with my cat, to let her boldly go where no cat has gone before... Have you tested your backpack carrier? Did your cat enjoyed it?

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50 minutes ago, Yet another Arya ! said:

Yes @A True Kaniggit, she eventually calmed down and now she is exactly what one can expect from a cat: a nice creature that runs, plays, hunts, sleeps, purrs, cuddles...(with the right quantity of everything).

Last but not least, after more than one week with me she is still alive (and in great shape): she broke the record of my previous cat (who died after only one week).

@Ice Queen: I am interested in hiking with my cat, to let her boldly go where no cat has gone before... Have you tested your backpack carrier? Did your cat enjoyed it?

Hi there!

No. I'd prefer a harness. If you teach them young enough they take right to it. Older cats can be taught to use one, but it takes some work. 

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Me and my mother took Cookie (a Russian Blue) to the VCA in Aurora. For a while, her left eye had been tearing up, she had a little bit of blood coming out of her left nostril, and would sneeze several times in a row. At first, we thought that she had allergies. When she started losing weight and sleeping most of the day, we took her to the VCA in town so her chest could get x-rayed, thinking she had an upper respiratory infection. After the x-rays came back negative for that, the doctor gave us steroids to give her (which was a battle).

We're at the VCA in Aurora and when the doctor checks her mouth, we see that her gums on the left side of her mouth were inflamed and swollen to the point where they were starting to dislodge her teeth. We assumed that it was Gingivitis. We left her at the hospital so they could run a CT scan of her skull and they would call us back.

They called my mother at work and told her that Cookie has a tumor in her gums that has grown to the point where it has metastasized in the left side of her mouth, her jawbone, and her nasal passage. We decided not to give her radiation treatment, and want to make the time she has left as comfortable as possible. 

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KoN, I'm so sorry to hear about your cat.  I'm glad you have some time to give her all her favorite things and be there for her in sickness as you were in health.

Today I wonder...Do cats look at us the way we look at Sphinx cats?  Unnatural hairless creatures.  I imagine two cats talking, "She has literally no fur, it creeps me out."  "I know, right?" "She's super weird but she gives great head scratches."  "Yeah, I will put up with a lot for the head scratches." 

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@litechick I read a study some years ago, explaining that cats can see us as cats having just a weird shape, but fully part of their clans ("a clan of two", most of the time). If we adopt them young, they can see us as parents, still with this weird shape, but they don't mind (they are much more tolerant than we humans between us). And I read an article (the funniest part of owning a cat is all these more or less stupid things we read in the Internet about cats) saying that cats recognize us by the smell and the voice, but not really by our appearance. So they should more like "creepy this non-cattish smell, but indeed I learnt to love him/her for all the head scratches..."

 

@KingintheNorth4 I'm sure she had a wonderful life with you, and she will till the very end. I sympathize with you, knowing exactly what you can feel...

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Thank you guys for your kind words and sympathy. It's been an emotional week for us. We give Cookie pain medication twice a day while she's snuggled up in all her blankets, so she's warm and comfortable. Despite her lack of energy, she still perks up when she sees me and my mother walk into her room.

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10 hours ago, Yet another Arya ! said:

I read an article (the funniest part of owning a cat is all these more or less stupid things we read in the Internet about cats) saying that cats recognize us by the smell and the voice, but not really by our appearance.

They're definitely capable of reacting to appearance; my cat freaks out when I show up wearing a hat, no matter how familiar my smell and voice are. She's not at all bothered by the hat when I'm not wearing it.

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  • 1 month later...
On 2/16/2020 at 7:20 AM, felice said:

They're definitely capable of reacting to appearance; my cat freaks out when I show up wearing a hat, no matter how familiar my smell and voice are. She's not at all bothered by the hat when I'm not wearing it.

my cat looks at me with horror and doubt if I come into the house wearing sunglasses. She sort of knows its me I think but just can't respond to something with such alarming eyes.

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Took my cat out on his first real excursion in the pet backpack now that the weather isn't dangerously cold. It didn't go well. I took him to a local park he's never been to. He puked. I think he got so anxious at being in a very foreign place that he got nauseous and vomited. Poor guy. He seems fine now that he's home though.

But I need to do something different next time...

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Not to start a panic or anything, but if you have Covid19 symptoms, it might be a good idea to stay away from your cat, as a cat in Belgium presumably was infected by her owner and developed symptoms like diarrhea and trouble breathing. There's no indication yet that cats can spread the virus to humans, but other cats can be infected by them. 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00984-8

 

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12 hours ago, Lizard Queen said:

Took my cat out on his first real excursion in the pet backpack now that the weather isn't dangerously cold. It didn't go well. I took him to a local park he's never been to. He puked. I think he got so anxious at being in a very foreign place that he got nauseous and vomited. Poor guy. He seems fine now that he's home though.

But I need to do something different next time...

Cats REALLY like their routines, so unless your cat has a desire to go 'outside' maybe all the stress of an outing is not worth it.  Maybe there should not be a next time.

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4 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Cats REALLY like their routines, so unless your cat has a desire to go 'outside' maybe all the stress of an outing is not worth it.  Maybe there should not be a next time.

I'm not sure. He likes going on walks outside in the neighborhood. But I honestly don't feel comfortable walking around here now because of recent crime reports from neighbors. I'm still interested in taking him on the walks because I can tell he enjoys them (when he's comfortable with his surroundings, obviously, and this is a leashed walk), just not here.

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10 minutes ago, Lizard Queen said:

I'm not sure. He likes going on walks outside in the neighborhood. But I honestly don't feel comfortable walking around here now because of recent crime reports from neighbors. I'm still interested in taking him on the walks because I can tell he enjoys them (when he's comfortable with his surroundings, obviously, and this is a leashed walk), just not here.

Hmmm.  Was it a long drive?  Was there anything loud in the park?  If you take him out on a leash and he likes it, then yeah, another more safe place would be a good thing.

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3 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Hmmm.  Was it a long drive?  Was there anything loud in the park?  If you take him out on a leash and he likes it, then yeah, another more safe place would be a good thing.

Yeah, it was a 10 minute drive from home, there was a giant puddle in the middle of the park, and he was trapped in the backpack. In retrospect, it hardly seems a surprise that he freaked out, ugh lol.

"Training" him to walk around the neighborhood was easy -- it was just an acclimation process and he ventured further and further out everytime. In the beginning, if he got spooked he'd dart back to the front door and I'd just let him back in. It took maybe 3-4 trips before he stopped getting spooked. He always walked himself out the doors when I'd open them and look at the doorknobs when I got near before then, however.

I think a nearby neighborhood with low car and foot traffic might be the best bet, and letting him out on his leash and harness. Unfortunately he won't have a homebase to run back to.  

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