I’m sure everybody wants to see pictures of my wittle bubby Winston!
He’s so beautiful. It’s like he’s wearing his own tuxedo. And he’s such a talkative cat. Even when he’s been fed, he’ll follow us around the house, meowing for attention. Especially at six o’clock in the morning. We’ve got hours of video to post later…
He’s such a clever cat, too. You expect dogs to play “fetch”, not cats. Winston plays fetch. If he wants his toy mouse (pictured) flung around to chase, he’ll chase one of the household down and dump the mouse at one’s feet - and meow a couple of times. Toss it away, and he’ll repeat the process - with extra meowing. It’s so cute!
Clearly, my cat is better looking and more intelligent than LP readers’ cats. But if anybody would like to share anecdotes providing evidence of their own cat/dog/budgie’s genius, I’m more than happy to have the debate…
(Inspired by this comment.)
Friday cat blogging is back? Oh, and First!
That is one very cute kitten. But I must say, in the spirit of this post, that my cat, Fry, is much more handsome. (sorry no pics)
It is not Caturday! It’s Friday!!!!
Your cat has one green and one yellow eye, Robert. If that’s not a flash artefact, your cat may be possessed by David Bowie.
Awesome.
My cat’s breath smells like cat food.
One thing about Tina that has started to cause friction in FDB land is her obvious preference for my attentions over those of the Lady Friend. She blames my propensity to dispense snacks - of course it’s just my superlative patting technique.
Also, recently she’s developed a new trick - not bad for a 10+ year old - of taking a swipe at my hand when I try to stop patting. With just a leeeeetle bit of claw.
Good to see you have a mouse or rat, whichever. Incredible what hours you and the cat can have trawling that round the house.
They’re young such a short time…
My cat does home renovations, and is really handy with spakfilla. This one time, at cat renovation camp, my cat restored a corner fireplace with only whiskas niblets and cat spittle. Then it rolled on it’s back for scratchie tummy time oooooh wuvvwey liddew kitteh!
Beautiful pan fried in a bit of garlic butter.
Mmmmm.
Robert, you do know this cartoon, don’t you.
Liam there is a cat that lives near my train station with different coloured eyes, and it’s thin and white as well.
Counting down the comments till the cat hatin crowd show up….
And Robert, Winstan may be wearing a tux, but my man Baz rocks the business attire http://www.flickr.com/photos/magicbag/8373204/in/set-155931/ when he is not expressing his inner bogan or being profound http://www.flickr.com/photos/magicbag/232454887/in/set-155931/ (Zoe and &Duck supplied the last outfit.)
The next cat down in the pecking order is not given to blaming Canadians http://bp3.blogger.com/_sgiG5VhO5y8/R6Z-JOo3nqI/AAAAAAAAACc/NjzzKS03yl0/s1600-h/puddcohen.jpg for his comparative lack of sartorial magnificence.
And the cat below him http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v694/lucytartan/blog07/augustseptemberoctober/alby.jpg is just so afraid of everyone and everything that the very idea of attacking a blue and yellow mouse on a string could make him crap himself.
Cat-deprived LP’ers may wish to take the Which Lolcat Are You? quiz…. http://www.okcupid.com/tests/6348388576689378978/Which-Lolcat-Are-You-
Oh, I’m so relieved it’s just Friday cat blogging, I thought it must be an obituary.
Definitely a cute kitteh.
Wow, David @7, what a cat. I always thought demolition was more their style though.
Debbieanne - it’s only flyscreens that my cat demolishes. Although I reckon the cutest (real) thing kitteh does is dig holes for poopies, then cover it up like it’s a special sekret so the gardener in the house (not me) can find them at regular and disgusting intervals. We larf!
I’ve never tried teaching a cat to fetch, but my previous cat used to come when whistled for and this one does too, which is handy when you’re locking them up for the evening, which I hope all LP’ers who are owned by cats are doing.
We don’t lock our cat Zappa up at night. We leave a back window slightly ajar for him to go the toilet or whatever during the night. He tends to sleep in the loungeroom 24/7 and being old now comes back in within half an hour whenever he does venture out.
My mother recently got a chocolate point siamese kitten who as anyone who has shared their lives with a siamese before (our family used to have a white as snow part siamese) know can be a handful at times. They’re more demanding than most cats and usually more talkative (have I mentioned the yelling?) but lurrrrve the pats. My mother’s cat Petey Tiger (she thought it was a boy) usually goes out at some point during the day and sometimes won’t even come back that night.
Not much you can do as at the end of the day it’s their house and we just happen to be living in it.
Yeah, the cat is cute and all, but….
It’s my Spotty’s birthday today. She is turning three. I suspect she is celebrating this very moment by having a long snooze. She sounds like a monkey, has a pouchy belly and sheds fur persistently, but she is my bub (warning: mad old cat lady alert).
Happy birthday Spotty.
I just lost my cat ‘Hub’ of twenty years yes TWENTY last month. He had lived in twelve different houses and three states originating in Punchbowl, NSW now resting in Perth under a nice tree. He was a great cat could see off any intruder until his last days (Well years really) when he just couldn’t be bothered any more and liked a good nap.
If it’s a beauty contest, is there a prize for deportment?
Two thoughts. Pavlov’s Cat’s cartonist has beaut subliminal captions.
Laura’s “the cat below him” is a real heartbreaker.
au ‘voir.
Interested to note that Winston talks, Robert. Over a lifetime I’ve had two Black & Whites and both were talkers. Currently, there’s an abandoned Black & White who mooches food from us and several neighbours, while guarding his independence. He’s an incurable chatterbox also. Is it a Black & White trait?
Two other theories I have about cats: Somebody told me once that Tortoiseshells are always females - the males are either B & W, Ginger or Tabby. After studying many over the years, I’m inclined to agree. The other is that all-white cats are often deaf. My only one certainly was (and also small, albeit a tough little critter, which many seem to be).
Can anyone confirm or refute these theories?
Oh bugger, now I’m missing Garfield…died 2 years ago now at ma’n'pa’s place.
Also known as Walkibin, Lardbeast, etc etc. 9 kg of fat orange tom that had many silly moments:
1) lying on top of vine-covered trellis outside, first noticed by tall friend who ended up with paws waggling in hair. Seeing slabs of fat/fur sticking out was always amusing.
2) lino floor+cat+pingpong ball = hilarity.
3) wandered into shed one day when I was out - did a very cat thing and “sniffed” a soldering iron. Ballistic missile doesn’t describe the response!
4) launched himself like a goddamn sugarglider one day (the fat was useful in one way at least) off the balcony to land on a fence 2m horizontal and 1 m vertical below.
5) fell asleep on brothers face one cold winter night. Bro had a nightmare about drowning and woke up with a mouth full of flab and fur.
Pretty much kept us all sane…
Don, I had a white cat (named Ajax) with perfect hearing, she could hear the slightest rustle of a whiskette and could be whistled from down the street. Did not have red eyes (so not an albino), had evil yellow eyes. Used to wake me up by biting my septum when hungover and not sufficiently fast enough with kitty treats. Got it as a kitten. Was put down aged 19 of kidney failure without making a single, solitary, other friend (hated everybody but tolerated my presence largely for warmth). I still cried like a schoolgirl when it happened (both the septum biting and the cats death by green needle).
Very pleased yours wasn’t deaf, David. Limits that theory a bit. Being tough, no-nonsense and solitary, conforms with my white.
He was attached more or less to the family, but had to have a window open to move in and out freely. And he’d never put up with my wife’s teasing without lashing out, at least with one swipe.
Don, when I was a kid we had a tortoiseshell called Milo who was a girl. So could be true. She ended up getting hit by a car and losing an eye (still remember the sight of her coming in with what looked like a bright red cherry sticking out of her eye socket) and after she had kittens in a vacant house across the road, turned feral.
Our all-white part siamese (Katie) was the sole family cat for more than a decade. She died about 4-5 years ago at around 14 and had perfect hearing. One thing that happened with us and is supposedly common here is that a lot of all-white cats get skin cancer. She had to have the tips of her ears cut off when she was young because of it and also a little bit of her nose. Supposedly due to how sunny Australia is.
We loved her so much that eventually after the cancer kept coming back we opted for a nose-ectomy. I had no qualms about taking out loans and spending in the thousands over the years for her but in hindsight we probably should’ve let her go instead of putting her through the last operation.
Tortoiseshell is an X chromosone characteristic but males do occasionally pop out.
Deafness & white cats is also genetic, with exceptions. Be nice and daily coat their noses and ears with blockout. Cat with skin cancer = ick.
You can get your white cat tattooed on the ears which supposedly limits the cancer, but it wasn’t a problem with ours. My sisters white cat looked like she had been 18 rounds with Mike Tyson though - scabby, bits chopped off, you name it.
I often wondered about the solitary/single companion thing and white cats as hers was similar (although not quite as aggressive about fending off unwanted attention).
Our current cat is actually a de-sexed feral that we got from underneath my Uncles farm house. Couldn’t be gentler and is affectionate with complete strangers (not white though - strange looking gray/tabby cross with leopard spots on tummy). Very weird, I thought the feral background might selectively breed towards aggressive cats. It’s mum could just be a city cast off though.
But - it is not a dog - see Sole, my Dog of the Week at: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/
And your cats should all be locked up at night…and during the day…in fact IMHO the only good cat…is a hat
Bob Gosford, although I’m a dog person, and I agree that cats should be locked up at night, for their own good as well as for the native beasties, it’s silly and offensive to write things like that when people are celebrating their darling cats. And I bet they’re all gorgeous little puddies too.
Oh ,and you probably won’t get people readin your blog about your lovely dog, as well.
I thought all tortoise-shells are female? Can you really get male ones?
When I was a kid, we had a brilliant cat called Dennis. My father brought him home as a tiny kitten-his eyes weren’t open. He wasn’t a handsome cat-tabby and white with short legs, a stubby tail and bad eyes, but a great character. He had the kelpie and me very well trained too. We used to catch mice for him in the hay stack, although he was a far better mouser than we could ever be. It was just his power trip.
He had some rather unusual tastes as well. He would pinch and eat raw potatoes and once ate a huge mushroom my father had been nurturing. He would also pinch food off my father’s fork when he was tired and emotional-it was Dennis’ revenge for being told off. He died of pneumonia at 17. My parents never had another cat.
I had a beautiful ginger persian called Claude who used to jump the fence after I left for work and demand food and attention from the lady who lived in the unit behind mine. Just before I came home, he would demand to be let out and would greet me when I got home. His double life continued for several months before he was sprung!
He was quite a fighter, too. M’ster, the black and white kitten I had, used to lure next door’s siamese tom into my yard so Claude could give him a hiding. Sadly, Claude died of kidney disease and many years later, M’ster was hit by a car.
The next cat was a dear little half siamese queen, The Christmas Cat, black as pitch, with stunning amber eyes. She was a timid little old thing who used to help me hang out the washing and other chores. She really loved my husband and would snuggle up to him in bed. She died recently at 17 and we really miss her little body lying between us and her thick luxurious fur.
Last, but definitely not least, we have The Black Menace whose purpose in life is to be bad. He is a mini panther and a lump, for whom tail lashing is an art form. But he is very handsome and imperious, walking on my keyboard demanding pats, bumps and to be lugged around.
Don’t be too hard on him, Fine. Cat haters have no idea how to behave in a civilised manner. There’s some sort of genetic link.
(My own cats live inside, BTW, as the RSPCA recommends.)
A vet on the radio the other day was suggesting just using a permanent black texta to colour in the white bits
Thanks for the links Pavlov’s Cat - still smiling.
My furry heartthrob and master is Boy the Wonder Cat, 14 years young with his own sidebar blog.
For the record, I do agree with concerns about native wildlife.
However, I wasn’t able to convince my partner to go with a pet quoll, so Winston spends most of his time (and certainly all night) inside.
OMG, I thought MINE was the only cat that taught it’s owners to play fetch… wow, it must be a black-and-white cat thing!!!!
Winston sure is a cutie!!
My now deceased chihuahua always had a hard time working out exactly what a cat was. It had something to do with their comparable size.
And when it comes to cats, nothing but a Siamese will do (I had one about 35 years ago. They’re so like dogs.
My cat Tim is 14 now, and retired. But recently a family of rats infested the area.
Tim put the claws back on and finished them off, one by one. Ronnie The Rat, Little Ronnie, Rebecce Rat and finally Baby Reggie were brought home proudly by the redoubtable Tim.
He then went ack to his usualy routine of sleep in the sun and eat, but still spends time sitting near the dishwasher (where the rat hole used to be, behind it), peering meaningfully down the gaps at the sides.
“Be nice and daily coat their noses and ears with blockout. ”
No, be nicer (including to the native wildlife) and keep the cat indoors. Average life-span of an outdoor cat? Under five years. Average life-span of an indoor cat? More than 12.
Also, our cat is the cutest in the world and there is nothing like a (Sia)Meezy. She’s lived indoors all her life and is scared of the outside (she squints at the sky if she ventures out into our courtyard in pursuit of one of us, as though wondering what on earth has happened to the ceiling).
You do get tortoiseshell boys, they are very rare (about 1 in 3000) and tend to be sterile, genetically infirm and not live very long.
Slightly more common are ginger girls, but ginger cats are mostly boys. Ginger girls are quite healthy when they do pop up, however.
My naughty tortie Lillan was adopted as she was born mere hours after our dear old Horace passed. Whereas he was doglike in coming when called and following you around with his tongue hanging out, she it was gradually revealed was doglike in a whole bunch of other ways, such as enjoying licking human faces. Which can be pleasantly exfoliating in small doses, but quite painful if prolonged.
Sofaman, My cat Zappa (big fat ginger) also likes to lick your face when you pick him up. I attributed that to originally being raised with a dog by his previous owner. The guy didn’t care for Zappy and only took interest in (and pretty much only fed) the dog. Might also explain why he has a small dog like bark and always comes out the back to watch me feed our dog.