Theo Has A Girlfriend.

 

Why not put your feet up, Theo?

 

He has!

Theo isn't too tolerant of other cats, beyond his own household, of course. If he sees one during one of our walks, back go the ears, up goes the floof and the yowling begins. A couple of years ago a big bully cat, obviously a fighter, came prowling around. Theo coated the house liberally in urine, while bullycat peed up the outside wall. When they did come face to face though, accidentally, I might add, well... we haven't seen bullycat again.

I could never call Theo a clever cat, in fact he tends more towards the vacant half the time, bless him, but when it comes to defending his home he's right on the ball. Now he's neutered, but seems to have all the instincts of an entire tom in this respect. Other cats had better keep off his turf, or he'll let them know all about it.

He's gotten out a few times lately. The late winter/ early spring always seems to make him a bit restless, peeing episodes and the occasional escape being his preferred activities during this time. But this winter has been different in that the two times he's escaped, he's gone... next door. And spent his time chirruping at their cat. Yup... he escapes, he's free, he could climb the gate, wander the tops of the garages, slip through that hole in the fence onto that interesting smelling wooded bit, but no, he goes next door to flirt with their cat. *rolls eyes*

This is the same cat that for four and a half years Theo would chase on sight, and believe me when I say neither of them were playing. The language! I don't know why they have suddenly gotten so chummy. Who can fathom the ways of cats eh?

Little bit o nip...



 

Indigo trials the catnip banana...

 

 

... while Ava gets high on the chilli pepper

 

 

It's ridiculous really. The cats have a bajillion and one toys, most of which they totally ignore, but still I find myself incapable of going onto a pet store and not picking a new one up. This time it was brightly coloured catnip toys. 'Cosmic Catnip'. They are apparently filled with 100% strong, American nip, and true enough, you could smell it in the pet shop

 

The cats could certainly smell it. The moment I got home they all woke up, sniffing, eager to get at what was in the bags, and I immediately regretted only buying two- Ava and Theo had to wait for their fix. I bought a pepper and a banana, but there were four more in the set, which doesn't bode well for future spending! But they weren't too expensive- £3- £4 each I think, so we might find a fish, or a carrot, or whatever joins the collection some time soon.

 

The nipfest is, for now, over, temporarily at least, the toys are limp and drool-sodden (urgh) and all four mogs are sozzled. Recommended!

'Everything I Did This Morning...'

Ava says SHE would never pee anywhere she shouldn't...

I am currently doing an Open University course, a level two Creative Writing. Loving it, and hoping to do the level three next year, providing I pass this one, of course. Most of this is done at home, but last weekend we had the second of two all day tutorials.

The first exercise we had to do was to write out everything we had done that morning, before getting to the tutorial. So I did. Unfortunately my mornings generally are far from usual, and my narrative contained such gems as 'washed the kitchen floor with cat disinfectant because the mancat had sprayed it during the night', 'make bed and place the incontinence mats carefully on the top so I can let the horrid girlcat out', and 'sniff clothes to make sure they hadn't been sprayed on before putting them on'. And using an entire lint roller on my coat, seperating scrapping mogs and so on and so on... you get the idea.

Clearly the disinfectant had gone to my head, and I didn't think 'WHY are we writing this?' and yup, sure enough the tutor had us read them out. Oops. Well, you can imagine, can't you? The other students just sat there, utterly appalled. It was very embarrassing.

One person was rolling with laughter though- the tutor herself. Oh my! I'd clearly found a kindred spirit! She confessed that she, too had four cats, none of whom got on, and yup, they also widdled everywhere and she did the clothes sniff every day too, recalling an unfortunate incident at Yoga where she didn't realise until half way through the class, what with the heating up of the body and so on, well you can imagine. Brilliant... and I, too, have done this. And there's no mistaking the smell of cat wee.

The point of the exercise, incidentally, was to show us that we edit even without thinking about it- things we don't want people to know or that we don't think are appropriate (ahem!!) not one of us wrote that we'd been to the toilet, for example, despite the fact we clearly must have been at some point, at least once!

You may be sure that in the next piece we wrote I was much more careful what I put! Still, it gave everyone a giggle I suppose.

The Joys Of Spring

It's that time of year again. Springtime. The time when Theo feels the need to coat the house in liberal amounts of urine to show any passing female he is indeed The Mancat About Town.

Oh.... good.

Indigo just went into semi-heat, I managed to pill her in enough time to avoid the yowls but we had several days of the most lascivious rolling imaginable, the hussy. This has encouraged Theo into his latest efforts. And he is very displeased with me at the moment, because I, understandably, do not appreciate the house being scented like a festival portaloo, and have been fighting back with every trick in the book.

Today, I'd just finished cleaning my kitchen floor with vast amounts of anti-catstink solution. Theo was watching me, with a horrified expression on his face... what did I think I was doing, mopping up all the delightful smells he had so carefully laid? Was I insane??? If ever I saw a cat look disgusted, he did. And just to emphasize his disgust he twitched his tail, and piddled all up the wall.

Charming.

He then looked at me, to see if I'd got the message, and stalked off in a huff. Whereupon I collapsed into a fit of giggles before reaching for the spray again. You can't win this one Theo my old chum... although I'm sure you will keep trying for a while.

Ava's Got Talent

 

She can stick her tongue right up her nostril...