The Cat Thread

Can’t decide whether to sleep on the bed or the bedside table? Then why not do both?

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Ralph and Saffron are still separated after an aborted attempt to reunite them yesterday morning. We've been feeding them either side of the door so they associate eachother's scent with food, then slowly opening the door a crack so they can see eachother, then giving them treats if they don't hiss or run away. The lunchtime feed today went really well, they softly batted eachother through the door gap but were purring, no signs of stress. They've had feliway diffuser on in both rooms for like 24 hours now so hopefully that's helped! Going to try letting them back in the same room tonight if dinner goes well...

Fuckin nightmare though, just the logistics of keeping them in separate rooms in a tiny house that's basically one downstairs room with a bedroom upstairs. Little shits better be worth the hassle (they are)

Anyway Ralph claimed my work ID card for his new favourite toy, maybe he wants to come to work with me

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Do we get some narrative?

Break at Port Lympne Safari park. Got to go around with a keeper after hours and meet this one during his feeding. His offspring were the first cheetahs bred in captivity to be successfully re-wilded in a South Africa privat reserve.

We also had a couple of Amur leopards in an enclosure immediately behind where we were staying and got to see them fed. Cloudy and snow leopards ticked off the list too.

Lovely morning. First I almost stepped in this little dead bird going to the loo, then once that was cleared up the cat comes crashing through the flap dragging a live magpie by its neck. Of course it escaped, flapping about and shitting all over the house. Finally caught it and let it out, shut the cat away, cleaned the house, went to work.

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..cats, huh?

Came off my moutainbike yesterday afternoon, lots of rib bruising so I ended up trying to sleep propped up on the sofa with a pile of pillows. Couldn’t sleep as it was too painful, so sat in the dark while my wife snored away in the bedroom.

I hear the cat flap open, it’s Dizzy. Yay, some company. She has a little snack, I can hear her crunching her kibble. I call her. She walks straight past me into the bedroom.

I hear her a bit later. She walks past me, and out of the flap. Comes in a bit later, more kibble, then goes into the office.

This is repeated several times during the night, with her ignoring me completely and me unable to get up and sit her next to me.

Cats, huh? indeed…..

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 sorry, I hope you heal up fast!

Thanks. Three broken ribs apparently, so I’m not going far anytime soon, bugger.

I’m still propped up on the sofa with half a dozen pillows and a huge box of co-dydramol. Dizzy is curled up on the armchair on the other side of the room, tantalisingly out of reach. The little cow.

I don’t know I think it might be a blessing, Patch would jump on me and keeps moving... she is not heavy but she likes walking on me, so the physical pain might be more than the mental pain of being ignored by your cat!

Incredible. Ralph left us a nice little turd on the bathroom floor this morning, about 5cm from his actual litter box

One week after their big fight and we've made some amazing progress, almost like it never happened! Still the odd scrap and a half-arsed hiss from Saffron but they're straight back to grooming 5 minutes later

We followed jackson galaxy's advice (he's on youtube, well worth checking out) and did the reintroductions slowly and always accompanied by food and play. Also the feliway diffusers might have helped, and the new cat tree seems to be giving them somewhere to get away from each other when they need to (I think it's hideous but I guess it's their house now).

Normally she’s up on the sofa next to me, or on the bed, but she’s so contrary. She’s not a lap cat at all, which is handy as she’s about 7kg, but she’ll snuggle up alongside me, always arse upwards, and demand tummy rubs. That’s fine on the sofa, not so much fun when. I’m in bed. But now I’m stuck here the little cow is either in the basement or the bedroom and won’t come near me. It’s probably the old white duvet that’s putting her off, something daft like that. Just being Cat, I guess

Who are people using for insurance?

I'm with Tesco but their premium is now ridiculous for a cat with no health issues and no claims.

It's normal to celebrate your cat's birthday, right?

Ha, we were just saying the exact same thing! Toppy turned 13

Absolutely. Dizzy gets extra helpings of her special soup on March 29th each year. 13 next year, eek.

What, not celebrating a family members birthday. Accept day you came in to my life.

I want to have a party inviting other cat families, but that is too far.

What's in the special soup? Meabh got a nice new unicorn-print bowtie but no extra food because I don't think she'd understand that she couldn't have special food every day...

Birthday girl sorting out some paperwork.

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There're some great cat birthday pics here:

https://www.facebook.com/1529321324054656/posts/3109194822733957/

It’s a broth made from fish pieces. No actual fish chunks in it, she just loves the liquid. She used to waste so much wet food, she’d just lick the gravy off and leave the rest. Packet soups still have chunks in and she’d waste most of those too, so I started to make my own for her. Her main diet is a special large-jaw kibble because anything smaller she just swallows whole, she always has a bowl topped up with that. Twice a day she gets her soup to go with it.
She won’t eat any human food, or meat or fish except tuna, which gives her the shits, not good on such a long-haired cat. You could put down the finest steak or salmon, and she wouldn’t even sniff it. I know, I’ve tried. She’ll lick Vegemite off your fingers, and the salt off a crisp if you hold it out for her.

New LinkedIn profile pic for Tofu.

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Yes birthday and adoption day!

PetPlan is good. I didn’t believe it until John Lewis fucked me over with their premium. I am pretty sure Tesco and JL use the same underwriter which is RSA. They are bad, stay away.

I have switched to PetPlan for about 4 years now and premium has only gone up by less than a fiver. They are more expensive to begin with but their premium hike is quite modest even when you have made a claim.

Thanks, I think I'll give them a go, they have come out far cheaper than Tesco in any case.