Brenda recently added a very cool, very simple little cat scratcher to her shop.
It's just a simple pole-on-a-carpet one with a little bobble but the materials it's made from are at once simple, ingenious and a little dangerous if you happen to be a cat...

This is what happened the day it arrived:



And this is a typical evening here - with a kitten swinging out of it:


(I am a bold fosterer and laughed at the last bit :D )

Can anybody tell me why I buy cat beds and toys for them?


Lily has just spent the last half hour playing in the bin. Sigh.

I Can Has Gerbil?

Just because she's blind doesn't mean she can't tell where the rodents live:



This is what she's waiting for:

The other cats aren't allowed on the coffee table when I'm cleaning the tank as the gerbils have no fear of them (and why should they? Cats stay on the other side of the glass) but I reckon I've got to be faster than a blind cat :-)

New ID Tags

I am so easily amused :-)

The Kitten moved out a couple of weeks ago and now lives with some friends of mine and their two cats and two dogs. They used to be a four cat family but lost two of their rescue girls very close together so a kitten seemed like a good idea (they always do right up until they arrive!). He's settled in brilliantly and has injected new life into his two older siblings :-)

Poor Cheesecake pined a little so I bought him some new toys that have to be kept securely locked in a metal box to stop them getting destroyed. Here's why:

Exhibit A:


(see the bits of fluff caught on his claws? There's only so much disemboweling one cat toy can take you know)

Exhibit B:





(the feathers lasted less than 2 minutes - a sure sign that pet birds are not in my future)

No Wash!

No Wash!, originally uploaded by hadook.

The kitten was being demanding earlier while I was on the phone so I passed him over to his babysitter :-)

Cat v Kitten

We have a new temporary resident - a kitten we found late one night last week in the middle of the road in Dunshaughlin and, as no owners could be located and tiny kittens don't tend to do so well with traffic, we brought him home. Isn't he cute? Bet you're making awww noises right now, aren't you? Unfortunately extreme cuteness is a defense mechanism employed by all small despots and this kitten is no exception. Determined, demanding, obnoxious and a purr louder than a jet engine. Pure trouble :-)

Anyway, most of the older residents of the Horde are fairly good with newcomers (they've had lots of experience) so I've only been worried about the reactions of the younger cats. Mia hates him with a passion, Mao doesn't give a damn and Lily can't figure out what he is.

Cheesecake, however, is ecstatic, he's obviously experiencing a second kitten-hood and having a whale of time playing with the teeny ball of kitten fur. The kitten is also besotted with the Cheesewhizz and thinks nothing of taking on a cat that's easily 10 times bigger than him. It's a good thing that kittens are made of indesctro-fur and it will teach him about important things like bite inhibition and proper hunting methods but still, it makes me wince to see 600g of fluff skidding along the floor with 4kg of pure cat in hot pursuit. Then again, he doesn't actually have to sneak up on a sleeping Cheesecake to eat his ears really does he?

The kitten is the spitting image of a much loved departed feline of a friend of mine so I'm hoping he might have a new home close by. Keep your fingers crossed!