Help! My cat is a big ginger wuss!

When I took on two kittens 18 months ago, my neighbour popped round to have a look at them. He duly reported to his wife that the one of the kittens had a sweet face and the other “looked like a thug” It wasn't hard to work out which was which;  Milly - a tiny tortoiseshell with big gentle eyes -  looked as though butter wouldn't melt and Jason her ginger big brother, with a face that was always thrusting itself at you and a devilish glint in his eyes. Jason looked like a bruiser in the making and I assumed that when he was old enough to go outside, he would be the scourge of the neighbourhood cats.

Are you looking at me?

After a challenging 5 months indoors (which is another story!) and an appointment with the vets, our cats were ready to go out. They were both almost fully grown and Jason was a fantastic example of a young male cat in top physical condition.

He had honed his fighting skills by protracted wrestling matches with his little sister (several of which I had to break up) and sharpened his claws to perfection on my soft furnishings. He was a big cat - much bigger than Milly - and when he pounced, you could literally see the muscles rippling under his glossy coat. The cats in my neighbourhood are mostly quite elderly and I genuinely felt sorry for them. Look out cats, here comes the new kid on the block!

But as you’ll guess from the title - Jason didn't become ‘Top Cat’ of the neighbourhood and I suppose the clues were there early on.  When I first opened the door to let them out, he hung back and let his sister go first. When they made a friend - a young black cat called Romeo, who had only just started going out himself, my neighbours reported that Romeo was ‘lording it over’ both our cats, whatever that means! As I work during the day, I rely a lot on reports from my retired neighbours, who although aren't strictly speaking cat people, appear fascinated by the antics of my lively young cats.

I then started to notice that when other cats appeared in our garden, Jason would watch them from the window with his tail thrashing but would wait until they had safely crossed over to next door before making an appearance outside to strut about as if he was warning them off.

We noticed an increase in the friction when one particular cat appeared. Named Caspar, he was an elderly stiff-legged creature who had ruled the roost in our close for a long time. For almost a year, Jason and he contented themselves with a bit of mild posturing and growling. Jason, usually from safely behind a window. But then a few weeks ago, old Caspar kicked it up a notch.

We started to hear reports (from our neighbours of course) of Caspar chasing Jason up our garden path and into the house. Then one evening we heard the cat flap taking a hammering so my husband went to investigate and reported Jason just inside it with Caspar on the outside baring his teeth. My husband  used the word ‘fangs’ and reported Caspar as wearing the most vicious and angry expression that a cat possibly can. Strong words indeed from an unashamed cat-man!

Then a few days later when I was on my own, I heard some lively yowling from outside and came down to find Jason sitting in the kitchen with his tail fluffed up to twice its size. He was pacing up and down and had a worried look in his eye. As his tail shrank back to normal size, his pacing slowed down and he slunk about with his normally perky tail decidedly in the down position. It was one of the most pathetic sights I have ever seen and my heart went out to him.



Going Somewhere?

When I made a fuss of him, he ignored me and that was when I knew things were bad, as this is one cat that loves a fuss. My cat was being bullied, and to add insult to injury it was by the local pensioner! You could say to a young man about an adversary, “Oh yeah, you could take him for sure!” Well how do you tell that to your cat? He’s big, strong, young and fast but somehow I don’t think he knows it.

While I was somewhat surprised by the turn of events, apart from being worried about him, I have to say I love him more for it. He is a big softy who loves a cuddle, and children can do anything with him. He’s come a long way from that bolshy little ginger ‘thug’ and I wouldn't change my beautiful big ginger wuss for anything!

Of Mice and Mayhem Part 2

Unfortunately our slick military operation doesn’t always work, and this is what happens when it fails... and quite miserably too...

The one that got away
 

On a weekday evening when I’m in the kitchen with my husband, our male cat Jason appears through the cat-flap with something long, dark and ‘taily’ hanging out of his mouth. As we are both nearby, we can react quickly so I grab Jason and he instantly drops the mouse into my husband’s hands. Result! Or so we thought....

While I move to open the back door to let my husband out into the garden, our other cat Milly appears from nowhere and gets under my husbands feet. He stumbles and drops the mouse which promptly escapes behind the washing machine. There is some swearing at this point from my husband and we banish both cats into the living room.

We have an 'old-school' washer-dryer (its actually a tumble drier on top of the washing machine) so with some considerable effort, we pull this out along with the fridge freezer. No mouse runs out but we see a tiny hole in the skirting board behind the washing machine. Well that's that then! We’ll have to wait for the mouse to either move, or else die and leave behind a small smelly corpse.

Later when the cats are allowed back in the kitchen, they spend around two hours staring at the bottom of the oven. Completely unrelated I imagine.....

As there’s not much we can do about it, we forget about it for the next couple of days. Then, our next door neighbour (on our ‘attached’ side), pops round to warn us of a mouse infestation in their house. They say a mouse has been in their kitchen cupboards and left droppings and nibbled food. The little bugger has crossed over into their house!

We admit it straight away and confess the crimes of the cats. Thankfully our neighbours are good-humoured about it and offer to keep us updated. They are a retired couple and I think they might secretly enjoy the drama!

Next day my husband buys a couple of humane mouse-traps and to tempt the mouse - some chocolate spread - supermarkets own, not Nutella (its a mouse, not the queen) He read online that this will be more tempting than cheese to the mouse.We give one to our neighbours and set the other one up ourselves in the kitchen behind the oven.

We have no idea whether this will be successful or not, but next morning when we come down we can see it’s been set off and the mouse is in it! My husband releases it in the garden and it runs free. We toast our success with - well toast actually and chocolate spread. Success has never tasted so sweet!
 

Mouse Striptease!

The next story is even more ridiculous, especially when you consider that the whole thing happened in less than 5 minutes.

I am on my own in my house one evening and Jason appears in the kitchen doorway with a mouse. I spring up and move toward him but he is obviously expecting this and he growls fiercely at me and fluffs up his tail. Well that's never happened before...

The door to upstairs is unfortunately open and he runs up the stairs with his prey. I trail after him without a clue what to do when I catch up with him. All the upstairs doors are open and I would rather see him eat the mouse than have it escape up there. Naturally he makes a beeline for our bedroom and I corner him there. But of course you can't corner a cat (unless your legs are made of sheet metal or something) and he runs between my legs and back downstairs, still growling crossly at me. Once downstairs, I remember the drill and shut the door to upstairs. Once we’re in the kitchen, I even manage to shut the kitchen door behind us too, sealing us in.

I have never caught a mouse on my own and can’t see myself being able to hold it long without dropping it. First I try holding Jason with one hand and trying to get the mouse out of his mouth and into a tupperware container with the other. Of course this doesn't work and Jason and I struggle fruitlessly. Next I grab a towel, steady Jason between my legs (gently of course! no cats were harmed etc etc...) I then somehow manage to trap the mouse under the towel . I place the tupperware container over it for added security and dispatch a furious Jason into the living room. As I open the door and push him through, Milly shoots through under him taking his place in the kitchen as I close the door! Dammit!

Of course she pounces on the suspicious lump on the kitchen floor but I whip her away quickly and pop her back in the living room. Thankfully Jason doesn't slide in as I push her out. He was too busy removing a picture from my living room wall, as it turned out.

Anyway, back to the mouse. I try to get it from under the towel into the tupperware box, so I lift the towel slightly and hold the tupperware box just above the gap. In my mind this can’t fail.

However I’m wearing a baggy jumper and what actually happens is that the mouse runs out from the towel and up my sleeve. EEEK! I can feel it wriggling around up there trying to get higher. I clamp my left hand onto the wriggling lump on my right arm and trap it at elbow level. Unfortunately we have reached a bit of a stalemate as there’s no one around to help me get it out.

Thinking quick, I grab the back door key with my still functioning right hand, with my left hand gripping the mouse lump all the while. I let myself outside into the back garden and try to shake the mouse out of my sleeve. Unfortunately it clings on for dear life and doesn't want to go down, only up.

I then do the only thing I can. I let go of the lump, shuddering as it moves up my arm and I peel my jumper off and throw it on the lawn. Thank goodness I’m wearing a vest! This is December and while its pitch black outside, our garden is bathed in about a million watts of security light! Its also overlooked by about 20 other houses.

The mouse runs for dear life and I grab my jumper and head indoors not looking too closely for curtain twitchers staring at the crazy lady who runs out of her house on a cold frosty night and whips her top off on the lawn. Even though I’m shaken, I know it will be a great story to tell to my husband and friends the next day. I keep the cats in all night and Jason and I eventually forgive each other.

Of Mice and Mayhem Part 1

I share a house with two young and lively cats (I'm not even going to pretend to own them..)

Mouse is for illustration purposes only...

Being young and lively means that in between intense bouts of laziness, they like to go out and hunt creatures much smaller than themselves. They don't have much luck with adult birds (although in the Spring I'm afraid to say we see our share of the remains of tiny baby birds ), so in the winter, its all about the mouse, and contrary to popular misconception, cats do not remove mice from your house, nope, they roam the surrounding area to bring them in.

My husband and I, being soft-hearted, usually attempt a rescue when they bring in a live one. At first this was chaotic, but after some practice, it now runs like a military operation.

The following is what will happen on a typical evening when we are relaxing watching a TV programme over a glass of wine, and we hear the cat flap slam and see one of the cats appear into view with something hanging from its mouth....

• Phase 1 – Track down and isolate target, clearing hostile bogeys from the perimeter. This means corralling the offending cat, into the kitchen and ensuring the other cat is not around to join in the melee.
  
  
• Phase 2 - Lock down the perimeter. This involves shutting the kitchen doors into the utility and living room so the cat and his small victim can't escape.
  
  
• Phase 3– Divide forces to separate hostile from victim. This usually involves me grabbing the cat from behind, and my husband working at the head end to release the mouse from his jaws and catch in his hands.

• Phase 4 – Tactical analysis of the fast developing and increasingly complex situation – employing a different strategy for each potential outcome.

Outcome A

If the mouse is dead.... Dispose of body in a humane and sensitive manner. We wrap it in kitchen roll and place in the bin.

Outcome B

If the mouse is alive... Repatriate victim to original environment, keeping hostiles under lock-down for an indefinite period. We put the mouse back at the bottom of the garden and keep the cats in all evening. There is some sulking.

And the least favourable outcome......

Outcome C

If the mouse is half-dead..... I don't think there is an official military term for what we have to do next, or at least not in this country! We are man enough to put the little creature out of its misery so we go back to Option A.

The efficiency of the operation is of course, affected by a number of other factors. These include; the size and speed of the mouse, the cat's feistyness and the amount of wine we have consumed prior to the incident....

24 - A story of a Lost (and found) cat - Part 2

 

After a few hours sleep, I wake up at 7am, leaving my husband in bed and decide to resume the search. I feed Milly, and let her outside and I stand in the garden fruitlessly calling Jason. Milly is in top form, running around the garden sniffing everything, chasing ripples in the grass and returning affectionately to me to have her face rubbed. She doesn't seem to be missing her brother at all, the little rascal!

After tea and toast, I begin the first of many searches that day. Retracing my steps from last night along the alleys and streets near my house. It is like looking for a needle in a haystack as he could be anywhere but this doesn't deter me. I even go back and get my car so I can go a bit further afield. I drive slowly along scanning the roads and pavements for him, but after a near miss with another car, I decide that this is a bad idea and ditch the car.

I'm just a big softy

As the morning goes on, the feeling continues to grow in me that there will be a big hole in my life if Jason never comes back. I didn’t realise how much I would miss his brash bolshy presence; he was also affectionate and incredibly amusing. There is no cat out there quite like Jason and I pictured my life over the next 14 years or so without him in it and it seemed incredibly grey and dull.

As I walk the streets that day, I hope he’ll appear around every corner meowing loudly as he always does, but he doesn't. Later my husband gets up and helps me search. We search together and we then search separately. I knock on peoples’ doors and ask them to look out for him and to check sheds and garages. I even walk around our local park, breaking into a run when I see a ginger shape at the other end. But its just someones dog. My eyes are gritty from lack of sleep and I ache with tiredness but still I keep on relentlessly pounding the streets in the hope of seeing him.

Everytime I go back to my house, Milly looks as smug as can be and is more affectionate than usual, constantly trying to get on my lap. I think she would definitely adjust well to being the only cat in our house! However I’m determined not to let that happen. Later my husband has to go back to work and I continue to search. I spend most of the day walking the streets trying to find him, it becomes addictive, if I just go that bit further and look around the next corner he might be there. I’m so worried, I can barely eat. Its that extreme kind of worrying that takes complete hold of you and stops you enjoying anything else that might be going on - like a tight band around your insides. The worry and the guilt eats away inside you until you can’t think about anything else.

At about 7pm, I am on a break from searching and one of my neighbours calls round. She is a cat person, with 3 cats herself - one of them being Jason’s adversary Caspar! She has come round to offer her support and help me look for Jason. If I hadn't been so worried, I think would have burst into tears.

Even though I’m beginning to realise that the searching is pretty pointless, the sense of companionship compels me to accept her offer. Its nice to know that there are other cat people out there and I’m not a complete raving lunatic.

We head off and she tells me stories of the scrapes her cats have got into over the years, that they have always returned from. She also shows me lots of places around the estate I didn't know existed, secret paths behind houses, hidden green areas with trees and a small electricity sub-station which has high brick walls. My neighbour is quite a forceful person and she insists on knocking on the door of the house next to the sub-station and asking them to look out of their upstairs window to see if Jason was trapped inside. I admire her bravery on behalf of my cat.

Her teenage son even helps us for a while and we all wander round shouting for Jason. After about an hour and a half we call it a day and I thank her for giving up her time to help me look for him.

I go back wearily into my house to make missing cat posters using my computer. I decide that I will need to contact my work in the morning and take the morning off as holiday to distribute flyers and pin posters to trees. Milly constantly wants attention - its like having a completely different cat, like she has taken on some of Jason’s attention seeking personality. Eventually I put her downstairs and close the door so I can miserably look through suitable pictures of Jason in peace.

I feel depressed at the thought that after almost 24 hours, he was still missing. There was definitely something wrong, something that couldn't be explained away by him being a young male cat out on the tiles.

I hear some thumps from downstairs, Milly is in a playful frame of mind and is known to scamper about the place very fast when this mood takes her. Then I hear a louder noise from down there and I run down to investigate. In the kitchen, there stands Jason! I grab him and hug him tightly telling him how much I love him and how glad I am he’s come back.

I am so grateful he has come home and relieved I haven't lost him for good. This time I do shed a tear as I sit on the floor cuddling him fiercely. He starts to struggle so I let him go and I text my husband HE’S BACK! He immediately rings me, sounding incredibly pleased. While he doesn't freak out as easily as me, he was very worried about his own favourite!

When he gets home, we both make a fuss of Jason, which he absolutely loves. I now realise just how much I love both my cats. Some cats are easy to love, others just chip away at you by sheer force of personality until you can’t imagine your life without them in it. A year later and neither of them have stayed out all night like that again. The most logical explanation could be that he was trapped in someone's shed or garage for 24 hours, as he was very hungry when he came back.

Unfortunately I know that if anything like this does happen again, I will probably react exactly the same way as before and worry, but that’s my problem and those two cats bring me such fun and laughter that it will always be worth it.

24 - A story of a lost (and found) cat - Part 1

 The following takes place between 10pm on Saturday night and 10pm on Sunday night. 

Sorry! I couldn’t resist the '24' reference but my cat did in fact, go missing for exactly 24 hours one day last April.

Now I appreciate that many people may not actually count their cat as missing until they have been gone at least 24 hours but at the time they were very young and didn’t usually stay out for more than half an hour at a time. Also I have a tendency to ‘freak out unnecessarily’ about things at the first available opportunity - which in this case was about 2 hours after I had seen him last! This for me was an incredibly difficult and stressful experience and one which taught me a lot about how I felt about my most troublesome cat.

I have two cats - Jason and Milly, and my husband accuses me of playing favourites with Milly. It was unfortunately true and I just couldn't help myself! Milly was a little tortoiseshell, much smaller than her ginger brother and very delicate, dainty and a flighty little thing. At the time, she wasn't that keen on lap-sitting so you really had to earn the right for her to sit on your lap, mostly by continuous face scratching; whereas Jason would just bulldoze his way onto whatever lap was available regardless of whether or not you wanted him there.

Jason was bigger, louder, cheekier and more aggressive - in short he was a boy. He would fare better in any fights on account of his size and weight advantage, and at the time was going through a phase of jumping on Milly for no reason and biting her. My heart just loved little Milly more and I thought of Jason as a problem cat, who if he were a boy, would surely have earned himself an ASBO or two by now and a ride home in a cop car.

On a Saturday night in April, the cats were 7 months old and had been going outside, using a cat flap since February. I always brought them in at night, locking the cat flap; and both cats were neutered, had ID tags and were micro-chipped. (just in case anyone’s judging me!)

My husband was at work so I was on my own and as it was Saturday night I was enjoying some wine while I was watching the TV (Yep, I really know how to live it up...)  All evening both cats kept coming in and out. They were very much people cats and never stayed out for long. Every half hour, they would come in and miaow and want a fuss made of them. It was a fine evening so I let them stay out a bit later than usual and I was staying up a bit later than usual myself, as I didn't have to go to work the next day. At about 11.30pm I realised I hadn't seen the cats for a while so I went outside to get them in. I rattled their biscuit box which usually brings them running and sure enough Milly bounced into view over a fence. I gave her some biscuits, locked her inside and then went out to entice in Jason. I went down to the bottom of the garden and looked over the high fence into the back access lane where people’s garages were.

I discreetly called his name as it was the middle of the night and my neighbours wouldn't thank me for shouting. I rattled his biscuits but still no Jason. As I walked back up the garden path I could have kicked myself and I deeply regretted letting them out so late. What was I supposed to do now? It was very late, but I couldn't just go to bed and leave Jason to fend for himself. He was such a home cat and so young. There must be something wrong for him to disappear for so long. At this stage, ‘so long’ was actually only about two hours but I felt like the worst cat-owner in the world!

In the house I fretted whilst Milly cheerfully polished off some food and then rubbed herself against my legs purring loudly. I decided I just couldn't live with myself if something happened to Jason so I was going to go out and look for him. Putting on my coat and shoes, I left the house while making sure Milly stayed in.



I walked out of our close and decided that the best place to look was along all the back alleyways behind the houses. It was midnight, so you can appreciate that it was very dark in the alleyways and would have been scary except I was so worried about Jason, and possibly also because I was fortified by the sparkling wine I had consumed earlier. I wandered round the network of alleyways and onto the roads around our estate, thankfully not encountering anyone strange out and about. I would call his name a few times and then stop and listen for any meowing. After about 40 minutes I went back home, in the hope he would have returned (I had set the cat flap so he could get in but not out)

Milly was as happy as Larry (whoever he was)

But at home there was still no Jason. I was really worried now, this was so unlike him. I sat making a fuss of Milly for a while and then I went out again. Widening my route, I continued to search - a feeling of desperation creeping in. He was nowhere to be found in the silent dark streets and I wandered around with increasing desperation. I went back home and then I repeated the whole thing a third time - this last one at 3.00am. Finally I decided it was time to call off the search for the night. I went to bed utterly miserable and full of guilt, letting Milly sleep upstairs with me. (Normally both cats sleep downstairs in the kitchen as they’re too lively to come upstairs when we’re trying to sleep)

I dozed off and when my husband came back at 4.30am, I sat up and explained what had happened. I expected him to be horrified and more than a little cross with me, as it had happened on my watch. He just said that was what young male cats do, they wander off for periods of time and I shouldn't worry. Telling me not to worry is a pointless exercise as its what I’m best at and I now have it down to a fine art! However I appreciated his calmness, as I know he loves those cats. He was only horrified that I had been wandering around in the dark on my own but I think he appreciated the lengths I would go to for Jason.

Kitten Diary - The Little Monsters - Week 18

Week 18 – they go out!

Just after Christmas, we have them spayed and neutered; they make a swift recovery and we plan to let them out one weekend in February. Both of us are terrified that they will run off and never come back - however they need to go out or they will destroy our house completely!

That morning I open the back door and see how they react. The once feisty cats are suddenly timid – peeking their heads out and sniffing carefully. Milly is the first out (again) and Jason follows sheepishly. They sniff the patio area, looking all around them and then suddenly start to run and jump everywhere. It is lovely to watch as they absolutely adore being out and are so excited by all the new sights and smells. They are very good and confine themselves to our back garden for a good hour, moving to our neighbours garden after that but going no further. After a few hours I call them in for food and they come. That's quite enough excitement for one day!



We're not too big to both squeeze on your lap!

My cats are now 20 months old and I am incredibly fond of them. They don't cause the mayhem they did before, but they still have their moments. Even though he weighs about 5 and a half kilos, Jason likes to go up the curtain every now and again. He launches himself at it bodily and you can see the curtain rail bend under his weight so we grab him off pretty damn quickly!

Milly likes to run around like a crazy cat every now and then, jumping at shadows and pouncing on nothing. However they are great entertainment value and I wouldn't trade them in for more placid cats for anything!

Kitten Diary - The Little Monsters - Weeks 8-17

Weeks 8-17

While they’re very tiny, they can't cause too much damage – apart from the maze of scratches on our arms and legs. However as they get a little bit bigger, they start to wreak a bit more havoc...

The destruction

The following is a list of what they destroyed;

• The carpet - even though they have a scratching post, they still claw the living room carpet. They have their favourite patches all over the room – which are getting noticeably threadbare.

• 

  We did this!

  Any paperwork we leave out gets automatically shredded and spread around the room.
• The tumble drier – one night when locked in the kitchen/utility room area, they get behind the tumble drier and rip a hole in the outflow air pipe that goes through the wall. Goodness knows why these things are so flimsy. We don’t repair it for another 6 months as we know they’ll just do it again, so no tumble drying through the winter – brilliant.
• The broke the lamp. We had a long Chinese lantern style lamp in the living room. One of them (my money’s on the ginger one) launched himself at it, knocked it over and started ripping chunks out of the lamp shade.
• They bite the walls. I'm not joking. Both of them bite and tear wallpaper and plaster off the wall in various edges and corners of the living room. My husband does a temporary repair job with flour and water.
• They take pictures off the wall now. Not content with overturning the pictures on surfaces, they jump up to the smaller pictures on the walls they can reach and rip them off.
• Decapitated wooden camel. We have a wooden camel ornament that stands on the floor – it’s about knee high and because they kept knocking it over, it has been laid flat on the floor for months. When I decide I can stand it up again, they knock it over while I’m at work and the head is severed mid-neck.

I cannot over state just how demanding they were. As soon as I was in the room with them, they wanted attention, as soon as we put a new object into the room, they were all over it until they were either bored of it, had eaten it or broken it. I longed for the day that they could go outside, but our plan was to have them spayed/neutered at 5 months, let them recover and then let them start going out. The last month before they went out was the hardest, as they were getting big, and still had the same amount of energy as when they were tiny. When two almost full grown cats are tearing round the place, bouncing off the walls –it’s even harder to try to watch casualty of an evening.

Curiosity couldn't possibly get me into any trouble!

At night, the bumps and bangs coming from the kitchen were growing louder. It wasn’t uncommon for us to hear a massive crash and have to go down and investigate in the middle of the night. One night we came down to find they had knocked a speaker off the top of the kitchen cupboards. It had bounced off the kitchen surfaces and left a dent in the unit! Our neighbours reported hearing these crashes and bangs too. Thankfully they were good humoured about it! When shutting them in the kitchen at night, sometimes I would literally have to hurl both cats into the room at once and quickly shut the door or I'd never get them both in at once.



I would let the cats go upstairs quite frequently in the evenings to let them stretch their legs and have a run round and burn some energy off. They would tear through the house from top to bottom, making a terrible amount of noise but I was just glad to get them out of my face.

As a young male, Jason started to get quite aggressive. Bigger than Milly, he would come off better in any wrestling, though that didn't stop her from baiting him on occasion. They would wind each other up by chasing and biting the other’s provocatively waving tail, which led to fighting and as they got older, loud yowls instead of squeaks.

Jason was very strong and muscular; when he pounced and sprang, you could see all the muscles rippling under his coat. He was a great example of a young male cat in perfection physical condition - and very handsome. Milly, about 60% of his size was like a little toy cat. Dainty – with tortoiseshell markings and white paws, she was every inch a lady (except that is when she was licking her bits in front of an audience)
 

We're always up for an adventure!



When their fighting got out of hand I would step in and separate them as I worried she would get hurt. I looked forward to the day Jason had the snip – so his aggression would decrease. Also he could get rid of any leftover aggression outside, on the other cats of the neighbourhood and any unfortunate small animal that came his way. However, through it all he was always the more affectionate, insisting on sitting on our laps and purring loudly and rubbing us with his face.

I probably took things a bit too seriously as an owner, imagining they were going to be the worst behaved cats ever (when in reality they were just being kittens) Also if I had been out all day at work, I felt like I should be spending time with them in the evening, so I would let them upstairs when I was doing things like using the computer. I would be trying to type with one cat in my lap pawing at the keyboard, and the other on the window sill in front of me trying to take the wallpaper of the corner of the wall with her teeth! Not to mention the time I didn't exclude them from the bathroom when taking a bath, and Jason got up on the side and fell in! Not very relaxing really either for him or me...

Kitten Diary - The Little Monsters - Weeks 2-8

Weeks 2-8

I stop coming home at lunchtime and use an automatic cat feeder to feed them during the day– thankfully they have each other to play with so they won't get too lonely. I have resigned myself to the fact that the house (well the downstairs) is going to stay messy for a while. Any pictures are now permanently laid flat on surfaces, and when they got a bit too curious about a big vase of artificial flowers – that too was moved into the upstairs spare room, which seems to be getting rather full of stuff!

During the course of week two, a new and interesting phase in their toilet routine develops.

It can only be described as....

Sh*t foot

What are you looking at?

I was sitting on the sofa one day and Jason bounced onto my lap. After a while I notice a very strong smell of poo; he absolutely stunk! As I look at him, I notice with horror it’s all over one of his back feet and legs. As I take him into the kitchen, I see it tracked all over the floor. Eeuughh! Using anti-bacterial kitchen wipes, I attempt to clean him first – it’s got right in between his claws and in his fur and takes ages to clean. The situation isn't helped by him struggling and wriggling to get free and my gagging at the terrible smell at such close quarters. As I’m on my own, I have to hold him with one hand and clean with the other. Not easy when he is trying to make a bid for freedom. When he is finally clean, I sterilise the floor and change the litter tray which happens also to be covered with poo –marvellous.

Unfortunately, the situation isn’t a one off; it seems that every time he goes for a poo, in his clumsy attempts to bury it, he stands in it and gets it everywhere, he then tries even harder to get rid of it as he can smell it, and this makes it even worse. I worry about him tracking it everywhere when I’m not in, and when I am in, I’ve taken to hovering at the litter tray when I can hear him in it. When he poops I whip him out of there and I bag the poo! I know that this is interfering with natural cat toilet habits, but really, not having a house covered in sh*t has to be a priority!

Both of them make a mess of the litter tray, but Jason has Sh*t foot down to perfection. I am even more paranoid about them jumping on the kitchen surfaces, but there's really nothing I can do about it. I half-heartedly try to spray them with water to train them out of climbing on them but it’s just a game to them and I'm too much of a softy to properly punish them. In the end I settle for wiping surfaces with anti-bacterial wipes before I prepare food, and shutting them out of the kitchen during preparation.

Its my bag!

Because they are making such a mess of the litter tray, we are using vast quantities of cat-litter. We are getting through 3 and half bags a week and my husband works out that it’s costing £40 a month! Just for the litter! No one else seems to have this problem and to this day we don't know why they made such a mess of it. The food is also very expensive, as they eat so much but they burn it off so quickly (and poop it out so regularly) I don’t like to ration them.

Although they are both very lively and on occasion just plain naughty, they are affectionate and I think they’re going to be real people cats. They want to be everywhere where we are and on the rare occasion I let them have full run of the house, they follow me about, once they’re finished investigating.

Kitten Diary - The Little Monsters - Day 6

Day 6



Milly taking on our 'fat-cat' doorstop

My husband is at work and I am on my own with them. I play with them in the morning, as I have read its good for them if you play with them when they're tiny. However the novelty of dangling things for them to chase is wearing off a bit. I give up and go upstairs, thwarting their attempts to come up too, closing the door and again feeling a bit of guilty relief at being away from such attention seeking high maintenance pets. I would only have to open that door for them to launch themselves at me again, pulling at my clothes, climbing up my body, clawing my hair. I should really try and instil some discipline but they are so young and such little forces of nature – that it would be like trying to discipline a squirrel.

I peek downstairs later and silence reigns. Bliss! They have gone to sleep. I tiptoe round the kitchen and living room, tidying up, as though there was a sleeping baby I was afraid to wake. The place is in a terrible state! Small toys everywhere, pictures overturned and bank letters/bills that had been left on a coffee table – shredded to pieces by tiny claws. I tidy everything up but decide to leave the pictures face down, as they'll only be knocked over again. 



You can't catch me!

After dinner, my husband and I attempt to watch some TV with a glass of wine. Refreshed by their afternoon sleep, two small bullets hurl backwards and forwards across the room. They seem to be able to fight each other whilst simultaneously moving swiftly across the room; rolling over and over, bumping in to objects. It’s amusing for a while but it’s getting really hard to concentrate on our programme and relax. It goes quiet for a bit, and then a small head appears from between the DVD player and the Sky box in the TV stand. Milly pushes her way out, dislodging several DVDs and jumps up onto the shelf in front of the TV. She stands up on her hind legs against the screen, trying to reach the top with her front paws. Jason appears beside her and she scampers round the back of the TV set. As they chase each other round the TV, we decide have had enough of the disruption and they are banished to the kitchen for some 'Time-Out'. Unfortunately it’s a glass panelled door so we can constantly see them pressed up against it squeaking piteously.

After a while we forgive them and let them back in, and after a bit of reasonably uneventful scampering, they settle down on our laps.

What a day! Who could have thought having kittens could be so tiring?

Kitten Diary - The Little Monsters - Days 3-5

Day 3

This day starts in a similar fashion; God-awful smell, litter tray wrecked. This time there's poo on the side of the tray. Nice. They're getting braver about climbing up our legs now – both of them are at it, I suppose it’s an easy climb for them – lots of fabric and soft flesh for them to get their claws into. They can't jump straight onto the kitchen surfaces but have worked out a way to get on, via the chair and then the table. I will really have to train them out of this, I can't have them walking over the surfaces after they have been in the litter tray – that's just unhygienic.

Feed us now or there will be consequences!

I come home again at lunchtime to feed and check on them and they seem fine but some of our pictures are lying flat on their faces. I put them back, sort out the litter tray and feed the little rascals. In the evening we play with them and they climb all over us. Already I have several scratches on my hands and legs – kittens aren't born knowing how to sheath their claws. Hopefully they'll learn this pretty soon! When we sit down to watch the TV, both kittens curl up in my lap – easily fitting. So sweet and thankfully they're affectionate with us – so what do a few scratches and some smelly poos matter?

Days 4-5

All week I come home at lunchtime to check on them and worry about the various dangers that could happen to them. There's a floor-standing wine rack in the utility room that they like to climb in, I pictured them falling inside it, catching their heads and snapping their little necks. ( you may have guessed by now, I'm a bit of a worrier..) That has to go upstairs into the spare room too.

What could possibly go wrong here?

When I come in from work, they fling themselves at me mioawing and purring at the same time and climbing up me. They just won’t let me alone for a minute– I have to shut them out of the kitchen while I am cooking. As they hurl themselves at the glass door separating us, I close my eyes ... Aahh, a moment's peace and quiet. Who could have thought two such small things would literally have taken over the whole downstairs of my house? Whatever I am doing, they are there – climbing on me, fighting with each other, trying to see/eat/break whatever it is I am doing. They always want food – I don't want to over-feed them, yet I can't bear to hear them cry so piteously. Advice varies; from feeding them 1-2 pouches a day, to letting them eat whatever they want as they are growing. They are easily polishing off 4 pouches a day each plus biscuits and you can't get kitten food in tins! This is working out to be much more expensive than we had thought.

Kitten Diary - The Little Monsters - Day 2

Day 2

6.30am

I'm way too cute to make a terrible smell!

I open the kitchen door to be confronted by an eye-wateringly terrible smell. (It’s actually a million times worse first thing in the morning) and two small squeaking balls of fur who hurl themselves past me into the living room. Hmmm......not looking forward to waking up to this smell every day. Still at least they have used their litter tray, but what a mess they appear to have made of it. Although the poos are (thankfully) still inside the tray, the litter has been flicked all over the floor nearby and the newspaper inside has been scratched to pieces and is hanging out of the tray.

I'm sure I’ve seen a TV ad for cat litter with a calm looking lady scooping well-disguised lumps out into a small bag and then smoothing the remaining litter down a bit in a dignified fashion. Not the case here, the whole lot has to be thrown away and refilled with fresh newspaper and litter. I go back into the kitchen, wash my hands and move to put the kettle on and sort my breakfast out. The two balls of fur are immediately at my feet squeaking - looks like I got my priorities wrong. I feed them a pouch each and out come those starving gremlins again. As I eat my breakfast, they play together – fighting and wrestling over the living room floor. There's lots of squeaking and they seem to like hiding from each other and then stalking and pouncing. This is natural kitten behaviour and it’s good for them to grow up together so that they can do this. Still, they appear to be very rough with one another, biting each other on the underside of the belly and other sensitive areas!

Don't think we won't come up there!

After I have brushed my teeth, I come downstairs to find they have pooped again. Wordlessly I look at my husband, and he goes to sort the litter tray out this time. Again they have made a mess of it but this time it’s just about salvageable with the scooper and a small baggie.

I head off for work, placing my bags of litter and poo into the wheelie bin outside. (I can sense a new morning routine here) Once at work I worry about the kittens. There is just so much danger in a house for two tiny curious little animals. The clothes drier in the utility room, for example; what if they climb up that, and it collapses on them, the metal crushing their tiny little bodies? Trying to put it out of my mind, I get on with some work – actually I spend the morning telling my friend and anyone else who will listen, about the new arrivals.

I can't stop worrying about some terrible accident befalling them in my kitten death-trap of a house, so I go home at lunchtime to check on them – thankfully it’s not far away.

As I enter the living room, I am pleased to note that the smell isn't too bad. The kittens appear, looking unharmed and lively. I stand in my kitchen with them both at my feet, looking up at me squeaking. What a funny sight –their tiny pointed faces, with open mouths and those ridiculously out-of-proportion ears. As they sit on the floor, their tails that stick out behind them aren't even proper tails yet, they are just little triangular shaped stubs protruding from their bottoms which do their best to move from side to side.

I know they want food and the ginger one gets bored of waiting and starts up my trouser-leg like a tiny mountaineer. Easy there tiger......those are my work trousers..... OUCHH! The little blighter's claws are like needles in my skin. (at the time, I probably said something stronger than“Ouch”) I gently remove him and place him on the floor and give them some food. Woolfed down again without any decorum, and then full of food, it looks as though they might be getting sleepy. I decide to move the clothes drier into the upstairs spare room out of their way and I go back to work.

Later that evening I play with them – the usual kitten games, throwing small toys for them to chase and dangling things at them. They are incredibly amusing as they chase and play with these things and then settle down to some more play-fighting together, accompanied again by the usual chorus of squeaks and squeals.

The litter tray needs another complete change before bed and the kittens aren't sleepy, so I have to quickly place them in the kitchen, make a quick exit backwards and shut the door before they get out. I am reminded of a scene from a cop show when the officers have to place a violent criminal into a cell, without him getting out as they leave the room. But anyway, these are kittens not criminals! As I walk up the stairs I hear lots of small crashes and bumps coming from the kitchen, oh dear! hopefully they'll settle down soon.