Why My Cat is a Jerk - Reasons #16 through #25

I am not going to even get into the story as how we decided to add another animal into our family. I blame my husband's horrible lack of will power when it comes to pets. (Not really, I'm just as bad!) The total in our household is now: 2 cats, 2 dogs, 2 kids and 2 adults. Depending on the day, we have 6 animals and 2 adults.

We adopted a cute, pure bred Siamese from the SPCA. I still don't know how we managed this, but once you have a Siamese in your life, they aren't easy to forget. Siamese cats are "different" than your normal mutt or pure bred cats. They have this personality that is unique. Add in some serious intelligence and you have a dangerous combination. Yes, Siamese cats can, and will, learn tricks. I read somewhere that because of their intelligence they are the easiest to train. Let's go back to that personality bit....their personality enables them to now use this new trick in fun and interesting ways AGAINST you.

Siamese are also social cats, in that they like to let everyone else know where they are...A LOT! Not only that, but every Siamese I have heard has a distinct meow. It's either, chirping, or imagine the sound of trying to say all of your vowels at the same time. (Ha ha, you totally tried to do it, didn't you?!)

Knowing all these facts, once that emaciated little kitten purred, and let Little Dude brush him at the SPCA, we were done for. Home he went. Once he got acclimated, we found out that he was in fact, not neutered. He displayed all sorts of actions that were difficult to explain to Little Dude and Princess. Especially when the actions were happening to them (and everything else that would lie still long enough). Fortunately, the SPCA believed me when I said that he might be cryptorchid (his testicles didn't drop) and fixed the issue. Now he only occasionally humps his blanket. I'm cool with that and so are my kids. 

We also let Little Dude help name him. In hindsight, watching the Avenger's movie right before asking for a name from a 4 year old boy, wasn't the best idea. I'm not sure if the kitten REALLY fits the name, or we cursed ourselves, and this kitty is choosing to live up to his name. 

Introducing Loki...

Aww! He's so cute!
HA! Don't let that little fur-ball trick you, he's a sneaky little turd. Here are just a few of the fun and exciting things he does:

• Waits for you to walk by couch, bed, stairs, door (pretty much anything he can hide around the corner) then attacks either your feet, or jumps at you in that ninja kitty move you see on so many videos.
• We have a curtain (several actually) in our bedroom that he will hide behind. Once you walk by it he will jump at you, through the curtain, at a height of about 4 feet. It's terrifying if you don't know he's there. One day I was brushing my teeth on the other side of that curtain. He jumped through the curtain, hitting me in the stomach, causing me to hit myself in the mouth with my own toothbrush. I had a fat lip for 4 days!
• He sneaks into the kid's Lego stash and randomly deposits them all over the house. I'm glad I see him do this, otherwise my poor kids would get blamed. It's just annoying until you have to walk through the house at night, then those innocent Legos become torture-by-foot devices.
• Loki also has a thing for socks. Military Dad has always had this thing about leaving his socks wherever he happens to take them off. My kids now have a thing about leaving their socks wherever they take them off. Loki loves this. He drags the socks all over the house playing with them. The problem is now laundry day is even worse with unmatched socks!
• He evidently likes the taste of wine...

• We also have to keep our eyes peeled for him when we do the dishes. I have no idea why, but he loves to get inside the dishwasher as we load the dishwasher. He doesn't do anything but sit behind the bottom rack; guess he likes the view?

• He also used to chew on the carpeted stairs. Now that I'm remodeling the stairs with wooden flooring, I thought the stair chewing would stop. I was correct....however, he has now taken to chewing my meticulously placed painter's tape. This is my THIRD application of the expensive masking tape, just so I don't accidentally paint the wrong thing!!!
  

After Loki is done having his jerk moments, he can be the sweetest thing, if he is in the mood. He plays with our rat terrier in a way that they just roll around in weird ball of fur. He cuddles right down in the middle of the dogs, as if he is one. He does this thing we call "noggins" where he will rub his head against yours. He will even give you nose kisses (his nose touches your nose).

While I joke that Loki can be a jerk, he is part of the family. As part of the family we will always love him, despite his weirdness. However, I will make sure that our next cat is named "Cuddles," "Sweetie," or anything not remotely related to Gods/Goddesses that are associated with mischief!

Pride

This morning started out like any other morning. Getting the kids ready for school and then driving Little Dude to preschool. On the way there we were discussing how much we haven't done for Christmas this year. 

Normally we decorate the tree and put up decorations around the house. Normally we make a chain that counts down the days until Christmas. 

Not this year. 

Why?

We have a kitten in the house. Loki became a part of our family in October. He is a furry little ball of energy, packed with some Siamese attitude. He rolls around on the floor with our 4 year old Rat Terrier like they are siblings. He has firmly entrenched himself in this family. 

The only exception being our 10 year old cat, Chu. (She has a Fu Man Chu white marking on her face, Chu sounded feminine). She is starting to not hiss at him after 2 months...slowly, but surely she may accept him.

When a kitten comes into your house, there is really nothing that is off limits to them. On that note, we completely forgot about Christmas decorations and the tree. 

He loves to climb the tree. He loves to chew on the light-bulbs. He loves to lay on the branches in the middle of the tree. (All that fluffing I did to the branches....erased, but only in the middle.)

Our plan was to put the tree out to give him a few days to get used to it. After a couple of days we would put decorations on. In other words, we would decorate the tree after he stopped playing in the tree. 

Since this is evidently not going to happen, we decided to make destructible ornaments. The kids and I made salt flour decorations and plan on decorating them this week. If they break, it won't bother us as much as losing those ornaments that are loaded with memories. 

SO back to the car and the discussion about ornaments...

Princess is silent for awhile. I assume she is getting depressed about everything we haven't done. I couldn't be more wrong. She starts this conversation:

P - Mom, what are cats afraid of?

M - (due to the conversation switch, I was momentarily stumped) Depends on the cat, I guess.

P - What are Siamese afraid of?

M - It isn't the type of cat. Some cats are afraid of dogs, but Loki isn't. It really depends on the cat. Loki isn't afraid of much.

P - He's afraid of Chu.

M - Yes, he is afraid of Chu. 

P - Can we paint the ornaments to look like Chu?

M - (this is her tying the whole conversation together, but I get lost) Um....that might be a little more detail than I was planning on. 

P - If we make the tree look like Chu, or have Chu faces all over, won't Loki be afraid of the tree?

M - (me laughing out loud, because my daughter is a freaking genius) Princess that is a wonderful idea!

Little Dude - Can't we just print out pictures of Chu and still paint the ornaments?

At this point, I am so proud of my kids! Not only did they come up with a wonderful plan for the cat to leave the tree alone, but they have a very sick sense of humor. I love it. I am so proud at this point, that I'm not even going to inform them on how animals can't see 2D images very well, so Loki won't be able to see the image of Chu.

If we actually do decorate our tree with Chu images, I will have to post a picture later. Some will think of this as a weird tribute to a cat with serious attitude. We will know that it is in fact a way for my kids to scare the crap out of the kitten, in order to salvage some Christmas decorations! I love my kids!

Deep Thought for 6/11/13

I find it amazing that my dog can understand the different alarms on my phone. I use my phone for my daily alarms, so each alarm has a different sound so I instantly know which alarm is going off.

The first alarm in the morning is the "wake up and eat breakfast" alarm. Both dogs jump up and run downstairs for this alarm. If I hit snooze they slowly walk back upstairs and stare at me at the end of the bed.

The second alarm is the "go in the crate" alarm, because the people are leaving the house. 

The third alarm is the "TIME TO GO FOR A WALK" alarm. This alarm instantly means the dogs go running towards the leashes. If we are slow on the uptake, they will run from us to the leashes repeatedly, until we catch on.

I have conditioned my dogs in true Pavlovian style, therefore I should get an award. Granted, I think they (the award presenters) would expect the dogs to listen to my commands, such as "sit," "lie down," and "STOP EATING THE TISSUE BOXES!!!"

The dogs understand what these electronic noises mean and they react correctly. However, when a noise emits from their rear end, the world actually stops. Our bigger dog, Maggie, is absolutely amazed that her butt makes noises occasionally. She will get up and stare at her rear end, I guess she's waiting to see if more noises will come out. After awhile she will go back to sitting or lying down, but she will look back every few minutes, just in case. Our rat (terrier) dog, Gracie, has actually growled a few times when this happens, or she will jump up and run away from where the noise happened.

This makes me think: you know they have to feel it about to happen, they must feel it happening, why can't they associate that noise with the butt vibrations? It is truly baffling. 

Optimism and how it doesn't always work

I try to consider myself an optimist, some of the time. For the most part, I am truly a pessimist. I have a hard time putting positive spins on difficult situations. Since I seem to get myself into difficult situations, pretty regularly, I tend to be a little negative.

The only time I can honestly be 100% positive about something, is when it involves me doing less work, or making my job easier. I believe in the "work smarter, not harder" philosophy or as I put it "the being more efficient with my laziness" idea.

My family and I are avid animal lovers. We have two dogs and a cat who are part of our family. I've already discussed the dogs being trained and what a disaster that is. Now we get to discuss the cat.

If any of you have cats, you realize straight away that cats are not really trainable. Cats are cats and they seem to be happy with it, therefore you should be too. They do their own thing, whether you like it or not. About all you can train them to do is come running when they hear a can opener a mile away or use the cat box.

We have had our cat, Chu, for almost 8 years. She is a wonderful cat, we even believe she has some sort of magical healing ability. However, her wake up calls for food at 5 AM would be more wonderful if they had a snooze button. She does not appreciate being pushed away in the morning when she is hungry. Alarm clocks don't complain, they just shut up. Chu gets upset and becomes obsessed with waking your dead butt up.

The one complaint we have is the same as any other cat owner:  cleaning the litter pan. Seriously, it's just gross. Plus, she decides that right after I am done scooping her daily deposits, she HAS to use it immediately after. Plus you know that if you have a dog, they like to help out, which is beyond disgusting.

This is where my optimism hit hard. I saw an add somewhere showing a cat using the toilet to go to the bathroom. (The picture was absolutely awful, may have scarred me for life, however the idea was brilliant! I wouldn't mind flushing a few deposits every once in awhile.  Heck, I already do it for my 3 year old son, why not add a cat?!

I do my normal Google research and find a few products that guarantee results and what not. After discussing this with my husband, I decide to buy the product anyway. (By the way, my husband was not as thrilled with this idea as I was).

The product comes in the mail and I'm excited! Yay, no more scooping cat poo! Then I open the package and read the instructions...4 weeks of preparation, then 8 weeks until possible results!!! Optimism fading...

Preparation involves moving the already established litter box into the bathroom, right next to the toilet. Then over the next few weeks you change the litter to a flushable variety. Moving the litter box into the bathroom, did slow down and eventually prevent the dogs from helping out, which if nothing else, was worth it. However, the cat litter that gets flung outside the box is now being stepped on at 3 AM in the morning. Not to mention the strange experience of being on the toilet while the cat comes in and poos beside you. I begin to think if this is really worth it?

Now that Chu is switched over to flushable litter and is comfortable using the litter box in our bathroom, we get to move on to the actual toilet training. Yay!
First step involves raising the litter box slowly to the level of the toilet, so they get used to going to the bathroom at that height. 3 weeks later, she is now going to the bathroom at the same height as the people in the house.
Second step is to install the fake toilet insert onto the toilet. This step involves putting a plastic toilet bowl shaped litter box onto the toilet. This pretty much stops you from using this particular toilet for a few weeks. As the cat gets used to using the littler box on top of the toilet, you cut out rings in the plastic insert. Eventually they don't miss the litter being there and go in the toilet.

We didn't get past the litter box height. Our cat is rather set in her litter box ways. She in a few ways told me that she was refusing to use the people toilet and wasn't even going to consider life without her box. My optimism is now back at my normal level of non-existence.

However, I saw another do-it-yourself video on YouTube where you make an automatic cat feeder. Yay!

The Doorbell Monster

I am an animal lover sucker.  My family donates to the ASPCA and any pets we adopt come from the local shelter. We have an 8 year old house cat, named Chu.  She has a fumanchu mustache thing on her face, since she's a girl we came up with a feminine version of fumanchu.  We didn't get too complicated.  Maggie, named at the shelter, is a 5 year old pointer-collie mix.  She is an absolutely beautiful dog and puts up with the kids nonstop.  Gracie, also named at the shelter, is a 3 year old, rat terrier mix, we think.  She was supposed to be a chihuahua rat dog, but she kept growing and growing.

Obviously the cat we let do her own thing, because, well...she's a cat.  Cat's are not trainable in the same way dogs are.  Dogs enjoy doing tricks in order to get attention.  Cats, well...they don't.  As long as you feed them, clean their cat box and occasionally give them attention (when they ask for it)  they are happy and content.

We have tried all sorts of training for our dogs:  pet store training, clickers and expensive in-home training.  Our dogs are perfectly well-behaved individuals.  INDIVIDUALS.  When they get together, their minds turn into mush and they just go nuts.  The bark and jump on people, it annoys the heck out of us, so I can't imagine guests appreciate it too much.

The in-home training experience was great.  The trainer had this infinite amount of patience with us and actually made us include our Princess and Little Dude in the training process.  I understand the importance of the dogs recognizing the kids as people they need to listen too, however I do not have this required  patience.  Dogs and children have a limited attention span, getting them to work together when that attention span is on the same page....impossible.

Since the training worked so little on them together, we have pretty much given up.  Most of the time, they spend time in the yard on a time-out when people come over.  The only thing we haven't given up on is the barking.  Anytime someone gets within 100 yards of our house, or god forbid rings the doorbell, the house turns into this awful mess of noise.  Dogs are barking, children are screaming at the dogs, and the adults are yelling at everyone to just shut it off!  It's awful.  The poor postal woman actually sneaks up to the door, drops the package, rings the doorbell and sprints back to her vehicle.

So now we have gotten into a situation that just got worse.  We are buying a house in a new neighborhood many miles away.  While this probably makes our current neighbors excited, we are terrified.

During an inspection of the potential new home, we discovered there was no barking.  Our first thought was "Oh crap, the HOA doesn't allow pets."  But then my kids eagerly pointed out that the next door neighbor had a German Shepard and a Chihuahua.  Wait a second, a chihuahua that didn't bark?!  We started noticing people throughout the neighborhood actually had pets....and they were quiet!  Now our second thought was "oh crap, we are going to be those neighbors!"

One week later, we receive our shipment of no bark collars.  These are actually pretty cool, they sense the dog's throat vibration and then a gentle electric shock is delivered.  If the dog continues to bark within a 20 second "training period," the gentle shock grows in intensity.

My husband calls it the 110 Wiggle, we laughed about it...then it started working.  The dog would bark and you would see them shake their heads.  We were amused because it seemed to be working with no amount of pain.  Well, our dogs aren't the brightest.  I mentioned the "training period" of 20 seconds...the intensity does indeed increase.  Gracie was barking and wouldn't stop, so the next shock stopped her, so quickly she whimpered.  My heart broke.  She's barked a few times since, but now when the doorbell rings she runs and hides.

Maggie, on the other hand, stopped barking the second we put it on.  So now the doorbell rings or a person knocks on the door, it is blissfully quiet.  Granted our dogs are now hiding at door noise, but it's quiet, right?!
Well, except for my mother-in-law's dog, Charlie.  Charlie is an 11 year-old, Sheltie with 3 legs.  It seems he enjoys the shock and he may bark even more than previously.  He is still a work in progress.