Moving Day for Kitties

Sorry for the long pause between posts, but the entire Self Help for Cats operation has up and moved itself since last posting, and I’m not talking “virtually.”  We’ve been moving cat trees and cat chairs and cat tables until our fingers were bloody and chapped, but oh was it ever worthwhile.  The new digs have a fantastic picture window for the boys to dominate the entire neighborhood with their presence –already leading to incredible effects on the kitty self-esteem. And sunshine just pours into the house, creating pools of cats on the hardwood floors. 

It was a long hard move, but for the cats it was definately worth it. 

Pictures and mores posts coming soon, dear readers….

A Very Feline Fourth: OR How I Became a Kitty Prison Guard

The Call of the Wild isn’t the strongest in Oakland. If you listen hard enough, it sounds like a faint peep.

Even back in the day, Jack London’s dog had to leave town to get a convincing earful.  But what can you expect of a big slobbering dog?  Housecats are by nature more attuned to the summoning sounds of unleashed freedom.  They can hear it in virtually anything, from the door creaking open to the littlest cry of the smallest nuthatch or chickadee.

What is freedom? Oh the college papers I wrote, the class debates I had to try to answer that one, and yet, am I any closer to an answer? Of course not. If I wanted to ask a question that I could actually answer, much less actually experience, I would have asked:  What is freedom to a cat?

Freedom to a cat is quite simply whatever lies on the other side of the closed door.  Isn’t that simple?

Cats seem to inherently understand that unanswerable ponderings of the nature of freedom isn’t making anyone any more free.  They also seem to deeply grok that a closed door is a far better obstruction to said freedom than what most people have to work against.  For how can you possibly expect to experience freedom if you hardly define it, whereas all a cat has to do is sneak outside between your legs at the right moment as you are coming or leaving.  Really, cats are pretty smart about this whole freedom subject.

Speaking of freedom, there was a time in my life when I did not feel like a feline prison guard.  Initially, the house I live in was not referred to as Kitty San Quentin but was called seriously and with no trace of irony “The Cat Palace.”  In other words, my cats idea of freedom has seriously impinged on my freedom.  But at least I can still open the door myself – take that, my little thumbless inmates.

Cat Camping Season Officially Opens

The Kitty Camping Season is officially off and running! The Association of Camping Kitties (ACK) has formally declared July as Cat Camping month.

ACK veterans like Brody and Herman need not be told.  They know it will soon be time, time to hide (aka “pack”) the leashes and break out the kitty barbeque set.

Send your humans to the outdoor store for the squeeter juice and cat GORP and get ready for the wildest, craziest camping trip of your cats’ lives.  It’s been a long, cold, hard winter, and we need some serious sleeping under the stars to try and forget it.

Ahh, the midnight meadow-mouse nature walks, the mornings blending into evenings lazing about in the tent, the visit from the campground peacock…

These camping expeditions really revive kittys’ batteries for another relentless year of cat 9-to-5.

2011 Year of the Cat

 

What’s this hare stuff? It’s the year of the Cat, and here at Self Help for Cats, we plan to celebrate it 365 days straight.  But what does it mean to celebrate cats to people who already worship them? Well, we’re going to find out this year! So bring on the cat champagne and the human catnip!  We’ll be eating wet food from champagne flukes and reading our fortune cookies in meowish.  Bring the kitties to the Chinese New Years Parade in San Francisco, and let them ride on our shoulders and be adored.  It is trully the year of the cat!

Party Time at the Cat Wig Zone

 

These cat fashionistas know when to work and when to party — and it’s time to party if you can’t tell!  The latest catreprenuerial concept to hit the big time has a lot to celebrate headed into the new year looking sexy and feeling on top of the world.  With top role models like these. watch out Victoria’s Cat’s Secrets!

The House the Cat Would Build

First came the house cat, then came the house designed for the cat.  Progress, no?

The Cat Who Cried “MWAOWWWaaaOIIOOW!”

The blood-curdling howl ripped me from dream state, and I awoke knowing someone was doing something horrible to something else out there in the night.  Then it all snapped into place like two Legos and my feet flew out of bed bringing me along running with them.  It was five AM and I had to stop the painful sounds of torture — if not any actual torture itself.  I had to consider, what would the neighbors think?

Sure enough, I had awoken to the horrible sounds of another battle-supreme between the two cats who otherwise can’t get enough (sleep on top) of each other.  The “brothers” who are not related, the boys who fill our days with joys have lately become a troubled duo.  Call them Paul and John, they ain’t getting along, at least not all the time like they used to.

Cat Pee and Human Ingenuity: Some Things Refuse to Be Contained

Seeing as a large segment of my modest readership finds me care of “pooping outside the box” or similar cat search terms, I realize an update on the topic is in order. Let’s just say, it hasn’t been all wrapped-up pretty like a Martha Stewart episode.  Fact is, the Army Corps of Engineers would have a tough time containing my recent cat urine problems, and in case you were wondering, I don’t have an Army Corps of Engineers lying around to work on this urgent matter. What I have is one guy, and I call him Hank.   

Karmically, I believe Hank and I can trace our current problem back to an Abyssinian named Denial. 

Herman the Housecat Overtaken by Holiday Stress

Just because I channel my cats’ self-improvement tips here at Self Help for Cats does not mean my household is beyond having its own seasonal and other feline challenges.  The trouble started a few years back…

When Herman saw Santa Claws out the window on our first Christmas morning at the house where I now live, he went utterly ballistic and turned on his very best friend, Brody.  I had to jump out of bed to separate the fighting madcats with a broom and sweep Herman Panther into another room, closing the door on the devil cat he had become.  Peace on Earth it wasn’t.

Herman, we have since learned, was suffering from his first case of displaced aggression. He saw a cat outside (ever since known by the name Santa Claws) and got so upset and confused, he failed to regonize the friend he sleeps on top of every day of the year. 

Cats & Christmas: The Evergreen Challenge

Picture a quiet night by the Christmas tree. You sink into your comfy recliner and think about how nice it is to feel so relaxed, and then, wait, what’s that?  The Christmas tree starts to shake violently, all the baubles banging and clanging. “What the hell?” you blurt!  The tree is absolutely possessed.  Like at any moment it could split open and give birth to the alien.

You stare deeper through the pine needles and the tinsel and something is –staring back!  Then you recognize it.  That’s not the alien glaring back at you;  It’s the very wide eyes of your cat having the closest thing to a back-to-the-wild experience he is ever going to have in your living room. 

Now you see him ratcheting his way up the Christmas tree trunk, branch by branch, causing the entire tanenbaum with trappings to undergo something like a 6.0 catquake. The moment you realize it’s your cat causing the localized hurricane is the moment your cat finds your extremely-precious heirloom ornament. You watch in horror as he winds up to give it a good bat with his paw to send it flying across the room.

“Nooooo!” You yell, hurling yourself into space like a wide receiver to save the small piece of family history.

Okay, maybe this hasn’t happened to you.  But whether your cat ignores the Christmas tree, climbs it, or silently sabotages it by drinking all its water, you can watch other people’s cats climb their Christmas trees at a little place called youtube.

Just don’t place your cat in the Christmas tree like some you-tubers obviously did, because this is just asking for trouble.  These people would open Pandora’s Box if they came upon it at a garage sale.

Snow banks are one effective
and pretty way to keep kitty from climbing the tree.