I Love My Cats!

Age: 3 years old
Color: Blue and White
Alias: "Doober-Doo"
Favorite Napping Spot: Under the bed
Favorite Toy: Laser Pointer
Chow Spot: Between the two couches...must be protected at all times.
Personality: Anti-Social and Spoiled
Worst Habit: Likes to pee on my husband's dirty clothes. (I think she must secretly like to watch him freak out!)
Relationship with other household cats: Communicates most often through series of slaps and hissing.

Doober, our oldest, has a very embarrassing and gross habit. It has to do with her method of waking us up. Every cat has their own way of doing it, whether they paw at your eyes, or walk along your headboard, or just sit and stare at you until you get up to feed them. But none of these methods will do for Doober.

It starts with a soft little pounce onto my side of the bed, which is followed by a sweet little nudge of her head under the covers. Of course, it is early in the morning, and a warm, precious kitty is a welcomed cuddle buddy. After much purring and snuggling, Doober will slowly work her way up my arm...straight to my arm pit! Now, if all she did once she arrived at her favorite spot was sit and purr, this would be fine. But that is not what happens.

SHE LICKS MY ARMPIT!

It's like a heavy weight bout trying to get her out of there! I swear, if I let her, she would lick my skin right off! Of course, as a reasonable person, I do not allow her to engage in such behavior. But, nothing stops her from trying! But in actuality, she's a very smart kitty...this method is most definitely the best way to get me out of bed!

I hope you haven't been too grossed out by my crazy kitty story! If you have a kitty tale like this one, PLEASE share it! I would love to hear about the crazy things your kitties do to wake you up in the morning.

Age: 2 years old
Color: Red Tabby
Alias: "Pew"
Favorite Napping Spot: The back of the couch...behind my husband's head.
Favorite Toy: Anything with catnip.
Chow Spot: In the kitchen...her most favorite place.
Personality: Laid back and lazy; sweet as pie.
Worst Habit: Licking until she gets a hair ball, and continuous meowing while she eats.
Relationship with other household cats: Spends most of her time awake as a punching bag for You Xi

My husband and I have no need for a dining room table because we have a bar attached to our kitchen. So, all we need are some bar stools, and we're set. What we didn't know was that we were going to need THREE barstools, even though there's only two of us.

Not long after we got the barstools, we started noticing that as soon as she finished eating every morning, Marley would go and sit on my husband's barstool. So, every morning, my husband would give her a little push on the behind, and sit and eat his breakfast on the barstool. Marley was never too far away, though. She would just move to my barstool, and sit next to my husband while he ate.

But let's say he forgets to get a spoon, or leaves his drink on the counter. As soon as he gets up, Marley is right back on his barstool! When he comes back to sit down, there she is, sitting sweetly with her devastatingly cute eyes peering up at him, and any anger he felt due to losing his seat just melts away.

So the game of "musical barstools" goes on at every meal now-a-days, and we are learning much from this game. First, make sure you have everything you need for your meal before you sit down. Second, if you get up, NEVER assume that your barstool will be empty when you return. Third, when Marley is around, you never have to eat alone!

Age: Less than one year.
Color: Silver Tabby
Alias: $14.99 (long story...)
Favorite Napping Spot: The back of the loveseat...behind MY head.
Favorite Toy: Anything that is not really a toy and will get him in trouble.
Chow Spot: Extra bedroom...have to keep him separated...he's a pig!
Personality: High strung, always playing, always annoying, and must be the center of attention...or he will do something to GET your attention!
Worst Habit: P.O.T.B. (poops outside the box)
Relationship with other household cats: DRIVES THEM CRAZY!!!

My husband and I often like to annoy our cats a little bit. Our efforts are usually rewarded with a laugh or two. One of these such attempts is how You Xi got the nickname "$14.99". My husband had been to the store to purchase a few items, and for some reason, he felt the need to peel the price tag off of one of them; this item in particular was $14.99. This wasn't just your regular orange or white price tag, this sucker was electric lime green...which I guess was my husband's attraction to the tag. Anyway, it wasn't long before he had stuck the price tag right in the middle of Marley's head! However, she was not having that for more than a few mere seconds...she quickly won the war with the price tag, and left it somewhat injured on the carpet. This is what you would expect from a feline, right?

Maybe not. The next vicitm, You Xi. We have always thought that he was somewhat "special" and just a little bit different from the other cats. So, he gets to try the neon green price tag on for size, in the same exact spot - right in the middle of his forehead. And what does You Xi do? Absolutely nothing. I think he walked around for at least 30 minutes with that ridiculous tag on his forehead! Thus, a new nickname was born, "14.99".

You know, when you're a kid and you tell your mom and dad "I promise I'll take care of the new kitty", you don't realize how ridiculous that sounds. As children, we think that caring for a pet involves only a few things, food, water, shelter, love, and play time. It's not until we become adult pet owners that we are blind-sided by the true meaning of pet care.

Our first experience with pet care came with our first pet, Doober. For weeks she walked around urinating on everything she could find! Finally, one night she hopped up in my lap, and acting like she was going to let it rip right there, and I thought, "Oh no, there is defnitely something wrong". So, I make an appointment with the vet, while simultaneously trying to keep my husband from wanting to kill the cat because of all the "mess" she has made.

We find out it's a urinary tract infection, and thus begins our love affair with prescription food...and paying an arm and a leg for it! But here's the best part - we were blessed once again in this area, when Marley began exhibiting the same symptoms! So, we make an appointment again, and yep, it's a UTI. So, Prescription Diet c/d is an extremely important product around our house! This is the only thing we have found that will regulate our ladies' urinary issues. It's so crazy because we can feed them another type of food for just a few days, and it never fails that one of them will have an infection! I am happy to say that their urinary tracts are pretty well regulated now, but if you have any suggestions, please blurb me about it!

You Xi had been with us for only a few weeks when we noticed that he was doing something strange with his eye. He was keeping it closed most of the time, and I thought that maybe he had just run into something, or hurt himself while he was playing. However, that was not the case...as I soon found out.

Within a day or two, You Xi's eye was swollen completely shut, and was oozing this yucky yellow stuff. He was rubbing it constantly, and appeared to be in a lot of pain. So of course, we took him to the vet as soon as possible. After doing a few tests, the veterinarian determined that You Xi had a corneal ulcer, which is basically a hole in the cornea of the eye.

Unfortunately, You Xi's was pretty bad, and the vet thought that we might have to remove his eye! I was so upset, and felt like such a bad pet owner! Here was my tiny, sweet, precious kitty, and he had a terrible hole in his eye! The vet decided that we would try a few things to see if the ulcer would heal before we thought about doing the surgery.

We were sent home with liquid antibiotics to be given four times a day, cream to be put in his eye twice a day, pain medication to be given twice a day, and a serum taken from You Xi's DNA that had to be dropped into his eye four times a day. It was crazy for a few days there! My husband and I were really put through the ringer trying to fix this ulcer.

After about four days, we returned to the vet to see if the ulcer was healing. To our surprise, the ulcer was almost completely healed! It appeared as though all of our hard work and dedication was totally worth it. You Xi got to keep his eye!

If you would like to learn more about corneal ulcers in cats (which I highly reccommend) go here:
Paw Prints and Purrs, Inc.

Picture courtesy of: Halloween Village