The Cat and the Table
see more crazy cat pics
When I saw this today, on ICHC, I just had to laugh.
Our son has a cat. Our son has a sprayer. The cat gets on the table, where he knows he is not supposed to be. Our son yells “Gordon! Get off the table!” and Gordon settles down. Our son jumps up and gets the sprayer, and Gordon watches. Our son sprays. And sprays. And sprays. If you get right up close to Gordon and spray under his tail, he will get up slowly, annoyed, and saunter off the table. He takes his time. He wants you to know you are annoying, but you don’t scare him. He wants you to know that you are NOT the boss of him.
Normally, Gordon is just the nicest cat you could ever hope to meet. He just has a thing about the dining room table.
Traffic Watch
Never fear, the Qatteri Cat is on traffic watch today. All is well, you can tell by his relaxed stance. Every now and then, he will utter an alarm – birds come by and taunt him because they are flying freely and he is trapped inside. He’s not smart enough to say “yeh, but I get free food, water and medical care in this gilded cage.” All he knows is that he would love to be free to show those birds a thing or two.
Once, in our Qatar villa, a great big pigeon hit a window and then THUNKED to the ground, not 10 feet from QC, who was allowed in the garden as long as someone was with him. The bird was so big and QC was so astounded, that by the time he decided to go investigate, the bird had recovered consciousness, stood up and shook his wings. He was bigger than QC! As QC thought twice about approaching, the pigeon flew off. I am betting that is about the closest QC has been to a real live bird.
One time (one of many) the Qatteri Cat escaped the yard. This time I knew where he was within the first half hour, because I could hear him crying pitifully. I had to ask a neighbor if I could go into her back yard, and there was QC, high up in a tree, scared and unsure how to get down. There was a wind blowing, and the only thing QC could think of, every time the boughs swayed to a strong gust of wind, was to go higher. He had reached the spot where every gust made him sway like a pendulum. He was terrified.
It took me about an hour to talk him down. First, he had to get over his panic, because his terror was paralyzing him. Second, he didn’t know how to climb down, so he had to turn around, to kind of walk down the tree, which, with gravity, was a very scary thing. He kept turning and then turning back.
(How do you teach a cat to back down a tree?)
Finally, I just kept talking. I locked eyes with him, and every time he would look away, I would say his name, get him focused on me again. Slowly, slowly, he worked his way down (he was up very very high, higher than a ladder could reach). He ended up falling the last 20 feet, but I could catch him. His little heart was beating like thunder, his adrenelin was pumping and I had to hold on to him to get him home. He didn’t want to be held, and I have the scars to prove it.
The neighbor thought I was a nut case, I am sure, but I don’t care. A cat can be so paralyzed by fear that they cling to the tree until they are exhausted and drop to their death. Some cats will figure out how to get down, but not all, and not while a wind is blowing and swaying them back and forth.
As much as I love fresh air, we have to keep the windows closed. He’s a sweet cat. His little brain just goes on hold sometimes. If a bird taunted him, he would be out that window in a heartbeat, no second thoughts, just instinct.
Qatteri Cat Celebrates Spring
A picture worth a thousand words, hmmm? He is so happy the warm sunny days are back. . . his needs are so few, and he revels in the sweetness of a puddle of warm sunshine.
Flea Infestation
Here’s the problem. Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual. OK, OK, we have our holy books, and they give us character guidelines. I am talking about specifics here, when life hands you those lemons, how do you make lemonade? Specifically!
When we move to Florida, we thought we were in Paradise. We had a house with a big pool, surrounded by shady trees, families of racoons, beautiful gardens – what’s not to like?
Paradise came with chamaeleons, lizards, cockroaches, even in the best houses. And fleas. We had to learn how to deal with them.
During our first and only flea infestation, at first we blamed the cats. Being a terrible mother, I asked my son to help, and he went into the walk in shower (No! Not naked! He was wearing swimming trunks!) to bathe the cats with anti-flea shampoo. I would get the cat trapped, put the cat in the shower, he would shampoo them, let one out and I would hand him the next one. Both cats loved him the best; he had chosen them from the litter.
When I saw this photo on LOLCATS, I really had to laugh.
see more crazy cat pics
Just so you will know, the solution is to take the cats to the vet and have them treated for fleas professionally. While the cats are at the vets, pour 20 Mule Team Borax over all your carpets and in all your upholstered furniture, let it stand overnight, and vacuum it all up. After you vacuum, bring the cats back. It really works. The borax creates a saline environment in which the fleas (and cockroaches) can’t survive, but it doesn’t hurt pets.
Calendar Cat?
I’ve been talking to the Qatteri Cat, asking him if he would like to be a calendar cat for the Animal Welfare League. So far, not much response . . . he’s too busy sleeping.
Maybe your cats or dogs will be more cooperative. You have until May 31 to submit your photo! It’s a worthy cause.
Qatteri Cat Good for My Health
BBC Health News this morning tells me the Qatteri Cat is good for my health!
He doesn’t look at all surprised by the news, does he?
Or, the article states further down, it may be that people who choose to adopt cats may have other behaviors which help lower health risks 😉
‘Healthier hearts’ for cat owners
Cat owners appear to have a much lower risk of dying from a heart attack than their feline-spurning counterparts, a study suggests.
Researchers looked at nearly 4,500 adults and found that cat ownership was related to a 40% lower risk of suffering a fatal heart attack.
The team speculated that having a cat may reduce stress and anxiety, and so protect against cardiovascular disease.
The findings of the study were unveiled at the International Stroke Conference.
The study, led by Professor Adnan Qureshi at the University of Minnesota, suggested that even those who no longer owned a cat benefited from these protective effects
You can read the rest of this study HERE
Pet Import and Export Service
Many people write asking about how we got the Qatteri cat into Kuwait, and I have to tell them that the woman who helped us is no longer here. Recently a friend passed along a card to me – there is a new woman providing the import/export help, and for those of you with people coming to work with your companies who have pets, this woman helps get the paperwork for either bringing a pet into the country or getting your pet out. She knows the bureaucracy and she knows how to get the job done.
She is also well connected with all services involved with animals; as well as import/export, she can arrange grooming and boarding, and will meet you at the airport with the papers necessary for bringing your animal into Kuwait – assuming you have arranged this with her in advance.
Here is her e-mail address – please share it with your HR departments for their resources:
petpassage@yahoo.com
Qatteri Cat Sinks in Sleep
The Qatteri Cat loves to find new places to slumber down. Today he is on the back of one of the loveseats, literally sinking as he sleeps. I am watching to see how far he will sink before he will rouse himself and get out of the crevice.
Eventually, he will scramble out, and being a cat, he will be embarrassed, but he will pretend like it never happened.
Taking the Cat for a Drag
When we were first married, we got our first cat. Being book people, we read a book about training cats that told us how easy it was to train a cat to go for a walk on a leash.
We tried it. We tried it several times. We tried it with several different cats. We never found a cat who could be trained to go for a walk on a leash. The Qatteri Cat scratched me bloody when I just tried to put on the harness. I never even got the leash attached. I still have the harness. I still have the leash – never been used.
We called it “Taking the Cat for a Drag.” It looks a lot like this:
Enter the ICHC online Poker Cats Contest!
Stealing My Ideas?
Yesterday I was happily working in the project room. The Qatteri Cat, feeling neglected, came yowling back a few times, then went and got his baby and came back to be with me, and went to sleep. He looked so sweet. We don’t know what the baby is all about. Maybe he is lonely? Maybe we all need something small to comfort us when we are feeling neglected? All we know is that wherever we are, the QC will bring his baby back to be with us – and then, often he will leave it, as if we are the baby sitters or something.
So here is the Qatteri Cat and his baby:
You know when your cat – or your child – does something so sweet, you kind of think he’s the only one in the world that has ever done something that cute?
When I checked in with I Can Haz Cheezburger? this morning, I found this:
Enter the ICHC online Poker Cats Contest!
I think they must have plucked the thoughts out of my brain. 
Recent Comments
ExpatAlien on What Country am I Living … intlxpatr on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Michelle on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Cathy on No Grown-Ups in Charge intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 