Never has there been a truer saying, the messes cats get themselves into are hair raising. Here are just a few of the catastrophes we have encountered.
Smokey one of the childhood kittens was fascinated by the gold fish in the fish tank in the front room and would spend hours looking at it, following the fish around the tank with her eyes from the arm of the settee The fish tank was was cat proofed and placed on the middle shelf of a shelving unit. The space above the tank was enough for an adult human to comfortably put the fish food in but not big enough for a cat. The fish tank was surrounded by books on either side, so there was no room for a curious cat to sit and scoop out any fish with their paws either. The tank had been pulled to the front of the shelf so there was no room for her to sit in front of the tank.
Where there is a will there is a way.
Smokey had spent many an hour on the arm of the chair eyeballing the fish and plotting how she could get them, she had come up with a plan. The family were going out and would be gone for some time, now was her chance. No Member of the family would be able to stop her, the fish tank was her oyster.
When the family came home as usual through the front door into the living room they were greeted by the sight of Smokey in the the fish tank doing the doggy paddle with the fish swimming in and out of her legs. If she put her feet on the floor of the tank her head went under water. She was alternating the doggy paddle with the sinking changing as she got tired or ran out of breath. When the family found her she was tired and struggling to keep the doggy paddle up.
How she got in there we can only surmise. She would have had a real struggle to get in but there was no way once she was in that she could get out. If the family had arrived home later she may have drowned. As it was they had a very wet soggy and grumpy cat to extract from the tank.
Smokey mentioned above was one of a brood of kittens born to Kato and we think the litter may have been blessed with the stupid gene. One of those kittens Smokeys sibling was very accident prone. There used to be a problem with the coal fired boiler that heated the radiators and the water. Often the hot water had to be run off from the tank before it reached boiling point, running a bath was a good way of doing this. One of the family had decided to run a bath and had turned the hot water on to fill the bath but hadn't turned the cold water tap on. The kitten eager to see what was going on came springing up the stairs, ping ping ping it hopped into the bathroom ping ping across the floor and ping on to the side of the bath and before they could stop him he had pinged into the bath. The poor little thing rocketed out of the bath. Unfortunately he had burnt himself and had to be treated for burns his fur came of his legs and he looked very much the worse for wear. After that it became the family rule that cold water went into the bath first.
Once the poor little kittens fur had grown back and he was fully recovered he was allowed to venture out of the house into the garden. Dad this particular day was having problems with his car and was working underneath. He was draining the Sump oil out of the car into sandwich box. Kitten seeing dad went ping ping ping across the lawn under the car and pinged straight into the sump oil. Covered from head to toe the kitten had to be washed with washing up liquid to remove all the oil this took many washes and one irate kitten. Afterwards the kitten refused to wash itself anymore and hence forth had to have baths every so often.
We had purchased a new swing bin for the kitchen ( need I go on). Wispa was fascinated she could see us put things in and the top swing back. She could smell the aromas that only a cat could love and wanted to get at them, which was why we bought it in the first place. Our old bin had no lid and keeping the marauding cats out was a nightmare. If we put a lid on we couldn't get in easily but it kept the cats out and without the lid we would have a kitchen festooned in the morning with the detritus of the week.
Like all the other cats she waited till we had gone out to investigate. We had emptied the bin before we went out and had thought no more about it. When we arrived home again there was a plaintive mewing coming from the kitchen. We located her in the bin but she must have been in there some time. The bin was saturated with condensation and we hauled out one very soggy cat. Needless to say she gave the bin a very wide berth after that.
Fortunately although curiosity has hampered, scared and wounded the cats curiosity has never killed any of our cats.
Monday, 12 July 2010
Monday, 5 July 2010
Dogs and Cats
One of us grew up with dogs and cats and they all got on very well, often causing great mirth with their antics. The traditional role of cats and dogs is considered to be that of mortal enemies and while many do live up to this role often cats and dogs do get on. Here are a few examples of both.
We used to live in in Lancashire in a stone terraced house it had a path that was ran along the back directly outside the back doors and beyond the path was the garden of each house. This path was a right of way as far as our house where it ended. We eventually put a fence and gate up which encompassed the path into our property but until that happened anyone could wander down including animals. This particular day an unwary Alsatian wandered down, little did he know what was going to happen to him. Bramble was our dark tortoiseshell girl, sister to Wispa. It was a hot day and she was cooling down on the kitchen floor when wandering past the door came the dog, the dog hadn't spotted her but she certainly had seen him. In the blink of a eye she was up and out she flew at the dog and dodged under the Alsatian rotated 180 degrees and dug four sets of claws into his undercarriage. The dog was completely shocked he didn't know what to do other than yelp. The poor dog hopped from one foot to the other in the hope he could dislodge her. The cat was hissing and digging in and the Alsatian was yelping and dancing on his tippy toes. We tried to help but there was little we could do to get her off. The dog was in pain and wasn't letting us anywhere near in case we had another cat who wanted a piece of the action. Finally she decided he had been taught a lesson to last him a lifetime and dropped off. The dog realising his freedom ran yelping down the path never to be seen again, Brambles sauntered back into the house and lay down on the kitchen floor to get cool again and went to sleep safe in the knowledge of a job well done.
Max was the neighbours Jack Russell a puppy who was curious and wanted to see everything and sniff everything. Max used to come out with me around the farm and did a lot of ratting burrowing into the haystacks and chasing everything he could. As I always collected him from the neighbour he rarely ever came into our garden so didn't come into contact with the cats. After some particularly bad weather the fence was blown down allowing him access to our garden so we thought we had best introduce him to the cats, he was at the stage where he could be taught to get on with the cats. Unfortunately we had not taken into consideration what the cats thought of dogs. Two of the cats were sunbathing on a chair outside of the back door and we took max along to meet them. Max thought they were great and was friendly with them he wanted to be friends. He put his front paws on the chair wagging his tail and lolling his tongue out at them he wanted to sniff them as he came in close Beeswax our oldest cat took one look at him and slashed poor max across the nose. Immediately max decided these were the enemy and must just be big rats. We had to drag him off and from that day forward max hated cats, chasing them for revenge whenever he saw any.
Sandy the golden retriever and Smokey the cat grew up together with one of us as a child, the family had been out for the day and the cat and the dog had been shut up in the house all day. When they arrived home the animals were crossed legged and dying to be let out. Smokey shot out first and found somewhere convenient to do her wee next to the pole for the washing line. Sandy shot out after her to his regular spot the washing pole and weed right over the top of Smokey she was drenched and because she was mid wee there was nothing she could do and was very unhappy, her face was a picture as Sandy let go all the liquid he had been holding in all day.
This infamous duo used to get up to alsorts of tricks, back in the seventies you could buy boiling chickens in a large cylindrical tin. Mother had put this chicken in a pan of water with a lid on to boil for tea and left it to itself. The kitchen was situated off the dining room which in turn was situated of a small hall and on the other side of that was the front room. The family had settled down in the front room reading and watching telly. When they heard a crash. One of the family went to investigate to find that Smokey had knocked of the the lid then used her claws despite the scalding water to hook the chicken out of the boiling water and knock it to the floor for Sandy to eat. Who despite the heat was trying to eat it before anyone could take it off him.
Many years later when Sandy and Smokey where quite old the family moved to a new house. Smokey on her first foray out went and investigated the new yard it was a lovely sun trap where she and Sandy would be able to lounge together and enjoy themselves. Suddenly a huge tom cat appeared and let Smokey know that this was his territory and she would have to fight him for it. Smokey immediately ran off back inside, the tom cat was satisfied here was a cat who was not going to give him any trouble. Smokey when she went back inside miaowed to Sandy who was lounging in front of the fire he got up and followed Smokey out. Sandy went up to where the cat was and barked loudly and scared the living daylight out of the cat it decided it was too dangerous to stay around and shot off never to bother Smokey again.
Charlie our friends cat lives with two Labradors when taken out for a walk the cat joins in and goes with them. Charlieis often found sleeping with the dogs in the dog basket. The older dog Gizmo can be in an awkward mood sometimes and will get in the dog basket and squash himself right up against Charlie till Charlie has the smallest space imaginable and Charlie will still refuse to move. Often they can all be found in the same basket all lying on their backs with their tummies exposed to the world showing their contentment.
So although cats and dogs can be mortal enemies they can make the best of friends.
We used to live in in Lancashire in a stone terraced house it had a path that was ran along the back directly outside the back doors and beyond the path was the garden of each house. This path was a right of way as far as our house where it ended. We eventually put a fence and gate up which encompassed the path into our property but until that happened anyone could wander down including animals. This particular day an unwary Alsatian wandered down, little did he know what was going to happen to him. Bramble was our dark tortoiseshell girl, sister to Wispa. It was a hot day and she was cooling down on the kitchen floor when wandering past the door came the dog, the dog hadn't spotted her but she certainly had seen him. In the blink of a eye she was up and out she flew at the dog and dodged under the Alsatian rotated 180 degrees and dug four sets of claws into his undercarriage. The dog was completely shocked he didn't know what to do other than yelp. The poor dog hopped from one foot to the other in the hope he could dislodge her. The cat was hissing and digging in and the Alsatian was yelping and dancing on his tippy toes. We tried to help but there was little we could do to get her off. The dog was in pain and wasn't letting us anywhere near in case we had another cat who wanted a piece of the action. Finally she decided he had been taught a lesson to last him a lifetime and dropped off. The dog realising his freedom ran yelping down the path never to be seen again, Brambles sauntered back into the house and lay down on the kitchen floor to get cool again and went to sleep safe in the knowledge of a job well done.
Max was the neighbours Jack Russell a puppy who was curious and wanted to see everything and sniff everything. Max used to come out with me around the farm and did a lot of ratting burrowing into the haystacks and chasing everything he could. As I always collected him from the neighbour he rarely ever came into our garden so didn't come into contact with the cats. After some particularly bad weather the fence was blown down allowing him access to our garden so we thought we had best introduce him to the cats, he was at the stage where he could be taught to get on with the cats. Unfortunately we had not taken into consideration what the cats thought of dogs. Two of the cats were sunbathing on a chair outside of the back door and we took max along to meet them. Max thought they were great and was friendly with them he wanted to be friends. He put his front paws on the chair wagging his tail and lolling his tongue out at them he wanted to sniff them as he came in close Beeswax our oldest cat took one look at him and slashed poor max across the nose. Immediately max decided these were the enemy and must just be big rats. We had to drag him off and from that day forward max hated cats, chasing them for revenge whenever he saw any.
Sandy the golden retriever and Smokey the cat grew up together with one of us as a child, the family had been out for the day and the cat and the dog had been shut up in the house all day. When they arrived home the animals were crossed legged and dying to be let out. Smokey shot out first and found somewhere convenient to do her wee next to the pole for the washing line. Sandy shot out after her to his regular spot the washing pole and weed right over the top of Smokey she was drenched and because she was mid wee there was nothing she could do and was very unhappy, her face was a picture as Sandy let go all the liquid he had been holding in all day.
This infamous duo used to get up to alsorts of tricks, back in the seventies you could buy boiling chickens in a large cylindrical tin. Mother had put this chicken in a pan of water with a lid on to boil for tea and left it to itself. The kitchen was situated off the dining room which in turn was situated of a small hall and on the other side of that was the front room. The family had settled down in the front room reading and watching telly. When they heard a crash. One of the family went to investigate to find that Smokey had knocked of the the lid then used her claws despite the scalding water to hook the chicken out of the boiling water and knock it to the floor for Sandy to eat. Who despite the heat was trying to eat it before anyone could take it off him.
Many years later when Sandy and Smokey where quite old the family moved to a new house. Smokey on her first foray out went and investigated the new yard it was a lovely sun trap where she and Sandy would be able to lounge together and enjoy themselves. Suddenly a huge tom cat appeared and let Smokey know that this was his territory and she would have to fight him for it. Smokey immediately ran off back inside, the tom cat was satisfied here was a cat who was not going to give him any trouble. Smokey when she went back inside miaowed to Sandy who was lounging in front of the fire he got up and followed Smokey out. Sandy went up to where the cat was and barked loudly and scared the living daylight out of the cat it decided it was too dangerous to stay around and shot off never to bother Smokey again.
Charlie our friends cat lives with two Labradors when taken out for a walk the cat joins in and goes with them. Charlieis often found sleeping with the dogs in the dog basket. The older dog Gizmo can be in an awkward mood sometimes and will get in the dog basket and squash himself right up against Charlie till Charlie has the smallest space imaginable and Charlie will still refuse to move. Often they can all be found in the same basket all lying on their backs with their tummies exposed to the world showing their contentment.
So although cats and dogs can be mortal enemies they can make the best of friends.
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