Those of us who have cats love them dearly, and will go to amazing lengths
for them.  This is a place to swap cat stories.  

71 responses total.

I'll start.  I have a cat named Mojo, the original owner named him after
Mojo Nixon.  I kind of inhereted Mojo after the previous owners' fiance
turned out to be allergic to cats.  (Later reports indicate he might have
been better off with the cat, but I digress.)

Actually, it was fortunate for Mojo that I got him when I did, the
previous owner had never had a cat before and would have come home to a
dead cat in another week.  I, on the other hand, have had cats around for
my entire life as I remember it, and I knew that there was something
bothering Mojo the first night I had him home.

$1200 in urinary tract surgery later (keep in mind that this was all in
one month) and with some special food I can only get at the vet, I have a
farily ordinary black and brown with beige highlights cat, and I'm not the
least resentful of the cost to fix him up.

In all respects, he's a typical cat.  Things get knocked over, hairballs
turn up in inconvenient places, I trip over him occasionally (seen from
human altitudes, he blends in with the brown floor quite well under
marginal lighting conditions.)  He also greets me at the door when I come
home, if I sit down anywhere for more than a few minutes I get a furry
discus in my lap.  He sleeps on my feet at night, and he makes a great
backup alarm system when the alarm clock fails to go off.  "Breakfast
time!"  He chases things, real and imagined.  He prowls to all the windows
to see the world outside.  Small bits of paper are not safe around the
house.  Anyone who's had cats around for any length of time knows about
this and much more.  And yes, I'm one of those who arranges for
cat-sitters when I'm away because I don't want to leave him with the vet.

I love my cat, and wouldn't trade him for anything.

I got my cat Smokey from this really weird couple who was living next door
to me when I lived in an apartment building... They had to get rid of him
because they couldn't stand him being so "curious" about everything (exactly
how a cat is) So one day they were on their way to take him to the Humane
Society (not a place to take *any* animal.... So I took him home, my mom hates
cats, but she fell in love with him 8 months later :P And we have had him for
4 years now... he is the world's smartest cat I think... He's black with a
white spot on his belly and he has green/yellow eyes... he hates to be held
unless he wants to be held :P And he is very protective of his environment
and of me... He knows instantly if a person is cool enough to come in our room
or our house :) I love my cat... He will be 7 on August 28

My baby cat Harley (I usually call him Harlis) is my buddy. Got him from the
humane society last February. He is konked out on catnip at the moment. I'll
interview him later.

Dave is the cat I got about 12 years ago when the original owner (a housemate)
was clearly not taking care of him.  Conan I got a couple years ago at the
Humane Society.  Both nice cats, much different energy level, and both have
their strange obsessions (for Dave it's the little ring from a jug of milk,
and for Conan it's the uncontrollable adrenalin surges).

This is now linked to pets, item 24.

I currently live with one roommate, and three Gods (just ask the
feline deities and they'll explain it to you.). the head Cat is
Bernadette, my roomie's. Pidge, as she is otherwise known, is an
all white, tailed manx with green/yellow eyes.  She is the queen of
all she purveys and has recently claimed ownership of the catnip
scratching post (more like a cardboard thing you put on the floor),
normally a gentle cat if either of the other two get near it she
smacks them but good!  Second (or third, the positions change by
the minute) is Sasha, my baby. :)  Sashi, as she is otherwise 
known, is grey, and evil.  All grey cats are evil, just know and
accept this. ;)  She loves to attack things that aren't there,
and is fascinated by the shower and will attempt to climb in with
me.  One day she actually managed to get in with me and was most
upset to discover that there was water coming down.  Anyways,
she is the happy, bouncy, fun fun fun fun tigger kitten.  She'll
probably calm down in a few weeks, after she hits one year.
And last, but certainly not least, is the only boy, Willoughby.
Woobie, as he is otherwise known, is big and black.  He is the
tallest of the three, and the most neurotic.  He can not deal
with closed cupboards.  He HAS to open the doors, he doesn't
enter the cupboards, but the doors have to be open.  He is also
slightly bullemic (seemingly) he eats his food too fast and
then gets sick, poor thing.  Of all of them, Woobie is tallest,
and skiniest, Sasha is middle height and weight but she's the only
long hair in the group with the POOFiest damn tail, and Pidge is the
shortest and the fluffiest (as fluffy as a short hair can be).

All right, I'm done blabbing now. ;)

The command chain in most households is

        cats -> people -> dogs

This is because people train dogs, but cats train people. Our cat
Winston, who like to go outside early in the morning, has managed
to train me to let him out as soon as he walks over my face at
5 a.m.  Mary has proved to be untrainable in this regard, so the
cat doesn't bother to walk over *her* face. In fact, if I'm away
on a trip and Mary is at home, Winston doesn't even bother asking
to be let out.

Sometimes that type of training is good.  Sasha knows that when my
alarm clock goes off I eventually get up, and I feed her after I
getup.  If I try to sleep in too late she wakes me up by purring and
doing a complete circuit of my body licking whatever flesh is exposed,
especially my face or hands.  Wakes me up, lemme tell ya, and saved
me from being late several times.  But if the alarm clock doesn't
go off in the first place she leaves me alone until I get up on my own.

I got my cat, Forest, when I was working at the parking garages in Ann Arbor.
I named her Forest because that's the parking structure where I found her.
(The S. University & Forest garage, next to Tower Records.) Recently, I've
been referring to her as the "furry hacker", due to the fact that if there's
*any* way to get out of the house, she'll find it. Then I have to take to role
of "security admin" and plug up the holes that she exploits, only to have her
find another one. She was recently living with my sister and her three cats,
where she put herself into the feline hierarchy as "Alpha cat". Currently she
shares the house with just one other cat, Tweeter. Tweeter's the older of the
two (Forest is only 3, Tweeter's 8 or 9), but Forest is still the dominant
one. I have a picture of her online at: 
http://gargamel.dyn.ml.org/~wolf/forest.html
That pic's a couple of years old, I hope to have a new one soon.

I got Mittens at a party. I stole her from the woman who'd gotten her about
an hour before at the Farmer's Market. Shameless use of puppy dog eyes. :-)
She's a grey/silver/black tabby, with a white splotch on her nose and down
her throat, and four white paws. Hence the name. OF course, I am allergic
to cats, but she's adapted well to taking showers with me once a week. 
She doesn't seem to like jumping up on things, and she tends to keep 
herself to herself, but I love her anyway.

re #8- Forest is so cute! :)  Reminds me of my friend Vicky's cat-
Mary.

Twila- Not jumping on things is good. <smiles>  Sasha and Woobie
make contests out of who can get up the highest.  And my allergy
doctor said that if you put a little vegetable oil in a cats
food it also helps to lessen dander problems (I'm so allergic that
my Cr. said I should never be around cats.  I told him to find me
a way to deal with it. ;) )

I got Cat #1 about 8 years ago from the Humane Society, and she's
a very sweet-natured cat with excellent house manners.  She's
pretty happy by nature, and loves to sleep in my lap, or at the
foot of my bed.

Things have gotten interesting, though.  Cat #2 arrived from the
Humane Society 1 week ago today.  She's a playful little cat
with lots of personality.  I'm going through the gradual stages
of introducing her to Cat #1.  So far, I haven't let them meet
face to face.  Sometimes an established female won't accept a
newcomer who is also female, so I'm giving Cat #1 plenty of
time to adjust to the idea of Cat #2.  

Stay tuned.

Hmm.  I just participated in a hunt for a mouse with my cats.  Well, they
hunted, I moved furniture so they could get at it.  My best calculations seem
to show that the mouse found its way into the house early this morning.  My
cats are very efficient.

mooncat, woobie might have a hairball......

My cat is white and gray. He snuggles up to me to sleep at night, except there
was a storm last night and he retreated under the bed. If you've seen that new
show on MTV, "Sifl and Olly" (the sock puppets) my cat looks a lot like Sifl...
the gray sock puppet with yellow eyes. It's just the facial expressions or
something.

Harlis had some catnip and is dozing peacefully. 

Iggy- he's managed to.. expel a hairball or two, but this is somewhat
an ongoing problem with him.  The two females get a bowl full of
food and they eat just as much as they want and then leave. Woobs
would sit there and eat the whole bowl, and then get sick.  So he
gets little portions several times a day, which for him works a lot
better.

Right now our youngest cat, the black Siberian named Katya, seems to have 
entered an adolescent stage where her principal interest in life is 
climbing things.  This means a lot of stuff gets knocked over, and we're
hoping she will grow out of it soon.  Our older cats -- Little Bit, 16,
and Simone, 13 -- are much less vertical in their thinking.

Harlis is eating more than usual. He eats lowfat Hill's Science Diet. If his
bowl gets empty he cries and looks at me all upset like "Why are you starving
me?". It breaks my heart. I fill his bowl every morning, and he sticks his head
in the bowl AS I fill it, so he gets little pellets on his head but he doesn't
care. 

Bees- I know exactly what you mean!  Last time I saw the vet she told
me that my kitten Sasha needed to lose two pounds.  She weighs 11lbs
and should only weigh around 9.  So I've switched her to diet cat food.
Not that she's much of a kitten anymore, she turns 1 in two days. :)
But still, I feed her in the morning and at dinner time, and once before
I go to bed (I just can't leave her with a full bowl, the other two will
eat her food), but everytime I go *near* her food dish she cries at me
like I'm starving her, which I know very well I am not! <grins>

Yeah! Harlis is 14 lbs (he is 4 years old). He gained 5 lbs in the year I got
him, but he was sooo thin when I saw him at the shelter. He has lost a pound
since he got the lowfat food. Vet wants him to lose about 2 more. He has no
other kitty roommates to eat his food. Usually a cup of food in the morning was
enough all day. Now he eats every last bit.  The bowl will be empty by 6 pm, so
I put about a 1/2 cup in the bowl to hold him until tomorrow morning. He STILL
cries.

We have an overweight cat, but she used to be worse.  She's come to 
expect my dad to feed her milk every morning, and will meow at us 
incessantly when she wants some.  She's quite good at figuring out how 
to get our attention about it.  She's old enough now that dietary 
modifications won't make much of a difference anyway, we think.

Mojo is suppossed to be lighter than he is, but as his tactics for food
involve nibbling on reachable body parts if I try to ignore him, the vet
is going to be permanently disappointed.

Mittens is petite, and she is definitely not overweight. (I think we 
scaled her at seven pounds last time we weighed her.) She seems to eat
as much as she wants, and I even slip her little treats like a slice 
of meat occasionally, or ice cream/cream/milk, but she doesn't seem
to expect them.

Were she human, people would be jealous.

Steve- for your overweight cat that wants milk- there's a (relatively)
cheap drink called cat-sip that is milk treated for cats so they can 
digest it better.  My Sasha just loves the stuff. :)

Heh.  that equals money.  Milk is cheaper.

dilute teh milk with water....

Actually, Cat-sip isn't all that expensive, and since you don't give
them a whole lot at a time, it lats for quite awhile.  It all depends
on where you buy it.  I was getting it at a pet store, but then I found
it at Meijer for like a dollar cheaper.

Maybe the cats are lactose intolerant like people are.  My brother takes some
sort of enzyme (for people) on the rare occasions when he eats ice cream. 
The people product might be cheaper than the cat products, ask at a drug
store.  (The product probably contains lactase)l  Or you could try yogurt,
which does not have much lactose (or another theory is that the bacteria in
it digest the lactose for you in your stomach).

Milk is really only intended for newborns and babies, so it should be no
suprise that many adults are unable to digest all the components of milk.

My cats don't get much results from their attempts to train me.  About the
closest they get is that I feed them on a regular basis.  ;)   Dave starts
bugging me as the clock radio goes off in the morning, but that's when I get
up and feed them anyway.  On weekends he'll give up after a few minutes.

Catnip WOULD last a long time if the elder cat, Sigurd, wasn't smart enough
to not only smell it through the bag, but also to find and rip open the bag
himself.

That's where a glass jar is handy...

Why do you get the catnip in a bag?  It grows wild all over the place here,
you can pick and dry your own.  Looks like spearmint but I think the leaves
are more rounded.

I'm not the one who buys it, my mom is.  She has, however, learned to put it
in a jar - but somehow I think Sigurd might figure that one out too.

So put the catnip in a freezer, cat can't smell it in there, and it
lasts a lot longer.

And according to my sister's friend the vet, most adult cats are
lactose in tolerant, which is why milk isn't very good for them.

Re 28, 29, & 34:
        True, since milk is only really intended for newborns and babies, most
animals lose the enzymes to digest it unless the continue to drink it for
their whole life.  This is true for humans and dogs at least, so I'm assuming
it's a similar situation for cats.

And cows' milk is intended for newborn and baby calves; not all human babies
do very well at digesting it.

Please, for the health of your cat, do not give the wonderful cat milk.
Their bodies are not designed to digest it and its a stereotype that the
cats don't need.  Cats, however, can't live without meat... so, go and
give your cat lots of meat and maybe you can train it to attack and kill 

... Or, you can give it nice food like Hill's Science Diet, so it does not eat
icky mice or birds. Though my cat loves a spider treat when he gets one. He
thinks he is getting the baby spiders he pounces on, when all he is doing is
pushing them into the carpet.

Well, I hope you vacuum regularly. Spider-infested carpet isn't my
idea of a good time.  :)

We feed our two cats Hill's Science Diet almost exclusively. They
thrive on it. Every couple of days or so we give them a bit of
fish-flavored Fancy Feast, which the older cat especially loves.
He also senses when I'm opening a can of tuna fish for lunch and
demands a share for himself, so I give him a teaspoon or two of
that. But other than the occasional fish treats, all they get is
Science Diet.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss