Harvard Here we Come

So, I've always known that Sunny was smart.  It's one of the things I love about him.  He's a big cat with a big personality powered by a big brain (for a cat that is).  Every once in a while he does things that really show me just how smart he is.  Sometimes, that realization is a little scary.

Things have been a bit crazy in the past few weeks.  There was Holy Week (I'm a professional church musician) and I started working again as a contractor for an old boss who can make things a bit stressful, while I'm still looking and interviewing for a permanent job.  On top of that, I started getting out the door early to meet a friend to go walking before I work.  Nothing I can't handle, but it takes a bit to settle into the busy routine again, so I've been a bit tired.

Well, last night, I realized that I hadn't scooped Sunny's box in a while.  I'm usually really on top of it and keep it nice and clean.  I think my brain registered going down into the basement to get laundry as "I've been in the basement, the box is scooped."  It's the only reason I go down there on a regular basis.  Feeling horribly guilty, I grabbed the fresh bag of litter and a garbage bag and headed downstairs.

Now, I expected a mess.  I knew the box would be really full, but I also know that Sunny is really great about keeping everything in the box and there was no smell coming upstairs.  Now you have to understand that the litter I use (Arm & Hammer Essentials--GREAT stuff!!), comes in a stiff plastic bag.  I tear off the entire top of the bag and it sits on the floor near the box, wide open.

Well, Sunny kept to his fastidious nature and only peed in the box.  That gets absorbed into the litter, so it's fine.  Poop, on the other hand is to be buried and when most of the litter is a big clump, what's a kitty to do?

Well, if you're Sunny, you figure it out.  You go into the bag of litter, spill some out, poop on that and then pull more litter out to bury it.  No joke.  There was poop on the floor next to the bag with litter both underneath and on top as if it had been buried in the box as usual.  He only did it once, so I got there in time to avoid it getting out of hand, which was a relief.  However, it is mildly alarming to realize that I have a cat with better problem solving skills than some co-workers I've had.  I mean, seriously, how many animals come up with solutions like this?  One of my friends is convinced he's really a human being trapped in a cat's body, a la Bewitched.  I'm not sure she's wrong.

He got extra treats last night, both as an apology and a thank you.  Of course, not two minutes after I came upstairs from the cleanup, who comes down from the second floor and heads to the basement?  Yup.  He had been listening for the signs that I had taken care of things for him, so he knew things were all fresh.  I went right back down after he came up to scoop things up.  A kitty that smart deserves a clean box.

Tales of a Mighty Mouser--Part Two

So in my original post about Sunny's exterminator position, Tales of a Mighty Mouser, I mentioned that there was another incident which merited its own post.  I decided to stop being a tease and share.

Now, just to warn you, this is not one for the faint of heart.  It is a testament to the great love I bear my sweet furry beast that he was ever allowed back into my room after this particular incident.

Now, when there's a mouse around, there are usually some early warning signs.  Sunny will hear things, or smell things and I will notice him going on the prowl.  He'll investigate corners and check behind doors.  I've learned to recognize the warning signs that something has found it's way in, and is soon to find its way out the hard way.

This time, there were no such warnings.  It was mid-July.  It was the first time that I was going to be the person solely responsible for my company's presence at our biggest national conference.  This was our target group of customers and I was one of two who represented the advance team, arriving early to start the setup, only to be joined by the rest of the crew later.

To say that I was wound up, would be an understatement.  I had been working late to get things together and that meant that all of my personal packing was happening last minute.  Now, Sunny is not a fan of my suitcase.  I've done enough business travel that he knows what it means and is less than thrilled when he sees it out and open.  I had been running around like crazy to get everything done.  I was pretty sure I was finished and was going to crash, praying I could shut my brain off long enough to sleep.

I crawled into bed exhausted and wired.  Within moments, Sunny was there.  I made short shrift of his evening ritual of scritches and treats, trying to get to sleep as quickly as possible.  Once that was done, Sunny did something very unusual.  He started digging at the covers and sniffing.  Now, you have to understand, I am not one for making beds and with the July heat, the covers were bunched up in the middle of the bed where I had shoved them in order to keep cool.

I pushed Sunny away and told him to stop being a nudge, because I needed to sleep.  He came back and did it again.  I pushed him away again.  Again he came back.  I gave up.  I rolled over, presenting him with my back, did my best to ignore him and eventually managed to fall asleep.

Big mistake.

I got up the next day and uncharacteristically jumped out of bed right away to get going.  Since I was going to be away for a few days, I decided to make the bed.

You do know where this is going right?

As I shook out the covers, to my intense horror, I discovered the reason for Sunny's odd behavior of the previous evening.  A tiny furry body fell out from the rumpled comforter and sheets.  I cannot tell you how badly I shuddered with the pure skeeve of having spent the night, blissfully slumbering with a dead mouse in my bed.  It was a very good thing that there was no food in my system.

The bed got stripped and the offending corpse tossed out into the bushes.  I was still twitching when I got to the office to meet my co-worker and collect a few things before my flight.  I called my brother, whose squeamish tendencies can, usually, only be brought out by needles being stuck into him summed it up brilliantly...EEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!

Yeah.  That about covers it.

Enter Candyland

As the internet has so aptly shown us, cats are cute.  A video with kitten antics can send the most hardened personality into a diabetic coma from the sweetness.  It is for cats a tool, defense mechanism and weapon.

When you have a cat as intelligent as Sunny, this can be a dangerous thing.  He is very good at using his cute to get what he wants.

One of his most potent weapons is the tummy fur.  Now, for anyone who understands animals, this is one of the most emotionally powerful things a cat can do.  For Sunny, this is especially true.  For almost any animal, their belly is their most vulnerable body part.  To expose their belly is an expression of extreme trust.  When you've adopted an animal who was abused, trust is incredibly precious.  A little piece of my heart melts every time he does this.  It doesn't hurt that it's just so soft and fuzzy and he looks ridiculously precious when he does it.



Of course, with Sunny, it is a trap.  He will show you his tummy, but it is not to be touched.  Unless he is half asleep and in a REALLY mellow mood, touching the tum will get your hand grabbed in a very sharp set of teeth.  He doesn't bite down with me, but he does express his displeasure at this transgression.  The revealing of the tummy is an invitation to scritch him behind his ears, or on his chin and cheeks.  The tummy itself is verbotten.

He's developed some other uses for the cuteness.  The primary use of the kitty superpower is to get his paws on treats.  Sunny is a treat-powered feline.  Treats are to be acquired as frequently as possible.  Treats are the first thing he wants in the morning when I wake up.  It doesn't matter where he's been sleeping, when the alarm goes off, he's in the bed, looking for treats.  Sometimes, he just waits for me, so I open my eyes to this...



"Are you up?  I've been waiting.  You've been asleep for so long and I've been waiting that WHOLE time for treats."  At least he is nice enough to not actually wake me himself and opening your eyes to that level of cute accompanied by a happy purr is not a bad way to start the day.

His other cute habit is when I'm not paying attention and he wants something.  This is from a few days ago.  I was working on the computer and he wanted to get my attention.  "Hey, hey there.  Stop tapping at the machine and give me treats."

I know I'm especially susceptible, but I find this to be unbearably cute as well, especially since he will often walk over and rub his head up against me once he has my attention.  Part of it is that he never used to do things like this.  It's just another sign of the bond between us.

Aside from using his super-powers for treats, there are the completely unintentional, casual cute moments:  putting his paws over his face to sleep, stretching with that little purring meow when he wakes or poking his head out from the covers after he's been sleeping under them.

A day with Sunny is a day filled with an overload of toothache-inducingly-sweet cuteness...and I'm happy to live in this candy land.

Medic!!!

When I first bought my house, my sister-in-law gave me a supremely practical gift, especially given that I was going to be doing renovation work on my own--a fully stocked first aid kit and a large bottle of hydrogen peroxide for cleaning out the cuts and scrapes I was likely to earn along the way.  When it came to the renovation work though, it didn't need to be pulled out very often.  I'm actually quite adept with both hand and power tools.  However, that bottle of peroxide has come seriously in handy, since I got Sunny.

I'll start by saying that I just don't believe in de-clawing.  Look at your hands.  Imagine amputating every finger at the knuckle at the tip just behind your nails.  That's what de-clawing does to a cat.  I just could never do that to an animal I love and I am absolutely willing to live with the consequences of that decision.

The most frequent use of the peroxide bottle is when I do need to trim his claws.  While Sunny will purr as I clean his ears or sit stoically still while I get the goopies out of the corner of his eyes, he does NOT like to have his claws trimmed.  He will generally let me get one or two done before he decides he's had enough and takes a swipe at me.  If I'm lucky, I remember to do it in the middle of the day when he's just woken up from a nap.  Then he's usually kind of groggy so I can get a whole paw in one shot and sometimes even a claw or two on another.  Still, it frequently ends with me heading to the bathroom to wash with antibacterial soap and flushing with peroxide.

Sometimes things happen that are complete accidents.  Having him in my arms when some loud sound from outside startles him has led to ruined shirts and scratches in places that make it look like I should have been having a lot more fun than I did.  The best (hmmm, not sure of that word choice) was part of one of his mousing adventures.  He had caught one in the dining room and we were engaging in the ritual of me, oh so sweetly, saying, "Good boy!!  Now put it down so I can get rid of it and there will be lots of treats."  He knows the T-word and he actually obeyed.  I was reaching with tissues to grab it.  Unfortunately for me, it was still quite alive and kicking...and it moved.  We were both grabbing for it at the same time and his paw was above my hand.  I managed to grab the mouse's tail, but yowza I had a serious scratch on the back of my hand.  Mousie got tossed out into the bushes to die in nature and I came back in to tend my wound.

I couldn't really be upset with Sunny.  He gave me this pitiful look when it happened.  It was kind of an "I'm really sorry, but it MOVED!" look.  What could I do?  How do you yell at an animal for responding to its most basic primal instinct?  He still got his treats and licked my hand in apology.  I'm not sure that soap and peroxide were even necessary given how much that one bled.  The band-aids came out and the antibacterial goop was applied.  Since it was my right hand, there were some serious twinges before it started healing since I am right handed.  Mousing is his job though, so I really couldn't complain.

So, I have faint red lines on the backs of my hands, and always will.  Who cares?  It's a small price to pay for the purrs and the head butts and the ridiculous cuteness that is my boy.

I will need a new bottle of peroxide soon though.

Let's play

It's said that the ancient Egyptians worshiped cats as deities, and cats have never forgotten.

Sunny, definitely falls into this category.  He is a kitty with dignity and poise.  He knows his own beauty and has a very regal air about him.  Just in case you don't believe me, here's a picture of himself lounging on a silk pillow on my couch.

Do you have any doubt that this is a creature who believes he was placed upon this earth to be worshiped?

Given that this is Sunny's natural state, there is nothing funnier than when all of that is forgotten and goes by the wayside for play.  Sunny can be one of the most playful cats ever.  It's not just the hunt instinct, which is of course the trigger for it.  He likes to be silly.  He knows that whatever toy he or I have picked out is not actually an animal to be killed, but he doesn't care.  It doesn't take much, either.  A piece of yarn tied to the end of a stick is one of his favorite things to chase.  He will run at it, sometimes, not even bothering to try to catch it, just bouncing himself off of whatever furniture is closest to scrabble as he hits the hardwood and bolt into the other room, or up the stairs.  He will run at something and jump around in its general vicinity without actually trying to grab it.  He's just having fun and I've given him a handy excuse to drop his dignity like a hot potato.

His look changes a bit when he's playing.

Goodbye dignity, hello crazy eyes.  This is Sunny, having wrapped himself in a piece of string, which he valiantly conquered.  Yes, when it comes to playtime, he is a complete goofball.

One of Sunny's favorite toys is a gift from my niece.  She and some friends braided up some polar fleece and he will happily leap and jump to get a hold of it, as you can see here (just ignore the laundry being sorted!)

The one dangerous part of that toy is when we both misjudge...me on timing and him on where the toy ends and my hand begins.  Let's just say that my hand is a little worse for the wear at the moment.

Play is great exercise for cats, so I've tried to make sure I do it every day with Sunny.  The biggest problem is that while he's getting healthier, he's also gaining energy, so he wants to play more.  That's fine for the moment while I'm home, but it could prove interesting once I have a job again.

In the meantime, I'm just going to enjoy those moments when my deity deigns to come down to earth.

Only 40 winks!?

So, as cat owners know, sleep is a very important part of a cat's life.  They are the kings of the napping world.

Sunny, of course, is not exception to this rule and who can blame him?  Besides, let's face it.  There are few things cuter than a sleeping cat.  If you browse through Flikr, there is actually a group called "My Sleeping Cat" which is completely dedicated to photographs of somnolent felines.  You can get cavities just browsing through the pictures.

What has always amused me is the positions which cats find conducive to slumber.  Now, there are some that you see, which are perfectly normal.

Here, his majesty stretches out on my bed, blissfully slumbering amidst the soft comforter and sheets, dreaming of catching mice and being rewarded with treats.  He looks so comfy and sweet.  There are soft warm things and this is a perfectly comfortable position.  I get it.  This makes me want to curl up in the bed with him.

Then there's this:

In what world is this a comfortable sleeping position?  I mean, seriously.  A contortionist would look at this and cringe at the thought of the sore muscles and aching joints that would result from spending any length of time like this and yet Sunny is sleeping away, blissfully unaware of the sympathetic aches and pains he is transferring to his astonished caretaker.

He does have two other sleeping habits which I find adorable.  The first is that, like his owner, he snores.  I don't know what it is about those sweet little snorts that makes me smile, but there it is.  I'm a sucker who finds the sound of her snoring cat utterly enchanting.  The other one is when he plays Undercover Kitty.

If you look closely, next to the pillow and against the back of the couch, there is a tail sticking out from beneath the fuzzies.  Undercover Kitty strikes again.  As I sit here typing, I have a huge grin on my face, because Undercover Kitty is currently snoring to beat the band under that purple throw next to me on the couch. He seems to have a bit of a cold, so it's really loud. It just makes me giggle.  

One of the sweet things about Sunny is that he likes company when he naps.  I had a couple of back to back business trips to Dallas with my old job.  On the weekend in between, I also had a commitment for Saturday.  I came home to a very upset baby.  My friend who was going to stop in on him had a week of life smacking her in the head, and her ex-husband had pulled one of his really nasty tricks, so she totally forgot (much to her horror, since she's such a huge animal lover!) to stop in.  There was not much food left in his bowl when I got home and he was SO happy to see me.  Cats don't like to see ANY of the bottom of the bowl, so only a quarter of a cup of food left is pure terror!

I decided that rather than drive up and spend Friday with my friends as originally planned, I would spend the night at home with my lonely boy.  I was up and out early the next morning, not returning until late at night.  Then, I got up Sunday and went straight to sing at church.  When I got home Sunday afternoon, I went upstairs to go to the bathroom.  Sunny had been sleeping on my bed and immediately rolled onto his back to get some attention.  His well applied use of ridiculous cuteness had the desired effect.  I went to the bathroom quickly, then joined him on the bed for some scritches and kitty time.  After a minute or two, I decided that napping with him was just what I needed as well, so I stretched out next to him.  All was right in both of our worlds and nothing could be sweeter than drifting off together for a nice nap.  An hour or so later I awoke.  We both got up and went downstairs.  He happily crunched away at his food in his full bowl (bliss!) while I fixed myself an early dinner.  Cooking complete, I sat down to enjoy my meal as Sunny gave himself a good grooming.

I put the dishes in the sink and sat down on the couch with my laptop to catch up on emails and Facebook posts.  Sunny had gone down to use his own facilities, then came running up the basement stairs, through the living room and straight for the next set of stairs.  He sat down on the landing and looked at me.  His running pulled my attention from the screen to see him sitting there staring.

"What?" I asked him.  He looked up the stairs, then looked back at me.  A moment later he looked up the stairs again and then back at me.  I smiled.  "I'm sorry baby.  I need to finish off these emails and can't go take another nap with you."

He blinked at me, took a big breath and let it out with a "humph."  Then, he turned and ran up the stairs to my bed.

Obviously the silly human did not have her priorities straight.

Naps should always come first!

Training Days

So, in bringing a new cat into my home, I knew that there could be a learning curve.  Where would he be allowed/not allowed?  What behaviors would be acceptable/unacceptable?  There's always a bit of training that needs to happen.

Right.

We're talking about a cat here.  These are not creatures known for their desire to please their owners.  As the magnet on my refrigerator says, "A dog comes when called.  A cat takes a message and gets back to you later."

Surprisingly, Sunny is actually pretty good about those types of things.  He stays off the dining room table...as long as I don't leave a chair conveniently out to give him an easy up.  My couch has taken a bit of a beating, but it got much better when I go him more scratching posts/hangings.  He does like to drink from the kitchen sink, especially right now as I wait for my order with the replacement pump for his fountain to arrive.  We have established a rule with that.  He's allowed in the sink, but counter surfing is out.  I'm usually home when he does this and if he goes sniffing at the counter, all I do is ask him, "what's the rule?"  He usually looks at me and blows a breath out through his nose (sounding for all the world like a human "hmph") then either goes back to drinking from the sink, or jumps down.

He also likes to go out onto the front porch, which is enclosed.  The mail slot is the perfect height for him to put his front paws and prop himself up to look out through the jalousie windows of the front door.  He'll use the scratcher hanging on the front door, then get down, turn, sit and look at me.  Sometimes he'll even meow to get my attention.  That's his way of asking to go out.  Thankfully, he's good about coming in when I need him to.  He seems to always want to go out on the porch shortly before I need to leave the house, so that part of the equation is essential.  I just can't bring myself to leave the door into my living room open where everyone can see through the glass on the porch to the inside when I'm not there.  Call me crazy, I know.

When he wants to go up into the attic, he's even more direct.  There's a specific meow for "please open this" which is usually accompanied by scratching a bit at that door.  I don't worry about him for that one.  The only time I don't like having that door open is in the winter, because it's not heated, so it gets quite chilly.  Sunny doesn't like the cold, so he never stays up there for long.

So, have you noticed who's been trained here?  Granted, I have been able to insure that there are no egregious behaviors on his part...but there never really were any.  On the other hand, he has trained his human to respond to both vocal commands and silent gestures.

Yeah, there's a learning curve all right, and Sunny made darn sure that I got right on it!