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C.E.O. CAT – Chapter – Neutering & types of cats.
By fred | November 30, 2008
HI GANG – READY FOR SOME MORE ABOUT CATS – FIRST —-
One of my dearest friends in this world and I fortunately have been blessed with some of the greatest guys and gals in this world, guys and gals that you would go to the mat for, and they for you. Most I take for granted, stupid, but I know I do. Of course if I told each of them how much I liked them, how important they were in my life, they might get a bit cocky so I like to keep em in their place if you know what I mean.
Of course, there is the best man at my wedding, Hugo Velasquez, he wormed his way into my life when I was a senior and he was freshman. Sally and I would likely not be married without him asking me (for her) if I would be her date for her senior prom. Hey, I may be dumb but not that dumb. Sally was May Queen, Student body vice president, one of three honor students out of 2,300 kids at Poly High. You gotta be kidding??
Not be her date! Ha, I am dumb but not stupid, I never let her go, when you have the most beautiful girl at Poly High, the smartest and the most popular, and she is just nice. Holding on to her was the truly smart thing I did in my life. We have almost 59 years together, the love of my life, my very existance is for her.
O.K. I am getting off the subject, Hugo was the best man at my wedding, and a best buddy of a lifetime. Hugo and Beverly (he married himself a winner too!) just got a puppy, a little one. I think the reason is that by sending out chapters about cats / animals, he and Bev decided to get a pet, just a guess. A pet, a dog or a cat will give you love, especially at our elder ages.
You will live longer, your life will be more complete, you will have a reason to get up in the morning. You will live life, see life through his or her eyes, and be blessed that you can be a part of the world they are in.
Enough, I am rambling – back to C.E.O. Cat!
Chapter – Neutering & types of cats!
A very unpleasant subject is one of the few bad habits exhibited by male cats – spraying. It is an aggressive act, telling other male cats or cats in general that this is their territory and to transgress may be fatal to the other cat’s health. Believe it! A male cat that is not neutered can be a very macho guy. They are marking their territory which you may think is cute until you smell the results.
If you have a male kitten, adopted, purchased or arrived at by some other method and you do not want this stench in your home you will have it neutered. If you have a cat that is not neutered in your home you can expect that corners, door ways, chairs, sofa, rugs and other furniture will be sprayed an unpleasant fact of life.
I strongly suggest that you take your male kitten to a veterinarian immediately. First off it makes sense to spend a few bucks to make sure the kitten does not have any problems that can be correct at an early stage. Second, the Veterinarian will tell you the earliest the male kitten can be neutered. Do it as soon as the Vet will allow. If the kitten is neutered it is unlikely to be aggressive and usually will not retain this disagreeable trait. If your cat is an ‘outside’ cat I would still have it neutered. First off you do not want your cat to be the daddy of every cat in the neighborhood, second they will often be outside ‘singing,’ a howl actually, when they determined a neighbors unfixed female is in heat. Third, the Veterinarian bill with a male cat that is not neutered can be high. Your Romeo can come home after a night of love and fighting off other males with a torn ear and scratches or worse. He may be fearless in love and willing to battle for his love but are you willing to pay for it?
The same goes for a female kitten, unless you are a breeder or want the kittens, have her highness fixed as soon as possible. If you do not have her ‘fixed’ then for Heaven’s sake keep her inside, not within the range of a male looking for love especially during the times she is in heat. Results of not having your lady cat fixed are: Stud male cats singing outside your house when she is in heat. How do they know? Beats the heck out of me, but they do, must be some smell in the air.
Besides the howling and ‘singing’ all night your back yard may become the battleground of every stud male in the neighborhood. They will battle to be first in line just in case your sweet virgin kitty escapes and comes out to play. Assuming somehow your female kitty does get out, the results in a few months will have you knocking on doors all over the neighborhood asking your neighbors if they would like to have a cute little kitten. Getting rid of unwanted kittens can be a problem; I know friends that have ended up with three or four more cats than they wanted because they thought it would be fun to have some kittens. Most regret their decision, having the experience of motherhood so your children can learn the facts of life firsthand are fine if that was as far as it went. However the results are sometimes difficult and you may have more cute kittens growing into cats to maintain for their lifetime. One, two or even three cats in one household is usually one or two too many. We had four for a time; oh they got along all right just because they all realized that that their human family members would not put up with any bad behavior. I do believe that in most cases they each would have preferred to run the show by themselves.
Remember this is your decision, the cats are doing what is natural, it is your job to make sure the female and male kittens do not become parents, if they do it is ‘your’ responsibility, a responsibility that could last the lifetime of the animals you allowed to enter this world. Since a domestic cat can easily live 12 to in some cases 20 years, I would think carefully about being responsible for more lives than you planned on.
If you feel you can’t afford the expense of a Veterinarian check with your city or county services, generally they will guide you to a Vet that will offer the service at a highly reduced rate, a service just to keep the population down.
A less offensive behavior of your kitty is his or her rubbing your legs with their chin, their body or any part of their body. Most of us humans think, “How nice, kitty loves us so much that it rubs us to show that love.”
Sorry, I hate to bust your bubble but what kitty is telling you and the world, by his or her action rubbing you, is that you belong to him or her. It is again marking their territory. Your C.E.O Cat is saying, “This sucker is mine, belongs to me, stay away, this is my employee not yours!” Of course if you want to believe the entire love stuff fine with me, I am just telling you the facts, take them as you will.
I truly believe a family cat loves its family, however it is a love based on commitment. One of the reasons I love these bewitching animals is their ability to constantly to analyze you, their surroundings, and the family in general. They are not like your family dog, doing silly things like ‘fetch.’ Throw a stick and tell your family cat to ‘fetch’ and you get no reaction. It is not that kitty does not understand, kitty understands all right however kitty has determined that it is silly to expend all that energy on a stupid game when curled up and taking a nap. Fetch is not kitty’s idea of something fun to do. This independence, this ability to analyze situations and determine what is best for kitty is what makes me love them so. A mindless stupid animal I do not want, when kitty jumps up on my lap and shows pleasure by purring it is because kitty wants to, not because I want it too. There is a big difference, earning the love and respect of these independent freethinking animals to me makes any expense or change in our living to cohabit with them all worth it and more.
Our family has never had a cat de clawed however I can certainly understand the position of those that do. De clawing at least the front paws of your kitten can save you a fortune in furniture costs, rug costs and whatever else you have in the home that kitty decides to sharpen his or her claws on.
As intelligent as your family cat is, it is difficult to teach them to use the ‘scratching post’ you made out of old carpet and a two by four hunk of wood or purchased at the neighborhood pet store. I will not get into this subject further, except to say that when you get kitty it may be some protection to buy covers for your easy chair and sofa that will afford a little protection. Be watchful and yell like hell if they are in the process of destroying your favorite chair, then, just maybe your C.E.O. Cat will give you a break and only use the scratching post, BUT don’t bet on it.
When I said it is difficult to teach your cat to do something, in this case not scratch your furniture, and be assured it is not that he or she does not understand what you are telling it that is not the problem. Scratching the furniture may have already become a test of wills, C.E.O Cat completely understands that you do not want the furniture scratched – that is the problem. C.E.O. Cat figures that if it gives up on this matter total control may be lost. It has now become a corporate power struggle that has nothing to do with the cost of the furniture being destroyed it has to do with who is in control of this house, the human or the cat.
As in most tests of wills with C.E.O. Cat I have found that it may be best to not make a huge issue of the subject, do not get into the power struggle with your kitty. Maybe a good idea is to gently extract his or her claws from your $5,000 sofa and place the scratching board in its place. That or gently pick up kitty, scratching it’s ears and tickling it under it’s neck and again ever so gently place kitty by the scratching board. Again, don’t count on it however this method has had more success then the yelling and screaming at kitty. A power struggle with kitty is not smart, something you are just not going to win.
We will not get into all the breeds of cats, albeit I have a few favorites. In general I am not a big fan of breeding specific breeds of any animal. For brains for smarts generally a 57 variety of dog or cat will have the most smarts. Breeding and inbreeding may make a beautiful animal with certain characteristics but for smarts give me the neighborhood 57 variety breed of cat. That cat has the smarts of every breed known in his head and their physical makeup has absorbed features and traits of so many. That is the kind of cat I would choose to have if given a choice. Here I have to admit I generally like a little more Siamese in the mix, if I had to choose a breed of cat, a pure breed not a 57 variety it would be a Siamese. A bit more of a boss around the house, but they are about as smart as a cat can be and are very protective of the family.
We have had several breeds of pure bred cats and each in his or her way have been fun experiences. The pure bred Blue Point Siamese, Pinky & Blue Boy, that shared a few years of our life before they were stolen were indeed characters and had some interesting traits not noted in other breeds. We will discuss our life with them in later chapters.
Our pure bred Persian was another, if a cat thinks of himself as king and a female thinks of herself as a queen, our Persian thought of herself as an Empress. We lowly beings were there only for her to command.
Another of our family cats over the past 70 years was ‘Whisky’ a Manx breed; if not a pure breed Whiskey was close to it. It would be difficult for me to say which of our cats I personally loved the best that is just not fair. I will say that Whisky was more attuned to me personally than any other animal I have ever had. We will get into the why and wherefore later.
For the purposes of this story I will take only a few breeds out of the dozens upon dozens of breeds and varieties of cats in the known world. Siamese, Persians, Manx and your 57 variety of short or longhair ‘alley’ cat. They will be the subject of our tales, the subject of my thoughts, the memories I cherish and hold dear of our times together.
Chapter Grooming
There are a few of life’s little pleasures in owning a cat that are not my particular cup of tea. Two come to mind that are far down my list of fun things to do with kitty, still you have to take the good with the bad.
First on my list is giving kitty a bath. Surprisingly enough there are some cats and kittens that enjoy taking a bath, if you should have one thank your lucky stars. One of our cats was a huge neutered male, a beautiful black and white lanky cat by the name of Robin. Robin was not your normal everyday round fatty cat. Robin did not have an ounce of fat on him, he was as strong as a cat his size can get and he was huge. I am a six foot two inch 250 pound male, I do not consider myself a weakling by any means but Robin could out fight me most any day of the week.
The only way Robin ever got a bath was because he would never harm my wife. Sally is a tiny lady, very soft spoken with everyone, seldom gets flustered, Robin would accept a lot of abuse to his dignity from her, a true buddy that fed him, petted him and gave him treats. Sally would usually go get Robin and put him in the pretested nice warm soapy water. I would stand beside her and help hold him. It would be quite obvious that Robin hated the procedure but there was not a lot he figured he could do about it when Sally gently cleaned him with a wash cloth. He knew his time would come.
I truly believe that Robin would just wait for the last part where I took over. My job was to wrap him in several big fluffy towels to dry him off. Seldom did it work out according to plan as most of the time Robin would bring out his claws to play and struggle so hard I figured ‘what’s the use’ and let him go. Robin’s claws were long, too long and too darn sharp for me. After winning his battle with me he would go into the middle of our front room where a good shake would have the most effect, shaking water all over the place followed by a dignified walk down the hall and a jump up on our bed, still wet, and wash himself to his satisfaction – not ours.
If fleas on your cat are noted a bath is required, not only required but a must, however this is not what I consider ‘fun time with kitty.’ I have been told that if you bathe kitty frequently as a small kitten just maybe kitty will learn that the warm water feels good and accept a bath as an elder kitty, it never worked for us, just throwing it in as one alternative. To eliminate the treat of fleas I strongly suggest a service company, check with your Vet or a phone book, they will not only eliminate any fleas in your home put but down something on your carpets that will eliminate any threat for years to come.
Another big time fun thing with kitty is when the Vet gives you a big pill and says,” Give your cat this pill once a day.” That daily chore can become a nightmare.
Again this is not the case with all cats. Some are nice about the whole thing, either coat the pill with something they like or gently open their mouth and stick the pill down as far as you can then firmly shut kitty’s mouth and gently tickle kitty under the chin along its throat attempting to get kitty to swallow.
One amazing observation with your ever so compliant kitty. Make sure the pill is swallowed. We have often found pills spit out all over the house. How they can hold it and spit it out when we are not looking is another wonder I have not figured out as yet. Of course, then you have to reinsert the pill and go through the whole procedure again.
The fun part of all this is a cat like Robin he has decided that he is not going to take the damn pill. Of course if you want to try and put a finger down his throat and end up with one less finger that is your choice. The Robins of this world force you to be devious. If you have a Robin I strongly suggest you do not force the issue just grind the pill us finely and mix it with his very favorite food. He may ‘smell’ a rat and refuse to eat whatever it is you served but likely you will get away with it.
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