Not self-indulgent at all Kiwi. They are adorable and brightened my day. You must be having so much fun with them!

They are quite lovely now, Kiwi. Are they knocking about your chess pieces yet?

Yes mrsD, sometimes when they are rushing about like mad things they will land on the chessboard with a thump, scattering the pieces far and wide. <Sigh>.

In the last week or so they have both decided that sleeping on this laptop is a good plan. Sometimes they turn it off because they are on top of the CPU cooling vent. Other times they manage to disconnect my in-house WiFi network, other times they manage to open random applications - Word and Excel seem to be their favourites. <Mutters>.

Yhat is funny!

Weezie sometimes fiddles with our landline phone
Plays messages and deletes them. :o

Blackberry and Waiwaiaa are doing well, though they are not impressed by the weather (neither am I); over the last month 35+ C/100% humidity has not been fun.

Maybe because of this they both got infested with fleas. Waiwaiaa scratched herself to the extent of exposing bare flesh on both sides of her neck :eek:. Initially I tried my flea comb which was at best a holding operation.

The vet nurse recommended a product which she assured me was both safe and effective. I dislike unnecessary medication in both cats and people so wanted to know more.

She gave me a pamphlet. It looks OK; the active ingredient specifically inactivates insect nicotinic acetylcholine receptors so I gave it a try.

It seems to have worked; investigative use of my flea comb has shown no new fleas and new fur is growing on Waiwaiaa's neck lesions :).

Kiwi,

I'm glad the kittens are doing better. Kitties seem prone to a flea induced dermatitis which is just miserable. It's good the medication is working.

With the arrival of cooler weather my kittens have become much more active.

Recently a couple of my colony of Brush Turkeys had a free and frank exchange of views, leaving behind two large tail feathers.

I brought the feathers inside for Waiwaiaa and Blackberry to have a look at.

They are the best thing ever for them both - they spend ages chasing them round the kitchen. The feathers have become distinctly moth-eaten (cat-eaten?) but this does not stop the kittens having fun with them :).

I know this an old post but I cant help myself. I love cats and all animals. I adore the pic. I hope all is still going well for the little babies. Makes my heart smile!

Now that it is technically winter the kittens have got very hungry. They are now on breakfast, morning tea, afternoon tea and dinner - I think that I may be one of the vet's best customers for posh food (Young Desexed Female ;)).

They burn it off by rushing about chasing each other, the Brush Turkey feathers and ping-pong balls (I have had to lay in a stock of the latter because they keep on losing them ;)).

Apart from that I have a feral mouse inside which comes out at night - it tends to dive into a container of plastic bags, making loud rustling noises. It is Blackberry's first port of call when I let them out of the laundry in the morning - she sniffs it suspiciously ;).

Sounds like your kitties have a real playground, with all the things they can get into. :)

My kittens have both mastered an important new social skill.

It is sarcastic eating, which is discovering a tiny food scrap on the kitchen floor and spending ages eating it with evident enjoyment.

I have interpreted sarcastic eating as a broad hint that they would like a snack - this usually works ;).

Food is a very big topic for cats.

Today after several decades of cats, I have caved and now give our two a lunch snack. This consists of left over unseasoned chicken, canadian bacon, or salmon. The salmon is greatly consumed ( I just call out "tuna" which is their keyword for fish) and wherever they are during the day, they zoom in and gobble it up from their little snack dishes. We have pouched salmon Chicken of the Sea ( human food) here in US which is easy to handle and not expensive etc.

When Maya was new to us she would pick food bits out of her regular dish and carry it off. So we have a small rug for her to do that. It has become less lately which I appreciate. Weezie will use her paw to snag food bits (mostly chicken bits I cut up for her) and eat it off her paw.

Food is a huge issue.

This is a popular video my husband found the other day. he found an explanation that the man in the video is deaf, so the kitten learned the signs from him:


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I taught Maya a trick when she wants food ( or another favor).
I call it footy dooty up. She raises a paw up to reach for her treat. She seemed likely to do it sometimes so I used the phrase and asked her Footy Dooty UP and after she did that I'd give the treat. She has now generalized the action to asking for help, to open a door and to get our attention to something. But it is the only thing I've had success in teaching her!

I really love this little video of the signing kitten. ;)

That video was great MrsD - cats are pretty amazing at times.
I like cats that have their own unique personalities rather than those that are just sleeping/eating machines. (Have lived with both)

I agree. Weezie refuses to do "footy dooty up" even while watching Maya do it. Weez just gives me a dead pan look as if to say I am NOT doing THAT for my food! LOL Weez also does not like all the lovey dovey greeting Maya gives when she comes in from outside. Maya lets us know that Weez wants to come in sometimes ... and she has to run to her and in general greet Weez every time. (Weez only goes out until 4pm...we do not let Maya out and she seems to accept that still).

Cats do really have personalities. You might like SafariLive. Today Sunrise safari has Thamba which is young male cub of Thandi
which is not commonly seen in Djuma. (S. Africa).

He is gorgeous and hanging around this morning waiting for his mom to bring food.
This is the first half of the 2 part sunrise drive in S. Africa.
Thamba starts around 7 min. mark.

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He is a young cub 11 months old, and very interesting and beautiful. He has a wonderful personality too. So if you like watching cats you'd like the leopards shown on SafariLive.

I've been watching this YouTube of their live digital safari since Dec 2016. For the most part it is fascinating and I take screenshots off the drives for reference photos for my art work.

Maya comes from a farm 400miles away where we adopted her from a rescue on vacation.
Her tail movements are very different as well as some of her habits.

Our vet and I discussed this ... and he agreed with me that the gene pool for cats would be different upNorth as there is water to cross to get to where we are now. Maya is feral, and therefore much different in some ways than a domestically derived house cat. At four years now, she is still afraid of rain and wind, and especially thunderstorms.(we call these "boom booms" and she can even tell they are coming when we have to consult Weather.com)

Thanks mrsD, I really enjoyed watching the video :).