Sad to say, both our cats are gone now. Ultimate Cat Toy Know what it is? A penlight laser pointer. If you have a cat and haven't gotten one of these to play with, drop everything and go get one. This is so much fun you won't believe it. They chase it like a bug and since you can move it so fast they will run and slide all over the floor chasing it. If you run it across the floor and stop it under a closet door, the cats think the light went in the closet and will wait and wait and wait for it to come back out. You've got to try this.
Misty and Callie are our cats. We bought Misty from a pet store after having recently lost another cat called CC to FIP. CC was a stray kitty that I found hanging around the office parking lot. Sweetest little cat I ever saw. I took her to the vet for a complete work up and then took her home. Anne had never been a cat lover and was skeptical at first, but within a week was totally taken by CC. Unfortunately CC had contracted FIP and we had to put her to sleep. It was very sad but CC did perform a very important function in the short time we had her. She turned my wife Anne into a cat lover. Soon after this Anne came home from the mall ready to buy a black cat she had seen there. I was surprised she wanted another one and somewhat skeptical of a pet shop cat. Misty had been bought and brought back by someone that found out they couldn't have a cat in their apartment so she wasn't as young as I would have liked. We bought her anyway and have enjoyed her immensely.
As the senior cat, Misty rules the house, allowing Callie to live there mostly in peace. Both the cats play fetch like a dog. Misty will jump pretty high trying to catch a small foam cat ball and will bring it back to be thrown again. Callie will chase a rubber band shot from the bed till she can't run anymore. We have to put them up at night as she will throw them herself making all kinds of racket at night if we don't. Nightly both cats go to the top corner of the bed on Anne's side and pass out. If I roll over at night onto my back, Callie promptly walks over (in slow motion as she often does), climbs on my chest and lays down, ready for a pet. This can get to be a pain, but it's pretty cute how much she does it. The morning ritual always starts with Misty guarding the bathroom door to make sure nobody gets in without her. Many times she will be sleeping on the exercise bike in the bathroom (somebody's got to use it) waiting for us. Upon our arrival, one or both hops up on the counter and waits for us to turn the water on in Anne's sink. Then they go to drinking from the running water. I don't know what the big deal is with this but they are pretty insistent about getting water this way. Sometimes Misty will just curl up in the sink and wait for us. She moves pretty fast if I turn it on while she's laying there.
The Cat Condo Because cats love to be in a position that is safe, which generally is high, and because I wanted to get the cats to stop spending all day in one of our chairs, I went shopping for one of those stand-up play houses for cats. Well, I found most are too small, and even those are outrageously expensive. So I decided to build one that would be very tall and designed so there would be a safe haven on the bottom part for Callie and a top part for Misty to rule from. What a project. It ended up seven feet tall and has many yards of carpet on it. Designing it was pretty easy, even cutting and assembling the wood was not much of a problem. Then came the carpet. Now there's a job. I quickly discovered that all the neat curves and holes I built in were going to require lots of cutting and fitting and staples. More than you can imagine. Over 2,000 staples and a hundred razor blades to get that darned carpet on the wood. Friends wondered if the cats would ever go up in it, but even as we were trying to decide where to put it in the family room, both cats were all over it. Since I continue to get requests for instructions on building one, below are a few items about it that might help you build one if you like. As expected Misty ran Callie off every time she got on it. Even today, Callie rarely gets on it and then only on the lower level where the sun comes in on it in the mornings. Misty spends much of her day on it, starting in the morning on top, moving into the box during periods of real sleep, back to the top the rest of the time. She generally goes in and out through a hole in the bottom and top of the box, but sometimes goes right in the hole in the front of the box. A recent addition to the condo was the purchase and installation of an electric pet warmer pad in the lower box. It only took Callie a few hours to discover it and and this is where she spends almost all her time now. Installation was simple as I just lifted the carpet in the lower box, inserted the pad and pressed the carpet back down.
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