October 19th, 2006
My Charlie (”lil Dickens”) was my Birthday present after a very lonley month when my Mister went to the rainbow bridge. He is a brown ball of holy terror and the light of my life! This pink bear - bigger than he is - gets dragged everywhere charlie goes! It’s hysterical!
Posted by The Kittenmaster at 3.07 pm
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Aww….little smooshy face. Cutey!
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwww!
*Not Afraid to Show His Feminine Side Fuzz*
oh I love ‘lil Dickens!!! - I bet he is!!! He’s cute!
aaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
sssssssoooooooooooooo cute
So sweet! Did you buy the bear for Charlie, or did he just decide it was his?
Funny story - My best friend came over with her son who just won the little bear at the amusement park…..Charlie immediately took interest in the bear - pretty much decided it was his - and the precious little boy decided charlie needed the bear more than he did…….:)
Now that is really a cute story. Two fine little fellows, indeed!
One of the people I used to live with could never understand why a five inch high stuffed tiger kept disappearing from his room - until he discovered my two cats used to take it in turns to kidnap said tiger and treat it as a surrogate kitten/punchbag, leaving the tiger wherever and whenever. In the end he gave up, not that it stopped my two from their evil deeds.
Ahem, this is a private moment do you mind?
a stuffed cutie lol
Care Bear Fuzz
That’s my nick name for him - care bear!!!!
*The brown fury and his pink partner in crime FUZZ*
i love the sad little face
don’t worry everyone, i will NOT declaw my babies, but i do have about fifty scratches on me. ( i don’t mind them on the furniture ) i tried the soft claws and they had a lot of trouble with them, after over a month they still had not adjusted to them.
i was just hoping to find something that wasn’t painful for them. now i know better
thank you dee for the site, i am checking that next
Hi Anji, I’m so glad to hear you won’t declaw your babies! I love my cats so much that shredded furniture is a very small price to pay and it’s worth it. I cant’ stand the thought of causing them pain in any way. It seems that you feel the same way! Hurrah for you!!!!
Hi Anji,
Unfortunately it sounds like in trying to be gentle with your kitties you’ve let them get away with this behavior too much. 50 scratches is really excessive for two non-feral cats, which makes me think they aren’t being punished for their behavior — maybe you even continue playing after the scratches? For whatever reason, they haven’t learned to inhibit their scratching as they should have, so you’ll have to train them out of it. It should go without saying if they scratch you, say “NO!” and plop onto the floor they go, no more cuddles or playtime until they settle down. If that alone doesn’t work, a spray bottle or shocking noise (like the classic can full of pennies) can make more of an impression.
Also keep in mind that training is the only solution; declawing likely wouldn’t even stop the behavior! One of the arguments I’ve read against declawing is that when used to combat aggressive tendencies, cats will almost always resort to biting instead. It’s an issue of dominant or inappropriately rough play behavior, NOT normal claw exercise (human skin doesn’t offer the resistance of upholstery or a scratching post) and the behavior won’t go away without training.
I bet lots of folks on here will be happy to coach you along and offer suggestions as you break your babies of this nasty habit.
i hate to say it, but they are spoiled rotten. they have never intentionally scratched me, but they are both very wary of their paws, they hate for anyone to touch them. i have to get the groomer to trim the claws, they won’t let me do it. their fave place to lay is on me, so if they are startled, i get some scratches. they have three different posts to use, but it doesn’t seem to help.
Sounds like they just don’t understand they’re hurting you, then. After all, their fur protects THEM from scratches.
Try being a little more firm, they won’t love you any less — our second cat was a little terror as a kitten, she’d embarrass me by climbing up people’s clothing! We did use a squirt bottle with her to reinforce verbal “no”s and she eventually mellowed out and as a 3-year-old is very gentle and sweet. Learning not to scratch humans is part of growing up, they may just have a little more trouble with that than some kittens, maybe because they’re skittish and because they are used to playing with each other (where scratches are harder to inflict). Good luck!
its funny-my one cat-i have a rule-four on the floor-if she dont have all 4 paws on the floor, dont pet. Of course unless she comes over and wants to cuddle, she’ll let you know
My Brownie used to claw the furniture until I got a 15 X 18 used piece of plywood and put it on the floor behind the recliner. SHe never touched the furniture again. She loves her scratching pad! Try it. Make sure it’s laying flat!
Charlie looks so soft and cuddly, even if he does look a bit unhappy. He looks like he’d be a purr-baby.
i also wanted to add, we got our cats from a group called paals (prescott area animal lifesavers ) that works with the petsmart in our area. they make you sign a form saying you will not declaw any cat adopted from them, so please don’t condem the whole chain. the vet at our petsmart does not offer declawing, that is where i got the soft claws put on.
sweet little one, smooshy wooshums…………..
about the declawing, ?? My Katiebug still has hers, I just trim them often so they’re not quite so lethal, and she has her own scratching post and carpet covered house with pedestal. She’s never put a claw on the furniture and she’s 2 now. I’m glad I never had her declawed. May I ask, what are soft claws?
it is a little cap that fits over the claws, it keeps them from scratching , but does not hurt the cat. a few cats have trouble getting used to them. they can be put on by a vet or a groomer or yourself, but it is better to have a “pro” do it the first time and watch them. i think the site is softpaws.com, i know it was posted in the coments in the last couple of days.
Anji–
Dawn is right about trimming their claws regularly. It makes a big difference in how destructive they can be. And, of course, the younger they are when you start trimming them, the less stressful it is on both of you. Two of mine sleep through it—the third is a bit more high-strung–he’s a big baby.
Another thing I’ve discovered is that cats vary on where they want to scratch and what sorts of materials they want. Get sisal or cardboard — no carpet because then they get the idea that it’s OK to claw the carpet
I have two cats who like horizontal scratiching posts and a third who wants hers vertical, so get both and find out what your cats like.
Thanks Angi, I’ve never seen those before. Cutting Katiebug’s nails can be a chore, she growls a bit, but it’s getting better with time. The first time I cut them myself I had some pretty scratched up hands and arms, but we’re both better at it now. I was suprised how razor sharp those little things can be.
Someone said their cat gowls all through getting their claws cut? My part Siamese rescue sounds like she’s going to tear me apart while I’m cutting her hind claws. Not only yowling but also growling. The funny thing is I’ve got her all cuddled up with her head and mouth up against my throat while I’m doing it. One I’m done I pet and tell her she’s a good girl for not scratching me and then let her go.
Hopefully in a few years she’ll adjust like her older ’sister’ who also used to give me problems but now just lays there and lets me do what I want.
Hi Jirel,
I do the exact same pose with Katie! That’s the only way I can get it done. I hope she learns to chill after a while. I wish that my Katie would act like yours. After I cut her claws and let her go, she acts pissed off at me. One of the first times I tried it , when I set her down on the floor she turned around and took a swat at me! I am patient with her. I rescued her from a small town near here that was flattened by a tornado a few years ago. She showed up at this farm close by and after no one came to get her they put an add in the paper and I had just lost my Brandi of 17 years. I really needed another fuzzy love in my life, so I went to see these kittys. I decided to give this one a shot………let me tell you this…..cats (outside cats) that live through an F-5 tornado at 1 month old……….then live on a farm for a few months, are wild little farts and scared of anything outside! At least Katie is. We had to start with her in one room of the house and it took a while to earn her trust. Now she’s a big protector and sleeps on my head! But she won’t go outside for anything and will not warm up to anyone else, not even my mom when she comes to visit, and mom loves animals.Katie looks out the window and when people walk on the sidewalk in front of the house she growls at them like a dog!!!! goofy kitty…..must be a Watch Kat
My cat used to scratch this one particular cat all the time. He had it absolutely shredded. Luckily for me, it was ugly anyway and I got rid of it. But finally, after much skepticism, I decided to buy him a 3-tiered tower covered in carpet. It has straight edges on 4 corners and they’re pretty tall. So, he stretches all the way up on the edges and scratches the whole way down. He loves it and he hasn’t tried to scratch anything else since. It was like $200 but it saved all my current and future furniture. Well worth my money.
Sorry, my previous post should have said he used to scratch a “couch” not a “cat.” How awful would that be?!?
I really was wondering why it would be “okay” to scratch the ugly cat that you really didn’t like anyway………….hahaha!!!
What a cute face, all squashed up like that! And so fuzzy too. This one looks so sweet and comfortable with that little teddy bear!
*Holy Moly Fuzz*
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy, was he?
Remember that little ditty?
Chocolate Colored Charlie Fuzz! So sweet looking — snorgelicious!
Hi sent you an email, sorry it took me so long to respound…..thanks for your thoughts and prayers
Boy do I remember that little ditty….it’s just like…
Ooey Gooey was a worm….remember that one?
This little guy looks very sad…but I bet it’s just ’cause he was woke up in the middle of a very good dream….
Great story!
Oct 18, 2006 11:32 pm US/Eastern
*Dog Wakes Up Man In Burning Alabama Home*
(AP) FLORENCE, Ala. When three smoke alarms failed to wake up Josh Coats during a fire that heavily damaged his home, his 4-year-old English bulldog’s frantic barking turned out to be the wake-up call that saved his life.
“If Princess hadn’t woke me up, I don’t think I would have woken up,” said Coats, 25.
Coats said he had put a load of clothes in the washer and another in the dryer around 2 a.m. Tuesday before going to bed. The fire is believed to have begun around the clothes drying. Coats said he awakened to the dog’s frantic barking about 30 minutes after getting in bed.
“I jumped up, pulled on my pants, grabbed Princess and went outside and called the fire department,” Coats said.
He also called his mother, Wilodean Coats, who shares the house with him and who had left a few minutes earlier to deliver TimesDaily newspapers.
“People are asking me all the time how much I would sell her for,” said Wilodean Coats. “I always tell them she’s not for sale. Now, they don’t need to bother asking if she’s for sale, because they couldn’t afford her. She’s priceless.”
that’s a great story! It’s nice to hear a good one. Last week I read one about a lady that was laying on the couch watching tv. She had a prosthetic leg and it was off at the time. Her cat some how tangled with a candle and it set fire to her place, she said her dog ran and got her prosthetic leg for her, and got her phone so she could call 911, got her out of the house and her dog went back in to get the cat !!!! The very sad part is that the dog and cat both died. It’s so very sad, but you know what? It does show how very devoted and intelligent our companion animals are. They are so much more than cute little (or big) fuzzballs.
Dawn–
I read that story–amazing!
Is it me or the kitties with the smooshed faces never look happy??? He is cute tho.
Ok gang I’m off on another sabatical & I don’t know when I’ll be back. Good thing I can back track & see what I’ve missed when I get back on line. Ya’ll be good to your selves & the kitties. Talk at ya later,
Chester
Hi Chester,
Yes they look sad to me too…
Take care of yourself.
I would love to see Charlie dragging that big pink bear around!
Somebody else asked, but I would love to know also, did Charlie take ownership or was the bear for him? :))
Take care of yourself, Chester—we’ll miss you!
Bye Chester! Talk to you when you get back! Be Well!
My Mom has a peke face persian like the one in the photo, my Dad says he has a “Go to hell” look/expression. That always cracked me up. Ha!
Charlie will see that you never live in a Bleak House!
GETTING INTO THE PICKWICK PAPERS AGAIN FUZZ
This true story is long, but it is very much worth the read. A warning: tear inducing, bittersweet story…
*The Story I Never Forget*
by John Hetherington
From the book
“The Cat-Lover’s Week-End Book”, Kathleen Williams
& Sidney Denham, London: Seeley, Service & Co., 1961
I suspect that most newspapermen have one story which qualifies as the most unforgettable in their experience. I have. I covered it more than twenty years ago.
I also suspect that for most of us, the story that stays with us is not our biggest or most immportant. Mine isn’t. It is the story of an old man whom I never saw, and a black and white cat I saw only once. Their actions made no impact on the history of our times.
It happened like this. E.G. Bonney, the Melbourne Herald’s chief of staff (Australian equivalent of the Fleet Street News Editor) said to me one morning in December, 1930: “I heard a queer yarn last night about an old man and a cat. I could not make head or tail of it, but it seemd to hold the germ of a story. Here’s the address;”
I went to the address he gave me and found a villa in Clyde Street, St. Kilda, a seaside suburb about five miles from the city. A pleasant-faced woman in early middle-age opened the door. She told me her name was Mrs. King. Her eyes wrinkled in puzzlement when I cautiously asked if she knew anything about an old man and a cat. Then a light broke through.
“Of course,” she said, “that would be Dad and Felix. . . Don’t tell me any newspaper is interested in that !”
I assured her the Herald was interested. She laughed. All right then, she’d tell me, if I didn’t mind wasting my time, and this was her story.
———————————————————————
Two years or so earlier, a friend had given her a black and white kitten about five or six weeks old. He was a cute little fellow, but nobody in the King household took much notice of him except Mrs. King’s father, Thomas Lynan, a north of Ireland man nearing ninety years of age. “Dad just loved that kitten from the first,” Mrs. King told me, and the kitten was mad on him. “You never saw them apart. It was Dad who named him Felix.”
The old man fed Felix, never failing to save a choice bit of his dinner. Felix trotted beside him when he went to the corner tobacconist’s or the nearby newspaper shop. Thd old man tought the cat to box, and Felix learned to balance on his hind legs and weave like a pugilist with his forepaws.
Then on June 28th, 1930, Mr. Lynan died. He had just turned ninety. Felix watched the funeral procession move off, never dreaming they were taking his friend away, then slunk off into the house and mourned in solitude.
He was inconsolable. He ate, but only enough to keep alive. By day he crept about the house seeking the old man who had been his constant companion for eighteen months; by night he lay on the front door-mat watching for the return of his lost friend.
Nearly five months went by and Felix’s melancholy show no signs of lifting. The Kings were worried. They feared the cat would fret to death. One sunny afternoon they went driving and took Felix with them in the hope of waking him from his despondency. They were driving along St. Kilda Road, a broad and busy thoroughfare, the chief highway linking St. Kilda with the City.
The car halted to let cross traffic pass at one of the intersections and Felix, who had been lying inert, got to his feet, coat bristling.He stood trembling for a second and then sprang to the open window of the car and dived to the roadway. The Kings watched him scuttle through the traffic and disappear at full speed, his tail waving like a black banner.
The Kings went home and watched for Felix day after day. He did not appear. After a week they gave him up for lost.
It was about ten days after he dived from the car and three weeks or so before my call on Mrs. King, that the Kings and their five-year-old daughter, Valerie, want to see Mr. Lyman’s grave in Melbourne General Cemetery, which lies on the other side of Melbourne, nine or ten miles from their home.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Mrs. King told me. “There was Felix, walking up and down on the grave-stone like a sentry. He nearly went mad when he saw us. He jumped at Valerie and started to box her the way he had played boxing with Dad. How he got there I do not know. He had never been within miles of the Cemetery in his life.”
The Kings knew beyond doubt that the cat was Felix. He carried two unmistakeable identity badges - a scar near one eye where an air-gun pellet had wounded him in kittenhood, and a kink in his tail which had been broken in early youth.
The Kings tended Mr. Lynan’s grave and laid flowers on it and then picked up Felix and carried him to the car. Twice they got him as far as the Cemetery gates, and twice risking his neck he jumped from the moving car and raced back to his old friend’s grave.
“In the end,” Mrs. King told me, “we decided it would be kinder to let him stay behind.” They arranged with the gravediggers to feed him and anyway they knew that an active cat like him could live by catching rabbits and birds that made home in the Cemetery.
I drove over to the Cemetery after hearing Mrs. King’s story. There on guard over the grave stood Felix. At all events, the cat I saw was black and white with a scar over one eye and a kinky tail.
I have covered bigger stories, but I still remember the tale of Felix more vividly than any of the others, including the events, say, of the retreat in Greece, the Battle of El Alamein or the Normandy landing. Perhaps because I am a sucker for cats, or perhaps because the story haunts me because there are in it features beyond the frontiers of human understanding.
“Our Cats”, Dec. 1952.
Dee
Wow, that is something isn’t it? such total devotion. You know, I’ve heard how animals have a psychic connection with their people. You know like, families that move a few hundred miles away, they couldn’t find their outside cat when it came time to go, and then months later or years, the cat actually found them? It amazes me, and makes me love mine even more.
He’s so pretty. Brown fuzz is especially rare and adorable
What a sweet smush face baby! It must be so funny to see the little guy drag his pink bear around.. I wish I could see that!
He is so cute I love him ( and all the kittens here) He reminds me of Chomley and Simon soo cute and loveable.
The expression on that sweet little face! Charlie looks like someone just woke him up from an afternoon nap, and he’s not too happy about it. His fluffy chocolate coat is absolutely gorgeous. I wanna hug him!
What a sweetie. He looks like an adorable persian, so soft and irrisistable.
Charlie is very adorable……Seeing all of these cute kitties on here makes me want more and more of them……..
So furry!
PURFECT LITTLE GUY!!!!
ENJOY!!!!
What a cute little (?) Persian!
One cat is company. Two cats are a conspiracy. Three cats is an attempted takeover. Four or more cats is a complete coup!
Shona Steele (Australia)
Very funny!
*TOP TEN WAYS TO TELL IF YOUR CAT HAS BEEN SPENDING TIME WITH MARTHA STEWART*
10. There’s potpourri hanging from his/her collar.
9. The cat’s nails have been cut with pinking shears.
8. The cat toys are all stored in McCoy crocks.
7. The kitty scooper has been decorated with raffia bows.
6. That telltale lemon slice in the new silver water bowl.
5. You find liver and whole-wheat cat treats stamped out with copper cookie cutters and decorated with royal icing using a #2 rosette tip.
4. Cat hair has been collected and put into wire baskets for nesting material for the birds.
3. A seasonally appropriate grapevine wreath adorns the front of your cat tree.
2. Your cat goes outside naked and comes in wearing a thyme coloured virgin wool hand-knitted sweater with matching boots.
1. The cat droppings in the litter box have been sculpted into swans.
Dee, you come up with the best stuff, thanks for making my day!
Hi Dee, Great stories and articles. I loved them. You said earlier that 4 cats are a coup, what about 27 loveable furbabies?! I love seeing your post that you send in. I look forward to see what’s next. It brightens my day. THANKS!
Renee–
Wow! 27? Are you a breeder? I have 3 and they really are attempting to take over!
Thanks for the kind words!
Hi Dee! No, I’m not a breeder, just an avid catlover! Stray cats would find me and adopt me. I couldn’t resist, but I did get them all fixed. They are so sweet. When I go outside they just go bonkers. I have a park bench, when I sit down, lots of them jump into my lap until there is no room left. I had 3 in my lap one day and two really big cats wanted up there too, but there was no room, so they sat up against me. They are about 20 lbs apiece! (the big cats) I give them all lap time when I go out. They love it, when I do yard work!
That is amazing! My biggest question is: How do you ever sleep?! My 3 wake me up many times every night…
Hi Dee, It really is pretty quiet, most of the time. It doesn’t bother me that much,except when I hear a change in their tones, then I check it out. My problem at nite is the neighbor’s dog barking under my window. For the most part, everyone gets along fairly well.
I love it! That’s a good thing…