How to sleep standing up

Q: How do you sleep standing up?
A: Stand up straight and close your eyes.

(Photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)

Cat or pillow?



Am I a cat or am I a pillow?


(photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)

Housekeeping tip of the day

When making the bed, always allow enough room under the bottom fitted sheet for a twelve-pound feline to move around comfortably.

(Photo coyright roslyn m wilkins)

Ironing the socks

Okay, I'll iron the socks right after my nap in the sun!

Safety tip: never leave a hot iron unattended around your pets... this iron is unplugged and stone cold.

(Photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)

My lazy pal Pharoah

I know Pharoah loves his little bed in the bedroom closet, but really, still in bed at 10:00 on a Saturday morning? It's too much, leaving me with all the Saturday morning chores like eating breakfast, washing and finding the sunny spots to spread out in.

Come on Pharoah, time to rise and shine!

(Photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)

You Can Never Have Enough Grass

Pot, mary jane, weed... no, no, no... not THAT kind of grass! I'm talking about the wheat grass and barley grass my human grows for me (and that other cat who insists on sharing it as you can see in the photo above).

Cats need fresh, living, green grass to stay healthy. Outdoor cats have access to all the grass they can eat, but indoor cats like myself must depend on our humans to supply it. Some cat food manufacturers have gone so far as to advertise their food as being good for indoor cats because they provide some of the nutrients of grass in their products. But take it from me, there is no substitute for the real thing.

Although I've searched the internet I have not been able to find an absolute answer for the question, Why Do Cats Need Grass? All I can tell you is, we do! I have feline friends who, lacking available pots of grass, have eaten tooth picks (oh, that hurts), house plants (can be poisonous), ribbons (which trailed out of their back ends instead of being digested properly), and other fibrous, grass-like, dangerous items found in the typical household.

If you have cats living with you (and if you don't, why not?) you know that after eating a nice juicy portion of grass, we like to make a big production of throwing up on your favorite rug. As we are carnivorous we have no mechanism for dealing with fiber, so it has to come up the wrong way. One theory is that as we are such meticulous creatures, continually involved in self-cleaning, we eat grass to bring up the furballs that would otherwise become lodged in our intestines, causing serious problems. So a little package of grass and fur on your carpet is a small price to pay for a healthy pet.

My human grows wheat grass and barley grass for herself which she throws in the blender with water, fruit, vitamin powder, garlic cloves, cinnamon, turmeric and various other icky items. It would make a cat puke... oh well, we do anyway... She cuts most of the grass for herself and lets us have the rest. I never have first bite of a new pot. As soon as the pot hits the ground, my annoying roommate Pharoah appears out of nowhere and chomps down on the fresh blades of grass. Just once I would like to have that first bite, but it will never happen.

In case you are thinking about growing grass at home for your feline, it's really quite easy as I've watched my human many times. She soaks the seeds in water for a few hours. Then she takes a pot of dead grass and pulls out all the dried-up stalks, sprinkles some organic soil on top (or if you are starting anew just fill up a small pot with organic soil), then some organic fertilizer. Then the seeds are sown on top of that. Then she soaks some brown wrapping paper or newspaper under the faucet and spreads it over the top of the seeds. In a couple of days they sprout. As soon as the green shoots come up she removes the paper and places the pot in a sunny spot near the window. In a few days new grass is growing. It's quite exciting. After that all you have to do is keep the soil moist.

My human buys her seeds from Wheatgrasskits.com where you can read the amazing story of Ann Wigmore who cured herself of gangrene after a disastrous accident which crushed her legs. But I digress. Ask your human to grow you some organic wheat or barley grass. You'll never want to eat a houseplant or a lawn again.

(Photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)

Pharoah's Eye Herpes

Apparently eye herpes is common among feral cats.

Pharoah was born at a truck stop in Fresno. The truck driver brought him, along with his mother and sister, to a foster home in Los Angeles. After several failed attempts to find him a permanent family, Pharoah came to live with us at the age of six months.

I never asked to have a companion and now I am stuck with him. But as he is such a happy little cat and not very demanding, I don’t mind too much.

When he first arrived I noticed he had a small black growth in the corner of his right eye. My human was told this was much bigger when he was born, it had gradually shrunk, and would eventually fall off completely. Instead, it grew bigger. Last year when he was three years old, his eye started oozing large silvery-white tear drops and his energy level seemed to plummet.

As a feral cat he often hid under the rocking chair in the bedroom when visitors were in the house. He began to spend more time under the rocking chair. His human had to put his dinner under the chair so he would eat. After a couple of weeks he recovered. Another few weeks passed and his condition returned. So off he went to the vet.

The vet said he needed three different kinds of medicines three times a day. Even with the help of her friend, there was no way to catch him on a regular basis, let alone administer the meds in his eye, so he stayed in the hospital for a week.

I remember the day he came home. Pharoah was wearing a big floppy collar to keep him from touching his eye. My human locked him in the bedroom and wouldn’t let me in. I guess she was afraid I might attack him after being gone for a whole week, but even I am not that insensitive. In a way, I even missed him.

When she opened the bedroom door, Pharoah came flying out—he was too fast for her to close the door. He charged down the stairs, dashed over to the loveseat by the living room window, plopped down on his favorite pillow, and immediately fell asleep. He didn’t move from that spot for hours. When I checked him out he seemed to have a grin on his silly face that stretched from ear to ear. Obviously, he was very grateful to be home.

My human was supposed to put drops in his eyes every day. But it was a matter of chasing him around the house and trapping him in the bathroom while one person held him down and the other person held his eye open and administered the drops. It was an ordeal for everybody and I could see Pharoah was terrified. So after doing this a few times my human gave up.

Unrelated to this situation, my human had been gradually replacing our usual food (marketed as “vet recommended”) with organic and holistic food. If you know cats, you know we DON’T like change (sorry I had to capitalize that but it was necessary to emphasize it). I was very happy with my food, thank you, both the dry food in the morning and the canned food in the evening. I was NOT happy with this change in my diet. Even though my human mixed the new organic, high protein food in with my beloved high-carb food I could see it in the dish and I picked around it. I would show her she couldn’t mess with me! Well, you try taking cookies away from your kids and replacing them with carrots!

But I have to admit, now I’ve had time to adjust to the situation, I don’t really mind the new food. In fact, I even like some of it.

But I don’t want to get away from the main subject here, so I’ll write more in-depth about the dietary transition in another blog.

For a few months after returning from the hospital, Pharoah had relapses with the eye herpes. It was very distressing as about once every week to ten days he would spend an entire day under the rocking chair—not his happy self at all.

Now I am a cat, obviously, and not a veterinarian or dietician. But is it merely a coincidence that since we have both been almost exclusively on our new holistic, high-protein diet, Pharoah has not had a recurrence of his eye problem?

His eye will never heal completely. The black pea is still there, his right eye has lost its luminescence in the dark, and during the day the eye is not as bright as the left eye. But he no longer has a discharge, and best of all, as the happiest cat on the planet, he no longer has down days. To be honest, I envy his perpetual happiness and will probably never figure it out.

(photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)

We say yes to all your pet supply needs

http://www.yespetsupplies.com/

Special Needs Pets

When they adopt a pet, of course humans want the best possible animal. Some people want a “designer” pet that will be perfect in every way: good looking, well-behaved, and easy to take care of. In that case my advice would be to buy a pet rock. Pets are the same as children—they can’t help who they are but once you have accepted the responsibility of having one, it is yours for life.

Special needs pets can be better than “perfect” pets as they are more grateful, in their own way, for the care you give them.

This subject is close to my heart as I, Friday, am a special needs pet, and so is my pal Pharoah.

When I was young I was extremely aggressive. Although I am very handsome and affectionate, I ended up at the animal shelter as my first human could not deal with me. For some reason I don’t understand my brain snaps and I go from being docile to being vicious in a nanosecond. I am a very loving cat and I certainly don’t mean to cause harm.

I am fortunate as my current human loved me enough to endure the pain I inflicted on her, waking her up at two in the morning trying to bite her nose off or sinking my teeth into her cheek. What was I thinking?

She decided to ask the vet if there was any help for my condition. Although she doesn’t like solving problems with drugs she was desperate and acquiesced to giving me a small dose of Amitriptyline Hydrochloride. I’ve been on this for twelve years now and I can testify that it has changed my life. Even my vet can’t believe what a difference it has made to me. And although I am seventy in human years my blood tests show me as healthy as a kitten.

As long as I get my dose every twenty four hours I am a calm, Zen pussycat. I no longer feel like dragons are chasing me, I no longer feel the need to scalp my human, and best of all, I can tolerate another feline in the house.

Of course, Pharoah is not the cat I would have chosen to share my space as he is certainly an inferior animal, much too fun-loving, and not at all an intellectual like myself, but he doesn’t interfere in my life so I suppose it could be worse.

And just to show how open-minded I am my next blog might even be about him!

(Photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)

Where's the Cat?

(Moved from old blog and originally posted Wednesday, March 18, 2009).

This was a difficult shot to take because of the brightness outside, the dark interior and the intermittent light through the shutters.

But if you look closely you'll see my pal Pharoah's eyes peering through the shutters. This is one of his favorite places to spy on squirrels and birds from the comfort of the living room.

(photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)