Well, it turns out that Ruth Roy and Thomas Roy of wellcat.com thought that cats have questions that should be answered and they decided to make up National Answer Your Cat’s Questions Day, which is this Friday, January 22. Their idea was that it would give people an opportunity to understand cats better by finding answers to the questions their cat has.

I wondered what the internet would say a cat’s questions are and found some websites with “Your Cat’s Top 5 Questions” or some such thing. These listicles had questions that don’t really apply to Anabel and Sally. They would never ask “Why do you get mad when I scratch the furniture (or fill in the blank bad behavior)?” because they don’t do that.

When I tried to think of questions that Anabel and Sally would have for me, I could only come up with a few:

• Why haven’t you fed me yet? (Sally)
• Why don’t you give me more crunchy food? (Anabel)
• Why are you bothering me? (either of them at any time)
• Why don’t you come over here and pay attention to me? (either of them at any time)
• Why did you wake me up? (at 2pm)
• Why don’t you get up right MEOW? (at 2am)
• How can I get my paws on that birdie?

Then I started wondering what questions I would want Anabel and Sally to answer about being a cat. I came up with:

• What is the line between warm enough and too warm? *I feel like it is around 80-85 degrees.
• How annoyed are you really by that collar? *Not much, I like to be accessorized.
• How hard is it to actually leap 6’ in the air? How fun is it? *It feels AMAZING. I am a graceful and powerful creature and I love all the ways that I can move and manipulate my body.
• Does it hurt when you land on the ground from a 5’ height? *Not really, my paw pads and the way that my body is put together does a good job at absorbing the shock.

So, what I thought might be fun this week is for you to post your questions and I will attempt to answer them. Either a question you have about cats, or you can pretend that you are a cat with a question about people.  I’ll send an email on Friday morning to remind you to check back at this post and to see the answers to your cat questions.

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As a semi-retired professional cat herder, I can attest to the lack of appreciation there is for this highly skilled avocation. But in spite of this famous commercial, cat herding isn’t really about keeping your cats on the trail.

In fact, I can name numerous times that I wished I had been herding actual cats. After all, I can always at least get my cats to run away from me (like when it’s time for their flea medicine). But when it comes to wrangling a group of people in order to accomplish a goal, it doesn’t matter if they are highly paid or volunteers, motivated or just along for the ride – it’s going to be a long, dusty trail and you’re bound to wind up with at least a few scratches.

Being a cat mom can directly be applied to cat herding. If you go back to my Unsolicited Kitten Advice post, it turns out that you can apply many of those tips to dealing with people.

Much in the same way that you want your new kittens to feel secure and comfortable in a defined space, as a cat herder it is important to clearly define the boundaries for your team. Try to make sure that you have provided for their needs in terms of materials and information and then keep the lightest touch possible on whatever it is you are trying to accomplish – let individuals have freedom within their sphere of responsibilities. Keeping everyone’s claws trimmed from the beginning will improve the odds that you won’t get scratched up as badly in the long run.

Speaking of claws, when I was just starting out in my career, I worked for this wonderful cat lady. She really embodied the cat-lover lifestyle. When she had a nail appointment, she was going to get her claws retreaded. When she was going on vacation, she called it our mouse time. And even though she was the queen cat, she was also a boss cat herder.

To all those cat herders out there, keep fighting the good fight. When you finally get those cats where they’re going, a few of them might appreciate your effort. And don’t forget to wear long sleeves!

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Officially, Saturday, August 8 is International Cat Day.  Established in 2002 by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), it is billed as a day to raise awareness for cats and learn about ways to help and protect them.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you are already quite aware of cats, Anabel and Sally in particular. You know about Anabel and Sally’s volunteer work and their tips for those having a hard time with the stay at home order.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest archaeological evidence of the domestication of the cat dates back 9,500 years. In the Neolithic village of Shillourokambos on Cyprus, the bones of a cat and a human were discovered next to each other. The position and similar state of preservation suggests they were buried together.

But the ancient Egyptians took cat appreciation to a whole other level. For them, cats were the physical embodiment of gods and symbols of divine protection. Domestic cats were believed to carry the divine essence of Bastet (or Bast), the cat-headed goddess who represented fertility, domesticity, music, dance, and pleasure.

If you are looking for an excuse to add a cat to your home you may be interested to know that studies have shown that sharing your home with a cat can improve mental health and relieve stress, anxiety and depression. And since no one is really going anywhere these days anyway, you don’t have to worry about going out with cat hair all over all of your clothes.

If you think that you can’t have a cat because of your terrible cat allergies, modern science has something in process for you! Cat allergies are really just an allergy to the Fel d 1 protein that cats produce in their saliva. Of course, then they lick themselves and it gets everywhere. But there is a vaccine in process that is given to the cat to prevent production of this protein. It was making the news big time around a year ago. I wasn’t able to find any recent updates, but I am optimistic that it will be coming on the market soon. I’m so excited for all the poor people who think that they could never live with a cat! In the meantime, Purina has come out with ProPlan Allergen Reducing food that claims to reduce the amount of Fel d 1 protein by 47%.

We celebrated International Cat Day the way that we celebrate most days around here – Anabel and Sally got delicious Intense Beauty flavor cat food with sprinkles, bowls full of fresh ice cubes, a good brushing, and then slept their day away.

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Even though Anabel and Sally don’t eat tacos (Sally has tried before, he thinks he likes people food), Mr. Man and I are going to make the most if this fortuitous alignment of multiple celebratory excuses and have margaritas and tacos (just like any Tuesday only the same). Anabel and Sally will get to split a can of wet cat food and each get their own bowl of crunchy food (just like every other day only the same).

I remember thinking last year how grown up they had become, but it turns out that they still had some growing up left to do. One thing I’ve noticed from my almost-daily brushings is how much their coats have come in. It makes me so happy because I remember when they were going through their awkward phase and it seemed like they weren’t going to have long hair!

Another byproduct of their burgeoning maturity is that they tolerate our little grooming sessions a lot better than they used to.  Anabel doesn’t try to escape every time (although I do still have to brush her first or she will hide from me for the rest of the day). No matter where he is, Sally will come over and hang out right next to us while Anabel gets brushed. I think that partly he is patiently waiting his turn and partly he is rubbing it in to his sister that she has to get brushed.

Over the past year, Sally has become even more of a chow hound. He knows when it is time for breakfast, and he lives for getting his crunchy food snack. It doesn’t matter if I put their dishes right next to each other or in separate rooms, half the time as soon as I turn around, I will find him eating out of Anabel’s dish. Anabel only occasionally even acts interested in food. I suppose when one is as beautiful as she is, one can derive sustenance out of the ether.

One great habit that Anabel has begun to cultivate is sleeping between me and Mr. Man in the bed at night. I love snuggling kittens in the bed, and she is a great sleeper (I’m hoping to pick up some hints via proximity). Sally still sleeps on post on the corner of the bed. I wish he would cuddle because he is so snuggly, but it is also nice to have a guard cat on post at night.

Mr. Man and I make sure to let Anabel and Sally know that they are special every day. I don’t know if it will matter to them very much that they turn two today, but we are going to celebrate anyway.  If you’re feeling like you need a reason to celebrate today, feel free to use the kitten’s birthday as an excuse and pour yourself a margarita!

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Before you get all flummoxed, yes, I KNOW that it is Kitten Tuesday.  But National Drink Wine Day doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that should be ignored. So, I thought I would hit two birds with one stone (or two kitties with one glass of wine as it were).

Cat Wine

Have you heard of Cat Wine before?  I had heard of it, but never really looked into it.  It turns out that this nice man with two cats, Apollo and Hades, invented it as a sort of gag gift for his fellow, crazy cat friends. There’s a great story about his entrepreneurial journey on his website.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Apollo Peak Cat Wines are made with natural ingredients. He uses red or yellow beets to create the proper color for his Pinot Meow, CATbernet Sauvignon, MosCATo, White Kittendale, and a Pink Purrsecco.  You know how I love a good cat pun, I think he did a great job finding the purrfect names.  They are all different versions of liquid catnip, intended to give your cats the same pleasant feelings that their people get from drinking person wine.

It makes me laugh just imagining a bunch of drunk people hanging out at home with their drunk cats.

I don’t let Anabel and Sally have catnip because they get too rowdy.  The time that I gave them a catnip toy to play with, they got really too wound up. They have a daily cat judo practice, when they will chase each other and spar a bit. The time they had catnip has been the only time that I have ever been worried about their brawling. So, no cat wine for them.

All this talk about cat wine reminds me about a story that a friend used to tell about her mom’s one-eyed Pomeranian.  Apparently, mom would dress the pup up in a pirate costume, and they would sit on the couch together watching “their shows.” The pirate Pom would drink wine out of mom’s glass while they watched Ellen together. It still makes me smile when I think about it.

National Love Your Pet Day

As long as we’re talking about national this-or-that day, this seems like a good time to mention that this Thursday, February 20 is National Love Your Pet Day. Now, I know that we all love our pets every day, but apparently you are supposed to give them extra attention. 

Maybe you can drink your person wine today and get your cats some cat wine for Thursday (there is also apparently wine for dogs, don’t think that they’re being left out). That all being said, any day seems like a good day to pour yourself a glass of wine and love your pet (whether or not they partake).

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But something about my darling Sally has turned me into Lisa Vanderpump!  If you aren’t a Bravo TV addict, suffice it to say that she is a peculiar British lady with pet swans, miniature horses, and a whole pack of blonde, shaggy dogs (I don’t know why she doesn’t have any cats, she seems like the perfect candidate for a fluffy, white Persian or two).  Her star dog, Giggy (short for Gigolo) is a catatonic Pomeranian with alopecia who wears pajamas and she or her husband carry everywhere.

When Lisa talks to her animals, she says things like, “aren’t you sexy?”  She calls Giggy her little “sex monster.”

Now, Sally is about three times the size of Giggy and maybe not-quite as pampered, but I sure love to hold him in my arms and whisper sweet nothings in his ears.

I really don’t know when or why I started talking to him as if I was Lisa Vanderpump. It’s been going on for a while though. I will hold him and say things like, “hello lover,” “aren’t you handsome,” and “aren’t you sexy.”

We have these morning cuddle sessions that I refer to as “making out.”  I pick him up and he lays back in my arms so that I can rub his tummy.  He will grab my petting arm with both of his front paws and lick my hair like he’s trying to groom me. He purrs his brains out and I tell him how sexy he is and kiss him on the nose.

I know that my feelings are reciprocated because Mr. Man tells me about the way that Sally cries when I leave for the gym in the morning. Sure, it might be close to his breakfast time, but I know that it’s really because he wants more snuggles.

Even though I like to think that I want to carry him around with me everywhere I go, the blush would be off the rose pretty quick with that daydream.  Yes, he’s a cat with a sensitive disposition and would freak out, but also, he’s heavy! I love to pick him up and hold him but carrying him around for long periods of time would definitely get old.  

I do my best to speak sweetly to Mr. Man as well, but sometimes he gets jealous of the attention that I give Sally.  I mean Mr. Man is cute and all, but he’s got nothing on Salvatore Tessio Gellis. When he starts to get his feelings hurt, the best thing to do is make him hold Sally.  That cat is so sweet and soft and lovely that even Mr. Man can’t resist his cuteness.

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Even though cats don’t need a lot of fancy toys, there is some great satisfaction in buying fancy things for them.  Even more so when it’s a toy that can maintain kitty’s interest for longer than a few days (and doesn’t require batteries).  One cat toy that had retained its charm in our home is the cat tube.

I don’t know what else to call it.  It is a length of fabric-covered tube.  That’s it.

As I was scrolling back through the kitten’s baby album, I did find that at one point it had a little dangling fluff ball. Other than that, it has held up pretty well.

It also was clear that Anabel has always had a greater appreciation for this particular piece of equipment than her brother, Sally.

Currently, the cat tube is one of Anabel’s favorite games.  She will cry and holler, then dash off to hide out in the tube when you come looking for her. She will lay in wait and pounce out to swat at you, then dash back inside.  When she and Sally play, he will pounce on top of the tube, smashing it on top of his poor, helpless sister (who instigated the whole game in the first place).

The cardinal rule of cat toys is change it up.  You don’t have to really have that many things for them to play with as long as you move them around and switch them out from time to time.  For a while, the cat tube lived in the front room, blissfully forgotten by everyone except yours truly who seemed to be the only one living here who found it to be in the way.

One day, in great frustration, I tossed it back into the den (the cat’s playroom) and they took to it with a fresh novelty. Anabel has been very committed to the tube being part of her daily play routine ever since.

Another time, it found its way onto the futon (there is a great degree of rearranging that is necessitated when trying to vacuum the cat’s room).  Now it was Anabel’s favorite place to sleep! I couldn’t find her anywhere. I looked in all of the places and there was no sign of her until I noticed the little bit of white peaking out from the tube.

Even though I am consistently tickled by the cats playing in the tube, one of my most felicitous memories was when my friend and her two-year-old daughter came to visit.  Apparently, they make the same thing for baby humans too. It was particularly hilarious watching this small person trying to fit herself into the cat-sized version of a toy that she had at home and Anabel’s reaction to this person trying to play with her favorite toy.

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This morning while I was trying to get myself organized to start work, Sally came around looking for some attention.  Which of course meant that I had to stop whatever I was trying to start doing and give him some.  I scratched his chin a bit and when he was walking away, I grabbed the end of his tail and shook it.

There was something about the way the morning light was coming in from the windows that lit up all the dust that came flying out of his fluffy tail.  It was like shaking out a feather duster!  Of course, my first thought was bath time!  But I also realized that I hadn’t really thought about how much dust these kitties must pick up as they go through their days waving their fluffy tails around the house.

Mr. Man and I tend to only think about the messes that the cats make – cat hair on everything, cat food all over the floor by their bowls, the little bits of cardboard that they rip out of their cardboard cat scratchers…we never think about what they do to help clean up around here. I decided that today I would give the kitties credit for all the ways they help keep things clean.

Aside from their fluffy, feather duster-like tails, they also have very fluffy tummies that make excellent dry mops as they slide and roll around on the wood floors. You would think that they wouldn’t like chasing their toys around on the wood floors, where it is harder to get a grip. But the slipping and sliding is part of the fun.  Anabel has some moves when she is chasing after her ballerina mouse where she starts to slide, then sprawls out and spins around.  She winds up facing the opposite direction.  Sally prefers the belly-flop slide when he is playing catch with Mr. Man.  He chases after the toy mouse, sliding in to capture it.  Then he picks up his prize and returns it to his playmate.  Mr. Man can get the whole floor dusted just by varying where he throws the mouse!

Anabel and Sally also have that well-documented cat quality of not tolerating cluttered surfaces.  When we leave something laying around where it shouldn’t be, we aren’t surprised when we find it on the floor.  Many times, we find it because we step on it (ouch!). One of these days the cats will finally train us to put things back where they belong in the first place.

And perhaps one of the most under-appreciated ways that they help out with keeping things cleaned up around here is their paper-shredding talents.  Anabel is particularly concerned with potential identity theft and will regularly shred any papers she finds sitting out.  She was quite fanatical about it when she was a kitten; I have the scraps of book covers to prove it.  As she’s matured, she has become more selective about what she feels needs to be shredded, although she continues to have a big hang up about post-it notes.

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There once was a book about a very old man and a very old woman.  It was the oldest, continually published, illustrated book.  Because cats.

“If only we had a cat, then we would be happy,” she said.

But not hundreds of cats,

Or thousands of cats,

Or millions, and billions, and trillions of cats.

That is too many cats.

One cat is quite nice.  Personally though, two cats is purrfect.

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I was surprised when I looked over at Anabel and found her in an adorable cat loaf position.  I peeked around the corner and so was Sally!  These kitties tend to favor the sprawled-out-on-one-side position so two, very proper cat loaves caught my attention.

Fortunately, I took photos right away because these loaves degenerated into sphinx, then quickly to sprawl positions.

It turns out that the cat loaf position is just another relaxed cat posture, much like the sprawl.  It tends to be favored when it is cooler as it is an excellent position with which to conserve body heat.  I guess it was a cooler morning, like maybe 70 degrees.  Personally, I like it when the house drops below 78 overnight, but it has been pretty hot for so long that I suppose a kitten could feel chilled.  

Another indicator of a cat loaf being relaxed is having their paws tucked under.  My favorite variation of this is when their paws are curled inward, just in front of their chest. Of course, you can always find something on the internet to worry about and one of the articles that I read about cat loaf warned that it may also be an indication of a cat who has an injured paw.  So, if your cat suddenly and consistently assumes the cat loaf position, if may be time for a paw check.

As I write this, Anabel has taken up in the same spot.  She and Sally are both in their more common sprawled-out-heap-of-cat posture.

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