The Ivan and Boo Chronicles

Daffodils are Toxic to Cats; New Cat Food - Blue Buffalo

2011-03-18T18:36:00.000-07:00

Greetings! It's been over a year since we've posted! We have simply been very busy with life. However, we plan to do our best to post a bit more regularly now.

Earlier this week we bought some cut daffodils and brought them home and put them in a vase. We planned to take them to work the next morning to enjoy in the office. As with all cut flowers, unless we know for certain that they are not toxic to cats, we planned to put these in a closed room overnight so that the cats could not get to them. However, we were distracted and forgot to do so.

The next morning we got up and fed the cats as per the normal morning routine. Ivan wasn't terribly interested in his kibble, which is unusual, but he scarfed down his ration of canned food. However, almost immediately he threw it up. Then he went and sat in his "don't bother me" spot, and we knew he didn't feel well. Was there something in his environment that may have caused this? We spied the daffodils. Hmm. We inspected them for signs of cat chewing, and there we found that a cat had eaten about the equivalent of one petal. We immediately hit the Internet to see whether daffodils are toxic to cats.

We found quite a bit of good information that indicated that daffodils are toxic. The bulbs are the most toxic (they contain all the energy that the plant needs to survive). Thankfully Ivan had eaten only one petal. The consensus seemed to be that if he did not vomit again and did not get diarrhea, that he had probably thrown up all the offending material and would recover on his own. This is exactly what happened. We did read about instances where cats got very sick from daffodil ingestion, requiring veterinary care, and there are one or two documented cases of cats dying from the effects of daffodil ingestion. WHEW! We were lucky!

As some cats are wont to do, Boo cleaned up Ivan's vomitus. Later that evening Boo didn't seem as hungry as usual. We wondered if that might be because he had eaten some of the daffodil material in the vomitus. But he was fine the next morning. However, the moral of the story is that you should be careful with any plants in the house. Ivan does have pica (he eats things that he shouldn't, namely fabric), but any cat might eat plants, even poisonous ones.

Now to things that cats should eat. You may recall that we have discussed cat food here in the past. We wanted to make sure we gave Ivan and Boo the best food possible, to try to avoid the cancer that struck our two previous cats, who, though aged 20 and 7, died only 10 days apart. We were also concerned about obesity in our cats, and after discussions with our vet and some research on our own, we decided to put them on grain-free diets. Our vet recommended Evo.

The cats really like Evo, but it's not always easy to get. Only two stores in the San Jose area sell it, and neither is terribly close to us. So we started looking around at the PetSmart near our house to see what kind of grain free, high protein options they had. We found something called By Nature and By Nature Organics. They had a grain-free variety in dry and canned form. The price was good and the cats liked it. End of story.

Not exactly. This week we went to stock up, and there was one bag of By Nature left, and no cans. There was a sign saying that PetSmart would no longer be carrying it. THANKS, PETSMART. So we had to do some quick research to figure out what to get!

We found Blue Buffalo. They have a high protein, low carb, grain free line called Blue Wilderness. It is supposedly patterned after the diet of the wild lynx, and the line sports a lynx on the bag and cans. Their other lines are wheat and soy free, but they do contain rice. However, our vet really has no problem with rice as long as there are no other grains or soy in the mix.

We have just started feeding the boys the Blue Buffalo canned food (we bought the Blue Wilderness cans, as well as the Spa Select and Healthy Gourmet cans - the latter two contain rice). We have a little By Nature kibble to finish before we start them on the Blue Wildnerss kibble. We will keep you posted on their progress.

New Toys

2009-12-12T22:21:00.000-08:00

We rotate Ivan and Boo's toys, so that once they get bored with the current rotation, we can pull out some things they haven't seen in a while, and they think they've got new toys. This week we brought out a couple of items that were still in their packaging, not having been opened yet. We also purchased a new item and put it into immediate use.

One of the items we've had for a while but only just opened is the SnazzyKat NosyMouse. This is a smallish mouse made of shiny fabric with feathers on its back. We assumed it contained catnip, but when the cats were not terribly interested in it, we checked the packaging, and here's what it says on the back: "To lure your cat to play, store or roll NosyMouse in SnazzyKat organic catnip (sold separately)." Well, at least they tell us you have to supply your own catnip, even if it is in fine print! We are storing the toy in catnip at this moment, and we will report back later on how interested the cats are in it once it reeks of nepetalactone (the feline-attracting chemical in catnip).

Another item we had in the cats' toy storage box but had not yet opened is the Lazy Pet Products 8 in 1 Kookamunga Catter Up (I swear I did not make that name up). This is one of those toys that hangs from the top of the door, supposedly enticing cats to bat it about. The cats are mildly interested in it. We hang it next to their Kittywalk Cozy Climber, and they bat at it from inside the Cozy Climber. The toy consists of a hanger, a long string, and a ball and feathers attached at the end of the string. We're not sure where the "8 in 1" comes in, and there's no explanation with the packaging.

The last toy is the biggest hit. We pulled out an old "cat fishing pole" (a stick with string and a lure tied at the end of the string) with the remains of a feather on the end of the string, and Ivan went nuts over the old feather, so we decided to look at PetSmart for a new feather to attach. Not finding that, we instead found a whole new cat fishing pole with feathers on the end for only $3.99. So we bought it. Ivan went nuts over it immediately. Even Boo was interested in it! Ivan gets so involved with the feathers that he growls as though he is guarding prey! We can get Ivan running back and forth and jumping after it, twisting and turning gymnastically in mid-air. Boo, on the other hand, will run in circles after it, tearing up the carpet with his claws. This toy is made by ToyShoppe Playables and is called the Feather Wand Teaser.

Mind you, Ivan and Boo went nuts over the Cat Dancer and the Cat-Aerobics Action Toy (both similar to the "cat fishing pole" type toy), but then grew tired of them. That may happen with this Feather Wand Teaser, also. But we'll keep bringing it out for the boys as long as they show interest.

That reminds us - the Fling-a-Ma-String has been out of circulation in our house for a few months. It's probably just about time to bring it out again and see Ivan and Boo react to it as though it were brand new!

More for Cats Who Like to Chew

2009-11-21T13:52:00.000-08:00

Ivan loves to chew. He chews the cardboard on cat scratchers, he chews the wrist strap on cameras, iPods, Wii remotes, and other portable electronic devices. He even occasionally chews small cables. And, if you're a regular reader here, you know that he likes to chew fabric - especially clothing.

We wanted to try to redirect his passion for chewing so that it would not be so destructive. We tried cat chew toys (yes, PetStages makes cat chew toys that are intended for teething kittens), we tried rawhide chews made for dogs, etc. We eventually found dried chicken breast strips, marketed for dogs and sold by Trader Joe's. The cats went nuts over these, and the strips seemed to satisfy some of Ivan's chewing urges. However, Trader Joe's stopped carrying those, so we had to find an alternative source. We did, at PetSmart. However (again), we read, after feeding those to the cats for months, that those made in China seemed to cause some health problems in dogs. Knowing about the Chinese melamine pet food scandal, we decided to stop buying dried chicken made in China. Unfortunately, EVERY brand of the chicken strips we could find was made in China! So for the past year or so, Ivan hasn't had much to chew on except what little he could find in the house that we had not already removed from his reach. We substituted freeze dried salmon and shrimp cat treats for the chicken strips, and while the cats love the salmon and shrimp, neither is terribly chewy.

Well, Trader Joe's started carrying a product for dogs that looked interesting. It is a piece of rolled rawhide wrapped in dried chicken breast. Hmm. And it's made in the U.S.A.! Of course, it didn't have to be made here. We would have bought it if it were made just about anywhere but China. But it is made here. We gave each cat one of these, and they went wild! They threw these chicken breast wraps in the air, knocked them around, and pounced on them and chewed the heck out of them. FINALLY! Not only do they like to chew these things, but they like to play with them, too! We hope to have less cardboard and fabric chewing in our future! See Ivan in the photo below looking rather guilty about his bad habit.

Trader Joe's also carries the chicken breast strips again, but we find the chicken breast wraps (with rawhide) to elicit more chewing from the boys. They gobble the breast strips down pretty quickly, and while the chicken is low carb and high protein, the boys are on diets (being indoor cats, they tend to be less active than outdoor cats and so gain weight, despite being on a no-grain, low carb diet already), and the chicken breast wraps have a bit less chicken and require more work (and burning of calories) to get it.

Be very careful in giving these kinds of treats to your cats. You may even wish to speak to your vet about giving your cat the dehydrated chicken breast. We are lucky that our cats are chewers, so they very thoroughly chew the dried chicken and have no problems swallowing or digesting it. But all cats may not be quite so adept at handling the dried chicken. If you want to try it with your cats, break off a very small piece of the chicken and let them eat it. Then slowly increase the size of the piece. The good thing about the chicken breast wraps is that the chicken is wrapped around the rawhide roll, and the cats have to chew bites of the chicken off the rawhide. The chicken is a bit crumbly and so they aren't getting big pieces. But the dehydrated chicken strips are definitely a bit more chewy.

We Love Feliway, and ModernCat's New Boutique

2009-11-12T22:27:00.000-08:00

FELIWAY

We love the Feliway diffuser. Feliway is a synthetic version of feline facial pheromones. When your cat rubs his or her face on you, or a corner of table, or a wall corner, or anything else, s/he is rubbing a pheromone of well-being onto those objects. It is a form of marking, but not necessarily a territorial type of marking, like urine marking or vertical scratching. So veterinarians decided that this pheromone was a good thing, and that diffusing it into the local atmosphere would keep cats calm. They also found that it reduced territorial behavior like urine marking and vertical scratching.

I'm here to tell you that it works! We first used it when our 20-year old male cat Ian was diagnosed with cancer. He was given prednisone tablets, which helped him somewhat, but the Feliway diffuser, after a few weeks, really seemed to help Ian calm down and feel more relaxed. He had fairly advanced lymphoma, but with the use of the Feliway and prednisone, he lived a comfortable two months, during which he was eating well and interacting a lot with us.

After we lost Ian, having lost our dear Aggie 10 days earlier, we adopted two kittens, littermates, from our feral cat colony in the country. The Feliway helped Ivan and Boo transition into their new home. Now it helps them remain calm when their tendency is to fight over who is top cat. We can tell when it's time to replace the Feliway diffuser refill - Ivan starts terrorizing Boo! Boo, though the bigger, heavier cat, is so polite that he will not fight back much. So the Feliway diffuser is a true aid in keeping these silly brothers from fighting in the first place.

The diffuser is very simple to use. It is a small unit that plugs unobtrusively into a wall outlet. You screw in a diffuser refill, which lasts about 30 days. The refills are admittedly pricey (typically around $25.00 US), but it's a small price to pay for maintaining peace in the household, not to mention preserving furniture and carpets! We occasionally find the refills on sale and stock up. There is also a Feliway spray, which is useful for spraying in a cat carrier, when you need to take an uncooperative kitty to the vet, or for spraying in a room, when a new kitty has arrived but is in seclusion before being slowly introduced to the indigenous cat population.

MODERNCAT BOUTIQUE

Our friends at ModernCat have opened a new shop in Phoenix. They plan to make their wares available via Etsy. Check them out at their Facebook page to keep track of when you can buy their products on line. And if you're in Phoenix, drop by and pay them a visit.

Cat-Aerobics, and a Bolt Update

2009-10-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, even cats need some aerobic exercise. Exercising your cat keeps him fit, not to mention out of trouble! Cats who don't get exercise can get bored and develop bad habits. Even though we don't have dogs, and are pretty much bona fide cat people, we watch The Dog Whisperer, and his credo is "exercise, discipline, and affection" in that order. The exercise is important because it provides a natural energy drain. In the wild, dogs and cats would be hunting to live, and that would take up a lot of their time and energy. Domesticated animals don't need to hunt to live, so, unless we provide them some exercise opportunities, they build up a lot of energy that needs to be dissipated somehow. If it is not dissipated through exercise, it is often dissipated through other means, and those means may be undesirable.

This is why we are on a quest for toys that really engage our cats and get them moving. We've reviewed several here already. Another that we recently found is the Cat-Aerobics "Action Toy" and step-by-step aerobics program. Yep, that's what it says on the package! The package contains a toy that is somewhat similar to the Cat Dancer (see our previous blog entry), but improved upon. That is saying a lot.

We were astounded by how our cats reacted to the Cat Dancer. It is such a simple thing: a piece of baling wire with cardboard rolls attached at the ends. Ivan and Boo went nuts over it and even asked us (in their inimitable feline way) to get it out each day. Now they do that with the Cat-Aerobics toy, but even more! Why? Because the makers of the Cat-Aerobics toy have, as mentioned, improved upon the Cat Dancer theme by enhancing it. They've added a wooden handle for the human on one end, and a colorful lure on the other end for the finicky feline.

Also included in the Cat-Aerobics package is a booklet entitled CAT-Aerobics EXERCISE PROGRAM Instructions. This little booklet contains some good ideas for exercising your cat, some as simple as scratching him under the chin to more complex movements of the toy that cause him to jump into the air.

Ivan and Boo went nuts over this toy the moment it came out of the package. They turn into panting maniacs when we drag this toy around the room. The rubber, critter-like lure on the end seems to be the big attraction. Congratulations, SunRae Products, for improving on what we thought was the ultimate cat toy!

We bought this product ourselves and did not receive a review sample from the manufacturer.

FROLICAT BOLT UPDATE

After three months of fun, the Bolt laser toy decided to stop working in automatic mode last week. We searched the web for a FAQ that might tell us how to fix it, but instead we found the manufacturer's site and checked the on-line product user guide, which indicated that they would repair or replace a defective Bolt within one year of purchase. Here's the text from the user guide:

If you have questions about BOLT™ or any of our products, please call us toll free at (888) 726-MEOW (6369) to speak with one of our knowledgeable cat-loving staff. If there is ever a problem, FroliCat will replace or repair your BOLT interactive laser toy for one year. Just call our toll-free number.

We called the number, and as we are on the West Coast, and they are in Chicago, and it was late in our business day, we got voice mail for "Sarah". We left Sarah a message, explaining that we'd purchased the Bolt about three months ago, and it suddenly stopped working in auto-mode. We told her we had the receipt for purchase, and we wondered what we needed to do to get the item repaired or replaced, and we left our call-back number. Sarah's greeting indicated that we would be called back on the next business day. The next business day was Friday. We did not receive a call back. Today, the third business day after we left our message, we still have not had a response.

If the Bolt web site had not indicated they would repair or replace, and if Sarah's voice mail had not indicated that we would be contacted on the next business day, perhaps we would not be so disappointed in this crummy customer service. Maye we should have told them that we have a cat product review blog and had already given the Bolt a glowing review. But we didn't. Since then, because the cats have really missed their Bolt in auto mode, we bought a new one. They are $19.99 at PetSmart. That's a bit pricey to last only three months! FroliCat, if you read this review and are interested in repairing or replacing the defective Bolt (or simply refunding us the cost of the replacement we bought ourselves), drop us a line.

The Kritter Kondo Lets Your Indoor Cats Go Outside Safely

2009-10-11T19:19:00.000-07:00

We were excited when we ran across KritterKondo on Twitter. We checked out their associated web site and discovered that they were developing a cat playpen for cats who live in condominiums, apartments, or townhomes. Space might be limited indoors, but with the Kritter Kondo, kitties could play safely outside.

After a few months, we got word that the Kritter Kondo was finally available for purchase! We contacted Lisa, the owner and mastermind behind the Kondo, and asked if she would be interested in covering the shipping cost to send us a Kondo for review. She immediately agreed, so we saved around $18. We paid only for the Kondo itself, which currently sells for $124.99.

It took a week and a half or so, but the Kondo finally arrived via UPS. It comes with its own padded carrying case that has lots of pockets inside for holding the bag of pins that give the Kondo its structural integrity, plus it can hold lots of your own supplies - pet food and treats, people snacks/water, pretty much anything you like! The case is large, so the shoulder strap on it is a must. It is relatively easy to tote around - from the car to the patio, or from the car to the park or beach - you get the idea. The carrying case measures 30 inches tall by 36 inches wide and about five inches thick.

We first set up the Kondo indoors, to let the kitties get accustomed to it. It's easy to set up. Lay it flat on the ground, with the base frame on the bottom, and lift up the two ends. Then you insert the eight pins and voilá, you're done, and the Kondo is ready for its residents to enter!

Ivan and Boo checked it out for the couple of days that we had it open in the house. Then we made some space on our patio (which is currently pretty well occupied by potted plants, a small table and chairs, and a barbecue grill!) and set the Kondo up outside. It is a perfect fit on our patio! And it is quite spacious, even for two adult cats. They had room to walk around and check things out. They had quite the afternoon in the sun! The fully opened enclosure is 2 feet tall, 2.5 feet wide, and a whopping 5.5 feet long!

Almost every evening we open the sliding glass door that leads to the patio and we leave the screen door shut, and the boys love to lounge in front of the screen. We tried to escape-proof the patio with the plastic equivalent of chicken wire, but we are not convinced that the cats won't find some miniscule escape route, so we rarely let them out, and when we do, it's only for a few moments. However, the Kritter Kondo puts all our fears of escape to rest! We can leave the boys on the patio and go answer the phone or the door, or take a bathroom break, and we know they'll be fine. This is a great load off our minds!

The boys love the opportunity to be outside and smell the smells, hear the sounds, and see the sights. The sun was warm on them today, and they lounged in it. The birds were flitting about, and the boys clucked at them (you've probably had cats who do that!). There were leaves dancing about on the cement of the patio, and the cats batted at them. It was a wonderful afternoon!

The KritterKondo appears to be very well-designed and well-made. It is ridiculously easy to set up and take down. The door opens and closes easily and has a latch to make sure it stays shut when your cats are inside. You'll want to get a zip-loc type bag to store the pins in - the bag of pins will slip right into one of the pockets inside the Kondo storage bag.

There are other companies that make cat "playpens" and outdoor pens, but this is the biggest one at the best price. We haven't seen any other outdoor cat pens of this size, certainly not at this price. And you don't have to live in an apartment to use the Kritter Kondo. We recommend it for anyone who wants their cats to enjoy the outdoors without the risk of them escaping or running away. The Kritter Kondo is available from Kritter Kommunity at www.kritterkommunity.com. Tell them Ivan and Boo sent you.

Please be sure to provide your cats with a shaded area while they are in the Kritter Kondo. Lay a towel over one end of the enclosure, or set it up so that it is partially shaded by a tree. Cats can get sunburned and can even get skin cancer from sun exposure, especially cats who have white fur on part or all of the body.

Your Cats Will Beg You for this Toy

2009-08-10T22:23:00.001-07:00

Seriously. Since when do cats beg? Apparently since they were made aware of a toy called "The Original Cat Dancer". Huh? Yes, I ran across reviews of this toy on Amazon.com when purchasing other cat items, and the reviews were so overwhelmingly positive, to the point of gushing, that I had to check this thing out.

I had no idea what it was. The Amazon.com entry didn't really describe the item very well. And on receipt of it, I could see why. It is ridiculously simple. It's basically a yard-long piece of bailing wire with some cardboard bits attached at each end. If you read about a cat toy like that, would you buy it?

Of course not! At least, not unless you were somehow convinced that it magically attracts cats, like the pied piper attracted rats. So how does it work?

I'd like to know as much as you would. I really have no idea

why our cats go absofreakinlutely insane over this thing. The first time we showed it to them, they went nuts immediately and we had to put the toy away after 15 minutes or so, before they had heart attacks from over-exertion. That's pretty much a first for any toy. With all other toys, they eventually get tired. But not with this one.

And, yes, just as the title of this blog entry says, your cats will beg you for this toy. Ours do. We come home in the evening and feed them, and the moment they have finished eating they start meowing at us and standing in front of the cabinet where we keep

the Cat Dancer. (We have to put it away when not in use or they'd find it and obsess over it and do who-knows-what to it!) They are not satisfied until the Cat Dancer comes out and engages them. And "engages" is a mild term for what really happens. They turn into crazed predators. They run back and forth as we drag this thing across the floor, and they also leap through the air after it if we dangle it above them. They get so involved in chasing the Cat Dancer that they actually pant like dogs from the exertion (and yes, we've had them thoroughly checked by the vet, and they're hale and hearty - no worries about the panting). Even Boo, who is normally tough to motivate with toys, goes wild over this one.

The best part about this toy? It currently sells NEW on Amazon.com for $5.31. Well, when you consider what it's made of, you'll think that's a fortune, but once you see how your cats react to it, you'll think it's one of the best deals ever.

By the way, the boys still love The Bolt laser toy. We turn it on before we leave for work in the morning (and let it shut itself off in 15 minutes).

On other cat topics, I came across a web site, recently, called The Random Cat Project. The site's premise is a truly enlightened idea and makes for touching content. The site's creators have filmed and photographed random cats that they've encountered while walking through London, and they've posted the photos and videos at the site. They are soliciting similar photos and videos of random cat encounters from all over the world. I was so smitten by this web site that I sent the link to, among several others, ModernCat, and they posted it in their newsletter/blog. So now it's my turn. Lovely idea, Neil & Co., keep up the great work, and we'll be on the look-out for random cats to document here in Silicon Valley.

Laser Toys Everywhere

2009-08-03T22:01:00.000-07:00

We've been using laser pointers with our cats for many years. We first noticed our dear Mala (R.I.P.) running madly after the small circle of light that reflected off my watch face. But that only worked when there was direct sunlight in the vicinity. Then laser pointers appeared, and we recognized immediately that these pointers would make great cat entertainment! Those early laser pointers really sucked up the battery power, however, and they used unusual batteries (those small hearing-aid type batteries) that were not always very easy to find. But, nevertheless, our cats learned to recognize the sound of the laser pointer as it was being picked up (it had a key chain on it that jingled) - that's how much they loved to chase The Red Dot!

Recently several cat products have come on the market that purport to entertain cats with lasers while the humans get on with other business. This is a bit sad, because half the fun of the laser pointer is to get your cat flinging himself crazily around the house after The Red Dot, and laughing insanely at his silly antics. However, we're pretty sure that a few cases of tendonitis arose among cat owners who went a little bonkers with the laser pointers, and relief from that would be welcome. And sometimes, we have to admit, we just don't have as much time as we'd like to spend a lot of play time with the feline members of our families. So these automatic cat toys were definitely intriguing.

The first we found was the "Ba-Da-Beam Rotating Laser Cat Toy" made by Multipet Inernational Inc. Bit of a mouthful, that. But it looked interesting - it's shaped a bit like a NASA space capsule from the 60s, and it has a lid on top that lifts up to reveal a mirror and a laser. The mirror adjusts to two different positions so that one can direct The Red Dot at the floor or at a wall. Clever! It was $16.99 at PetSmart. Our cats are not as enamored of The Red Dot on the wall as they are of it on the floor, so we used the floor setting. However, the floor setting resulted in a Red Dot that moved languidly in a fairly small-diameter (2 to 3 inches) oval. It stopped every so often and sat for half a second, only to start its weary rotations again. The cats were fairly interested in it at first but seemed to quickly grow bored with it.

We fiddled with the lid/mirror, to see if we could entice it into any positions between "floor" and "wall". No luck. So we stacked a few things under one edge of the "capsule". This did result in some better laser action. The Red Dot actually moved in a larger oval, which interested the cats a bit more. And the Ba-Da-Beam has an automatic shut-off, so we could turn it on and let the cats play, and it would turn off after about 15 minutes. This is not described in the instructions - that makes it a Bonus Feature! The instructions do state that the Ba-Da-Beam may be held in the hand for a more "interactive" experience. We tried that, and Ivan perked up quiet a bit. He looked like he had suddenly acquired a palsy of some sort, his head bobbing in a manner reminiscient of an elderly Katherine Hepburn. Ivan was more interested in The Red Dot when the Ba-Da-Beam was held in the hand than when it was set on a table or on the floor. But that sort of defeats the purpose - it was the "automatic" nature of the toy that was most enticing. However, on the bright side, the Ba-Da-Beam comes with batteries included! That's a rarity.

We saw a review of the Bolt automatic laser toy in the ModernCat blog. We then kept seeing ads for it in our pet insurance e-mail newsletters (through Pet Product Advisor). However, if we ordered it through Pet Product Advisor, we had to pay shipping. So we checked at our neighborhood PetSmart to see if they carried the Bolt.

The first time we checked, they did not have the Bolt, but they did have the Ba-Da-Beam, and that's when we purchased that toy. We checked a couple more times, but no Bolt, until today, when we went into PetSmart to get some cat litter. Voila, there was the Bolt! It's hard to miss once you've seen what it looks like. It looks a bit like a bowling pin with a hole near the top where the mirror and laser are located. It was $19.99. Not including batteries (it takes 4 AAs).

The Bolt, made by FroliCat, is the laser toy perfected. It can be placed on any flat surface - a table, a counter, the floor - and turned on, and The Red Dot moves about semi-randomly. The movement is reminiscent of the movement of the Undercover Mouse toy. Its basic track is a circle (or oval, in the case of the Bolt) but it moves forward and backward along the circle in random motions, stopping and changing direction constantly. That kind of random movement drives cats crazy. Once we set it up and the cats got accustomed to it, even Boo was chasing it, and Boo is fairly difficult to motivate when it comes to chasing things. And, the best part about the Bolt is that the mirror is adjustable, so you can have The Red Dot moving in wide arcs across floors, walls, and even ceilings, or you can have it move in a fairly small arc, to keep it right in front of kitties who lose interest once The Object of Their Interest moves out of their line of vision. The Bolt also has a 15-minute automatic shut-off, so that the cats don't keel over from too much exertion. Truly, that is sometimes a concern with hyper Ivan!

So if we had to choose between the two laser toys discussed here, we would definitely choose the Bolt. For $3 more than the Ba-Da-Beam you get a much more adjustable toy that works well entertaining cats while you go off to clean the bathroom, but it also works as a hand held laser, allowing you to interact a bit more with your feline friends.

The Kittywalk Cozy Climber and Music for Pets

2009-07-09T21:18:00.000-07:00

Ivan and Boo spend most of their time in our small apartment. They travel well, so when we go up north to our 20 acres in the mountains, they go with us, but work's been busy so we haven't gotten out of town as much as we'd like this year. The apartment is only about 800 square feet (real estate is insanely expensive, even for leasing, in the San Francisco Bay Area). So we have got to work to find ways to maximize that room so the boys get some decent exercise.

One way we maximize the room is with the Kittywalk Cozy Climber. This ingenious "hanging cat tree" attaches to any interior door. It has four levels, with holes between each level to allow the cat to climb to different levels easily. However, Ivan often climbs up the Cozy Climber on the outside and sits atop the "roof"! He's the daredevil in the family.

The boys love the Cozy Climber and often sleep in it. They also use it as a refuge when they know we are getting ready for bed and plan to boot them out of the bedroom for the night (we do that so they can't jump on our heads at 3:30am in the morning, wanting to play). The only way we can get them out of it is to offer them dehydrated salmon (we've talked about that salmon here before).
One of the many attractive features of the Cozy Climber is the ease with which you can hang it and take it down. We take it down each night because it is on our bedroom door, and if we leave it hanging, the boys jump in and out of it during the night and rattle our bedroom door. So we take it down, and then hang it up again each morning. Of course, this amounts to one less distraction for them during the night, meaning they often get into mischief while we are sleeping!

We purchased our Cozy Climber as an "open box" item on Amazon.com for around $100. Currently Amazon.com is selling them for about $160.00. However, we saw it as low as $148 via a search on Google.

Kittywalk makes some great products. We also own the Kittywalk SUV Pet Stroller, which easily holds both Ivan and Boo (at the same time!). We'll review this product in a future blog entry. And we are eyeing the Kittywalk Deck and Patio system. We'd love to let the boys lounge outside in the sunshine on our patio in one of these. However, there is another similar item we are looking at from another manufacturer, the KritterKondo. We'll let you know if we choose one over the other and what we think of whatever we choose.

Another cat-related item we acquired is the Music My Pet CD of "Classic Cuts". This is a CD that offers classical music pieces that, studies show, help to calm cats and dogs. It's also pretty darn calming for humans! We've played it for Ivan and Boo, and they do seem to mellow a bit when it's playing. A web site that we found through our pet insurance, Pet Product Advisor, offers this CD for $12.99. However, they were out of it when we tried to order it, so we found it on Amazon. com (I swear that we do not own stock in Amazon.com!) for a bit more, though at the moment they offer it for the same price as Pet Product Advisor! The CD contains calming pieces by Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, and Schumann., as well as Schubert and Scarlatti, and, finally, Chopin. We understand that the studies done on this topic found that cats and dogs seem to prefer music that remains even in tempo and volume, as well as frequency. The reviews of this product on Amazon.com all recommend the product and indicate that it works well to calm pets!

One last item: we received a sample of bonita flake cat treats from Pur'fect Cat Treats. The boys love these as much as the dehydrated salmon! The only difference is that the bonita flakes are soft and very thin and small. However, if your cats are on a diet, these would be just the right treats for them!

That Big Furry Cat Toy

2009-06-21T19:21:00.001-07:00

Remember the furry cat toy we mentioned a few entries ago? We finally got the information on it from our local pet store. The product is made by Vo-Toys, under the "V.I.P" brand (stands for "Very Important Pet") and the line is called "Furry Friends". We found today that they make the large sized toy, which we purchased a few weeks ago and which Ivan and Boo love, and they make a smaller one, as well, which is $1.00 cheaper. We had not heard of Vo-Toys before buying these furry toys, but their web site shows that they have quite a few items available for cats, including many furry mice and similar toys. Our cats seem to really like fur, so this is a good find.

You may also remember our mention of the cat cubes that we found at Target recently for a very inexpensive price. We found a tunnel to attach to the cubes (it velcroes on), and we created a nice tunnel-cube-pyramid play area for the cats. It doesn't happen to be color-coordinated with the cubes we already had, but hey, we're pretty sure the cats don't mind. Plus, the tunnel has that crinkly, paper-sack sound that a lot of cat-toy manufacturers are using these days. (Ivan used to be afraid of that sound, owing to the fact that he got a paper grocery bag around his neck when he was younger and ran around the house trying to get away from it for a few minutes before we could catch him and remove it! However, he seems to have finally gotten over that aversion.)The product is made by "Sport Pet Designs". The cat cubes and pyramid we already had are made by "Pet Essentials" but we suspect these two companies are related and both supply pet products to Target. In fact, there is a photo on the back of the "Kitty Tunnel" which shows the cat cubes and pyramids that we already have, but in a different color scheme. This tunnel, like the cubes, was under $10.00. Ivan loves to take his toys into the tunnel-cube-pyramid system. He also loves to zoom into the tunnel, hang out in one of the cubes or the pyramid for a while, and then zoom out.

Great Interactive Toy - The Tornado

2009-05-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

Recently we saw a reference to dog toys created by Nina Ottosson. The reference was in a cat context, and the writer suggested that the Ottosson toys, though designed for dogs, were great for cats. We had never heard of Nina Ottosson, so we googled her, and we found quite a bit of information on her and her toys. We also found several toys that even she recommends for use with cats. The above link goes straight to her own site.

Ottosson creates toys that challenge dogs (and cats), and that force the animals to use their brains. We've been looking for toys like this for a long time. We have one item, which we ordered from Drs. Foster and Smith, called the Peek-a Prize Toy Box. It's a box with holes along all but its bottom panel. It comes with balls to bat around, but we put treats in it, forcing the cats to work to get the treats. Boo, seeming to have some Maine Coon blood, puts his paw in, curls his toes around the treat, and pulls it straight up out of the box! Ivan has to work a bit harder, but he uses a bit more ingenuity to get his treats. The photo here is from the Drs. Foster and Smith web site.

We wanted something a bit more challenging for our cats, so when we heard about the Ottosson toys, we were very interested. After reading about several of her toys, we were most intrigued by the "Tornado". It was specifically marketed for dogs and cats. Ottosson does have a page at her site where she indicates the featured toys can be used by dogs, cats, "Polecats, Mini pigs, Parrots, Ratts [sic], Horses..." However, the Tornado looked to us like the easiest one for cats to use. (The word polecat, by the way, refers to a different animal in Europe than it does in the U.S. In the U.S. it is a skunk, but in Europe it refers to another member of the Mustelid family which we in the U.S. would call a ferret). Interestingly, the skill level of the Tornado is listed as "hard" on the box, but Ivan figured out the general principle, at least, in a matter of seconds! Of course, most cat lovers would argue that cats are more intelligent than dogs, and that this is proof. However, as we love cats and dogs, we will refrain from getting embroiled in that argument!

The Tornado is a bone-shaped toy (hey, the cats don't notice!) composed of different levels with compartments. Each level rotates separately around the center of the toy - hence the name Tornado. The cat must use its nose and/or paws to move the different levels and expose the compartments. We placed a piece of freeze-dried salmon in each compartment, and then we rotated all pieces so that each level lined up with the others and all compartments were covered. The salmon has a relatively strong smell which the cats love, and so they become intent on finding each piece (needless to say, they also love to eat the salmon!).

We videotaped Ivan and Boo (mostly Ivan) having a go with the Tornado.

We put a piece of salmon in each compartment and let them have at it. The video is only about three and a half minutes long, but the total elapsed time it took Ivan to find every piece of salmon was about 10 minutes. That's a long time to keep a cat busy! Even if you don't watch the entire video, just watching a few seconds of it will give you an idea of how it works.

We highly recommend this toy to mentally stimulate your cat(s). However, we have to add that they are not very interested in finding Greenies in this toy. These boys will only work for freeze dried salmon (which we discussed in a previous blog entry)! We purchased the toy from Dogs in Play via Amazon.com. It was $49.99. This is expensive, but after seeing our cats with it, we feel it is well worth the price. However, with a bit of web research, you may be able to find it for a lower price.

Another Litter Box Alternative, but This One Looks Good!

2009-05-17T22:33:00.000-07:00

Just got word about a new product called the ModKat Litter Box. This thing looks COOL! Not only does it have an unusual shape and profile for a litter box, but entry is from the top ("roof")! Further, the liner (pictured below)is re-usable! It's made of a tarpaulin material and has built in handles for ease of lifting in and out, and it's very easy to clean. Wait there's more! It comes with a well-designed litter scoop that has a brush on one edge! And the scoop snaps right on the side of the box.

Don't let the above photo fool you -- there are four different colors available, at least per the web site.

This box should reduce litter tracking, as the cat will shed litter he's collected in his pads while climbing out of the box. And the holes in the "roof" not only provide ventilation, but they also allow litter that falls from the cat's paws to drop back into the box.

Shortly after first hearing about this gem, we learned it won the ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) Editor's award for accessories. Not bad!

You can sign up at the ModKat web site to be notified when this litter box is available. There are also many more photos at the web site. And kudos to the ModernCat blog/newsletter for alerting us to this cool find!

Corny Cats and Furry Toys and Litter Robots

2009-05-13T18:35:00.001-07:00

Corn litter. It's a great idea. It's biodegradable, it's renewable, it's non-toxic. It works in the Litter Robot. It's also dust-free and doesn't track much, and we don't have to worry about Ivan or Boo developing a giant ball of bentonite in the gut from licking clay litter off their paws.

These are good things.

The corn litter makes the laundry room (where the litter boxes are) smell like Corn Chex. And for some reason, Corn Chex Scent does not mix well with cat urine or feces - the smell is not easily described. Suffice it to say that it's not exactly pleasant.

These are bad things.

Since the good outweigh the bad, we decided to purchase a product that our pet insurance newsletter has been recommending: Zero Odor. It supposedly neutralizes odor-causing microbes and is marketed specifically for use in litter boxes. So why not try it? If that helps with the Corn-Chex-Cat-Waste scent action going on in our laundry room, the story will have a happy ending.

We just received the Zero Odor yesterday. We decided to test it immediately. First, we needed to get a good baseline whiff of the litterbox. After thoroughly scooping the box, we sniffed, recoiled, and then took the bottle of Zero Odor and gave it several good squirts into the litterbox. Then we immediately sniffed again. The recoil reaction was not as strong. So either we'd maxed out our Corn-Chex-Cat-Waste olfactory receptors with the first sniff, or the odor was now weaker. We sprayed some more Zero Odor into the box and sniffed again, and the scent definitely seemed quite a bit weaker. In fact, we seemed to be smelling mostly Corn Chex without the Cat Waste notes.

So the preliminary results indicate that we CAN have a Corn-Chex-Cat-Waste-scent-free home without abandoning the corn litter!

By the way, the litter we use is The World's Best Cat Litter - multiple cat formula. One more favorable attribute of this litter - it's quite a bit lighter than clay, so it's easier to purchase a big-ass bag and get it out of the store without damaging one's back.

Now, a more exciting topic: furry toys! We've had toy mice made from real fur in the past, and Ivan and Boo just love them. So when we saw a big furry critter toy at the local pet store, we decided we needed to try it out with our cats. They LOVE it! We accidentally discarded the packaging before we could record important information about this toy, but we'll go back to the pet store and get another. It was quite reasonably priced, and with two cats, one favorite toy is one too few! Ivan does amazing gymnastics with this toy. We'll try to catch him on video and show you.

We mentioned the Litter Robot above. We just realized that we have not given it a proper review! Here in our blog we've talked about how much we like it, and we've hinted at how it works, but that's about it. Well, let us tell you...this thing is IT! It really is the best automated litter box that we have come across. It doesn't get clogged. It doesn't have a "rake" that can get stuck. It doesn't have a difficult-to-install waste bag. This thing is a BREEZE! The initial outlay is a pretty penny, but, frankly, it's not all that much more than the rake varieties of automated litter box, and it works a million times better. In a nutshell, this baby sits and waits for your cat to climb in and use it. Seven minutes after it detects your cat has exited, it starts a cycle. The globe rotates 360 degrees, and during this rotation the litter slides across a sieve, leaving the clumped pieces, while the clean litter falls through. As the globe continues to rotate, the clumps of waste are dumped into the receptacle beneath the globe. Finally, the globe rotates back in the opposite direction to restore the clean litter to the bottom of the globe. It even rotates a bit past "level" to make sure the clean litter is re-distributed evenly. You simply pull out a bottom drawer, which is lined with an inexpensive standard "tall kitchen" garbage can liner, remove the garbage bag, and dispose of the waste. Inserting a fresh garbage bag takes about 4 seconds. You can watch a demonstration of the Litter Robot cleaning cycle here.

We love it so much we bought a second one for Dev and Belle. In their case we decided to purchase a reconditioned unit. Occasionally someone will have a cat who is not interested in using a new type of litter box, and since Litter Robot comes with a 60-day return policy, the folks with finicky cats return the little-used or completely un-used Litter Robot, and people like us can buy it at a discount. It is completely cleaned and sanitized before it is resold, of course.

We learned of this product on Catster, and numerous folks there recommended the Litter Robot to us. People with multiple-cat households, especially, love it. No more scooping litter! A fresh litter box for Fluffy every time! What more could s/he ask for? Hmm, well, yes, food that is available 24-hours a day, perhaps, but if they can't have that, at least they've got the Litter Robot!

Testing New Cat Food

2009-05-02T11:41:00.000-07:00

So, we tweet on Twitter. We follow Skeezix on Twitter, and earlier this week he tweeted (twote?) about some cat food and treat freebies. We took advantage of three of those offers, all of which we were able to order via the Internet. We have received two of the three freebies, but we've only tried one, which we'll tell you about now.

Petite Cuisine: They offer four cans of their cat food for a $5 shipping charge. We did consider that we are paying for the food AND the shipping for that price, but that's OK - it's a very convenient way to try a new cat food. The Petite Cuisine web site tells us the following: human-grade meat and fish are used in this food, and each piece is "steam cooked" to retain flavor. Further, they are not shy in telling us that they do NOT use wheat gluten in their canned food. And as far as we can tell, they don't use any grains at all. Yea! And another important point about their food is that they do not use any ingredients from China. Double yea! The boys SUCKED this food up. They love it!

Petite Cuisine can be ordered online directly from the manufacturer, or you can buy it at many grocery stores, as well as Petco.

We should also mention that there is another promotion going on for Petite Cuisine. It's "Get Jake a Date." Jake is a 19-year old male cat who has his own My Space page (!) and is looking for photographs of girl AND boy cats posing with a can of Petite Cuisine. If you send a photo to Jake's agent, Austin, you will receive a gift package of "date goodies" or "night out with the boys" goodies. You will also receive two cans of Petite Cuisine cat food, and your cat photo might be chosen for the Petite Cuisine calendar! Information and instructions are available at the Get Jake a Date link above.

Jake looks a lot like our Ian, who lived to the ripe old age of 20. You go, Jake!

Cat Cubes

2009-04-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

Ivan loves cat cubes. These nylon, collapsible cubes are quite inexpensive (we've seen them for $9 to $11 at Target) yet they provide hours of fun for the cats. Ivan loves to hide in them and leap out to pounce on toys - or Boo. He will also occasionally sleep in them. And they are super easy to fold flat and store, so the boys don't get bored with them.

Each package contains two cubes, as well as velcro strips that allow you to attach the cubes to one another and provide a sort of tunnel for the cats. There is also a pyramid ("Kitty Tumbler") available, with a "crackle" pad that goes inside, and it comes with a nylon cylinder that will attach between the pyramid and one of the cubes for yet more tunneling. Ivan and Boo don't use the cylinder tunnel much, but when Belle and Dev visited they loved it.

These cubes are made by Pet Essentials, which appears to be a Target brand. They are made in China, but since the cats aren't eating them, we're not concerned about that.

And speaking of pet food from China, in our efforts to find U.S.-made meat or fish snacks for the boys, we found Beefeaters Salmon Natural Cat Treats. These are 100% freeze dried chunks of real salmon, nothing else. And, most importantly, these treats are made in the U.S.A. We hope this means we don't have to worry about any kind of toxic content, like melamine. The boys go absolutely insane over these snacks. We give them one piece a day. Since the salmon is freeze dried, a layer of tiny pieces of salmon is often left in the botton of the ccontainer. We sprinkle that on the boys' food at feeding time.

Don't forget to check us out on Twitter!

Undercover Mouse Update and More

2009-04-16T18:58:00.000-07:00

Our one complaint about the Undercover Mouse, other than the short life span of the attachment wands, is that it won't always turn off. We turn the switch off (it is a dial-type switch) but we hear the mechanism continue to move. If we left it like that, it would run the batteries down overnight. So we have to remove the battery cover and take a battery out to stop it. That's a bit annoying. It doesn't happen every time we use it, however, suggesting there is some type of "intermittent open" as Mrs. A's electrical engineer dad would call it (aka a "short").

Ivan and Boo are still using the Litter Robot with no trouble. However, they also use their standard litterbox (we need a minimum of two litter boxes for two cats, and we can't really afford two Litter Robots...). In fact, we notice that they do not poo in the Litter Robot. They only urinate there. Hmmm.

By the way, the photo of Boo above shows him playing with the opossum toy that was received as a gift. It has a rattle inside. It's a bit big, but he and Ivan do show some interest in it. They prefer small, leather mice toys. And Boo's favorite is a milk jug cap. Ivan loves twisty ties (we just have to make sure he doesn't try to eat any of them!).

Belle and Dev also use their Litter Robot, but every time it starts rotating, Belle bats at it! We wonder if she'll ever get over that urge. Speaking of Belle and Dev, they have both been altered, now. Dev was neutered last month (and Belle last December). And what an improvement! He was starting to get a bit aggressive with other cats, and he would also sit in the window and absolutely howl at the top of his lungs. Since his surgery, he is no longer aggressive, and the howling has completely stopped. Further, neither Belle nor Dev tries to run out the front door every time it is opened.

We also discovered that Ivan has a bit of separation anxiety: if we are out of town for more than a day or two, he feels he must urinate in places other than his litter boxes. Mostly it appears he chooses a cat bed, which makes clean-up relatively easy, at least (throw the cat bed in the washer; treat any spots on the carpet beneath the cat bed with an enzymatic cat urine treatment). We will have to research how to handle this in the future, as we do have a week-long trip planned in May. Normally we have one of our vet assistants cat sit (many veterinarian assistants will cat sit on the side - ours will come out every other day and refill the automated cat feeder and freshen their water and scoop their litter box, and generally make sure they are not getting into any mischief. If they were a little more social with "strangers" she would also play with them, but they are usually hiding under the bed. All for $25 every other day, which is less than what we'd pay per day to board both boys). We figured that leaving them in their own home and having someone check on them would be less stressful than boarding them, but we are questioning that now. Perhaps they prefer some human company to sitting at home alone for more than 12 hours. We'll keep you updated on this.

As for Ivan and Boo's diet, they have definitely lost weight. We can easily feel Ivan's ribs, and we can semi-easily feel Boo's. So we are going to promote them to a "maintenance" diet, now. They really love their EVO kibble and canned (minimally cooked) food. We were alternating between EVO canned and Primal frozen raw food, but they are not as gung ho about eating the raw nuggets as they are about the EVO, so we are just going to stick with the EVO. It's easier to deal with (cans instead of bags in the freezer) and easier to find (we have to go fairly far afield to purchase the Primal raw frozen food, while EVO is sold at a pet/feed store just a few miles away). In addition to being minimally cooked, all EVO foods are grain-free (the carbohydrates in grain promote weight-gain in cats that remain indoors). However, the Primal product that we DO want to find is the "Raw Meaty Bones" for cats. Petfood Express carries some of the Primal products, but not this one. Pretty much all domestic cats get gum disease, unless their human caretakers brush their teeth (this per our veterinarian). We have tried brushing, and it's not easy. Cats don't like having their teeth brushed. We think chewing on bones would be the next best thing. In the wild, cats chew on bones regularly. And wild cats don't usually have gum disease.

Boo is standing on the back of my chair with his paws on my shoulders. I am pretty sure this means something, but I still have to figure out exactly what. Be sure to catch us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/IvanandBoo.

Undercover Mouse Replacement Wands, Feather Toys, Litter Robot

2009-03-15T14:15:00.000-07:00

The Undercover Mouse replacement wands arrived while we were out of the country. Almost as soon as we returned, we tried them out.

"Rat tail" wand: Ivan and Boo love this wand, but the minute we took our eyes off Ivan, he had chewed the tail right off the wand. Maybe the Panic Mouse folks can find a more durable material to use for the rat tail?

Feather wand: The Boys love this wand, too. It took a little bit longer for them to chew the feathers off this wand than it took Ivan to chew the rat tail.

Moral of the story: if your cats are chewers, you'll need to police them when they play with the Undercover Mouse to make sure they don't chew up the lures! Even though the wands are only about $4, that's a quick $4! And we had to order ours from the manufacturer and pay shipping. No one else seems to stock them at this time.

Now for the feather toys. Belle absolutely LOVES a feather toy that she received as a gift from a Secret Santa on Catster. It's the Squeaky Featherlite Catnip Boa by JW Pet. It is available at PetSmart (the toy link goes to the PetSmart entry, as JW Pet does not list its products at its site). The head squeaks when pounced on or batted. Belle goes wild over this toy, throwing it in the air and chasing it. She played so hard with the one she received as a gift that we had to replace it, and we have since replaced the second one with a third. However, the price is right at $4.99.

The Litter Robot is a smashing success. In fact, we are so happy with it that we ordered one for Belle and Dev (who, you may recall, live at a different location from Ivan and Boo). The ease of use is amazing, and so far to clean it we have only needed to wipe down the inside-back of the unit, as suggested in the instructions, with Clorox wipes. The Boys still look up when they hear it come on, seven minutes after they've used it, but it doesn't alarm them in the least, and they have no problem at all stepping into it and using it.

Last, we'd like to recommend a blog to you: the ModernCat blog. Here you can learn about all kinds of great and innovative cat toys and furniture for modern cat owners, and the blog owner offers monthly give-aways. To enter, all you have to do is write a response to the give-away entry. This month they are giving away lots of Etsy cat toys, but the give-away ends tonight. Check it out.

Undercover Mouse Wand Replacements

2009-02-14T21:35:00.001-08:00

Our cats love the Undercover Mouse so much that they have destroyed the two wands that come with the toy. The company that makes Undercover Mouse, PanicMouse, does make replacement wands. We were hoping PetSmart carried the replacements, but they don't, so we had to order them directly from PanicMouse. They're $4.95 each. We ordered two of each - the feather and the rat tail.

Also, we must mention that we decided to test the Catnip Theory on Ivan and Boo. The Catnip Theory holds that one should give cats catnip before trying to perform on them any operation or process that they do not like, for example, claw clipping. We gave Ivan and Boo a hefty pinch of catnip one evening. They snorted it and licked it. A few moments later, they were both rather playfully aggressive. So much for sedating them with catnip for a claw-clipping session! We may try a lower dose of the catnip next time. If that doesn't work, we may try valerian, as that did seem to calm them a bit.

Finally, Belle and Dev are visiting Ivan and Boo at the moment. Belle has really taken to the pink Hepper Pod Bed.

We Are Litter Robot Converts!

2009-02-11T23:02:00.000-08:00

Yep, it's official. Ivan and Boo love the Litter Robot. And we are so impressed with it that we ordered one for Dev and Belle back at the mountain cabin.

We'll provide more information about this product, along with video and photos, in the next couple of days. Meantime Mr. Aelurophile is here with Dev and Belle, and Ivan and Boo are not happy about the feline invasion, so we're having to keep the two camps separated. Also, Mr. A had surgery a week and a half ago. He's recovering, but today was really his first good day. So we've had our hands full. The Litter Robot arrived just in time to give us one less thing to do - scoop the litterbox!

Undercover Mouse Revisited

2009-01-21T22:34:00.001-08:00

We started having trouble with the Undercover Mouse. First, it didn't seem to want to turn off. Then it seemed to have a motor problem, as the arm was moving only very slowly.

We're using rechargeable batteries in the UM. The charger has a "refresh" setting. Rechargeable batteries can lose their ability to hold a full charge, and this "refresh" setting is supposed to "reset" the batteries and restore their ability to hold the charge. We refreshed the batteries and then put them back in the UM, and, voila, the UM worked normally again!

That's a good thing, because Ivan and Boo LOVE that toy!

We've Got A Lot to Tell You About!

2009-01-15T19:30:00.000-08:00

Good gosh, we've been away much too long. So many cat products, so little time to test and talk about them!

Here's the short list:

Fling-Ama-String

Undercover Mouse

Hepper Pod Bed

Litter Robot

Valerian toys

Also, we've got to tell you about a few cool web sites.

But first, Fling-Ama-String.

This thing is amazing. Ivan and Boo went nuts over it the moment it was installed. Yes, I say installed, but installation consists of hanging it on a doorknob and securing it with the included elastic band. Then you flip the switch and voila! Cat entertainment for quite some time!

This video will demonstrate the toy MUCH better than I ever could.

Ivan and Boo especially love to it when the Fling-Ama-String is on the OTHER side of the door from them, and they try to grab the string from under the door. Hilarious! They actually ask for us to get this out for them (we can't leave it up all the time or they'd chew the string off!). We ordered it from our pet insurance's web site for $19.99 (only open to pet insurance customers), but the gadget retails for $24.99 in PetSmart

Undercover Mouse is another battery-powered cat toy that they love. They've both always loved to hide their toys under throw rugs and blankets. The go crazy if we put a hand under a blanket and move it around. They start trying to dig through the blanket like dogs. So when someone came up with a motorized toy that moves under a piece of fabric, we figured they'd love it. And they do.

After we stopped filming, Ivan wandered off and Boo went bonkers with the toy. We found it at PetSmart for about $20.00

The Hepper Pod Bed is a very modern, elevated cat bed. The design is simple but elegant. However, it's taking a while for Ivan and Boo to get interested in it. We figured they'd be all over it. They'll get in it, and if we remove the top they'll lie in it for a bit, but so far not for long. Well, we think they'll warm up to it. The model we purchased (candy pink) was on sale and we also got a $20 discount from Moderncat, so the price ended up being $105 (not including tax and shipping). And the Hepper folks are very nice. For some reason their web site would not allow us to complete the transaction, so they had us call in and they handled it all for us.

We expected to have our Litter Robot by now, but apparently they are built to order, so it took a wee bit longer than we expected. However, we think it will be worth the wait. We'll review the Litter Robot in a future blog entry. However, suffice it to say that it is a big hit among Catster members, several of whom sang the Robot's praises to us. There's lots of positive press on the Robot, too.

Now for the mysterious valerian toys. Is valerian some strange company that makes bizarre toys? No, it's actually an herb! Here's the story: we participated in an auction through Catster to raise money for one Catster member in England to meet her Catster member friend, who was very ill with cancer, in Florida. I won the auction for a cat-themed quilted wall-hanging. The person who entered the quilt in the auction sent the quilt along with some valerian-filled cat toys. They're made of a fleecy material and contain the herb. I was quite curious upon receiving these. The postal documents declared the items as valerian cat toys. We'd never heard of cats liking valerian. Well, Ivan and Boo went absolutely hyperactive over these things. It was like catnip on steroids! Mind you, the valerian has a pretty strong scent that's not exactly pleasant. But if you have just a couple of cat toys filled with it, the odor is really not detectable. And it's worth it to see how insane cats go over it.

Interestingly, valerian contains actinidine, which apparently has effects that are similar to nepetalactone, the active ingredient in catnip. Holy Bast, no kidding! And while on the topic of kitty drugs, I read an excellent suggestion recently: if you have to do something to your cat that's for his own good but that he does not necessarily like, give him a handful of catnip to snort and eat and roll in, and then, when he's blissed out, do to him what you will. It may be a lot easier to perform the not-so-pleasant task on him than it normally is! We're going to try that with claw-clipping, because the boys have outgrown their KlawKontrol "kitty straight jacket". (However, they're both on a weight-loss diet and have actually lost some, so perhaps there is hope that they'll fit into the KlawKontrol again some day!)

We can't forget those web sites we promised to tell you about. First is Catster, which we mentioned above. It's a social networking site for cat owners. You can upload dozens of photos of your cat, as well as video; write a diary for your cat; e-mail other Catsters; and find oodles of information on cats, cat health, cat behavior, cat products, and lots more. A basic membership is free, and a "Plus" membership is $19.95 a year.

The other web site is Kittytest.com. Here you can discover the prevalence of several common cat diseases in your U.S. county. This site raises awareness about those diseases, which can help cat owners reduce the chances that their cats will succumb to the diseases. I've written about heartworms here before. They do infect cats, and you can see how many cases of heartworm have been recorded in your county, and how your county compares to the rest of the country.

We've Got Some Products to Review

2008-12-13T00:51:00.000-08:00

We have quite a few things to review: we are switching to a corn based cat litter and will tell you about that. We have several new toys to talk about, and one on the way (the "Fling-ama-String"). We've decided on a food regimen that we'll tell you about, as well.

We'll be back in the next day or so with our reviews.

Meantime, Ivan and Boo are well. Boo is overweight and we're sure the vet will get onto us for this at his semi-annual appointment on December 19th. Hopefully she'll have some tips for getting his weight down. He's not huge - he could probably stand to lose a pound or two.

Belle is getting spayed on December 16th. She was scheduled for this surgery to occur in January 2009, but she has gone into heat for the first

time and so we decided to push up the surgery. Dev is very interested in her now, so we have separated them until after the surgery. He'll be neutered in January.

Holy Crap, Catman!

2008-10-26T01:03:00.000-07:00

Do you want to read one of the most bizarre things I have ever read? Check out this page, and then go out and adopt as many cats as you can properly care for.

Videos for Cats, Plus New Toys and Food

2008-10-12T16:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, videos for cats. We have one. We've had it since before Ivan and Boo were even born - we'd purchased it for Aggie and Ian. Ian was oblivious, and Aggie showed some interest. But we were rewarded when Ivan and Boo were transfixed by it!

So what kind of video would cause cats to watch TV? Why, videos of birds, mice, gerbils, butterflies, and several other prey animals running and flying around, with nice animal chattering and birdcalls for a soundtrack. The specific video of which we speak is the original Cat Sitter, Vol. 1, on DVD. It's available on VHS or DVD at Pet Sitter Videos. Our two city cats sit in front of the TV and watch intently, and as critters run out of the camera shot, to the right or left, the cats both jump and put their paws between the side of the TV and the entertainment console in which the TV is housed. They also run to the side of the console, looking to see where those tasty-looking mice and gerbils and birds got to. It is quite hilarious!

On that same theme, we were watching Planet Earth (the one narrated by David Attenborough)

and Boo sat and simply watched almost the entire two episodes we watched! He did sniff and bat at the television screen several times, but mostly he sat intently and watched. We wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that we were watching the program on a High Definition screen.

On another topic, you may recall that we have discovered Ivan and Boo really like "snakey" toys. They are attracted to snake-like movement. So we have several toys that are long pieces of fabric on the end of a stick. We can drag those and swing them around so that they look like snakes slithering along the carpet. We found a new one. It is longer and thinner than the last one we found, so it moves even more snakily. The fabric is light but sturdy, not to mention colorful. And while the photograph at right doesn't show how long the strip of fabric is, we measured it and it's 52 inches in length - long enough to drag around and wiggle it and get the cats' attention. This product is made by Cat Dancer Products and was only $5.99! You can find it even cheaper from pet product web sites - just search "Cat Charmer" toy on Google.

Now on to food. We wrote about switching to EVO kibble and canned food, as well as Primal raw food. Well, we went to Pet Food Express here in the Bay Area, and unfortunately they do not carry EVO. They said that another pet food supplier in the area has a contract with EVO. Well, that seems silly, to have an exclusive contract with one small supplier (of course, we found EVO at another place in San Jose, but it's not always easy to get over there). Sheesh. So we needed some canned food and checked out Weruva.

Weruva is not all grain free, but each variety is labeled as to whether it contains grain or not. We purchased a few of their 3-ounce cans to tide us over until we can get some more EVO. The cats tried the Weruva tilapia this morning and sucked it down. Of course, we were going for EVO because it claims to be "minimally cooked". But we did check out the Weruva web site. They use some pretty amazing ingredients in their cat food: prime, human-grade meats and fish. Wow. So if the cats continue to like it, we may feed that to them in conjunction with the other canned or raw foods we feed them. We may try to eventually remove kibble completely. Really the only reason we keep kibble is that we think it's good for the boys' teeth. As the Weruva web site says, cats were not meant to eat kibble. It's too dry, and cats are not ones to drink a lot of water - they evolved getting much of their moisture from their food (prey). Weruva believes so strongly in this notion that they do not even make kibble, which is where pet food makers generate most of their money. So if we can find the Primal "Raw Meaty Bones" somewhere near here, we'll try keeping those on hand instead of kibble, wethinks.

The cats were out of sorts today as we had a visitor. Some visitors they warm up to fairly quickly, others they do not. Today's visitor has a pet boa constrictor back home, so we wonder if the cats could smell the snake and decided they weren't too sure about it? Just because they like snakey toys doesn't mean they'd like a living, breathing, real snake. Anyhow, now that the visitor is gone, they are back to normal, sleeping on their backs in the middle of the living room floor, cruising around and asking for treats, head rubs, brushing, and play time. We got a good shot of Boo yawning the other day. Here he is:

The VPI Saga; Feline Heartworms; Etc.

2008-09-18T21:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry, just had to show you the ridiculous picture of Ivan sticking out his tongue, at left. OK, now that that's out of our system...

We mentioned in our last blog entry the problem with VPI (Veterinary Pet Insurance) denying Dev and Belle's first claim (for their baptismal vet visit). We talked to VPI, as mentioned, and they indicated we simply needed to talk to the vet, find out what "kitten vaccination" means, and then call VPI back and let them know. Entirely resubmitting the claim was not required. Yea! Well, of COURSE when we called VPI back to tell them what the vaccination really was, they said the rep who told us this could be done soley by phone was WRONG! What?! We made a fuss and VPI said that, since there was a miscommunication in this instance, their claims adjuster would call the vet to get the scoop on that vaccination. Which was FVRCP (Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis, Calcivirus, and Panleukapenia (Distemper)), by the way. So that's fine, but the kittens had to go back for boosters, etc., and, of course, there on the second invoice is "kitten vaccination" again. Dang it! So, knowing that VPI wouldn't accept that, we called the vet's office. The woman who took our call was indignant: "I've dealt with VPI for 20 years and never had a problem!" My response, "I don't make the rules. I can only tell you what they're telling me." So she agreed to note exactly what the vaccination is on the invoice and send it to us. Sheesh!

We can report that VPI covered everything on the kitten's first vet bill except for $10. Amazing! We know they won't cover anywhere near as much on the second invoice, but that's to be expected. However, we are considering making The Cat Hospital our vet for the kittens (even though it's five hours away!) because their prices and procedures seem more reasonable (hey, a vet in a small town can afford to charge premium prices as there's no competition!) and The Cat Hospital doesn't seem to give our cats things they don't need. I stress the word "seem".

The small-town vet sold us a 3-month supply of "Revolution Feline". This is a combination heartworm and flea medication (it is also touted as preveningt mites and tapeworms!). Heartworms in cats? Apparently so. This came up with Ivan and Boo at their last vet visit at The Cat Hospital a few months ago. They both pant after heavy exercise, so we were a bit concerned, and we came across articles on feline heartworm when researching poossible causes.

However, we talked this over with our wonderful new vet at The Cat Hospital, Dr. Mattern, and she told us that The Cat Hospital had never seen one case of feline heartworm, so they do not

routinely give the heartworm medication, especially not to indoor cats. But when the small-town vet prescribed it, we did a bit more research, looking for the incidence of feline heartworm in California. This is what we found:

It shows that, in the San Francisco Bay Area, there are between 1 and 25 cases of feline heartworm reported per clinic. Yikes! Why has The Cat Hospital not seen any cases, then? I hate to say it, but is it possible that they are misdiagnosing feline heartworm cases as asthma? Feline heatworm presents radically differently from canine heartworm and causes more pulmonary

problems than cardiovascular problems, or so says Charles Thomas (Tom) Nelson, DVM, in a 2007 article written for the newsletter Know Heartworms: Inside and Out. Granted this newsletter, the product of a partnership between The American Heartworm Society and The American Association of Feline Practitioners, is sponsored by Pfizer Animal Health, and Pfizer makes - surprise! - Revolution, the heartworm medication we mentioned above that our small-town vet sold to us for Belle and Dev. So it is difficult to rely solely on Dr. Nelson's article. We are going to do more research on this topic, and we'll share what we find in a later entry.

OK, we have to give Boo equal time - here he is showing off those amazing eyes and his namesake spot on the nose ("Boo" is, as much as I hate to admit it, short for "Boogernose").

Oh, and we finally started using the PerfectLitter that we purchased a while back (buy one, get one free). The cats would have nothing to do with it, so we did as directed on the package -- we added a layer of their regular clay litter on top of the PerfetLitter. That did the trick for at least one of them (Ivan), but so far the conversion is tenuous. We'll keep working with it. It definitely is very absorbent with regard to liquid AND odors, and it is amazingly light and dust free.

Before we close, we must admit that we watched the television program "Greatest American Dog" this summer (hey, we recorded it on the DVR and fast-forwarded through the boring bits), a "reality" series in which 12 dogs and their owners competed before three supposedly renowned judges. The prize was the title "Greatest American Dog" and $25,000. Each week one contestant and his/her dog was eliminated. The premise was intriguing, but the execution was poor. However, we did get hooked by the interesting dogs and humans in the competition. If you happened to catch it, allow us to say that we think J.D. and Galaxy should have won. If the show had not been heavily edited and rigged to let the cute, single guy with the cute dog win, J.D. and Galaxy would have gone home with the prize. As

consolation for J.D., we offer you a link to his web site., K9 Kings Entertainment. J.D., if you're interested, drop us a line and we'll fix up your web site and make it slick and cool and more in line with the great work you do with your dogs!

HUGE Price Difference!

2008-09-06T19:51:00.000-07:00

YIKES! We paid over $50 for Primal Feline Chicken and Salmon frozen raw cat food at NationalPetPharmacy.com (shipping was free). I checked Pet Food Express, which is a brick and mortar pet food store here in the SF Bay Area, and they sell the same 4 lb. bag for $21.99!! Holy cat food, Batman! (Pet Food Express has a web site , but one cannot purchase food at the web site. However, one can check to see what the brick and mortar store carries. The web site also boasts a "buy 3, get the 4th free" special in the store.)

Unfortunately Pet Food Express does not seem to carry EVO, made by

Natura, a local SF Bay Area company. That's what Ivan and Boo are eating, along with Primal Feline Chicken and Salmon. But there are some other pet food stores in the area that carry Natura's products, or so the Natura web site says. We will pay a visit to one of them, Sam's Downtown Feed, which we have passed a million times but never visited. They have a large model horse in front of the store.

Because of the cost of the Primal food, we were not going to

continue feeding it once the 4 lb. bag we have in the freezer is gone. However, now that we see how comparatively cheaply we can buy it, we may continue it! And if we can find Primal's "Raw Meaty Bones" for cats being sold in our area, we may try those as well. However, we do foresee a problem with those. We currently give Ivan and Boo dried chicken breast pieces as treats and also to satisfy their chewing obsessions. We give those to them on the dining room carpet, as they are dry. However, because of that, we envision them taking "raw meaty bones" onto the dining room carpet, too. That would not be good. We'll see what happens!

On another front, VPI Pet Insurance denied our claims for Dev and Belle's first vet visit! The paperwork said the claims were denied because the vet's invoices were not itemized. Hogwash! They were itemized. So I called VPI and the customer service rep was as puzzled as I. She finally found out that one item on the invoices, listed as "Kitten vaccination," needed to be better defined. She said that if I could get details about what exactly that vaccination was, and call VPI back with the information, I would not need to resubmit the claim. Of course the vet was closed today (Saturday), so this will have to wait until Monday.

We purchased a new type of cat litter to try with Ivan and Boo. It's called PerfectLitter. The PerfectLitter web site is a bit annoying, so here is a link to information on the product from

PetPlace.com (but you can click on the PerectLitter image here to go to the PerfectLitter site, if you feel brave). It is touted as being 70% lighter than clay litter, flushable, dust-free, four times more absorbent than regular cat litter, and if your cat develops a urinary tract infection, his/her urine turns the white litter pink. We haven't tried this litter yet, but as soon as one of the litter boxes in our home is ready for a complete litter change, we're going to try PerfectLitter. PetPlace.com suggests having one litter box with your regular clay litter available as your cats get used to PerfectLitter in another litter box. A good suggestion!

Microchippies

2008-08-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

We now call Ivan and Boo the Microchippies because we had them microchipped a couple of weeks ago. The cost at our vet is $37 per cat, and pet insurance paid $20 each. They were a wee bit sore between the shoulderblades for a week, but now they are fine. The vet said there are no known health problems from microchipping (i.e., she has never seen a cat get an infection at the injection site, or cancer, etc. The chip is about the size of a grain of rice). By the way, some other collective names we have for Ivan and Boo are "The Celebrity Catheads," which was the name of a band in the late 1980s in Houston, Texas, and "Va Bruvahs," which is Cockney for "The Brothers" (sort of).

The company that manufactures these chips and keeps records that will help reunite you with a lost and found microchipped cat is HomeAgain. Not only do they keep your contact information, but they also send e-mail to area members, vets, and shelters any time a pet is reported lost. This increases the chance that your pet will be found and reunited with you. On one hand it is a bit sad to see the number of pets who get lost (as indicated by the number of notices we receive in e-mail), but on the other hand it is good to know that the Internet is being harnessed for such worthy purposes. A one-year "subscription" to Home Again is $14 per cat. Our vet said that any time a new cat is brought in, they scan it for a microchip, just in case someone found the cat and adopted it, thinking it was a stray. There is a story on the Home Again web site about that very thing happening! A cat disappeared, only to reappear two months later when the lady who had found her took her to the vet to get her spayed!

While microchips are great for locating lost pets, they do not protect pets from ingesting evil substances. Ivan did just that yesterday. We purchased some "glow necklaces" for use when camping. These contain a substance that, when activated, will glow for several hours. The substance is a fluid. To see how much light the necklaces actually produce, we activated one of them. They are actually just long flexible tubes that can be joined at both ends to create circles that fit over the head and around the neck. Once the glow died, we were going to throw the spent tube away. We unhooked the ends so that it was a 22" straight tube. Before tossing it in the trash we noticed that Ivan was interested in it. We dragged it around on the floor and he became obsessed with it, running back and forth like a mad cat to chase and grab it, and flying through the air like a gymnast to seize it, his eyes fully dilated as though he were chasing some serious prey. After reading the package and noting that it is non-toxic, we decided to keep it and use it as a toy for Ivan, but we made a mental note to put it away each time we finished playing, as we did not want Ivan to puncture the plastic and get to the glow goo inside the tube.

Yesterday we pulled it out of the fridge (where we have to keep it or he would find it and chew it to bits) and played with Ivan for a while. He is so obsessed with it that Boo doesn't even want to try to play with it - Ivan runs right over him! We had a good play session with Ivan. We let him "catch" the tube occasionally to keep him interested. When he catches it, he usually lays with the tube between his paws for a while, until we get the tube and play with him some more. However, after letting him "catch" the tube last night, we turned away for a few seconds to get something. When we looked back, Ivan was backing away from the tube and shaking his head. We thought he had gotten the connector off the tube and was chewing it, but there was nothing in his mouth. We quickly inspected the tube and saw that he had punctured it with a tooth, and some of the fluid had escaped. Ivan started running around in distress. We couldn't catch him for a minute or so. At one point, as he ran around, we saw a lot of saliva coming from his mouth. This was alarming! We finally caught him, examined his mouth, and then took him to the sink and rinsed his mouth out. Once we rinsed his mouth he was fine, ready to eat a handful of treats and play again as normal. But we were freaked out! We later determined that the substance either tasted bad, or it stung his mouth, or both, and his body's natural reaction to something undesirable in the mouth was to produce extra saliva to wash the substance away.

The puncture was barely the size of a pinhole, so a very, very tiny amount of the glow goo made it into his mouth. We threw the tube away promptly and won't be letting him play with those again! We would not even have considered it if they had not been labeled NON-TOXIC.

The ASPCA says that many pets are poisoned each year by all sorts of things, including chocolate, grapes, onions, the sweetener xylitol, coffee and houseplants. This article talks about things we might never suspect would poison a pet, as well as more obvious poisons (like antifreeze). It is recommended reading for any pet owner.

We think Ivan liked the tube because it looked a bit like a snake. He and Boo seem to LOVE snake-like toys and objects. They go crazy over some of my necklaces if I move them around in a snake-like fashion. We have started looking for snakey toys in the pet store. The first one we found is the Swizzle Teaser (also called Swizzle Bird) by "Dr. Noys' Pet Toys for Cats with an Attitude". This is a division of Kong Company at www.kongcompany.com - they make the Kong toys that are so popular with dogs. Unfortunately, the Kong web site does not include the Dr. Noys' products. The above link for the Swizzle Teaser goes to an Internet pet store with which we are not familiar, so if you order from them, let us know what you think. Anyhow, we bought the toy at PetSmart (there's a PetSmart about a mile down the road from us, so we frequent it). The cats seem to like the Teaser, and we can get them interested in it most of the time, but they don't go crazy over it like Ivan did over the glow-goo tube! We have yet to find something to replace the tube. The photo at left shows Boo playing with the Swizzle Teaser. The feathers at the end attach via Velcro, and you can purchase replacements if the original feathers gets chewed on a bit too much.

Ivan and Boo: Successful Vet Visit, and Raw Diets

2008-08-02T16:46:00.000-07:00

We have a standard plan policy with VPI (veterinary Pet Insurance) for Ivan and Boo (and we just purchased standard policies for Belle and Dev). We feel insurance is a necessity as pet medical care is almost as expensive as human medical care, and we want the option to treat medical conditions that we otherwise might not be able to afford to treat! The plans we have, which include a "Core Coverage" rider, partially cover two vet visits a year per cat, standard testing and vaccinations, and even micro-chipping (we'll talk about that in the next blog entry)! So we took Ivan and Boo in to see the delightful Dr. Mattern at The Cat Hospital in Campbell, California on Monday. It's been about six months since their last check-up.

Having lost two cats to lymphoma a couple of years ago, we want Ivan and Boo monitored closely to watch for problems like that, especially since cats are adept at hiding ill health. So the two-visits-per-year coverage gives us some peace of mind. Dr. Mattern says they are both very healthy, though a bit overweight, and she recommended a low-carbohydrate diet (free of grains, especially corn) to help get their weight down to normal (they are 13 lbs each!). She specifically recommended two brands of cat-food, but the one she seemed to prefer was EVO.

We researched EVO on the internet and found many web sites that sell it. Dr. Mattern mentioned that there is at least one store in the San Jose area that carries it, but we found some good prices on the internet and decided to go that route instead of burning a lot of time and gas. We ordered EVO dry and canned food from PetFoodDirect.com as they had some of the best prices on pet foods and shipping, and the site got decent reviews on review web sites. While exploring the PetFoodDirect.com site, we also found a section of "raw and frozen" diets, and this intrigued us, so we did some research.

Apparently there is a growing group of veterinarians, researchers, and pet owners which believes that a raw diet is best for pets (there is a parallel raw food movement for humans, as well). This does make sense on its face. For millenia the genus Felis ate raw food. They killed their vegetarian (or possibly insectivorous and/or omnivorous) prey and ate it, benefiting from almost all parts of the prey animal as well as everything the prey animal had eaten. They did not cook their food! Besides, cooking changes the chemical properties of food materials, especially the fats in meat. Since we did have two cats with lymphoma (in addition to other health problems like pancreatitis and urinary tract infections) in the past, we felt that one area to scrutinize rigorously was diet. We wanted to feed them wholesome, organic, and proper ingredients. As we researched EVO dry and canned foods further, we discovered that it is "gently" cooked and billed as a good alternative to raw food, so this was an added bonus. However, we liked the idea of frozen raw food, as it is closer to what cats would eat in the wild (other than being frozen, of course!). So in addition to the two types of EVO, we ordered Primal brand frozen cat nuggets from PetFoodDirect.com. The shipping on the Primal food was free, and this was a true deal, as they have to ship it UPS Two-Day to insure that it stays frozen during shipping.

Unfortunately, PetFoodDirect.com did not send us a confirmation e-mail, and we have gotten out of the habit of printing order information from web sites as we always get a confirmation e-mail! So while we have received the frozen part of the order, we have not yet received the EVO portion, and we have no easy way to track it. If it does not arrive on Monday (which will make it one week since we placed the order) we'll call them up, as we did make a note of the order number (not sure what inspired us to do THAT!). So that's our one complaint with PetFoodDirect.com so far.

Back to the Primal raw food. It's a four-lb. bag of small, ice-cube shaped nuggets of raw chicken and salmon with lots of vegetables and ground up chicken/salmon bones (the ingredients are listed in detail on the Primal site). Of course, those distinct ingredients are not recognizable as, when a nugget defrosts, it is a mush. We mixed it with the Science Diet "Nature's Best" kibble for the first time this morning, and the boys loved it! In fact, they ate around the pieces of kibble to get to the mush! Wow! And they have had canned/soft food perhaps one time in their lives previously. They are currently eating their dinner portion of the raw food and Science Diet kibble, and they are gobbling it up (Ivan leaves the kibble behind at first, but Boo eats it all at once). This morning we put the defrosted-but-refrigerator-chilled raw nuggets, which we'd placed in a zip-lock bag to defrost overnight, into a sink of warm water to warm them a bit before feeding, as suggested by the manufacturer. However, just now, we gave it to them right out of the fridge. No problem for them, apparently! That removes a step in the process for us, at least! (Not only is refrigerated food foreign to wild animals, but cold food also puts off less odor/scent, and cats rely heavily on scent to interest them in food. Apparently Ivan and Boo were pretty hungry!).

The raw food is way too expensive to be the boys' primary food. Instead, we think we'll continue to use it in addition to EVO (assuming they will eat the EVO, but they do not appear to be finicky guys). The Primal food was $51.99 for the four-pound bag! However, that computes to two weeks of food for two cats if we are using it along with EVO. Perhaps we'll only feed the raw food once a day, and stretch it to four weeks. We'll experiment and see what works. The Primal web site contains a lot of information, including a calculator to determine how much of their food to feed your cat for specific needs (weight loss, maintenance, weight gain, etc.). The calculator, as well as lots of other good information, is on Primal's Feeding Recommendations page. We halved the number they recommended for weight loss (two nuggets per feeding) since we are using the Primal food in combination with EVO (or Science Diet until we get the EVO food). In comparison, the 15.4 lb. bag of dry EVO was $37.99, and 12 13.2 oz variety pack cans were $25.99 (they were out of the 5.5 oz cans). However, we will attempt to do more research on this topic and see if anyone has compared the effects of a pure raw diet with those of an EVO diet.

In our research, we found that a lot of vets and owners recommend digestive enzyme supplements for cats who do not eat a 100% raw diet. We did some digging, and Total-Zymes seemed to be the most-recommended product. Primal actually recommends that it be used when a pet is first being transitioned to their raw food. So we ordered Total-Zymes from Pet Food AZ. They had the best price and the cheapest shipping. They DID send us a confirmation e-mail, but their ordering system is a bit confusing, as we wanted the product shipped to Mrs. A's office, but our credit card billing address is different from the office address. It was unclear which address they were using for billing and which for shipping until after the order was already placed. Thankfully it worked out correctly. By the way, the AZ part of their name appears to be for Arizona. That's one reason their shipping was cheaper than other pet food web stores' shipping. A lot of these stores are in the central or eastern U.S., and we're in the west. We were surprised how few web stores that carry these products are on the West Coast! You'd think California would be the Center of Natural Pet Food! Anyhow, we'll let you know what we think of Total-Zymes some time in the future, after we've had a chance to give it to the boys for a while. It's apparently a powder that is added to their food. Should be interesting. In the meantime, here is some "propaganda" from the Total-Zymes web site.

We'll provide updates in the future on how the boys are faring with their new diets.

More Kitten Photos Plus Product Reviews

2008-07-26T19:43:00.000-07:00

The orphaned kittens, Dev and Belle, are doing just fine. They are still small, but they're only 3 months old, after all! Here they are about to attack a dangling toy. They are sitting on a normal, three-cushion couch in this photo, so it gives you an idea of how small they are - smaller than the average person's butt (arse for you in the UK, etc.), that's certain!

Dev is definitely the cuddler of the two, but both are absolutely devoted to Mr. Aleurophile, who did the bulk of their raising (as I was traveling for business). Belle is the noisy one, making big scary cat noises the entire time she is wrestling with Dev or playing with a toy. Mr. A did a fantastic job of socializing them with humans - so far they're not afraid of anyone. They also tolerate loud noises as Mr. A practices playing drums and other instruments fairly frequently around them. They've also been socialized with at least one other cat - Jericho - who tolerates them, but just barely.

We haven't seen the sibling that their mother took with her. That one, Belle's twin, may not have survived.

We are feeding them premium kitten food, but of course Jericho helps himself to that when he can! We also keep plenty of fresh water about. There are plenty of toys to keep them busy during the day. And their big playpen is available for them to play in if they wish.

Dev took to hiding to sleep for a while; he still does it occasionally. Here he was hiding under a pillow, which we moved to take the photo. Then we replaced. He did not stir! The first time he hid under the pillow, Mr. A was frantic when he realized he was missing and couldn't find him! It didn't occur to Mr. A that Dev would sleep under a pillow on the sofa, but when he lifted the pillow in desperation, there was Dev!

Weaning them from kitten formula to solid food was relatively easy. They now eat dry and canned kitten food. They have gotten over their fear of water, too!

Boo and Ivan haven't met them yet. That probably won't happen until some time in September. Boo and Ivan have met Jericho, and they do fine with him, so we are hoping for the best when they meet Dev and Belle.

Ivan and Boo are doing fine, by the way. We have purchased them some new little toys. They love the Fat Cat (www.fatcatinc.com) "Mouse-A-Roni & Cheese" toy - it's a stuffed fabric mouse with catnip. Ivan holds the mouse in his front paws and kicks it with his back paws, but he also licks and chews it (loves that catnip!). Fat Cat recently joined the Bamboo family of pet products. We have reviewed Bamboo products here in the past.

We purchased Ivan and Boo a new waterer: the Drinkwell Platinum water fountain. It took them a while to get used to it - at first they looked at it suspiciously! So I left their regular water bowl out for a week or so. They eventually came to prefer the Drinkwell. Boo will lap out of the fountain stream, then stop and stare at the bubbles that result from him disrupting the flow of water. Once the bubbles disappear, he drinks again. And he repeats this process a few times before he gets his fill of water. Ivan drinks from it, but of course he also plays in it (!). The fountain has a reservoir, and when it senses that more water is needed, it glug glug glugs as the water empties from the reservoir into the fountain. Ivan is absolutely FASCINATED by this. If he hears the fountain "glug glugging" from afar, he comes running. He even bats at the clear reservoir as it glugs (as he sees bubbles rising). Fun for the whole feline family!

We've got a few more cat products to review, so stay tuned.

Kitten Jail!

2008-06-09T09:45:00.000-07:00

Belle and Dev continue to grow and develop. Belle wanted to play with Dev before he understood what that was all about, but now he is a play-fight freak! They both continue to use the litterbox. Amazing! They turned 5 weeks old this week. They are truly "little cats" now instead of "little dependent blobs".

Belle has started running. The first few times her back legs moved faster than her front legs, so she ended up tumbling, but now she's figured it out. She can also jump out of the suitcase we were using as a playpen! Dev is, of course, a bit behind and doesn't run, but he gets around pretty well. Both recognize Mr. A and go straight to him whenever they see him. They love to crawl on him and smoosh their noses into his face. We think they want him to clean them! So he does, using a warm washcloth.

They showed some initial interest in canned kitten food but have since turned up their noses to it. They continue with kitten formula about every four hours. The do not seem interested in plain water yet. In fact, we put a small bowl of water in their "nest" but it scared the daylights out of Dev! However, they no longer seem to need stimulation from Mr. A in order to eliminate. We'll be offering them canned kitten food more often to start the "weaning" process.

Our only concern is exercise. We received and assembled the kitten "playpen". They like it! However, we have two complaints: the shelves that come with it (as part of a "conversion" kit sold specifically for the playpen) are too wide and cause the cage to "bow" where they are inserted, and the shelves are missing screw holes. The instructions do indicate that some of the shelves might need to be drilled, but there is no mention of that in the description of the item in the catalogue. However, the benefits of this playpen outweigh those two flaws. We have a drill and we think we can modify the shelves to fit properly.

The above photo shows Belle and Dev in jail. Yes, they ALWAYS look that surprised!

Toddlers

2008-06-04T10:36:00.001-07:00

The orphaned kittens are now toddling around, even showing some signs of wanting to play with each other. They gain weight every day. Dev had some apparent pain with elimination, but that seems to be subsiding. We think he was eating too fast and swallowing a lot of air, as his little abdomen was sometimes a bit hard and distended and he expelled gas. He's fine now. We still have to help him eliminate. Belle, on the other hand, whom we are pretty sure is at least a week older than Dev, eliminates on her own now. We inserted a small pan of litter in their box and she used it! That is pretty impressive for not even four weeks old! It is amazing what is hardwired into kitten brains.

We have an impromptu playpen set up for them -- it's a huge suitcase. They play around in that between meals and naps. We have ordered a nice big playpen/cage for them through one of our favorite pet vendors, Drs. Foster and Smith. They'll be able to play safely in this cage in Mr. A's office while he works, until they are old enough to be left at home during the day. He still feeds them formula every 4 hours or so. We gave them a taste of some canned kitten food and they appeared to like it, though Belle is better able to eat it, it seems, probably as she's a bit older and more developed that Dev. Dev is still primarily interested in suckling.

We did also purchase the "Conversion Kit" for the playpen, which includes the ramps and the "hammock". Once we receive the cage and use it with the kittens, we'll review it here. The base price of the cage is $139, not bad for solid construction and portability -- the cage rests on casters so can be easily moved.

We managed to snap some photographs of Dev and Belle, but Dev was always moving, so he's a bit blurry in all of them. Belle is a bit less wiggly than Dev, so she is clear - this is the best of the bunch:

Da Babies

2008-05-25T17:00:00.001-07:00

The kittens are doing well. They are gaining weight (in grams) each day. Both have opened their eyes and are now trying to walk. They were approximately three weeks old on Thursday. They have names now: we called the female calico "Cali" for a while, and it made Mr. A think of Kahli, the consort of Shiva. He suggested Shiva as a name for the black and white male, but I felt it a bit too pompous, so he then suggested Dev, short for Deva, which means "[male] deity" in Sanskrit. It is pronounced "Dave". I have never had a cat named Dev - pronounced - "Dave", so why not? As for the female calico, Mr. A noticed that she has a black spot right where her belly button would be, so he thought of Belle (pronounced "bell", of course). I told him that he had better be certain about naming her that, because it is likely that one or both of us will eventually call her "Belle-y" (pronounced "belly"). We call Ivan "Ivy", Boo gets called "Boopy", and Jericho gets called "Jerry", so "Belle-y" is inevitable.

They get fed every 3-4 hours, now. Before long they'll be climbing out of their box. Target sells a clever contraption that is made to allow indoor cats to go outside -- it's like a cat play-pen that is sealed in mesh on all sides. Since Mr. A has to take the kittens to work to feed them, we thought this might be a good thing to have, allowing them to walk around and play without wandering off or getting into things. Once we get it and use it, we will review it here.

I haven't explained before, but I, Aelurophile, live in a small apartment during the week, and I go to our "country house" on the weekends when I can. Mr. A stays at the country house as he can telecommute and needs to be there to take care of everything (cats, gardens, house repairs, and keeping strangers, bears, rattlesnakes, cougars, and gophers away). So Ivan and Boo are with me in the apartment, and the babies Dev and Belle are at the country house with Mr. A. When I go to the country house, I take Ivan and Boo with me - they travel very well other than Boo getting car sick occasionally on mountain roads. Mr. A has not been able to come to the apartment recently as that's a bit far to travel with the babies. The apartment and country house are about five hours apart (!) by car.

I have had to go out of town on business during the week for the past couple of weeks, and will do so for the next few weeks. We have friends who live a block away who were happy to check on the cats for us when we had to go out of town, but the wife of the couple, who did most of the checking, now works out of town and does not always get home each night. We decided we needed another solution to the cat-care problem. Luckily our veterinarian has vet techs who moonlight as cat caretakers. We've been taking our cats to this vet for years, so we called the office and one of the techs agreed to check on Ivan and Boo every other day during the week (this amounts to Tuesdays and Thursdays). She will scoop their litter boxes, feed them, change their water, and even water the plants! Her 9-year old son comes with her, and he will play with the cats (if they decide to emerge from under the bed) while she is taking care of things. The fee is $25 a day. Not bad when you consider that boarding them in a cage is around the same price per day (for two cats). We save money this way, the cats are in their own home which means they will be less stressed, and our plants get watered!

By the way, our veterinarian is The Cat Hospital in Campbell, CA. Unfortunately they do not have a web site. I should speak to them about that!

Anyhow, back to the kittens - the title of this blog entry refers to what a little 2-year old named Sienna calls the kittens: "da babies". She is the granddaughter of the owners of a coffee shop that is housed in the same building as Mr. A's office, and she stops by to see the kittens a few times a day. On arrival she says, "Burble unintelligible babble DA BABIES gurgle blubber." Here's a quick clip of her saying simply, "Da babies."

The Walls of Jericho

2008-05-18T12:09:00.001-07:00

Jericho is our male Siamese mix. He's around 12 years old. Mr. Aelurophile found him in the downtown area of a large San Francisco Bay Area city, behind a sandwich restaurant, when he was a kitten. We think his love of cantaloupe and asparagus stems from his days living out of garbage dumpsters.

He's very intelligent. In fact, he is so intelligent that he seems to be lacking in the neoteny department. Neoteny is defined as the retention, by adults in a species, of traits previously seen only in juveniles. Most domesticated animals are neotenous. Mature wild cats do not live together (lions are an exception), nor are they as playful and affectionate toward humans as house cats are. Kittens of wild cats, however, do exhibit these traits. When humans found adult cats that retained kitten-like behavior, they selected for those traits, and eventually the cat was domesticated. The same is true for dogs. Domesticated dogs play a lot more than wild dogs, and they prefer human companionship, while wild dogs do not. So early man selected the dogs that remained puppy-like into adulthood. (Here's an interesting link about neoteny.)

Jericho is less kitten-like than most domestic cats. He is not terribly fond of being petted, and he'll let you know about that. The only time he is affectionate is when he is sleepy or cold. All other times he is aloof and grumpy. At times he may growl if we even so much as look at him. We think he knows he relies on us for food and he hates having to be dependent on us (yes, we read a lot into his behavior!). He detests using a litter box and will only use it if it is raining or snowing outside, otherwise he demands to be let out.

So, Jericho was resting on the sofa while Mr. Aelurophile was seated on the same sofa, feeding the calico kitten. After feeding her, Mr. A let her crawl and explore on his lap. She started crawling toward Jericho, who, after a while, had enough of that, gave the calico one swift "bap" (claws retracted), and ran away grumbling. So much for the birth of a lasting friendship!

By the way, I swear that the chair Jericho is sleeping on in the above photograph is NOT in our house!!

Ivan and Boo Are Still At It

2008-05-18T00:15:00.001-07:00

We went out of town for one night and a day this week (business). We left the boys plenty of water, and food in two automated feeding bowls which open at sent times to reveal compartments that we previously filled with specific amounts of food. The boys have broken into these feeders in the past and gobbled up all the food so that they were without food for a day or two, but usually the feeders work very well. This trip was no exception.

The night before we left we gave the boys their usual evening chicken strip snack. We asked them, as we normally do, "Do you want some cat cheekin?" Yes, we suddenly acquire speech impediments when speaking to the cats. These impediments disappear if we are speaking to anyone other than the cats. Puzzling! Anyhow, they know what "cat cheekin" is and started meowing madly. We gave them a chicken strip each and they settled in and started chewing. The next morning we got up to finish packing and get going, but we found a suspicious zip loc bag on the floor. We knew immediately that, the night before, that bag had held the package of chicken strips. No, not again - they'd broken into the chicken strips!

There was no sign of actual chicken strips, not even crumbs, or the chicken strip bag anywhere in the apartment. We searched high and low, determined to find it in case it still contained any chicken strips. We didn't want the boys gorging themselves any further and risking a gut impaction or something crazy like that. The bag was simply nowhere to be found. After looking everywhere twice or three times, there was only one place left to look - under the couch. The couch sits only half an inch to an inch off the floor, so the cats cannot get under it. However, with the help of a flashlight, we found the chicken strips bag! Under the couch! Had the little criminals tried to hide the evidence from us? Well, the bag had one small piece of chicken still in it, so we suspect the boys were trying to get that last piece of chicken and inadvertently pushed the bag under the couch.

Now the chicken strips (yes, we bought more) stay in the fridge. By the way, we were shopping in Target today and decided to see if they had any chicken strips like the ones we found at PetSmart (and originally at Trader Joe's). They did! In fact, they have vitamin/supplement fortified chicken strips! They are sold under the brand "Vitality" and are, like all pet-grade chicken breast strips we've found, in the dog section. We bought the variety supplemented with flaxseed oil and vitamins to promote healthy eyes, coat, and skin. Boo has had a little dry skin lately, so this sounded good. We bought the last two bags.

The boys did not ravenously eat these strips the way they did the brand we bought from PetSmart. They ate these strips, but they were not as excited about them as they've been about other brands. But, again, they ate them, so we're happy to continue giving them to the boys. These are $5.99 for a 6 oz (weight) bag. That's pricier than the PetSmart variety, but these are fortified with extra ingredients that are good for the cats, after all.

We'll review the automatic feeders soon. We also bought the boys a little "play station" at Target today, and we'll review that soon, as well.

The orphaned kittens are doing fine. The calico's eyes are fully open and she responds strongly to KittyDaddy (Mr. Aelurophile). Black-and-white-kitten's eyes don't even show signs of opening yet. We are convinced he is at least a week younger (based on conception date) than the calico. We have read that there are often kittens of differing ages in one litter, certainly kittens of different fathers! But little black-and-white continues to guzzle KMR and put on weight. His eyes should open soon.

At least we are pretty certain of their sexes, now, so that we can start trying to think of names for them.

The Kittens are Purring!

2008-05-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

The kittens purred for the first time when we fed them this morning. A milestone!

We also found out that the black and white kitten is a male. Not so certain about the calico.

They seem healthy and eat heartily and sleep soundly. After gently stimulating the black and white kitten's bum with a cotton ball this morning, there was a single tiny drop of blood on the cotton after s/he defecated. We researched this and, if it is an isolated occurrence, it is nothing to worry about, but if it happens again it could be anything from a parasite to distemper. Our fingers are crossed. The kitten has no other symptoms, which is a good thing.

The calico's eyes continue to open - still not fully - but black and white's eyes are not opening yet. We did read that some litters of kittens can contain kittens of differing ages, suggesting that once a mother cat conceives, she is still fertile for at least a few days and can conceive again. If that is true, we suspect that is the case -- the calicos are older than the black and white(s).

We washed the SnuggleKittie in the washer on the gentle cycle and then dried her in the dryer (sounds so cruel!). It took two hours to dry her! But she is nice and clean for the kittens now. Next time we will place some piece of fabric - a sock or shirt - in or on her and we will NOT wash that when we wash her, and we will place it on her when we replace her in the nest after a washing, so her scent is not so foreign to the kittens after being washed.

The outside temperatures were warm today and forecast to be warm tomorrow, which is good news for the kittens, who do like warmth.

More on the Orphaned Kittens

2008-05-13T18:47:00.000-07:00

The kittens are doing fine. They were shivering last night so we turned up the heating pad and put a towel over the box to retain heat, and they were much happier. Kittens this young are not able to regulate their body temperature, so they need heat from their mother, or, in this case, from some other source. The SnuggleKittie came with heat "pods" that last about 20 hours, so we were using them, and it also comes with a pouch for holding raw rice that is heated up in the microwave. Raw rice retains heat quite well - I used something similar to apply heat to my jaws when I had severe TMJ problems.

Callie the calico is opening his/her eyes! Maggie the magpie-colored cat is a little slower in the eye department, and s/he may simply be "behind" in every aspect of growing as s/he was never fed mother's milk (except for the first two or three days of his/her life). We've learned that they are really too young to sex accurately at this time, so we will wait a bit longer before we give them permanent names. They are getting a bit more coordinated and moving quite a bit more, and Callie can almost climb out of the box! We'll have to get a bigger box.

The SnuggleKittie is still a hit and the kittens sleep on it, under it, or burrow into it. They also defecate on it -- Snuggle Kittie folks, your next invention needs to be a SnuggleKittie that will clean itself! It would be even better if it would clean the babies, as well...

The Surrogate Mom

2008-05-12T23:04:00.001-07:00

The kittens LOVE The Surrogate Mom! Especially when she's got a heat pod in her pocket! Yes, it's the CuddleKittie. Here is a fuzzy photo of the fuzzy babies and fuzzy mom (it's feeding time, and they know by now that their food comes from somewhere other than this surrogate). We'll try to get a better picture soon.

Little black and white, whom we call "Maggie" (short for "Magpie" because of his/her fur color), was shivering quite a bit tonight, but we finally figured out it was not a neurological problem - s/he was COLD! We turned up the heating pad and slipped an extra heat "pod" into Surrogate Mom, and Maggie settled down nicely with Callie the Calico.

You can just notice the difference in size of the two kittens in the blurry photograph above. Callie's head is closer to the camera, yes, but by less than an inch, which does not account for the difference in head sizes. Amazing what mother's milk will do.

Reunion Failure

2008-05-11T17:58:00.000-07:00

We lost a kitten.

Mom was nursing all of them and everything seemed fine. We checked them frequently. But on checking Saturday morning, one of the black and white kittens was dead, and Mom had left with one of the calicos (NOT the calico she'd had for the past week!). So we were left with one black and white kitten and one fat calico.

We are guessing that Mom just wasn't making enough milk for all four after a week of milk for just one. We should have known this, perhaps, but everyone we asked said it was best to try to reunite the kittens with Mom and their one sibling. Anyhow, when one of her kittens died she decided to high tail it with the original one she'd been feeding (not realizing she mistakenly grabbed the wrong one -- hey, it LOOKED like the original one!), thinking she might be able to save one from whatever had started killing the other three.

Lesson learned.

The remaining black and white one seems well enough. We are trying to strengthen him and get him up to speed with his fatter, fitter littermate. We are armed with lots of KMR, as well as a product we spotted in PetSmart - a SnuggleKittie. We had been discussing how the kittens seemed to be looking for Mom in between feedings last week, and we mused how nice it would be to have something they could snuggle up with and feel comforted by, some kind of surrogate mom. And then we found that someone else had already had the idea and developed and marketed it!

It looks promising. It is a largish plush cat. It has a "heart" that "beats" (run by batteries that are included), and two heat packs that are supposed to last 20 hours each, plus a terry pouch that will hold uncooked rice for heating in the microwave after the heat packs, which are activated by air exposure, run out of heat. (Of course, we are already using a heating pad.) It also has a spot where a nursing bottle can be placed so that the nipple protrudes from the cat's belly! It's all quite ingenious. The price at PetSmart is $29.99, a bit steep, but until competition arrives from other companies, they can get away with that price. Well, they can get away with it if the product works as advertised.

So far the product is doing what its packaging promised. The two remaining kittens have taken to the SnuggleKittie and are cuddled up, sleeping with it! We'll have photographs soon. Meantime, note that the company that makes the SnuggleKittie does donate their product to animal shelters and rescue groups, so check out how to help them out.

Also, since this blog is supposed to be about Ivan and Boo, rest assured that they are both just fine and as crazy and hilarious as ever. In fact, they seemed quite interested in the SnuggleKittie themselves!

Reunion!

2008-05-09T15:24:00.000-07:00

We were able to reunite the abandoned kittens with their mother!

Last weekend she took one of four kittens but did not come back for the other three. It is possible that she was feeding the three in one spot and the fourth elsewhere, but we could not be sure, so we took the trio in. However, yesterday, we found where she was keeping the fourth, so after some quick consideration, we decided to replace the trio in the "nest" mom had made for the fourth (the nest was in our garden in a shallow hole filled with straw and covered with a wooden box. The garden is fenced, making it difficult for predators to enter).

At first it was not obvious that she had accepted the trio, because she flees when we come near, being a feral cat, so we could not see her actually nursing, or even interacting with them. However, after leaving the trio with the fourth littermate for at least five hours, we checked on them and it was very obvious that mom had been cleaning the trio (humans are not as good at cleaning kitten poop out of kitten fur as mother cats are), and they seemed healthy, hydrated, and had good color. We left them in the nest overnight, and this morning they, again, seemed in fine shape. We will continue to check on them to make sure.

Interestingly, the kitten who stayed with mom is noticeably bigger and fatter than the other three. Hopefully they will catch up with him, now that they're back with mom. Obviously mother's milk is a million times better than kitten formula.

Before we found mom's nest, we had gone to PetSmart to stock up on KMR and found a product that would be purr-fect for comforting orphaned kittens. We'll review that in the next blog entry.

What to do with orphaned newborn kittens!

2008-05-07T22:26:00.000-07:00

One of our farm cats had kittens last week but was spooked away from them. We believe she took one with her, but she never came back for the remaining three. After multiple attempts to reunite mother and kittens, we had to take the kittens in.

Talk about a crash course in kitten care! A neighbor is a retired veterinary technician, so she came over with an eye dropper to show us the basics of infant kitten feeding, burping, cleaning and elimination. It was Sunday and the only place in town that sells kitten formula was not open, so we had to make due with evaporated milk and sugar. Monday morning we found the savior of orphaned kittens everywhere: KMR.

KMR is "kitten milk replacement" made by Pet Ag and sold at pet stores and feed stores, even in the feed store of our tiny town, population around 900. KMR is a wondrous thing. The kittens took to it immediately. Kitten bottles are also available! Isn't the 21st century amazing? We buy the liquid form of KMR, as it is not easy to prepare formula from a powder with three mewing kittens demanding food. They suck the stuff down. We are very lucky that this is available. However, from what we read in our crash course on nursing kittens, there is still no guarantee they will survive. We estimate they were about three days old when mom abandoned them. We, and they, are lucky if mom fed them for three full days, for we read that a minimum of 72 hours worth of mother's milk is necessary to establish good immunity in kittens.

The kittens must be fed about every two hours. Then the must be burped by rubbing their tummies. Then their little rectums must be stimulated with a cotton ball or q-tip to promote elimination. They apparently cannot quite eliminate without this stimulation for the first week or two. Their mother usually licks them to stimulate defecation. Then they must be cleaned up and put back into their "nest", a box with a warm blanket or towel inside, and the box rests on top of a heating pad. The heating pad should be at a low setting, and it should only warm half the box so that the kittens can move off it if they get too hot. We did not feel much warmth with the heating pad on low, so we set it to medium. The kittens slept a lot more once the heating pad was in place.

That is the cycle for the first few weeks of life. We cross our fingers that nothing goes wrong, or that they do not catch anything, as just about anything they could catch would be life-threatening at this stage.

Here's a photograph that shows the kittens inside their box and gives a better sense of their size. Mr. Aelurophile takes the kittens to his office every day so that he can feed them every two hours, and this photo was taken there.

The Carnivorous Criminals

2008-04-20T18:13:00.000-07:00

They broke into the bag of chicken strips!

Yes, as mentioned previously, we found an alternative to Trader Joe's chicken strips (marketed for dogs) when our Trader Joe's stopped carrying them. In PetSmart, we found "Smokehouse" brand chicken breast strips (again for dogs). The boys love these as much as the Trader Joe's brand. They are $9.99 for a pound bag (above). The Trader Joe's brand is, surprisingly, more expensive (when we can get it).

We store the bag o' chicken on the top of the refrigerator. Well, our boys are smarter than we thought. They realized that the thing we are putting on top of the fridge contains the stuff of dreams! They somehow managed to get on top of the fridge and they knocked the bag down, and together they ate the top of the bag open. See the photo below which shows the damage they did. We caught them probably seconds before they actually got anything out of the bag. Little carnivorous criminals!

We have to say that we are not entirely sure that these are perfectly good for cats to eat, and we plan to call our vet to check. Both of the boys seemed to have an evening this week when they did not feel well, but we honestly cannot attribute it to the chicken. After all, what's wrong with chicken? We did reduce their daily chicken strip ration to half a breast each, though (the Smokehouse brand strips can be broken in half by hand).

The boys beg almost all day for these treats. So if they're not good for cats, it's a shame! I'll let you know what the vet says once we find out. See the evidence of the boys' breaking and entering above. The package comes with a zip-loc top, which they destroyed.

Here's Boo looking awfully satisfied with himself after the crime.

Cats vs. Dogs

2008-04-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

Two hilarious cats vs. dogs pieces:

And

Excerpts from a Dog's Diary:

8:00am - Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30am - A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing! - 10:30am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00pm - Lunch! My favorite thing!
1:00pm - Play in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00pm - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00pm - Dog Biscuits! My favorite thing!
7:00pm - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00pm - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11:00pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

Excerpts from a Cat's Diary:

Day 983 of my captivity. My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something to keep up my strength. The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet. Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped it would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am.

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage. Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released and seems more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded. The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicate with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe. For Now.

Live (sort of) Prey

2008-04-12T17:50:00.000-07:00

We found a new cat toy that the boys go crazy for. It's made by OurPets, and it is a "Play-n- Squeak Mouse". The mouse contains a microchip that causes it to squeak with a VERY realistic sound when the mouse is batted around. Brilliant! It fascinated our cats for a long time and while they are no longer playing with it 24-7, they still play with it a great deal. The gray mouse with pink ears and tail and plush fur comes alone or in two "interactive" versions that we've seen: on a string attached to a hand-held wand, and on a string that hangs from a door-hanger. We have all three but have not yet opened the wand - the boys are busy enough with the door and "stringless" versions! The prices are amazingly reasonable for such cleverly-designed toys (yes, the microchip alone makes these toys very innovative). The mouse itself is $5.99, while the interactive versions are each $7.99. The photo above shows Boo with the mouse. Ah, we forgot to mention that these toys all contain catnip. Luckily, our boys respond strongly to cat nip (not all cats do). They love it!

After a visit to the OurPets web site, we see that they also offer the Play-n-Squeak Mouse with a rod and reel. That's a great idea. We have a "CatFisher Rod and Reel" made by Bamboo and Ivan and Boo just love it. That's the toy that they beg us to get out every evening. We can sit (or stand! We're not always lazy!) and cast the mouse lure for great distances and reel it in quickly, slowly, in spurts, or not at all, depending on the boys' moods. We have not tested the OurPets rod and reel, but we can tell you that the Bamboo version is well-constructed and relatively easy to repair when the fishing line inevitably gets bunched up in the reel (fishermen know that this happens with "real" reels, too, so it's not necessarily a defect in the product). We've had the Bamboo rod and reel for a couple of years and use it a lot, and it's still hanging in there. We have had to replace the lures, which can be purchased separately. The Bamboo CatFisher Rod and Reel currently sells at PetSmart for $19.99. It comes with two lures. The OurPets rod and reel (above) is $17.99 and comes with the Play-n-Squeak Mouse as the lure.

By the way, Ivan and Boo also love the "string" that attaches the Play-n-Squeak Mouse to the hand wand or door hanger. They've always been fascinated by snake-like objects, and the string on these toys has a weight to it that makes it move "snakily". They can't resist it.

Chewy Cat Goodness!

2008-04-06T15:13:00.000-07:00

The boys got another round in the Klaw Kontrol bag for some klaw klipping last night (we previously reviewed this product). Once again Ivan bopped Boo, this time TWICE, while Boo was confined. We had to remove Ivan from the room while Boo was being clipped! But yet again we had a successful klaw klipping session, which we hope will protect our leather couch and chair from claw scratches.

It's been cooler lately so the boys have been all over us. Last night Ivan decided he needed to sleep on my shoulder while I watched a bit of TV. Boo was feeling cuddly and slept in my lap. He's not always a cuddlemuffin, so we take it when we can get it.

They've started begging for between-meal-snacks. We give them two kinds. First are Greenies, which they absolutely love. Boo will stand on his hind legs for these. [OK, as I write this, I am seated in an office chair at my computer desk, and Ivan's hind legs are on the back of the chair, and his front legs are on my shoulders as he checks out my jacket and tries to groom my hair. He loves my hair, and I think it might be the hairspray! Don't worry, I don't let him groom my hair. I'm pretty sure hairspray isn't good for him.] Greenies come in several flavors, but the boys prefer the fishy ones (tuna, salmon, ocean fish). The second snack they get is Trader Joe's Chicken Breast Strips. These are marketed for dogs, but the cats go nuts over them.

When I found the chicken breast strips, I was actually looking for things that cats might like to chew on. These boys both have a nice case of pica ("eating non-food items"). If you've heard of pica, it's probably in the context of dogs who eat their own feces. Thank heavens these cats don't have that problem. No, they like to eat fabrics. Usually natural fibers (cotton, silk) but they have been known to go for a soft synthetic. Luckily I have a sewing machine so I can fix the damage they did before we caught them chewing our clothes. Since then we've learned to keep the closet well-closed and not let clothes lay around. Or dish towels - the picture shows a normal dish towel next to one that Ivan got his teeth into.

We did quite a bit of research on this fabric-chewing and found that about 5% of cats suffer from this. Some experts feel it is a displaced nursing reflex, others think the cats are missing something in their diets (the latter is unlikely as we feed them Science Diet "Nature's Best"). I simply feel these guys learned to chew while teething and just haven't gotten over it. They also love to chew cardboard (especially the cardboard cat scratchers) and Papermate Sharpwriter pencils. The only non-food items they swallow, though, are fabric. Since the pieces are small, the vet thinks it's not dangerous ( while eating dental floss or holiday tinsel is dangerous as those can get lodged in the cat's gut). Anyhow, since I thought it was a chewing compulsion, I started looking for things they might like to chew that were intended for that purpose, like dog rawhide toys.

I found some basted rawhide "sticks" made for very small dogs. They are about the diameter of a pencil, and about half as long. The cats were sort of interested in them, and they'd chew on them if I held the sticks, but somehow the cats seemed to have trouble "holding" the sticks by themselves so they could chew them. (Though how they manage to chew the Sharpwriter pencils is an interesting question.)

I also found a company called Petstages which makes toys and products for cats' various needs, including chewing. The cats would play with these chew toys (made of fabric and scented with catnip). But they didn't chew on them much. These toys are rather stiff, and the boys seem to prefer softer fabrics for chewing. So they mostly bat the Petstages chew toys around.

While looking at Trader Joe's pet section, I saw some desiccated chicken breasts for dogs. They are about 3-4 inches long and from 1/2 to 1 1/2 inches wide. They are pretty hard and rigid. I bought a bag of those just to see if the cats would like them. Voilá! They LOVE them. When I first gave the boys one each, Ivan took about five minutes to eat his, and Boo took about ten. They chewed and chewed until the things were gone. However, I was worried about calories as the vet said Boo could stand to lose a few pounds, so I started cutting the breasts in half (using garden pruning shears!!!) and giving each cat a half, and when the breasts are cut in half the cats chew them up pretty quickly. The sole ingredient in these strips is "dried chicken breast fillets" per the packaging. They are made in China, but I can't imagine the manufacturer would feel the need to add melamine to these.

So, for any of you looking for chewy items for your cats, try the Petstages products, but if all else fails try the Trader Joe's Chicken Breast Strips for dogs! (Unfortunately my local TJ's was out of them today, but they are pretty good about getting them back in stock.) The below video is of Ivan chewing his [whole] chicken breast strip.

Ivan the Clown

2008-03-20T21:26:00.000-07:00

Ivan is the biggest goofball in the world. Look at the fake mustache he painted on himself in this photo! We swear we did not paint it on him. We came home and there it was.

Ivan is also very smart. He quickly learned how to open the doors inside our apartment. We started shutting him and Boo out of the bedroom at night because they tend to jump on our heads at 3am and wake us up. Well, shutting the doors alone wasn't enough - they'd break in! So we have to lock the doors each night!

Because we travel occasionally, we purchased two feeding bowls on timers. These bowls have 5 compartments, and the timers determine when each compartment will open to reveal cat food. The feeders work very well. HOWEVER, the last time we used them, which was over one night, we came home to find Ivan and Boo had broken into one of them! Yes, they had somehow pried the top off of the feeder and were able to get to ALL of the food instead of one day's worth at a time! [We'll review the feeder in a future blog entry.]

Do you see a theme here? Cat burglars!

We recently came across a great cat-related item in the Drs. Foster and Smith pet catalogue. It's something called the "Klaw Kontrol". It's basically a straight jacket for cats! It's like a very snug cat-carrier, though one that leaves the cat's head free. Being snug, it tends to comfort cats. There is a zipper for each front leg, and one for the hind legs. You can unzip one zipper at a time to free one leg at a time and cut the cat's claws! It's a wonderful invention! You can also leave all zippers zipped and administer oral medicine, ear drops, eye drops, etc.

We use it for claw clipping and it is the cat's pajamas! We did spend a couple of days getting our cats accustomed to it - we simply unzipped it so that it was wide open, and we laid it on the floor. After they got somewhat used to it, we started putting cat treats inside it. We also dragged the cats' favorite chase toys across it, so they would feel comfortable walking/running/playing on it. Eventually, we decided to try to attach the collar portion around Ivan's neck (of the two, he's the easiest to handle). We let him sit with it attached, and then we picked him up and gently arranged him inside the "bag" and zipped him up in it. He struggled a bit, but we rewarded him with treats when he was calm. We let him sit in it for a while. Then we let him out. We did that for a couple of days, and then on the third day we zipped Ivan up in it and we cut his claws! He struggled a bit, but with plenty of cat treats when he did NOT struggle, he seemed to get the idea and remained still while we cut his front claws. We waited until the next evening to cut his hind claws.

Boo's experience with the "Klaw Kontrol" was very similar. However, when we first got Boo zipped up in it (which was a little more difficult than zipping Ivan in it, because Boo is bigger), he was a little bit distressed. Ivan sensed this and came over to check it out. He must have quickly recognized that Boo was powerless, because he almost immediately gave Boo a nice WOP right on the nose! Only Ivan would wait for the opportune moment to get a good jab in at his bigger, stronger brother!

Anyhow, the Klaw Kontrol is made of durable but extremely lightweight material. It really is THE answer for us as far as cutting Ivan's and Boo's claws. Perhaps eventually we'll be able to cut their claws without it. REMINDER: be careful not to cut into the quick of your cat's claws, because it hurts!

Here's a close-up of Ivan's self-administered mustache:
Nicely focused on the carpet, eh?

Welcome to the Chronicles of Ivan and Boo!

2008-03-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

Welcome! I found myself telling stories about my two cats to friends and relatives so often, and eliciting laughs and smiles from them in the process, that I figured I should chronicle the cats' antics. What better way than via a blog?

They are extremely energetic guys, and they are not allowed outside, so we buy a lot of cat toys to play with them and to keep them entertained when my husband and I are away. So I may occasionally review cat toys and cat-related products here.

A little background on Ivan and Boo: In November of 2006 we had 20 year-old Ian, our black and white DSH (domestic shorthair) cat (that we'd had since the age of about 2), and 7 year-old Aggie, a marble tabby (came to us at about 6 months). They were hanging out and trucking along just fine until a trip to the vet to be boarded while we were out of town revealed Ian had lost some weight. So they ran a few tests and discovered he had lymphoma. However, he was still eating and not in any pain that we could detect, so he was put on oral Prednisone and occasional subcutaneous (via needle) fluids, and he did quite well. Left is a photo of Ian sleeping with his eyes covered. Below is Aggie with a hilarious expression.

The feral female longhair tortoiseshell cat at our farm (a few hours away from our city apartment) had had kittens a few months before, and she was now bringing them around to eat solid food with her. We began socializing them immediately. We named the black and white DSH "Ivan" ("Ian" with a "V") and his litter mate, a white and gray DLH (domestic longhair) "Boo". Boo's name takes some explaining. He has partial pigmentation of his nose, so that it is part pink, part brown, and a tiny bit is black. It reminded my Welsh husband of what we Americans so delicately call "a booger", so he promptly named the cat "Booger". Well, wishing to be even more delicate, I immediately shortened that to "Boo". Now he gets called "Booper" more often than "Boo".

We decided that we would adopt these sons of a feral mother and take them to our apartment in the city. We knew we would lose Ian eventually, and we figured they would make good playmates for Aggie. Unfortunately, that was not to be. In mid-January of 2007, Aggie suddenly stopped eating and sat staring at the floor. She had also developed anisocoria, one pupil markedly larger than the other (this is a sign in cats of a serious health problem, often feline AIDS, but it accompanies other disorders as well). Recognizing immediately that this was something serious, we took her to the vet. She had an advanced case of lymphoma, herself. It was in her lungs and other organs. She had been most adept at hiding it from us, as cats are wont to do. Plus, in having to attend to Ian, we may have missed some little signs from her. Sadly, her cancer was so advanced that she was unable to breathe without oxygen a couple of days later. She was euthanized. Ten days later, Ian had to be euthanized.

So now there are Ivan and Boo. And their antics. (Photograph above is Ivan (top) and Boo on their cat tree.)