Some cats want to walk the earth, some cats want conversation
I’ve been feeding the stray cats regularly for a few months, but they haven’t gotten any friendlier. They turn up at mealtimes and meow at the door, but they shrink away when I try to pet them. They want to stay feral, roam the neighborhood at will, hunt rats and insects. No domestication, they’re free agents.
In contrast Koosi my eldest cat happily abandoned the outdoor life the day we met. She has no interest in going out again. Saffy joined the household when she was one month old; she doesn’t like the outdoors. Mat is a different case. He was about a year old when he turned up outside my building; the guards said he’d jumped out of a moving car. When I saw him he immediately approached and allowed himself to be rubbed. I started leaving food for him at the guardhouse, then one day he turned up at our doorstep. He came in, took a tour of the apartment, pooped in the litterbox, ate some kibble while Koosi and Saffy leapt on top of a shelf and loudly protested the invasion. After that visit he would regularly invite himself in. Eventually he took to taking long naps on the couch. He never had trouble getting strangers to feed him—he’s the master of the adorable pitiful gaze—so the main attractions of living indoors are the rubdowns, the litterbox, and the couch which he has filleted with his claws.
Koosi, Saffy, and Mat all like being spoken to.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
March 9th, 2009 at 08:31
Just out of curiousity, do you bathe your cats? Or rather, how do you keep them clean enough to not get skin parasites?
March 9th, 2009 at 11:30
I don’t bathe my cats. They seem to spend half the day cleaning themselves. No skin parasites. Years ago when they got fleas from somewhere, we applied Frontline and the fleas went away. Frontline comes in small plastic vials—you apply a few drops to the back of the cat’s neck. Very effective. There’s also Frontline for dogs.
March 9th, 2009 at 22:19
They just want the goodies, eh? Bad cat/s.
Maybe they’ve been maltreated by other humans before, so they don’t welcome the pet-ting.
Reminds me of canary birds; no matter how long you’ve owned/served them, they do not get friendly.
March 11th, 2009 at 00:47
Today, March 9 I found a ginger kitten on top of my fence, meowing. I don’t know where he came from, but he looks too healthy and clean to be a stray. I picked him up and he didn’t protest. That means I get to keep him. About 3 months old, he is very friendly and his breath smells nice. (I love the smell of cat breath). I shall name him Junior because I also have a large ginger tabby named Tigris-Mising, who looks exactly like him, only Junior is of darker shade of orange. Could it be that he is in fact Tigris-Mising’s own offspring, and he is looking for his father? I tried to introduce them, but Tigris-Mising hissed and scampered away. Cats. Love them.
March 12th, 2009 at 01:19
my cat max, practically owns me. when we wake up (he sleeps in my room),the first thing he does is to go down and go to the kitchen…if i don’t, he howls like there is no tomorrow…i am at his beck and call hehe…but i retaliate by smothering him with kisses which he loathes, haha!
June 18th, 2010 at 16:19
where can you buy Frontline?