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Meet my cat, Marley!


Dilley88

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We (my husband and I) adopted him back in April 2018 when he was probably around 6-8 weeks old? We found him outside our apartment building all alone, looking cold and pitiful with 'Puss in Boots' eyes. Little did we know, we adopted a little monster! ? His sole purpose in life is to annoy the crap out us and test our patience! He loves to scratch on everything EXCEPT his scratching post. And he has TWO of those (three if you want to count the scratching mat). Our couch and curtains are ruined. Hahaha. BUTTTTT he is slowly learning. Progress! 

He also chewed through my Macbook's flimsy charger's cable. I haven't gotten around to buying a new one because they are not cheap! lol. 

LOVESSSSS to drink from the toilet bowl ?‍♀️ We don't know why we even bother to put out fresh water in his bowl. 

He's quite adorable though. He loves to chase his own tail and is entertained by moving shadows.

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Here's a picture of him looking at me as if I'm the crazy lady who likes to yell at him for no reason ?

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LOL, he's cute! And I'm guessing all (young) cats are like that. I adopted two kittens back in July 2018. The shelter estimated them to be born in April that year and I'm glad I didn't buy new curtains yet (Ruined like yours). I've put blankets and other covers on my (new) couch but the moment there is a little piece of it uncovered THAT's what they go for. The cable chewing, I've quickly been able to stop them from biting it by putting some wasabi paste on them. They hate stuff that has a strong smell. And like you, I have stuff for them to scratch everywhere. I have two welcome mats for them to use, a big scratching pole, a playmat with scratching patch, another scratching mat mounted on a wall in the kitchen and I build  a little corner for them (next to the couch) with fabric tiles on top and a carboard scratchtoy on those fabric tiles.  They never have to walk more than 5 meter to get to a place where they are allowed to scratch.

The toilet bowl is a weird place to drink though, I hope you make sure he can't drink from it when you just cleaned it. Unless you clean with something that's safe for him! I believe most cats settle down a bit around the age of 3. But ofcourse they are cats and they are funny, exploring and will always try to be a little mischievous.

In that last picture he's also looking with of face of "whoops, busted" Like he knows it's not allowed but wanted to try anyway.

I am glad to see that a cute little stray has been able to find a nice warm house. It's so sad when they are so young and alone on the streets.

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We have two different types of bowl for him to drink from! We do try to make it a habit to put down the toilet bowl lid and ensure the door is shut properly (Marley knows how to push them open). But sometimes we forget and we will notice him coming out of the bathroom licking his lips all satisfied. Hahaha.

Ohh, maybe I'll try the wasabi paste on cables. Thank you for the tip!

Every time we successfully cat-proofed one thing. he will find a new way to destroy the house! ?

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He's so cute! It's been my experience, through my MIL's cats, the cute ones are the most mischeivious. Remy is the worst of the lot. He does his business everywhere! Then there's Cerridwen. She's a well-behaved Bombay, and loves napping on my shoulder.

 

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Hahaha looks like we have a crazy kitten club! My guy is the same way, born June 9th.
Marley is sooooo cute and you can tell from the pictures that he has a lot of character haha!
I swear they know they are cute and think they can get away with it to some extent haha. I thought my guy drinking out of the tub and sink was funny, but drinking out of the toilet takes the cake. ? The only thing he didn't do, that I still am baffled about as my last cat was relentless about it, was mess with the Christmas tree! I'm going to try the wasabi paste on the cords too seems like a safer alternative to the bitter spray. 

 

Here's a picture of my guy Edward, he sat perfectly still like this for a good 5 mins just staring at his mouse before I took this photo haha! Duma, do you have any pictures of your kitties?

 

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Edward is funny too, my cat Yuki does that too, either with his back legs facing the ceiling like in your picture or just facing opposite of his front legs. It looks so weird. Also, he will prefer to drink from a flowerpot filled with water for my waterlily than from his own water bowl. To drink from the flowerpot he is standing on the top of the back of my garden chair and on the edge of the flower pot (standing on wheels) while his own drinkbowl with fresh water is just standing on the ground, nice and easy to reach. He's weird but a big teddy bear. Whenever I'm watching tv he will come and sleep near or on top of me. Both of them are sweet though. Whenever they come back inside they come and find me meowing until I answer and pet them. After that they'll just go and sleep or destroy the house, whatever their mood is at that time I guess lol.

I don't really have the funny pictures because everytime I take my camera they get curious and come over. So most of my pics are from them sleeping/resting. I'm still trying to get really cute/funny/pretty pictures of them, preferable active ones to enlarge and frame. I've had 1 good session only to find out that I had my camera settings all wrong. The brightness was set all the way up so the pics are worthless. Especially the ones from Yuki as he is mostly white.

This is a picture when I just had them a few days:

Yuki and Yoru.jpg

And here is one I took last week while I was watching tv, btw, my legs are underneath them...:

Sleeping.jpg

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All the kitty cuteness! ?

I wonder WHY animals drink from the toilet instead of their own water bowls... I know dogs do it too. You'd think it couldn't possibly be cleaner water, but as loos are flushed more than a water bowl is cleaned, maybe it is! Maybe it's more about fresher water. ?‍♀️

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@Smashcash Hahaha Edward's so cute! Is the mouse his favourite toy? Perhaps he is dreaming of belly rubs ?

@Duma  Awww look at them all cozy on your legs ? I understand the difficulty of trying to get a decent picture of them being playful. You need to be really sneaky about it. Sometimes I just start recording instead of taking photos and grab the most decent stills from the video.

@jellysundae Maybe you are right about fresher water lol. I've been thinking about investing in a drinking fountain for cats. Something like the picture below. But we're worried he will just play with the little water fountain and make a wet mess everywhere ?

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@Dilley88 He has this fluffy green ball that he carries around in his mouth that is his absolute favourite but I'd say the mouse is definitely up there!!

I highly recommend the water fountain! we have one similar to the one you pictured but the water comes down a slide instead of free falling. I got it at wal-mart I think? maybe petsmart. might be less likely to make a mess with that ?

 

@Duma They are beautiful! they look like they really love each other! are they from the same litter?

we used to have Edwards sister Winry too but when she started going in to heat she started getting aggressive toward Edward and my sisters older cat Ninja. We thought that maybe it would stop after getting her fixed but it didn't and then she started peeing on my oldest son and his bed. needless to say we ended up re-homing her with a family with a little girl and no other cats and she fit in perfectly! we miss her a lot (especially my son) but I think shes much happier now being the queen of the house.

When we first brought them home ❤️

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OMG those pics are ADORABLE @Smashcash

And no they are not from the same litter. They were both rescued as kittens from the street by the same shelter but not at the same time. When I went there to pick two kittens they warned me that Yuki was hissing at other cats and they weren't sure if he would behave well with Yoru. Yuki would have had to stay a bit longer in the shelter to socialize as he is a bit older but was found later by the shelter. But from the moment I've had them they were getting along perfectly and they still do. They have both been helped by the shelter before you could pick them up for adoption so that was really cool.

BTW: Edward and Winry are very nice names and they are just so very very cute in those pictures. I know I've mentioned it first thing but I just keep staring at them. ❤️

Also I've heard it before that it's easier to have two male cats together than having two females or a male and female. My parents used to have a brother and sister and that went fine but maybe we were just very lucky back then?

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OH! Found something buried deep in my Photobucket...

This is one of my former boss's cats, a big ol' ginger tom who'd apparently hold his paws out to get his mani done... Claws trimmed and covers put on while he's falling asleep basically, I don't think he's actually a cat at all! ?

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What do you guys think about claw covers? This fella didn't mind them in the least, but that's not something you could say for most sofa-shredders, is it! ?

4 hours ago, Duma said:

Also I've heard it before that it's easier to have two male cats together than having two females or a male and female. My parents used to have a brother and sister and that went fine but maybe we were just very lucky back then?

Would this be neutered boys? I'd think it would have to be, I'm imagining very literal, er... peeing contests otherwise. ?

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The marking of territory always happens with male cats that haven't been helped as far as I know. Of course with 2 or more cats it will happen more often too. But for the getting along it doesn't really matter. A lot of female cats are just very fierce towards other cats. I don't know if it's true but that's what I've been told and been reading online. I haven't really experienced it myself. I think the race would matter too and of course the personality of the cats involved.

About the clawcovers, I've never heard of them before. I think it's a bit weird but I would understand for indoor cats. For sure it's better than removing their nails! My cats need their claws, they go outside and have to be able to climb out of things (wouldn't be a first time they fell into a little crook of water). They also climb trees a lot and hunt and there are also other cats around that would attack them, even in MY yard. So they need to be able to defend themselves as well. As far as I can tell they're at least standing their ground now against full grown cats even though they are not even 1 year old.

They are cats, they have claws, they are mischievous. I was fully aware of that when I decided to get them so I accept everything that is part of having cats, good and bad. If I get new curtains I will make sure they don't go all the way to the ground. I'll have them on a length that it covers the window part and that they have an easy way to get behind them. I'm observing their behavior and I will adjust my house so that both them and me can be happy.  As for the couch, that they will just have to learn. Learning, no, I'm saying it wrong, they KNOW what is allowed and what isn't, but getting them to act accordingly is something that will take LOTS of time and patience.

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@Duma You sound like a great kitty mama! :D

I wonder what it is about that front part of a couch that's so much more appealing for scratching that anything else though... it's intriguing!

I've seen homemade scraching things made from cardboard, a great way to re-use Amazon boxes etc.!

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I was wondering about that too. I know that part of their scratching is marking their home too, so maybe they want to give the couch an extra marking as a lot of cats would sleep on it, so they mark it to tell everyone it's their home, their bed, their place? At first I thought they didn't like it when the thing they're scratching is too light and moves, but after building a scratch corner for them, placed next to the couch and them still preferring the couch I doubt that's it.

This is what I build for them, obviously the green thing I bought, it has cardboard in the middle for them to scratch. I made it like this so that the long side would protect my couch. This is heavy enough for them not to move it when scratching especially since they are standing on top of it as extra weight.

Scratch corner.jpg

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I think you're onto something there, cats obviously own the entire property, yourself included, and the human scent is gonna be strongest where we spend a lot of time sat.  So do they use your lovingly constructed Scratching Centre at all though, or does them still prefering the couch mean they ignore it altogether? Maybe you need to sit in it until it smells as much of you as the couch does. ?

I wonder... if a cat had its own armchair, which it alone used, would it scratch that, or still go for where the humans sat... :snitch:

I suppose we should be grateful that they don't territory mark on our LEGS! Maybe the texture's too soft... ?

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They use all but one of the scratch options I have given them. I build this because they liked the cardboard but didn't like it when it came of the ground. So it might be both the smell and the weight? And they don't need to scratch their humans for their scent, they just shed their hairs all over us ?

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2 hours ago, Duma said:

they just shed their hairs all over us ?

I'm quite sure, considering how altruistic cats are *cough cough* that they're just trying to help us poor furless creatures by providing us with a coat of our own. ?

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@jellysundae OMG! That ginger cat is so adorable ? Marley doesn't like it when I touch his paws, so I never bothered trimming his nails. I'll end up with scratch marks all over my arms ?

On 2/28/2019 at 8:57 PM, Duma said:

A lot of female cats are just very fierce towards other cats.

 

My mum's cats are all female and they get along just fine. So maybe it just depends on the cat's personality? 

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4 hours ago, Dilley88 said:

@jellysundae OMG! That ginger cat is so adorable ? Marley doesn't like it when I touch his paws, so I never bothered trimming his nails. I'll end up with scratch marks all over my arms ?

My mum's cats are all female and they get along just fine. So maybe it just depends on the cat's personality? 

My cats let me touch their paws, they even grab my fingers when I'm not. Like they'll press the bottom of their paws on my fingertips and want me to gently touch them.

I guess it really does depend on the personality. My parents have only had 2 female cats. The first was the sister of another and was getting along fine, the other can't stand another cat (male or female) near her. All other cats I've lived with long enough to know them were males.

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My mum grew up with a male cat.

Oh, incidentally, I recently learnt that he was a ginger tom, too. See I'd seen photos of him but they were all black and white and I'd always assumed he was a tabby because that's what he looked like, but nope, he was ginger.

But, anyway, this guy, Skippy  - who lived to the venerable age of 22 - used to let mum dress him up in doll's clothes, and push him around in her doll's pram... and this is what I've seen photographic evidence of, lol.

Cats quite clearly have as wide a range of personality options as we do. I wonder if being completely chill like Skippy was means they're more likely to live longer though. ? He was an outdoor cat, just about all cats in the UK are. Well, what do you say @Duma , most cats in Europe? It seems keeping cats indoors 100% of the time is far more prevalent in the US, so much so that some people genuinely don't believe it when they are told people in the UK's cats come and go as they please. I'm going by some quite ugly comments I saw on Youtube where someone from the US was really rudely calling a Brit a liar when they were talking about their cats being outside. ?

Duma, do you have to let your cats out, or do they have a cat flap? My nan never had a cat flap, she was always afraid of the neighbours' cats coming in, but I don't imagine that happening too often really because I don't see the resident kitty being very tolerant of that! I imagine some Housewives of New Jersey-type drama going on in your kitchen if that happened. ?

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I have a cat flap that only opens with my cats chip. I wasn't planning to, thinking I'll just get up and open the door, but they were making me get up every 5 minutes. And then with my work it just didn't work without the cat flap. The chip works perfect. Good thing too because the other day I noticed a neighbors cat trying to come inside. I was just sitting in the living room and the big window has a view to the cat flap. I even have a timer on it, like a curfew that I can pick myself.

And I believe too that most cats here in Europe get to go outside. Only cats in big cities, in apartments or special (expensive) cats stay inside. And not even all of those. We don't have wolves or coyotes and snakes that can hurt them. They're basically the top predator around here. So the biggest danger is from cars. I know in Japan cats stay indoors as well, and if they go outside they go on a leash. There is one island where they are roaming free and it's a bit of a tourist attraction. There are little stands that sell cat food all over the place. There are just cats everywhere. I would love to go there sometime lol.

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The chipped cat flap's a really good use of technology, isn't it. This has reminded me of a lady I worked with who tried a magnetic option that came with a special collar (this is back in the 90s) I can't remember how it worked but I'm guessing it'd be along the same principle as the chipped ones, but an unfortunate side-effect was your cat dragging home old tin cans and so on, stuck to its collar. ?

You'd THINK the manufacturer would have realised that would happen, wouldn't you! lol.

But I'm pretty sure that while cats without the corresponding magnetic collar wouldn't be able to get in, any with one would have, so I don't think that particular innovation lasted very long, lol.

Yeah you're right that the US has far more predators. The amount of cats in the UK is having a really serious impact on bird life, actually, which in turn means more insects, and not the good pollinating kind, either...

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I know what you mean about the UK cats being outdoors. I used to study in the UK back in 2008-2011. And I always see this one huge fluffy cat roaming around the street where I lived. Sometimes I brought it home with me for a few minutes just to play with it. I even named it Romeo ?

Marley is a scaredy cat! He has never been outside ever since we adopted him from the streets. I tried to bring him out for a walk once (with a leash on) and he just clings to me for his dear life! LOL. I currently live in Shanghai and I don't know how he will handle a journey back to my home country (Brunei) when the time comes. It's going to be stressful for him. But luckily it's only a 5-hour flight. So hopefully he could be sedated during the whole trip. Anyway... that's for future me to worry about ?

That chipped cat flap is really interesting! I just youtubed it and it has been around since 2010! I'm only 9 years late, lol. Amazing... 

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1 hour ago, Dilley88 said:

I currently live in Shanghai and I don't know how he will handle a journey back to my home country (Brunei) when the time comes. It's going to be stressful for him. But luckily it's only a 5-hour flight. So hopefully he could be sedated during the whole trip. Anyway... that's for future me to worry about ?

You might be able to make use of the products they use for stressed out cats and dogs? There's some plug-in diffuser that's sold but I see there's a spray too, this sentence jumped out at me!

Feliway Spray is ideal for cats travelling in the cat carrier when visiting the vet, going on holiday or to the cattery.

A nice dose of catnip might help the situation, too!

But as you say, cross that bridge when you come to it.

I wonder if "Romeo" was the neighbourhood alpha cat, it's surprising to only see one about so maybe he scared off all the others. ?

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