2017-07-30 03:04 Things don't go the way I expect
Y (Kuma's owner)
Do you have pets? If you do, I'm sure you know what I'm going to write on the blog below now.
I have been keeping cats and I have three cats now. I want them to enjoy their life in my house and I bought cat toys for them. I bought stuffed toys of mice, a long fluffy string, several balls, kick toys and so on. To cut a long story short, I spent money on them and some of it was wasted.
When I began to keep cats, I was unsure if they would enjoy playing with a ball. My impression of playing with a ball is a dog, it wasn't a cat. I found soft balls which were selling as "cats' toys" and I bought some just for a trial. As a result of having bought balls, my cats enjoyed them. Yes, they did but only for a few days. Unfortunately, it didn't last long.
On the other hand, there is a different story about toy balls. Several years ago, my neighbour gave me a small Christmas tree and ornamental balls.
I was happy displaying it in the living room, and what happened was my cats hit the balls with their paws and they were very excited to play with them. The unbelievable thing was they enjoyed Christmas tree balls more than toy balls that were sold as cats' toys. My little Christmas tree was losing balls day by day and became a miserable appearance. I'm very sure that my cats enjoyed Christmas.
I sometimes realize the different ideas of toys between cats and humans. I always try to pick up toys that my cats seem to favour but I'm not succeeding. The toy balls I bought were ignored but they love Christmas tree balls.
A kicking toy hasn't attracted the cats' attention but my husband's sneakers are very popular to play with. One of my cats loves to play with the curtain in the study. Things don't go as expected.
One day, I was searching for a T-shirt on the internet and I found a funny printed T-shirt. One American cartoonist drew pictures of cats. There were two pictures on the T-shirt. The first one indicates that a cat's owner seems to be satisfied buying a cat tree for her cat. The second picture seems to show several hours later after she put the cat tree together, and the cat was having a good time in an empty box that had contained the cat tree. What an irony! But this would happen. I think every cat's owners experience it.
Now I found out that my cats love to play with a ball which I crumple from a newspaper. From my experience of living with cats, I maybe make cheap cats' toys without spending lots of money.
However, the simplest method of getting the right toy is going shopping with a cat. If I could I would like to go shopping with my cats and ask them what toy they want.
2017-06-04 00:08 A Hair-Dresser In My House
Y (Kuma's owner)
Do you have your favorite hairdressing salon where you often go? I used to go to a shop which one of my neighbors managed, but they have moved somewhere and I don't have my favorite hairdressing salon any more. My hair is wavy and it's not easy to handle it and I always don't like my hair style, nor does Midon.
He is the youngest cat and is very active. He always looks for something fun to do. I bought him some toys but he lost interest right away and found something more fun which were not cat's toys. As I wrote before on this blog, he loves playing with paper, like newspapers, paper leaflets and receipts. Therefore, I need to pay attention when I input the data of receipts to the computer otherwise he might tear them out.
One day, my husband was taking a nap on the floor cushion in the living room. The other two old cats were also taking a nap as always but Midon is different, he is young and is full of energy from the top of his head to the point of his tail. Midon was roaming in the house looking for something to entertain him, and the taking nap husband caught his attention. I was watching curiously what would happen. I knew he was going to do something cheeky but couldn't guess precisely what he was going to do.
Midon got closer to my husband's head and sniffed it and gazed at his hair carefully. He seemed that he didn't like my husband's hairstyle and thought that he had to do something about it. Then, he started licking my husband's hair. The surprising thing was my husband was sleeping deeply and didn't wake up. It was the chance that Midon could arrange the hairstyle as much as he liked. He licked the hair for about 3 minutes and my husband's hair looked like pomaded hair, it was wet with Midon's saliva. He looked very pleased. I was watching it whilst laughing without knowing that Midon's next target was me.
One night, I felt something was touching my head and woke up. Midon was sitting and looking down at me. I had a bad feeling and it was right, he started licking my hair! He grabbed my head with his paws and licked my hair with a firm sense of mission.
"I have to correct her hairstyle!"
I didn't expect Midon's attention to come over to me. However, my hair is longer than my husband's and it seems not easy to lick, therefore most of the time the victim was my husband.
The chances of licking are anytime, Midon noticed that it's a good opportunity when humans are watching TV in the living room. My husband and I watch DVDs of movies often. It's a good way to improve English hearing. When we watch a movie, we sit on the sofa and it has a backrest, as a matter of course. I think you can already imagine what would have happened next.
We paid attention to the movie and didn't notice Midon was coming. He climbed on the backrest and licked my husband's head. My husband said "No, no, no!" but Midon didn't want to stop it. Then, finally Midon was taken from the backrest by force.
Midon seems to be a cat that cannot stand seeing an unstylish hairstyle. I heard that female cats love to lick their coats but male cats are not so enthusiastic at taking care of their coat. I don't know if it's true or not, Midon is a male cat and loves to take care of his coat very much. I see him licking his coat almost every day. When he just came to our house from AWLQ (Animal Welfare League Queensland), if we patted or touched him, he hurriedly licked where we touched as if he was cleaning off dirty things. My husband and I used to say does he think we are dirty, jokingly? In fact, looking at him licking his coat, it seems like he would say "Oops, my coat gets dirty!"
I really appreciate his kindness, but it was actually an unwelcome favor. He still doesn't like our hairstyle and his meddlesome acts seem to continue still more.
2017-05-08 21:59 The Senior cat Mittan
Y (Kuma's owner)
I have three cats and one is a female ginger cat named Mittan. Mittan was a stray cat in Japan and rescued just before euthanasia with her two kittens. People love kittens, they are so cute and lovely. Mitten's kittens were adopted after they were rescued but Mitten had remained. She wasn't a kitten but was very adorable and I and my husband decided to have her at our home.
Nearly eight years have passed since we adopted her. She was young when she came to us, now she is about 10 years old. I sometimes call her Ojochan (young lady) , this is my habit. My husband says she is not young anymore, I know it but I cannot help but call her Ojochan.
So, our ginger lady thinks she is still young too. Usually, commercial cat food packages are printed as Senior Cat food, age 7 plus. Mittan is 10 years old and old enough to be called senior. I give her senior cat food, however she seems not to like it. I don't know how she figures out the difference between cat food for young cats and senior food.
Cats have a keen sense of smell, so that maybe she can smell the differences. My twitter friend suggested me to mix the food, I tried it but rather annoyingly she picked up only the young cat's food and left the senior food. She is pretty good at eliminating food.
The war of wits will be continued.
