Small cat diaries 2: String theory
Well its been three weeks since the grey bundle of kitten came into our lives. She is growing bigger by the day and has a rigorous routine of 16 hour naps, interspersed with 10 minute bursts of "mad cat" behaviour.
She eats ridiculously expensive cat food and will mew meow and mroow about it until she is fed. Occasional kitten milk is also apreciated.
She already has some faveourite toys. Tennis ball is her best friend, but he always rolls away and we seem to have lost him for a little while. Flappy-bat-on-a-string is also popular, he's elastic you see. That makes him extra tempting. We built her a special scratch post, with a feather on it. This she ignores in favour of the wash basket which currently lies part shredded at the bottom of the stairs. And then there's the string. Oh yes, the string.
You never realise how much in the world looks like string until you have a curious kitten. Ropes for arenas, shoe laces, craft wool, pc cables, phone cables, belts, bag straps you name it, if it's longer than it is wide, kitten thinks its string.
I've been pretty ill over the past week and Olivia has been lovely. She's not sat on me, she has curled up next to me and let me sleep or watch the TV as I desired, only pestering Jim for food. Until today. I woke up, feeling better and with kitten's first kill on my chest. A strip of duct tape she'd been hunting by the spare room door all night. She was still toying with it, so I decided to try an experiment. I picked up the tape, and threw it across the room. Olivia ran after it, killed it again and then brought it back. Yes, I've been playing "fetch" with the cat.
Then there was bath time. That first bath after you've felt rotten. You know, the one you really enjoy and can relax in? Well I couldn't. Olivia followed me into the bathroom and instead of running out at the very mention of water, she got curious, and spent a good three minutes with her front paws on the tub, watching me. I had to sned for back up and got an errant free-wheeling loo roll to distract her into the hall way.
Thats the other odd thing. She is very easily distracted. For the first week or so we didn't know if she didn't like the food or what, but it seemed she was just getting distracted. Giving her enough time to eat, and letting her take it in stages means she does eat it all! She gets distracted while purring, meowing and she got totally distracted mid yawn this morning.
She eats ridiculously expensive cat food and will mew meow and mroow about it until she is fed. Occasional kitten milk is also apreciated.
She already has some faveourite toys. Tennis ball is her best friend, but he always rolls away and we seem to have lost him for a little while. Flappy-bat-on-a-string is also popular, he's elastic you see. That makes him extra tempting. We built her a special scratch post, with a feather on it. This she ignores in favour of the wash basket which currently lies part shredded at the bottom of the stairs. And then there's the string. Oh yes, the string.
You never realise how much in the world looks like string until you have a curious kitten. Ropes for arenas, shoe laces, craft wool, pc cables, phone cables, belts, bag straps you name it, if it's longer than it is wide, kitten thinks its string.
I've been pretty ill over the past week and Olivia has been lovely. She's not sat on me, she has curled up next to me and let me sleep or watch the TV as I desired, only pestering Jim for food. Until today. I woke up, feeling better and with kitten's first kill on my chest. A strip of duct tape she'd been hunting by the spare room door all night. She was still toying with it, so I decided to try an experiment. I picked up the tape, and threw it across the room. Olivia ran after it, killed it again and then brought it back. Yes, I've been playing "fetch" with the cat.
Then there was bath time. That first bath after you've felt rotten. You know, the one you really enjoy and can relax in? Well I couldn't. Olivia followed me into the bathroom and instead of running out at the very mention of water, she got curious, and spent a good three minutes with her front paws on the tub, watching me. I had to sned for back up and got an errant free-wheeling loo roll to distract her into the hall way.
Thats the other odd thing. She is very easily distracted. For the first week or so we didn't know if she didn't like the food or what, but it seemed she was just getting distracted. Giving her enough time to eat, and letting her take it in stages means she does eat it all! She gets distracted while purring, meowing and she got totally distracted mid yawn this morning.