Colonel!
Hello! I'm going to ignore the fact that I haven't used this thing as a real blog in forever to bring an important update.
Colonel Rutherford Q. Buttons was brought into this world on April 29th, 2010. On July 13th, I adopted him.
My roommates and I had been wanting a kitten for a while, and we went into PetSmart on Tuesday expecting to get an estimate of how much we'd have to spend on pet supplies.
We made the mistake of looking at the cats there. All the them were pretty adorable, if kind of oblivious to our presence. This one little guy, though, stared right at us and started jumping around in his cage. It was all over when Seth put a finger on the glass and the kitten placed his paw up against it on the other side.
After totaling up our expenses, we left the store, only to realize as we were about to leave the parking lot that we really really wanted that kitten. We headed back, expecting to put in an application and spend days agonizing over whether we were going to be selected as the best candidate for adoption. Instead, I handed them a wad of cash, and they gave me a cat. Uh, okay! Time to buy pet supplies, I guess!
We got home after a traumatizing drive home (a cartoonish and incredibly sad "mee-ooooo" was echoing inside the pet crate the entire time) and introduced Col. Buttons to our living room. He wasted no time in making another bad childhood memory for himself by stepping on his empty litter box and flipping it on top of his head, then he ran under the dining room table, where he stayed for the next eight hours or so.
While he was in hiding, we set up some supplies. We weren't sure of how much litter we should put in the litter box. The bag said three inches. Beckey read a guide that said one-and-a-half. I filled the thing with three inches of litter...about half of which Buttons kicked out onto the carpet the first time he needed to use it. There's my answer, I guess.
While Buttons was skittish at first and I was fully prepared to give him his space for the first week, by the end of the first day, he was curling up on us and sleeping in our laps. He's ridiculously playful and energetic, too. He'll dart over, under, and around the dining room chairs and chase his toys for a long time without getting bored. And then he'll totally crash and fall asleep for the next half hour.
He still won't use the bed I bought for him. He prefers sleeping under my bed, for some reason.
I didn't really want to let him in my room. I'm super allergic to cats, actually, but my doctor told me that I'd have less of an allergic reaction if I raised a cat from kitten age. I've had good luck with Zyrtec and Claritin while around cats in the past, too, so I at least have something to fall back on as a last resort.
Buttons is a weird little guy. He's scared of walking on tile floor, so when he wants to come into my room, he'll dash across the entryway tile to get there. I hope he gets used to it, since I'm moving the litterbox to the entryway soon. I don't want to have to constantly clean up litter from the carpet. Plus, his poops are so bad that they actually nauseate everyone in the vicinity. We can't live like this.
What worries me is that his favorite toys so far are electrical cords (especially the cord for my headphones, while I'm wearing them) and little pieces of plastic that he finds on the floor. Not good! Squirt guns seem to be pretty effective in curbing bad behavior so far, but I still get nervous whenever I leave him unattended.
Actually, checking under my bed right now...yep, he's still asleep. Good.
Really, though, I'm entirely in love with this kitten. I haven't owned a pet in, like, a good fifteen years or so, and I've never owned a cat before. This should be interesting.
Colonel Rutherford Q. Buttons was brought into this world on April 29th, 2010. On July 13th, I adopted him.
My roommates and I had been wanting a kitten for a while, and we went into PetSmart on Tuesday expecting to get an estimate of how much we'd have to spend on pet supplies.
We made the mistake of looking at the cats there. All the them were pretty adorable, if kind of oblivious to our presence. This one little guy, though, stared right at us and started jumping around in his cage. It was all over when Seth put a finger on the glass and the kitten placed his paw up against it on the other side.
After totaling up our expenses, we left the store, only to realize as we were about to leave the parking lot that we really really wanted that kitten. We headed back, expecting to put in an application and spend days agonizing over whether we were going to be selected as the best candidate for adoption. Instead, I handed them a wad of cash, and they gave me a cat. Uh, okay! Time to buy pet supplies, I guess!
We got home after a traumatizing drive home (a cartoonish and incredibly sad "mee-ooooo" was echoing inside the pet crate the entire time) and introduced Col. Buttons to our living room. He wasted no time in making another bad childhood memory for himself by stepping on his empty litter box and flipping it on top of his head, then he ran under the dining room table, where he stayed for the next eight hours or so.
While he was in hiding, we set up some supplies. We weren't sure of how much litter we should put in the litter box. The bag said three inches. Beckey read a guide that said one-and-a-half. I filled the thing with three inches of litter...about half of which Buttons kicked out onto the carpet the first time he needed to use it. There's my answer, I guess.
While Buttons was skittish at first and I was fully prepared to give him his space for the first week, by the end of the first day, he was curling up on us and sleeping in our laps. He's ridiculously playful and energetic, too. He'll dart over, under, and around the dining room chairs and chase his toys for a long time without getting bored. And then he'll totally crash and fall asleep for the next half hour.
He still won't use the bed I bought for him. He prefers sleeping under my bed, for some reason.
I didn't really want to let him in my room. I'm super allergic to cats, actually, but my doctor told me that I'd have less of an allergic reaction if I raised a cat from kitten age. I've had good luck with Zyrtec and Claritin while around cats in the past, too, so I at least have something to fall back on as a last resort.
Buttons is a weird little guy. He's scared of walking on tile floor, so when he wants to come into my room, he'll dash across the entryway tile to get there. I hope he gets used to it, since I'm moving the litterbox to the entryway soon. I don't want to have to constantly clean up litter from the carpet. Plus, his poops are so bad that they actually nauseate everyone in the vicinity. We can't live like this.
What worries me is that his favorite toys so far are electrical cords (especially the cord for my headphones, while I'm wearing them) and little pieces of plastic that he finds on the floor. Not good! Squirt guns seem to be pretty effective in curbing bad behavior so far, but I still get nervous whenever I leave him unattended.
Actually, checking under my bed right now...yep, he's still asleep. Good.
Really, though, I'm entirely in love with this kitten. I haven't owned a pet in, like, a good fifteen years or so, and I've never owned a cat before. This should be interesting.