I took these latest photos for their daddy, who's been transferred to West Papua for 6 - 12 months... he's on an island in the middle of the jungles of Indonesia building an oil refinery...

He wanted a photo of them together for his computer desktop, but it's really hard to get them together! They're quite independent of each other... I've discovered that the open door is the one thing that gets them sitting side by side.

Of course when guests come over they're all picturesque - Butter freakishly put his arm around Stan's neck for our last guests! But they have their separate perches, and almost never the twain shall meet...

...than staring, staring, staring out the window?

Last weekend I was studying at the dining room table for hours, and opened the glass door next to me... Stan and Butter were mesmerized by the sounds and the fresh air - and so was I! Closing windows and doors is the hardest adjustment I've had to make in adopting cats and having them indoors.

There was nothing to see at all, but they just sat and sat, tails twitching, long after the sun had gone down! Didn't touch the screen, didn't try to slide it... strange, because they do scratch and try to slide the glass door.

I've read recently that rather than dumping a lot of litter in and cleaning it less frequently, it's kinder to the cats to only put in about 2 inches, and replace it more regularly, so that's what we've been doing.

It does take more work, and you have to watch it; if you don't, suddenly it's all clumped into one yucky mass, and there's no non-clumped litter for them to dig in. If you stay on top of it, though, I think they really do appreciate it, and there's less smell in the end.

Mickey - Does the cat yowl when you open the door?

I have recently read - and believe it - that closing a door makes them crazy, especially if they're indoor cats. With limited territory, they get resentful when they lose access to any of it.

All good reading - thanks to everyone!

Stan isn't having trouble peeing or pooping, and his yowing is a little different every day. Today was a good day - he yowed at about 5:00, I fed him, and he let me sleep until 7:00 when the alarm rang.

I really think it's an attention thing - and a feeding thing. He won't come into the bed, just prowl around it and even winces when I try to pet him. At those times, it's all about the food.

Other times, though, I'll feed him and it only distracts him for a few minutes. Then every three or four minutes he'll yow once or twice - just loud enough and just close enough to  my ear to keep me awake... Another trick is "Looook at me! I'm scratching this nice wallpaper!"

I wonder, too, what effect this has on Butter, who almost never meows when Stan's meowing or yowing. I don't want to give Stan more grease, just because he's the squeaky wheel...

Well Butter is now getting used to canned food...

To be honest, though, he's most interested in it when I come home from work and the dishes are empty! Before I give him kibble I give him a lil' dab of canned.

Stan, though, can't even seem to stand the smell of it!

Hmmm...

This is really interesting for me as a topic; the Cat Bible suggests having cats eat only canned / raw food, and trying to avoid kibble altogether! We've just had our cats for a couple months now; they're 8-year-old brothers, and we have no way of knowing what they were being fed before their months in the shelter.

The clear favorite is bonito flakes. We're mixing that in with kibble so they eat both, though I'm sure they're trying to figure out how to leave the kibble behind.

But canned food? They'll lick it, but not really eat it. The Cat Bible (which, you can see I'm treating as a real Bible!) says that canned food shouldn't be refrigerated, since it's so far removed from what cats would experience in nature.

I've tried mixing in room-temperature canned food (good quality stuff like Science Diet) in with the kibble, but I think I was putting too much in - they woudn't touch any of it!

Maybe I'll try just adding a tiny lil' bit and see how they handle that...

The idea of Rescue Remedy is interesting - Stan has been yowling from about 5:00 AM every morning for a couple weeks now. Butter doesn't react - he just sleeps away...

We've installed a Feliway diffuser, and it's been up and running for over a month now. Stan was quite distant, but now is really demanding of affection and attention. I wonder if it's related to the diffuser...

Glad that Beauty's bouncing back!

Can I bring the topic back to the yow-ing?

Stan is really frazzling me... this morning (again) at 5:00 he was stalking around my bed yow-ing, yow-ing, miserably / angrily / loudly yow-ing. The only thing that would stop him was petting. There was no problem with their food, water, or catbox, and Butter really had no reaction to Stan's yow-ing. This went on until about 7:00, which of course is when I'm supposed to get up. By the time I left at about 8:00, he was all snug in his next, sleeping away.

This has been going on for a couple weeks now - what is going on? Is he just on this insane biological clock? Is it boredom?   

Catbird mentioned 'hyperthyroidism.' What is that and why is yow-ing a symptom?

Stan and Butter do have part-time jobs...

Stan's responsibilities include
1) waking me up.
2) keeping me awake.
3) finding all the most precarious places to perch - the top of the toaster oven (which is on top of the fridge), the top of the bookshelf, the top of (fill in any word here)...
3) alerting me that the water is low, the food is low, someone pooped on the floor, someone is outside the window, a suspicious noise was made two towns over, or that once again it's time for brushing

Butter's job description includes
1) periodically pouncing on Stan to let him know "Enough with all the alerting - our slave has more important things to do, like pet me."
2) crawling up my back and draping himself across my shoulders.
3) gaining weight

Yes, Dingbat, all the Bible characters are in there! Our cats Stan and Butter are clearly reincarnations of Cain and Abel...

There are so many challenges to conventional wisdom in the book - things like

1) try to feed them only canned food - it matches what they would eat in nature (my cats won't touch canned food!)

2) don't feed them tuna (most of the food I can find is tuna 'n' chicken, tuna 'n' mystery fish, tuna 'n' tuna...

3) they don't like to have their tails touched

4) they're not interested in having their bellies rubbed, even if they're showing them to you

I finally had to put the book back on the shelf - I was getting a little overwhelmed by the dos and dont's...

August -

You know, when we had our old cats, we noticed that they loved boxes and bags and such, but then always said, "Aww, sweet - but now it's time to throw that dirty old thing out!" Then I read something about a couple who always said, "You'd never guess from our house that we have cats!" and it seemed so wrong... though it echoed my own philosophy at the time.

But now it's "Bring on the cat tower! The boxes! The bags! (I'm beginning to sound like the narrator from The Grinch... "The roast beast!")

Mandycat -

Our old cat, Popo, had a bizarre, traumatic experience with a little plastic bag - somehow it got stuck on his foot! We thought he was playing, until he shot out the door and into the shiitake grove next to our house with it still there. Forever after he wouldn't go anywhere near a plastic bag, though he hadn't been in any real danger...

Has anyone seen the various YouTube videos with cats running on treadmills? They seem to enjoy it so much - like they know they're not getting enough exercise. I wish they cared enough about me to trot around the dining room table a few dozen times to burn some of that flubber off!

Then again, I wish I cared enough about my own flubber to trot around the dining room table and see if they'd follow me...

This is what's so great about this website - I just posted this, and BAM! Like 20 good ideas!

We've got many, many paper shopping bags, and I think I'll swipe a couple cardboard boxes from the little supermarket next door and put some crinkly things in them.

August, when you say packing paper, do you mean actual paper, or bubble wrap?

One thing I've tried, too, is putting a ping pong ball in a shoebox, and cutting a small holes in the box which are too small for the ball to come out, then sealing the box. The idea is that the holes are big enough for them to stick their paws in and try to get the ball, but that they'll never really be able to get it. I don't remember where I read about that, but our last cats were not impressed by that...

The only playful thing Sai ever did was try and catch the golden twist ties from bread bags. We'd throw it up in the air and he'd rear up on his hind legs and catch it - weird!

Sunday marked the 1-month anniversary since we adopted two 8-year old brothers, Stan and Butter.

They're really doing well, except that as they get more attached to us, they get more mournful when we leave, and scold us more vociferously when we get back!

I know how important it is to keep them entertained, but they're completely disdainful of the toys we bought, of the cat tower we invested in... they don't even play with things like the toilet paper roll or follow the light from a little flashlight.

They do have energy - they like to chase each other from one end of the house to the other, but are they just too old for toys? Are there products which might entertain them?