To think cats are not pets, more fluffy forms of torture.

[Tiggywinklespinny]

4.15am every bloody morning for the last week..she's taking the piss. It's survival of the fittest, who can crack first. She repeatedly paws at the things on my bedside table until they fall on the floor, pulls the lamp cord and walks all over you purring.

I have made the mistake of opening one eye to find myself being eyeballed and it's game over. Tiggy 0 bastard cat 1

I shut the bedroom door. It just gives devil cats an extra activity at 4am as they lie next to the door and try and scratch it down with their claws, intermittently howling from the other side, just in case the noise they were make wasn't sufficiently annoying.

I could shut mine out, but then I wouldn't be at all surprised to find her sitting on me in the morning wearing a teeny tool belt and the door off its hinges.

i think they even know when you are pretending to be asleep, I've tried lying really really still but I think my breathing must change or something, because she pokes my face with her paw.

I don't mean to brag, but I have actually managed to train koothracat to behave in a civalised manner. The door is closed at night, and she learnt that scratching it got her no response whatsoever. She doesn't beg for food, she gets fed at a set time each day and never got tidbits. She doesn't scratch the furniture because she gets shut out of the room if she does. She has a massive floor to ceiling cat scratcher for that.

She is fantastic with baby dd, and extremely friendly. The only issue we have is that she is a tad over enthusiastic and wants to be involved in everything. This can be a bit tricky when you are trying to change a pooey nappy, stop the baby rolling in it, stop the baby from grabbing the cat etc.

Love that video! Will probably post it on my fb page for all my cat loving relatives.

If I shut mine out they try to break in anyway and rip up the carpet by the door. I'm sure one of them has taken to actually head butting the door.

They make such an unholy racket if they're out on the landing that they wake the kids up too and once the kids are awake they're awake and we're all up. If they just wake me or DH, we can at least go back to bed once we've fed them

Sneaky things have us backed into a corner

Oh yes, the mice... and the birds...

Last week mine brought me a baby bird, still alive! I spend the whole day taking the bird to the vet and then driving to the bird sanctuary with it. It took me 3 hours round trip and I spent 40 minutes walking round the park in the pouring rain trying to find the building. I was not impressed!

Mine learnt a foolproof technique to wake us.

Three pats of carefully placed paw on the bedside touch lamp

My black-and-white is a typical stuck up, put-my-food-there-and-f@$k-off type feline. He sleeps on my back at night and brings me various small, squeaky sometimes unidentifiable because he has half eaten things. Other times, birds that are still alive so that he can show me how to kill them. Apparently this is normal feline behaviour!!

The ginger tabby on the other hand is as soppy -and stupid-- as a cat can be. Dribbles when he purrs and gets under my feet constantly.

I'm sure they are a villian/sidekick duo plotting world domination. You can see it in their pretty eyes.

The ancient Egyptians had to worship cats to keep them sweet. I think they had the right idea!

dead mouse you say ????

My cat doesn't wake me up during the night or in the morning either. Why? Because he doesn't have the run of the house at night and doesn't sleep on the bed with me. He comes in at 9pm. Yes, waits on the doorstep and sleeps downstairs. In his 3 1/2 years he has slept on my bed with me twice. Once the night his brother had died and he scratched, licked, fussed, sneezed in my face and tried to get under the duvet. At 3am I didn't care how much we were both grieving, downstairs he went. The other time, in the last week, was when he was unwell and that was a nightmare too. I love my cat but I love my sleep.

Actually genuinely LOL at TSSDNCOP. Our cats went invisible when we were away and my parents were feeding them (obviously temporary hired help are even less worthy of notice than the permanent staff). DF tried to put the cat flap on "in only" to make sure that they were actually around - cats jemmied it open again and disappeared . My parents resorted to setting up DF's wildlife tracking camera by the bowls to make sure that it was actually our cats and not some random neighbouring ones that were eating the food.

I have promised DS a cat, but I really really can't deal with dead/half dead critters, and reading this thread I am scared...
I want a placid, lazy cat who doesn't attack my face or bring me mice. I am worried I will bring home one who looks placid and lazy (I want a Bagpuss) and he will suddenly unleash the beast within.

My hunting girl is a rescue cat and was a stray which is why she hunts so much ...she is very interested in out guinea pigs!

the other 2 are fat lazy buggers - don't worry

All cats are evil. ime just shutting them out isn't enough, you need a bit of space so that when the cat starts scratching at 2am you don't start dreaming of Edgar Allen Poe. We used to wedge the downstairs door with a pair of secateurs and when we moved one of the things we looked for was the ability to shut the dratted cats downstairs.

DH once accidentally let the malevolent cat upstairs when she was young, playful and agile. I refused to get up and so she leapt on the curtains. These were the velour curtains that I had scrimped, saved and hungered after because I couldn't afford true velvet. Malevolent cat swung all over the things. I was heart broken and they never looked the same afterwards.

Ours just miaws THE WHOLE ENTIRE TIME. I have no idea why. he is not unhappy, he is fat and fed and contented and played with and made a fuss of, but he never shuts up. We love him though

Mine sunbathes on the windowsill of a morning so doesn't wake me up. She's taken to staying downstairs since we've had our new puppy though.

It was funny the other day though, she doesn't mind the puppy being upstairs during the day (she did at first when she was hiding from him). But me and her had gone to bed and DH had taken the puppy for pre bed walks. Puppy came up to say goodnight and grumpycat chased the puppy downstairs as if to say 'you don't sleep up here, you sleep downstairs!!. So I didn't get to say goodnight to puppy that night lol. Grumpycat then sauntered downstairs and owned it though, and slept down there that night lol.

I used to think I should have got a cat instead of a crazy dog but maybe I'm wrong

crazy dog has managed to pull down my curtain three times in three days as there are, wait for it, rabbits in the garden!

she gets totally overexcited at the patio window and leaps about...like a rabbit actually, catching the curtain in the process

but she never wakes me in the morning

Gordy uour cat could be the stunt double of mine. Almost identical markings! Although wee Poppy Doll has a tendency toward middle aged spread.

Ifnotnow - previous cat was scared of everything including spiders so we never had issues with "presents", and she had the run of the house until she decided that extreme old age gave her the right to pee/poo wherever she felt like it - so for the last few years of her life she was pretty much confined to kitchen and utility room unless supervised.

If you go looking for Bagpuss, there is a good chance you will find him. Which just leaves you with issues of bed ownership (save yourself the hassle. Give up early. The cat gets to sleep wherever it chooses) and differing ideas of time to get up, etc...

Because OldCat also hated all other cats, she was an only cat for 10 years, so was the only cat that our DC had ever known. Two teenage rescue cats with very strong (and different) opinions on who they like and what staff behaviour they will tolerate have come as a bit of a shock, but GirlCat has found that DS (11) is very easily trained and has appointed him as her main person.

You are right OP cats are not pets YOU are THEIR pet once you understand and accept this things will be easier.

My cat brings her feather duster toy into the room drops it at the end of the bed and cries at 4am. I suck it up so she lets me stay with her.

This thread has made my morning, cannot get enough cat stories.

Pictured here is our late, dearly lamented FiveMoggy. I could tell you many tales but her finest hour was the occasion of the Cat, the Rat, the husband and the toasting fork.

My DH had a cold and decided to curl up on the sofa for the night so that he could watch TV if he couldn't get to sleep. He was finally dropping off in the early hours when the cat flap went Ba DOOM Bang Bang which could only mean the arrival of FiveMoggy.

She was singing Marooow Marooow, which was her "I've got some thing for youuuuuuuuu," song. She wasn't lying, it was a rat.

DH foolishly bellowed something like takethatbackoutsideyoucompletebastard and FiveMoggy, startled, dropped the rat.

The rat turned and reared up in front of the cat who, having considered her options thought "Bugger this, he (DH) isn't even grateful" and retired, haughtily through the cat flap.

The rat eyed DH and DH eyed the rat, groping for the nearest weapon which happened to be the toasting fork.

What followed according to my husband was a cross between a wall of death and a bull fight as he chased the rat round the room as it ran over and under all the furniture while DH tried to stab it or brain it with the toasting fork, upending the furniture as he went.

He finally got it cornered and there remains, to this day, a odd dent in the prongs that looks a bit like a rats head.

What really, really took the biscuit, according to my DH, was FiveMoggy sticking her head through the cat flap every couple of minutes in a "have you got it yet? No? Oh FFS," kind of way.

Dag nab it, the pic didn't attach