to ask the cats to budge up so I can fit into the bed

[AElfgifu]

or shall I just sleep on the floor?

Blimey OP you are so entitled

We recently replaced our old saggy two seater sofas with a spiffy three seater recliner (what I wanted) and a leather throne chair with footstool (what DH wanted). The chair was barely assembled before the cat parked her furry arse in it and activated that strange catty magnetism that makes them impossible to shift. She has barely moved since and all humans know their place, the sofa.

For the bed we have to negotiate with the Labrador.

It's so encouraging to see so many owners (sorry - staff) coming to terms with their lowly position; clearly the cat conspiracy is working, which might at last bring a bit of gratitude

Or maybe not ...

my cat likes to sleep on my shoulders (if i am on my front) or my head sometimes

oh. Your cat looks so much like my late Blossy. I don't have many pictures of her but I immortalised her on my husband's company website!

blow me down hectate, your cat does look like her. our cat is a rescue so if you had lost your cat it could have been ours... (she wasn't chipped when i found her).

They are your owners, how dare you be so selfish.

She says as berrycat takes up all the sofa leaving my ample backside hanging off the edge.

I know my place.

I often wake up to find myself on the edge of the bed with about two inches of the mattress to my name. So long as She Who Must be Obeyed is comfortable all is well with the world.

She has got me trained to get up when she wants food / to be let out / company - she realised that her miaows could, on occasion, be ignored so now paws the door instead. It is the most annoying noise and I'll do anything to stop it!

I'm so glad I'm not the only one

I'm trying to convince myself our ancient girl cat wants to be close to me. I am afraid she is actually trying to push me out of bed. You have cats? They run the house. End of.

My dog has been trying to convince me he's a cat. I got out of bed last night for a drink and a paracetamol and returned to find him half under the duvet, in the warm spot, with his bloody head on the pillow.

He even had the audacity to snore a bit.

He's 90lbs so I can't move him. I have to sort of roll him, bit by bit, onto the other side of the bed. I actually had to get my shoulder under him at one point to hoick him across. Then he glares at me.

I think I preferred waking up with my senile little cat on my face.

Try snoring really loudly and they might move up a bit. This might be why my cats sleep on my side of the bed away from DH. They don't like the snoring and glare at him. Luckily I like a bit of purring in my face to distract me from it when I can't sleep!

sadly, my poor old girl had cancer and we had to have her euthanised.

She came with the house. we moved in and there she was, in the back garden, having refused to leave with the previous occupants. They'd come back for her countless times - they'd only moved within the village! - but would she stay with them? Would she buggery! So in the end we said it's ok, she can live here (like we had a choice!).

She was lovely. Floppy you could pick her up and sling her over your shoulder and she'd just melt into you, happy as larry. She'd wash your face. She used to pin my husband down and wash his head. She used to shout us in the morning. Stand at the bottom of the stairs and yell until we got up to feed her. God help us if we didn't get up and she had to come upstairs! We used to get a right bollocking right in our faces.

She was such a lazy git. UNLESS. A cat came onto the garden. Then she was out like a rocket! and she used to beat up my sister's poor lab whenever they came round.

I really miss her.

ah sorry hectate, i can read that you really loved/miss your cat. she sounded lovely too, very affectionate. our cat is but not as much as your cat. i do worry about when ours goes. we do't know how hold she is as she is a rescue. i have never had a proper pet before so am not looking forward to having to say goodbye when the time comes. do you have another cat now? i think i will always have to have a cat now..

Oh yes, very much.

No, we aren't going to have any more.

This is the first time in my life I have been without pets and it's really weird (i grew up in a house with countless cats, plus rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, gerbils...) but we won't be having any more because my husband is very much against it after having to be the one to give the instruction to the vet for Bloss. He never wants to have to do that again.

He brought her home and buried her in the front garden and we planted a pink blossom tree over her.

We still talk about her and it's been a few years now. She really was such a character. I have never got out of the habit of taking a few bits of meat off the joint and putting them on the side either

Hectate you are making me appreciate my cats, space on the bed or not

I love them to bits really,I never thought I'd end up so attached, when DC persuaded me to get them, but I wouldn't want to be without them now.

sorry.

They leave such a hole though. There's no denying it. There's a catflap in my back door and every time I look at it I remember how she used to yell at me to come and hold it open for her.

Well trained as I was, I did.

Mind you, my grandad used to drive miles to the town that sold the prawns his Sooty loved so we have clearly been in the service of cats for generations.

I think you need a new incumbent, Hecate. Your DH wouldn't say anything once it was actually there and batting its baby blues at him - just that he might be feeling disloyal at the thought of change. That would pass.

Awwh, Hetcate, they really do decide who they own rather than who owns them. . .

Though I'm in for a weekend of hell.

Sofas are being collected by YMCA sometime this afternoon, new ones are coming till Monday.

I'm going to be in so much troubleeeeeeeeeee

I know.

He's truly daft when it comes to animals. I've told it before but when we went to my mum's after one of her strays (she is the dumping ground for the entire estate! They all know she'll never turn an animal away) had kittens he decided to line them up to take a photo. It was SO funny. Ever tried getting 6 bouncy kittens to line up? he was scolding them and everything. I should have videoed it!

Try leaving some shelter web pages open on the computer with adoption candidate photos up?

Oh Vintage, you are going to get it! First they will hate you for removing the seats, and the inconvenience of having to sit on the FLOOR (what are they, animals ? ) then they will hate you for bringing new furniture into the house.

It's probably going to be Christmas before they acknowledge you again

I know

I know

I'm going to be unmentionable in my own house.. . .

Saddest of all is I know I'll still be woken in the middle of the night for belly rubbing/ general patting duties and then ignored/ hated for the rest of the day.

Well of course.

You sound like that's unreasonable.