What makes your cat happy?

[MiniLeopardInTheHouse]

Here, in no particular order, it's :

A very tall scratching pole
8 meals a day
A boiling hot, sunny conservatory
A dab of butter on the paw
A busy birdtable
NOT going to the cattery anymore
A spot of milk on the nose
A flat immobile lap
A clean latrine

[Checklist]

SisterCat

Sleeping on my chest
Biting my nose
Dreamies
The airing cupboard (ie dark places)
The loft
Next door’s garage roof, accessed from a landing window
Sleeping on the window ledge
Birds/mice to catch
Cheese
Grape stalks to play with
My laptop
My printer - her favourite toy, especially sitting on the output tray so it jams up...

[MiniLeopardInTheHouse]

Yes, reading several of the posts above, what is it about our critters that makes non-cat beds infinitely more attractive than their actual cat beds?!

One exception in our house is the large fleecy igloo bed. He squashes that down flat, and sleeps on the top of it. On cold, windy days, he pushes his head in and forces the roof up again so that he can get cosy inside. Funny to see that he adapts it to suit.

His favourite place to curl up and sleep, (or unfortunately to wash his parts on!!!), is my best wool/tweed Autumn/Winter coat. My own fault for not always hanging it straight up, but any opportunity to make it crumpled, mildly furry, and cat-fragranced, he takes.

[scaryteacher]

Warm chicken (both)
A can of tuna (both)
One of them likes to sleep on me whilst I am sitting on the sofa, with his head curled into my neck so I can't see the TV.
Sleeping on my bed (both)
Reclaiming ds's room and bed when ds is at university. very cross cat when ds is home and wants to use the bed.
Nipping into the warm spot left when dh gets off the sofa.

[MiniLeopardInTheHouse]

I see that laptops and printers make several happipuss appearances above. With MiniLeopard it's the DCs' portable DVD player. He likes to sit on it if a DC is watching it, completely blocking the view, and even managing to press the function buttons with his paws and backside - whether this is deliberate or accidental is hard to decide, but he does look smug when the DCs protest.

[MiniLeopardInTheHouse]

Today, happiness is a patch of sun, or even better sitting on the sill inbetween the window and a closed curtain where the heat is trapped and magnified - cat heaven.

[MiniLeopardInTheHouse]

Today, happipuss is....

Discovering that the birds have made their annual return to set up home behind a loose stone in the wall of our house, just outside a bedroom window.

Even better, you can sit on the sill between the curtain and window, bask in the trapped sunshine, and watch them. You can also make strange high pitched excited noises from time to time, and nobody can stop you.

[Broken11Girl]

Madam BrokenCat:
Food, as long as it's to Madam's specifications, so basically Applaws, Encore or Waitrose fish, or any tuna.
Drinking my water, despite having two regularly filled water bowls
Licking the remains if I have had yoghurt, mayo, any creamy sauce, salt and vinegar crisps, sweet chilli sauce and obv tuna
Dreamies, Lik-e-Lix or Nature's menu treats
Her horizontal scratcher - doesn't do vertical ones
Watching the world go by from the windows too lazy to go out
Being played with - especially her favourite toy which is of course not one of the carefully selectedcat toys she was lovingly bought, oh no, it's a random piece of elastic
Bunting me with her nose, head and chin strokes, general strokes, lap and lying down cuddles. She's a sweetheart really. Sometimes.

[MiniLeopardInTheHouse]

Expensive tastes, then Girl! I am wide-eyed at salt and vinegar crisps and sweet chilli sauce! Oh yes, the discarded yoghurt pot. MiniLeopard worked his way around 3 today of the DCs' - raspberry, strawberry and even lemon, which had quite a sharp taste! It was his pudding, having weedled bits of Fish Fingers from the DCs by sitting neatly with his tail wrapped around his toes, staring intently at them until they cracked.

[Bridechilla]

Ping pong balls
Doorstops
Hair bobbles
Being up high
HAM 😍
Weekends when we're at home
Playing football
Ear rubs

[Broken11Girl]

I know, the little furry weirdo yup, Madam has strange and expensive tastes!

[MiniLeopardInTheHouse]

You're going to have to explain why doorstops, Bride?!

[Bridechilla]

He just goes mad for them, bats them out from under the door and chases them around the house.

[MiniLeopardInTheHouse]

Today's happipuss is....

Being at the seaside again on his holidays

Licking an empty Lurpak spreadable pot around the kitchen floor and then washing himself for a very long, luxuriant time

Discovering that the DC's headphones wire on the windowsill is not actually a snake about to attack him, and so he can loll there after all, watching the beachlife of birds, people, dogs and horses go by.

[CrabappleBiscuit]

Being brushed. You could brush him all day and he wouldn't get tired of it.

[MiniLeopardInTheHouse]

On that note Crab, I know I shouldn't moan on a deliberately happy thread, but! Mini Leopard doesn't usually shed, but with the recent sunny spell and his habit of seeking out any hot spots to loll, he's been shedding for the whole of catkind. Everything is covered where he lolls or is cuddled: the DCs' t-shirts, shorts, fleeces and pyjamas, the windowsills, quilt covers, you name it. It's even floating through the air. It's worse when it becomes ingrained in the material of clothes, like on tshirts and fleeces. I'm going to have to find somewhere to buy a de-hairer before I can put anything in the wash and before we clean to leave. The weather has turned now, and it's a bit miserable to be back in long trousers, thick socks, 3 top layers, hats and raincoats, but at least the shedding has stopped!!!

Normal happy service will now resume on this thread. As you were.

[Els1e]

Food
Lying down, asleep or just watching the world go by
Getting to food, especially fresh chicken, before the dog

[MiniLeopardInTheHouse]

Today's happipuss is....

Fishing in the waste paper basket and finding last night's empty Dreamies packet, then shredding it all over the floor in the hope of finding a last crumb.

[spidey66]

Mine got PTS yesterday :( but used to love
-tinned tuna
-cod from a chippy tea
-milk (not good for them so occasional treat)
-sitting on the shed roof in the garden.
-waking us at 5am for breakfast
-being brushed used to send him drooling in pleasure.
-sitting on anything square (used to sit on my bag if it was on the floor, also used to sit in a wicker basket we use to store the towels in)
My god, I'm going to miss him. :(

[MiniLeopardInTheHouse]

So sorry for your loss, spidey. It sounds like he had a very happy life with you.

[Praisebe]

Boxes! Fuck buying expensive cat toys just give them a box with a plastic bag in it and they have hours of fun expensive toys languish in a pile on the unloved cat tree but humans make great cat trees so its fine
Snuggling the dog and chewing his nose. While idiot dog just sits there and lets them but they do love him to bits and its quite sweet once you get used to it.
Dreamies. Hide.all.the.dreamies. they tag team them in the night and can chew through the whole bag in one go !!! The older one knows how to flick open cupboards and drawers to get her fix.

[MiniLeopardInTheHouse]

Yes to boxes here too, Praise, and much like my DCs when they were toddlers! Mini Leopard once nearly got thrown out with the recycling when he went to sleep under a huge mound of wrapping paper one Christmas, after playing with it. And yes, yes to milk and chip shop fish here too spidey. Mini Leopard lines up alongside the human members of the family for his (apparently now completely taken for granted!) share of cod or haddock, minus the batter of course, followed by a luxuriant wash. We still have doorstep deliveries of glass bottles of milk locally, and one of the (many) reasons he has to be an indoor cat is his obsession with taking the foil tops off, lapping the milk as far down the bottles as he can, then knocking them over to drink his fill of the rest.

[Solasshole]

Dcat1 is

1. The drawers under the bed
   
2. Watching me poo
   

The other dcat is just food and laser toys

[MiniLeopardInTheHouse]

Similar loo issues here too, Sol, but in our case DC2 is convinced that Mini Leopard rushes to use his litter tray when he spots him on the loo - only happy with synchronised toilet habits with one of his humans, apparently! Interestingly he only does this with DC2, not any of the rest of the family.

[Outfoxed]

Any kind of drainage, emptying bath/sink, flushing toilet, gurgling pipes etc. Just fascinating.
Attacking toes
Pissing off the dog in Secret to the point where she growls at him and then acting like an innocent victim
Getting into your chair if you get up and then pretending to be asleep so you won’t move him

[Sue840]

Chicken shish
KFC chicken but not wings
Staring at the corner of the garden where the fences meet for hours on end, must think somethings coming out of there
Sitting in the sun
Sleeping in the middle of the bed
Mince pie crumbs
Pieces of string