Machiavellian Misbehaviour- the Excellent Cats Deny Everything

[TheShellBeach]

Clarion call to all the cats from the last thread and a warm welcome to any new ones who want to join us.

We've finally had the new flooring laid in the kitchen today. It has been a long and very dull saga, but at last, it is here, and it looks wonderful.

Linney was deeply unamused, and left the house when the men arrived.

To confuse him further, we decided to jettison the electric feeder thing, which we'd originally bought to try to give Emerald smaller portions, and which has been the delight of Picard and Suzy ever since.

So Linney's food was in a different place, there were strange men in the kitchen, and Linney's life generally was upset today.

He did come home eventually, just in time to yack up a hairball.

We have bought him a catnip cardboard scratcher, which he likes very much. He even fell asleep on it yesterday.

Here he is, doing his Carrie impression.

One of our cats loves the cardboard scratchers, the other one doesn't give them so much as a second glance!
This is the sorry state of the latest one - brand new approx. 2 weeks ago. We keep it at the bottom of the stairs and she goes crazy on it every morning when we come downstairs. But somehow the stair carpet still suffers as well... 🤷‍♀️ She has weapons-grade claws but is thankfully very gentle with us cat-slaves. 😸

Mine have two cardboard scratchers, one rectangular like yours, the other a pyramid with a groove on each side containing jingly balls. Thrifty is pretty much indifferent to them, but Izzy scratches the rectangular one and sometimes sits on it (what is it with cats and corrugated cardboard? Comfy, really?). The pyramid is something else. She worked out if she bites out the side of the groove she can liberate the balls and roll them up and down on the smooth hall lino. (She's quite an accomplished footballer, especially at keepy-uppy.) Had one out already and is working on the second.

Freddie loves a cardboard scratcher but Lexter did a wee on the last one so it got thrown out. I have ordered a new one which should be coming with the PaH food delivery, Fred will be so pleased 😄 It's a chaise lounge so he can sit and scratch.

Excellent news Yes - hope you all
have a superb Easter 🐣.

Can I vent about the furry little ratbags?
It's Good Friday so I decided to treat them and bought them some fresh salmon. I checked whether they can have it raw - apparently it's okay occasionall. I would have poached it, but I can't stand the smell of fish and raw is bearable.

Put it down with a flourish and.... Nothing. They headed for the back door.

I heard myself shrieking "it's fresh salmon!!!" They looked at me as if to say "I don't care."

I left it to come to room temperature and they still wouldn't touch it. However, when I whipped out a couple of pouches of Felix, they went frantic.

Furry little.....

One of the gruesome twosome for cat tax.

There are two ways of looking at that, @Kittensat36 . A, maybe they would have eaten it if it had been poached, so maybe you should have; just because raw is ok doesn't mean it tastes as good. Or, B, at least you didn't go through all the unpleasantness of poaching the stinky stuff, only to have them reject it anyway. My money's on B. Cats innit.

Girlcat is not a fan of cardboard, she only uses sizal or rough carpet covered scratchers. Boycat would only use either the uprights on the cat tree or wallpaper - wallpaper being his favorite.

When Tobias came home he immediately took up where Boycat had left off with the wallpaper, and added carpets cardboard boxes to the mix. Took him forever to realise what cardboard scratchers are for; it took me attaching one to the top of the stairs to protect the plaster (he'd removed all paper by then) which I think he used by mistake once and discovered how nice it was. I now have at least 3 in various places including on their bed, which he uses regularly. Sadly it hasn't taken the place of carpets, though boxes seem to have been relegated as inferior now.

Izzy did a bad thing yesterday, then later on a good and rather clever thing.

Part way through the evening DS let out an enraged bellow and glared under the desk. To be fair, it's the first time she's zapped him since we had words the other week, and let's face it, shouldn't he have been playing with her instead of paying attention to the screen? I don't think any blood was drawn, anyway.

At bedtime I found her already curled up on my bed. She did the feet thing for a while - I asked her not to when it got to the biting - then went away. A few minutes later she returned and began playing in a different way, scrabbling and spinning round in circles. Turns out she'd fetched one of her rattly mice from downstairs to play with, and kept herself busy with it until she was ready to settle down. No further foot assaults, although I think she may have patted my feet and considered lying on them at one point. The bed is quite wide enough even for Ms Fatty to sleep one side while a small cat does its thing on the other. She'd gone by the morning but came up when she realised I was awake, and we had an affectionate stroking session. She doesn't quite do cuddles yet but I think she will.

Thrifty's morning greeting was a particularly ripe contribution in the tray, which once again she had not bothered to cover. Skank.

Arthur knows how to relax…

Totally, @AnAnniegetyourgun
The foxes had a whale of a time though, so it was okay in the end.

He looks unbearably cute there.

Thrifty's morning greeting was a particularly ripe contribution in the tray, which once again she had not bothered to cover. Skank.

Does she at least do that thing where it sounds like she's covering it, by digging for ages and scattering litter all over the house, though?

Linney does, and it's remarkably unsuccessful.

Arthur, the sweetness.

We had drama yest with bank hol a and e fun - DM bitten out of sheer love by their massive adopted feral ginger tom, arm blew up like Babapapa.

She home with purry tom on her knee, all sorted. Cellulitis is no joke tho, the family all get it. Has nothing at all to do with our love for big spirited rescue cats.

Can we join please - meet
Black cat: Coffee bean, specialist powers - the mouse catcher and the fighter
Grey/blue: Stormy - beautiful ex feral (hence the chopped off ear - yep the vets do this 🥺) is my baby - specialist power - bringing me scruffy feathers or nerf bullets. Completely tame now but a bit skitty with anyone except me.
Tortie: Cookie Dough Dynamo - only female cat who has been our overlord for 9 years, hates the boy kitties and the dog

Welcome to @FloofCloud and the three cats!

@FloofCloud Love them!! ❤️❤️❤️

No, the scatterer is Izzy, who makes a good point of covering hers up and occasionally does Thrifty's for her too. She's tidy with fresh wood pellets but when it's mostly sawdust it goes everywhere. I think Thrifty does do a bit of digging beforehand, but sometimes it's only to make a mound to place the poo on top of. This, of course, ensures the smell percolates throughout the house. Some cats sing a song of triumph when they've successfully performed; I suppose this is her way of sending the same message without making a noise. She's generally fairly quiet, except for the snoring.

Annie, how do such tiny creatures make such loud snoring noises! Frankenstein the Tiny makes louder snores than any human I've known,even my nana whose snoring was infamous.

Frederick's new chaise lounge scratcher has arrived. Toad and Raven have commandeered it so poor Fred has just been lying near it, gazing longingly (loungingly? 😉 )

@RumNotRun He looks like a little person sitting proudly on there! 🤣

That was always going to happen, though, wasn't it?

Raven managed to fit her fat bum on the scratcher too, while Fred just sat in the fireplace, like a weirdo

Look at the arms folded all smugly on the scratcher

Was just trying on an outfit for a wedding I'm going to. Morticia decided to put herself in a drawer.