Caturday Art

For today's Caturday Art blog hop hosted by the pawesome Athena Cat Goddess Wise Kitty, I'm sharing another drawing I've created in my fun and goofy (or perhaps weird and wild are better terms) art series starring the furbabies in my life. So far you've seen my sweet angel Rosie as a one-eyed pirate, Astrid as Dogzilla, and my boy Evan as none other than a mercat (a mermaid cat). This weeks it's my girl Thimble's turn, so what crazy idea did I use to draw her?

As always, let me preface this piece with a little explanation. Thimble, along with her three brothers, were rescued by my family at the ripe old age of three weeks. At that time, and for a long time thereafter, Thimble had a meow that was very low, grumbly, and gravelly. Her strangely low, rumbling meow always sounded very mechanical and robotic to me, and so very early on I started calling her by the nickname of RoboKitty. I still call Thimble that on occasion because, although now nearly two years later her meow is not quite as blatantly robotic-sounding as it used to be, it nevertheless still has that quality to it.

And so, that brings me to this art piece, starring RoboKitty:

Have a lovely Caturday, furiends!

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Our Tip of the Day:

If you're feeling crafty, you can make your own upcycled cat scratchers using recycled cardboard boxes. The corrugated edges of shipping boxes make the perfect scratching surface. You can start simple by cutting out numerous long, rectangular pieces of carboard (try to keep them as consistently shaped and sized as possible). Then you line up all these pieces with the corrugated edges facing up, creating the scratching surface, and attach them all together. You can use non-toxic glue or another safe adhesive method to attach each neighboring piece together, and at the end you can also wrap and adhere a border around the scratcher's edges, such as one cut out of paper bag material. Once you've got the hang of it, you can have a lot of fun experimenting with shape, size, and overall design of these handmade cat scratchers. (My mom makes handmade cat scratchers this way. What's more, before gifting them to the kitties, she stores them in a bag with catnip, and the kitties love it!)

More fun with persepctive...and a foot update.

A couple days ago I mentioned that I've been having fun playing with perspective shots of my furbabies. As I said then, Thimble is often my most willing and cooperative furbaby when it comes to this.

Perhaps I'm just a tad bit biased, but this little girl is pretty adorable from any angle. Even from below, she usually oozes all sorts of cuteness. See?

Forgive my doting. I simply can't help myself when I see that face.


Now, for a bit of "bonus" material, I thought I'd give a little update on the benign histiocytoma tumor on Astrid's foot.

All in all, Astrid's tumor is still present. On a good day, she keeps her protective bootie on when we take her outside and then it looks good and seems to be on the mend. On a not so good day, Astrid expertly kicks off or in some other way removes her bootie when outside, and then even just a few seconds of contact with concrete or stepping on a stick causes it to get irritated and often even bleed.

I called Astrid's vet recently to give him this update. He admitted that he would like to continue giving it some time, at least a couple more weeks, as it really can take 14-16 weeks for these tumors to heal on their own, and at present we're only at roughly eight weeks since he initially diagnosed it. He reiterated that, if need be, the tumor can be removed. However, being in a sensitive and heavily used location, cutting it off and thereby creating an incision and open wound would put it at even greater risk of infection and difficulty in healing.

So, for now, we're continuing as we are. Some days it really does appear to be improving and looking healthier. The problem is that, for that to be the case, we still have to hold off on Astrid's usual walk regimen. The poor girl is young and active, and so this is admittedly causing her to be restless. We do what we can to keep her preoccupied and busy in other ways besides walks (car rides, short walks to visit Pawpaw and Gammy, staying and playing with Pawpaw and Gammy, new chew bones and toys, etc.), but all I can say is that both she and we are rooting for this tumor to heal up as soon as possible so that she can get back to her long, energy-expending walks.

Now, for those of you curious, I thought I'd share a photo that I took a few days back of Astrid's tumor. I'm going to keep this picture small at first sight, so that those of you who don't want to see it up close and personal don't have to. If you would like to more closely see what a histiocytoma can look like, just click on the image below. Needless to say, WARNING: MILDLY GRAPHIC EWWW FACTOR.

Not too pretty, huh?

Happy Friday, everybuddy!

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Our Tip of the Day:

For those who live in cold winter climates, keep in mind that ice-melting salt can irritate your pets' paw pads, and it can also cause internal irritation if the pet licks it off of their feet or the floor. Be sure to wipe off the paws of any animal that goes outdoors and comes in contact with salt. Also be sure to either take off your shoes or thoroughly wipe off your shoes before walking through the house when you've been outside on salt. For your own sidewalk and driveway, consider some of the pet-friendly and salt-free products that are available on the market.

A Tree for a Tree

As much as I love Christmas and as much as it saddened me to see it go, I was admittedly a bit relieved when it came time to take down the Christmas tree. As pretty and festive as it was, I was eager to have that floor space back. Most especially, I was eager to evict my kitties' new cat tree from the walkway and move it into the Christmas tree's old residence.

So, the cat tree was relocated by a whole three or four feet, and therefore it was like new all over again. I barely even got it moved before Toby was all eager to try out the "new" tree.

 Once Evan realized what was going on, he was just as excited.

My boy Evan is very happy with this relocation. He loves the proximity of the tree and the couch, and he loves to crawl back and forth between the two. Just look at this happy face:

This tree has four levels, and there are four cats in the house. So, of course, they all want the same snoozie spot, as Toby and Evan are demonstrating here:

Well, boys will be boys.

Have a wonderful Thursday, everybuddy!

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Here's where I explain a small, tiny change to this blog. Nothing big or drastic, just something a little extra and different.

For the New Year, I wanted to make my blog contain even just a tad bit of helpful or educational material, and I wanted to do so on a consistent schedule. I love making all of the fun posts, such as Caturday Art, Selfie Sunday, and Wordless Wednesday. However, one small New Year's resolution of mine was that I wanted to include some semblance of informative tidbits on here. I mulled over how to do this, and whether or not to dedicate entire posts to this.

What I decided is that I'm going to continue my current style and method of posting, but at the end of each post I'm going to offer a small, short bit of information that will be called "Our Tip of the Day". These will be bits of info that I've learned over the years from my own animals, from my animal sciences college courses, from my couple of years working as a veterinary assistant, or that I've just come across here and there. Of course, many of you are already veteran pet parents and so will probably know a lot or most of these tips. But, for those who may not know some of this information, I thought I'd offer these daily tips.

So, here is the first day of this new practice:

Our Tip of the Day:
In line with their natural, wild instincts, cats love and seek out levels on which to climb and perch, and often the higher the better. This is why you'll see cats out in the wild climb and perch on trees, fences, and buildings. And this is why your indoor kitties end up on surfaces like tall cabinets and refrigerators. And, this is also why cats trees are great, and why kitties love them so much. If you need to save floor space, though, there are also a variety of other options, such as wall-mounted shelving systems specially designed for use by climbing kitties, or those specially designed to be hung from doors. Or, you can use what you already have by making the tops of those aforementioned cabinets and refrigerators cat-friendly.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday with the Neighbor

Our neighbor pays us a visit regularly.

He always makes his arrival well known.

(Click image to biggify.)

So what if the living room window is 3 feet off the ground? That's what window screens are for.

Happy Wednesday, everybuddy!

Toesies Tuesday Photobombs

The far from expert photographer in me has been trying to experiment with perspective shots lately. My girl Thimble is usually my most willing subject for this, especially when she's lounging in her perch atop our tall cat tree.

So, recently, I caught Thimble being her usual adorable self up there in the cat tree. I grabbed up my camera and started taking some shots from below. But, alas, some adorable toesies insisted on photobombing Thimble's adorable face:

Well, better luck next time perhaps.

Wishing all of our blogging buddies a wonderful Tuesday!

Mancat Monday: The Door Licker

Yesterday, our rainy and unseasonally warm weather finally turned wintry. Temperatures fell to single digits, and there were actually snow flurries in the air for the first time since November! It's like winter finally arrived.

My mancat Evan seems to enjoy watching snow fall, and watching squirrels look for all those nuts they hid in the safety of our yard. (Do you ever hide something somewhere safe, but then later can't remember where that safe spot is? I sure do. And apparently so do roughly all of the squirrels in our neighborhood.) But, what's a boy to do when he can't see the winter scenery outside because the glass door has fogged over?

 Obviously, his only option was to lick his way to a solution.

What's more, Evan was clearly killing two birds with one stone. He was clearing the fog out of his line of sight, and he was getting a nice drink of cold condensation.

 Mmmmm, refreshing.

 Look at that headway Evan made in just a few seconds' time! An expert door licker, he is.

Aaahhh, there. Much better. My mancat Evan sure knows how to take matters into his own hands paws.

Happy Monday, everybuddy!

Sunday Selfies: Rain, rain, go away.

Call us crazy, but we've been hoping for snow around here. Even just a dusting on the ground, or some flurries in the air. After all, it is winter.

But, alas, all we've been having is rain, rain, and then some more rain. So, for today's Sunday Selfie blog hop, hosted by The Cat on My Head, all the furbabies in this house wanted to show off their window-watching renditions of "Rain Rain Go Away". Here goes:

Astrid loves snow and bouncing around in it. Rain, not so much.

Evan notices a decrease in squirrels when it's wet and rainy. He loves to watch squirrels, so rain is far from his favorite thing.

Thimble has displayed more than once her disdain for rain-streaked and foggy screen doors. If she can't see out the door, there is much flailing and mewing. (Needless to say, I've been very busy lately wiping down wet and foggy glass doors for little miss Thimble.)

Let's be honest, Eddy's hardly even noticed the rain. She can hardy sit still long enough to notice the difference between a dry and sunny day at the window, and a wet an rainy one. (This only slightly blurry picture was miraculously captured in a split second when Eddy just happened to make a pit stop at the door.)

Our housemate Toby is much like Evan in that he loves to watch squirrels. When it's raining and the squirrels go into hiding, Toby tends to get a bit bored with Window TV.

Happy Sunday! Is anybuddy else singing lots of "Rain Rain Go Away" lately?

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