Good cat, bad cat

"I wants to go out, look at all the birdies, pleaassee let me's out!"

Under siege

Everything was going swimmingly for Oliver and his new found freedom in the back garden. He proved himself boss with the black cat (chased him the length of the flats) and spent hours running about. Then a big old black and white cat (The Nemesis) caught up with Oliver and held him under siege in his own home! A bundle of ginger fur leaped through the window and then spent the rest of the afternoon on the sill, watching the Nemesis control, what turned out to be, his territory!

Freeeedooommm

Playing with the blind

Olivander - Pirate Cat

I shouldn't laugh, but Oliver has hurt his eye slightly and looks just like a furry pirate. There's nothing obviously wrong with it, he's just closing it for much of the time. Yesterday he was in and out the house, jumping though the window like a daemon, so he probably poked it on one of the bushes. it might have taught him something, but I doubt it. When I got up this morning, said eye was much better, so yesterday's knock wasn't serious, and we got to make pirate jokes about our little swashbuckling hero. He's now pining by the window waiting to do it all again.

The photo below isn't a good one - every time I tried to take a pic of the closed eye he would either open it or move his head.

Leaping at the camera

The girl next door

Missy is the girl next door, she's a nine year old black and white puss and she's in love with Oliver. In the morning's she cries outside our front door and if I let O out, they immediately run to each other. But the course of true cat love doesn't run smooth, their routine is to sniff each other, O hisses, M growls and they both retreat. Now that O has a bit more freedom, maybe the relationship will blossom, but at the moment I think he's a little confused.

Freedom

With the pet insurance sorted and the cat getting a little too big for the flat, this weekend we gave him some freedom. It's a hard decision, out flat is flanked by car parks, but they're not too busy on the weekend and there's plenty of shrubbery along the sides.

Oliver loved it and spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning running around outside. He doesn't stray too far (yet), has had 'words' with the neighbour's moggy and comes back with a rattle of the food tub or his favourite tunnel toy.

He's now stretched out on the sofa, fast asleep.

Why couldn't he be a princess??

We've just got Pet Insurance for Oliver. So unfair that boys are more to cover then girls, if O was a girl we'd be paying £3 less a month. But I guess it means that more claims are made for Tom cats and I don't really want to think about that as it means the chances we'll have to claim are already high. Anyway he's now insured and at 5 months old is big enough to go out on his own.

If anyone's interested in the end we went with M&S - they do life time cover rather than yearly and had a good rate compared with some others.

Houdini

Last night Oliver bit my hand as I slept. We couldn't shut him out of the bedroom as he'll scratch up the door in our rented flat, so we got out his travelling cage and put him in. I thought we could leave him in there for an hour or so until he'd calmed down and then let him out. Oliver had other ideas.

At first there was a tremendous amount of scratching, when that failed he cried for a bit and then started digging at the cage door. Within less then 5 mins, Oliver was out and jumping on the bed. The cage door was completely off it's plastic hinges. Oh well said FB I guess I didn't do it up properly. So in goes Oliver again. Within 3 mins he was out, but this time the door wasn't open. I imagine he's now big enough to push against the plastic and squirm out. Our cat is a mini houdini and we need to invest in a metal cage.

Cat vs. Tunnel - he's finally won

Since we've had him, Oliver has has luminous green play tunnel he loves to jump through. Even though it's kitten size and he's a little big, he still uses it as a nest. At one end is a little brown mouse on a string and yesterday triumph was his. It's taken him 3 months but now the tunnel is sadly lacking a mouse. I wish I'd been there when he did it, just to hear that proud little meow when he finally got his mousy reward.

Pasta lover

I loves my pasta

O has a pasta fetish. Give him a piece of dried pasta and he plays with it for hours. He pads it across the floor, picks it up gently and carries it around in his mouth and always ends up burying it under the mat in the hall. If he loses it under something - washing machine, fridge etc - he mopes until we get it out or give him a new one.

The breakfast game

Oliver won't stop crying in the morning until I've played the breakfast game with him. This started when he was a kitten and we first took him to the vet. Everything we'd done in that first week was wrong. apparently. What flea treatment do you use? That's wrong. What de-wormer do you use? That's wrong, only ever use expensive veterinary ones. What food do you feed him. Wrong wrong wrong. The vet said we should treat wet food like a take-away and only give it every so often. So we got him the recommended Hills Science Plan, for kittens, tuna. But Oliver wouldn't eat it, so I devised the breakfast game.

I sit on the kitchen floor leaning against the oven with the bowl of little brown pellets. One by one I flick/slide/throw the food across the floor and O chases/catches/pats them around. He won't eat any food I've put down for him until we've played the game and makes pathetic little mews until I stop what I'm doing and feed him. Ironically when FB feeds him in the morning, O starts eating straight from the bowl. He really knows how to play me huh.

Paw bouquet

Not the worst way to wake up but at 5am I was padded awake by the ginger one. He was fast asleep, curled up on my neck with all four paws paddling in a dream and right in my face.

Kitten film

The night time scratcher

The ginger menace keeps waking me up at 4am! If we shut him out of the bedroom he rips the carpet to shreds and if we let him in, I'm woken in the early hours by a very loud purr and the cat wrapped around my neck.

There's no way to stop it that I can think of. We've put masking tape on the carpet outside the bedroom door, covered this with a doormat, put a scratching post up and our piece de resistance is an air freshener with a movement sensor, so when he does come to the door, a waft of vanilla sprays into the air. It's not that effective, he still scratches and wakes us up but it does protect the carpet.

Any other thoughts are welcome!

More pear noshing

Raindrop chasing and other deliberations

Oliver's a little confused this morning, it rained quite heavily last night and our single pane windows are covered in condensation. This is causing havoc with his usual early morning staring out the window routine, but at least the raindrops sliding down the glass are fun, if a little wet, to catch.

Last night was a good one, he was calm so we left the bedroom door open. No scratching at 4am and I woke to find him curled up on my neck. A gentle push and he was lying against my back purring.


This is a photo I took of him yesterday eating my pear core - it's the first time he's eaten fruit (do most cats do this?) though he is also partial to cucumber. He became really possessive of the pear, once I'd taken the picture he picked it up and took it to his tunnel to gnaw on it further.

Kitten video - he's so small!

From then to now

Today's the 26th July 09 and we've had Oliver for nearly 3 months. He's grown an amazing amount and is more cat then kitten. He's been to the vet's 3 times, twice for injections and once to be weighed for worming. He's also booked in to be snipped and chipped when he's 6 months in September.

He's been to Kent to visit Tom's parents. He met their 6 year old cat Max, sniffed him, hissed at him and Max disappeared for the rest of the day. We also took him for a weekend at my parent's in Wiltshire, he loved being outside, but hated the journey back.

He's met friends, is terrified of strangers and although is yet to go out on his own, is happy being on a lead and walking round the communal gardens of the flat block. He's friends with the cat nextdoor and has seen a fox through the window. He's put up with SingStar nights and sat on my knee as I sang very loud out of tune kareoke. He loves hiding in the drying washing, helping to make the bed and generally getting under foot.

Since kittenhood he's loved me more then anyone else. If I leave the room he follows, he'll pick my lap first and if we let him in the bedroom at night, he sleeps on my neck. On the flip side I'm the one he play fights with, stalks and scratches - my right hand is covered in war wounds whilst Tom's is smooth.

He loves routine and hates it when we don't come back in the evening. He loves his luminous green play tunnel - though is now too big and it collapses whenever he tries to run through it. He loves his mouse on a string and carries it, stick and all around the flat. He get's very possesive of dried pasta - carrying it around and burying it under the rug in the hall and this morning, decided he likes to eat pear cores.

He makes the best chirupping noises when happy and little huffy hisses when play fighting. He pounces and pokes, climbs and leaps and has funny turns when he runs round the flat without touching the floor.

Day 1

We got him home and let him out in the living room, where he ran under the table. He was pretty friendly from the start, he hardly cried in the car on the way back and was easily tempted out with a toy or two. We spent the weekend playing with him. On Sunday Laura, Hannah and Emil came over to see him.

Caturday

We got Oliver when he was two months old on Saturday 9th May 2009. He was asleep so the seller gave the small bundle of sleepy fluff to FB and it was love at first site. He was beautiful, we didn't need to debate about health, looks or temperament we just took him. He wasn't big or stupid enough to be called Bungle so we stuck with Oliver. He very soon became known as the Ginger Prince, he was prince of the flat and we were there to serve.

The purrfect name

Naming a cat should be easy huh? Not when Book kit and Film boy are involved. We each had hundreds of names but managed to veto every single one the other thought of. With my love of books I wanted a literary name - Willoughby (Sense & Sensibility), Carbonel (King of cats), Orlando (the marmalade cat) etc etc. Tom and his love of films and comics wanted Gambit (X-Men) or Silvio (Sporanos). Laurence suggested Achilles which I liked by Tom vetoed. In the end it came down to two - Oliver and Bungle.

Search for a prince

We looked at loads of animal shelter websites with no luck, so went elsewhere and found a personal ad with kittens for sale. The kittens were in Catford, a ginger male and two females - black and tortoiseshell. We already knew we wanted a ginger cat, so phoned up and the seller said she'd keep him for a week.

The Prince's Arrival

We'd wanted a cat for ages but living in a rented flat meant we'd signed a NO PET contract. In April we let the landlady know we wanted to move and as it was full on credit crunch she gave us a heavy discount to stay. Before accepting we asked for one more thing - a cat.

Hooray for the crunch the landlady accepted and we started a cat search!