Menopause Matters Forum
General Discussion => This 'n' That => Topic started by: Taz2 on June 09, 2013, 10:29:07 AM
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Hello to all of you who are owned by a cat! I have just read about this programme which is on BBC2 at 9pm this Thursday. Cats were fitted with GPS and collar cameras to try to see what they get up to while we are snoozing the night away. It sounds interesting and the researchers were astounded at how many cats ate and slept at other houses. Looking at my sofas at the moment I could have told them that - there, sleeping peacefully, are three cats which are not mine and I know that my own cat has popped along to number 28 for an extra breakfast. Always watching out for number one!
Taz x
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I have made a note of this to watch but it is not on until after 11 here in Scotland.
Bramble
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:thankyou:
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You can read a bit about it here http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/406148/Exposed-the-secret-life-of-your-pet-cat
Taz x
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Thanks Taz.
Have set it up to record.
Have had cats all my life but lost my Bobby 7 years ago.
Have a dog now but still love cats just as much.
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Hello to all of you who are owned by a cat! Looking at my sofas at the moment I could have told them that - there, sleeping peacefully, are three cats which are not mine and I know that my own cat has popped along to number 28 for an extra breakfast. Always watching out for number one!
Taz x
Haha! I know about that at the moment. Sadly we have no cat of our own since April, but definitely we are now also owned by a lovely one a few houses away who used to live next door before the owner moved away, and has moved into ours part-time once our cat was no longer there :'( - well of course we had to feed her with little titbits!
Thanks Taz! Will have to watch that on iplayer as I'm working that evening - don't know how to record any more...
Reminds me of the children's picture story I used to read to my youngest two - "Six Dinner Sid" - anyone remember this one? I have it here (have kept it as a favourite all these years):
"Sid lived at number One Aristotle Street. He also lived at Number two, number three, number four, number five and number six. Sid lived in six houses so that he could have six dinners. Each night he would slip out of number one, where he might have had chicken, into number two for fish......, onto number three for lamb, mince at number four, fish again at number five....rounding off at number six with beef and kidney stew......" and so it goes on delightfully illustrated! Basically it all goes along swimmingly until one day he gets ill and gets taken to the vet by each of his "owners" and gets rumbled by the vet, and the owners decided to ration his food, so Sid goes off to live at another address - and another five houses in the same street!
Hurdity x
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Thanks for this, will set up recorder now. We are also catless since April Hurdity :(
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Set to record as going on holiday :)
We recently had to change the cat flap for a magnetic one after finding another cat sleeping upstairs in the spare room, also seen same cat helping himself to our cats food!!
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We have four different visitors. They all pile in once their owners have gone to work and then make their way home just in time for their owners return. As Hurdity mentions - a bit like Six Dinner Sid. I worry if any of them doesn't appear! I am only actually "owned" by one cat at the moment.
Taz x :D
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I love it! Four - that must be fun!! Do they all get on?
The cat that I mentioned isn't actually owned by us atm - we have none - but is only one visitor. Ditto if she doesn't appear we wonder what's happened. We haven't got a cat flap so she miaows outside the door.
....I forgot to mention that Sid in the story is a lovely Black Cat ...
Hurdity x
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Ah yes, I remember reading 6 Dinner Sid to my children :)
Surprised your cat allows 3 others inside the house Taz!!
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When I had a cat (lost her at the grand old age of 18, 3 years ago now - still miss her, and I swear sometimes I hear her bell and tiny meow - she only had a very quiet voice), she would not only let one other cat from the street into our house, she sat by and watched him eat her food!! Cats make friends, just like humans.
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I have to keep my cat flap locked for coming in, as a very smelly tom cat has taken a fancy to my nutered female cat it likes to spray around the house and the smell lingers for days. I have a dog but even having him does not scare him off. Also my cat likes to bring rats and mice in alive and dead. Dead is bad enough but the live ones I hate the most as trying to catch them is a pain.
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Aw Scampi that's so sweet. Cats are always so territorial. Ours would never let others in the house even if they were friends outside.
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I have always found that my cats (and I did have five at one point) all get a bit annoyed when new ones begin to move in but after a while they are very good at finding their own parts of the house to be in. We have been through stages of feeding some upstairs and some down. The four who visit are always on their best behaviour and wait in line for their food - never expecting to be fed before our own cat who, incidentally, used to belong to people over the road who found him to be "a liability" and left him behind when they moved. I have always found that when one dies another suddenly appears. Cats are very patient and one of the "four" has taken two years to finally pluck up courage to stay in when we appear. He has moved out of his own house because they have got a small dog now and they don't get on. His owner brings food over once a week and sometimes takes him home but he doesn't stay there long. I could put in a chip-activated cat flap but we live in a chalet style house and their preferred method of entry is up the tree, over the roof and through a bedroom window!
I love having so many visitors but we too have a beautiful grey cat who pops in overnight but he has not been neutered and did spray the other week - that smell is so pungent. He is a lovely cat though - not sure what I'll do about that - two bricks maybe :ange:
Taz x
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I watched it but was a bit dissapointed as it didn't really show me anything I hadn't already discovered from owning a cat.
Cazi x
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I started watching it but it was very boring and slow. I left it recording and went up the pub
Taz x
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'Odour Eliminator' or a good biological washing powder will shift Tom-cat smells.
We watched the programme but didn't see the follow-up. I was surprised at how close to 'home' the cats stayed ???
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I left it recording and went up the pub
Taz x
I wish I had gone with you Taz.
I didn't bother with the follow up.
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I watched it on the laptop with my cat! She seemed more interested than me ;D I was surprised how many owners let their cats out at night or is it just me being overprotective? I have always kept mine inside at night.
Back to my cat watching the program - I've never had a cat that was remotely interested in the TV before but Tabatha loves it. I even googled "Videos for cats" and was surprised to find Youtube videos especially for cats! She loves one I found that shows sparrows visiting a bird table
ariadne xx
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Mine watched it but that's because of the sounds they were hearing I think.
As for keeping cats in at night. We have always kept ours in until this one... there is no way we can keep him in. If we keep him downstairs with his litter tray like we have done with all our other cats over the years (12 altogether) he just scraps up all the carpets and claws the doors. We can't let him upstairs as we would then have to close the bedroom windows (chalet style house with easy access to roof and then tree to the ground) and I can't bear to sleep with the window closed not even in Winter. For a small cat (chinchilla persian) he is very determined but also, sadly, very lacking in the IQ department. I do worry about him being out. He tends to go off over the roof for a while and then come back in again. I am always pleased to find him asleep in his latest favourite cardboard box when I get up each day.
Of course the open bedroom window is also the way that countless other cats come in and out all night. All different in their entrances. There is the dainty sort of bouncy landing of little black and white. The almighty THUD of fat ginger. The sort of slithery, scratchy sound of might-be-a-stray elderly grey cat as he slides down the chest of drawers which is under the window before hobbling off to see what is left in the saucers. There is the clod-hopping over the tiles of three-legged black and white and the joyful "brrrp" as he bounces onto the bed and off again.... We have a busy bedroom ;D
Taz x
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Haha - is this your bedroom Taz? I would get no sleep at all if that happened - I am such a light sleeper and it is so quiet here at night that I would wake at every scratch and slither, and then I can't get back to sleep again! Sounds like a wild rumpus (where the wild things are!)......!
Our cats have always been out at night as cats are nocturnal so I feel that's where they want to be, but usually in and sleeping in the day - except in summer of course. As we have never had a cat flap my husband built a kennel thing for them for when it's really cold with a low watt thing that gives off heat ( talk about spoilt!) but there have always been plenty of outbuildings around too as it's a village.
All we need now is another cat or two of our own!
Hurdity x
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Cats are "crepuscular" meaning most active at dawn and dusk. It's a word I'd never heard until recently. My cat is allowed out up until we go to bed between 11pm and midnight.
She is most unfriendly to other cats much to my disappointment. There's a lovely little ginger and white cat comes around our garden and is obviously wanting to make friends but she will have none of it. Then there is one jet black kitten and one pure white kitten who I think live together ;) - they want to play as well but she bristles at them too.
We do have a cat flap but I block it up at night rather than lock it because I think if I lock it, she wouldn't understand why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and just keep battering it with her head - and then she might be wary of using it.
ariadne xx
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To me the programme didn't quite let me see as much as I wanted to. When it said that whatever cat it was left home at 11.30 and then went into the woods.... and returned at dawn. Well, the interesting thing to me would have been what he did between the hours of 11.30 and dawn!
Taz x
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I recorded it so havent seen it yet but I had hoped it would show the cat's actual activities. That's a shame :(
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I agree and weren't those cameras big? I don't think my cat would have put up with it. She makes enough fuss about a collar and is forever shaking her head and scratching her neck if I dare to put one on her.
I did make her wear one with 3 bells on last year every time she went out because she caught a couple of baby birds which upset me. This year, she hasn't caught any or even seemed very interested in them so I haven't made her wear the bell collar.
ariadne xx
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Just watched it. It said that cat owners are generally more intellegent than dog owners. ::)