Are you more Cat or Dog?

Hehehe... 60% cat hey? I love these Internet quizzes! I wouldn't mind, but I think it describes me pretty accurately!

You Are: 40% Dog, 60% Cat

You and cats have a lot in common. You're both smart and in charge - with a good amount of attitude. However, you do have a very playful side that occasionally comes out!

Are You More Cat or Dog?

Catteries that are Cool for Cats ?

I have just returned home after a couple of days away, hence the lapse in my blogging! Much as I enjoyed my couple of days break, I missed my two furry babies and my laptop!

When I organise a trip away now days there are three things I have to book. Flights, accommodation and a cat sitter! I prefer when at all possible to keep the cats in their own environment, so normally if we're not going away for more than a week, a friend of ours stays and takes care of our two lovelies. We are lucky to have someone reliable and cat friendly enough to trust, it gives me peace of mind when away from them. Only on one occasion have we had to use a cattery.

Last year a group of us were heading away for a fortnight, our cat sitter included, so we had to send Oliver on his holidays too. This was P.P. (Pre-Poppy), so he was going all on his own! We found a cattery in County Clare for him to relax in. It was nice, clean, safe etc. I would have preferred if it had more home comforts though. I found it quite stressful finding a cattery I was happy to leave him in for such a long time. The fact that he was completely a house cat made it worse, as he is so used to his luxuries! Try as I might I did not find any cattery in the immediate area that supplied sofas, fluffy cushions and a good view of birds etc for their feline guests!

Seriously though, one thing I found very annoying while trying to locate a suitable cattery was the fact that very few in the Munster area have websites with photos of where the cats are housed. It would be a great help to see the premises before booking, but it's not always possible to call personally. I found some excellent websites of catteries located in Wexford, Galway and Dublin, but none in Limerick or Clare. If anyone out there is aware of catteries in these counties that have websites with photos etc, I would appreciate you letting me know.

This website http://www.cosycatscattery.co.uk/advice.html gives a very comprehensive guide to finding the purrfect (I know, I know!) cattery for your little prince or princess, check it out !

Limerick Leader Article

It was with great delight I responded to an invitation from the Limerick Leader to give an interview about For the Love of Cats! You can check out the result, which appears on page 21 of this weeks city edition.

Hopefully this will direct more people towards the site, though including the web address may have helped! Poppy and Oliver are thrilled. Now that they are celebs they are making even more demands, requesting their milk to be room temperature and so on! No, bless them, as far as they are concerned they have always deserved such special treatment!!

Full article can be read here:

http://pix.ie/sandrart/333487/size/800

Consuming Passions - 7pm RTE 1

Just in case you missed the ad, this evenings Consuming Passions TV programme is doing a feature on cat lovers. I'm looking forward to seeing this programme, as often TV programmes focus on dogs, but not so often on cats. On the other hand I hope the programme doesn't present cat people as total nutters! Even if (at times) we are!

I'm going to hold my judgement until I have watched the show, it's on at 7pm on RTE 1. I'm sure Oliver & Poppy will be glued to it also!

Let Sleeping Cats Lie

Poppy loves to chill on our bed, especially when it's sunny!

I know all cats love to sleep. I read somewhere that domestic cats spend between 14 and 18 hrs a day sleeping. What I find fascinating is the locations and positions they choose to sleep in, as demonstrated in the the below pictures of Poppy! Oliver tends to go for more traditional sleeping positions :)

Not the most modest pose perhaps! Apparently cats who sleep on their back, with their tummy exposed like this, feel very safe and secure in their surroundings. Exposing their belly to you is a sign of trust, as this is one of the most vulnerable parts of their body. (You can just see where Poppy's hair is growing back on her side, after having it shaved for her 'Operation'!)

Oliver taking a well deserved rest from Poppy!

Harry Potter and the Two Nosey Cats

Poppy wants to see what happens next..

If there is one thing I could say about cats, it would be that they love to be involved in everything! When I'm changing the bed linen, Poppy loves to try and run in and out under the duvet cover, when I'm in the bath or shower, both cats perch themselves either on the edge of the bath or on the sink.

They seem to be able to pick up on the mood and atmosphere of whats going on too. Last night the atmosphere in this home was one of excitement to be sure ! The last Harry Potter book being released was an event I've looked forward to since the last book two years ago. And it did not disappoint :) By 2am myself Oliver and Poppy were happily curled up in bed reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! OK, I was reading, they were busy smelling the book and to be honest Poppy was probably more interested in the paper bag the book came in, as it made a very good hiding place for her to jump out and ambush Oliver from! Maybe she'll appreciate the books more when she's older, hehehe!

Today we're having a very lazy day, after last nights excitement. The 3hr wait in the queue outside Easons on Cruises Street, was actually good fun. Despite the fact that we were too far back to see the fire eater and the snake. We did get to see two amazing owls though. One was a baby, just 6 weeks old, but surprisingly big at that. More importantly I got a Stinger bar when they were giving out goodies to people :) I haven't had one of them in ages!
The simple things that make people happy, hey?

Speaking of what makes us happy, I think I'm going to get back to my book for a while. I want to get it finished by Monday, so I can avoid hearing Plot Spoilers from meanies out there!

Chapter 6 here I come....

The Queue

Owl

How Happy Are You?!

Came across this on another blog page. Try it out, I feel my result is definitely linked to having cats in my life, hehehe....

You Are 84% Happy

It's unlikely that you know anyone happier than you. You know how to be happy, no matter what life throws at you.

How Happy Are You?

Cats and Hairballs

Last week Poppy was feeling a bit under the weather. Initially I put this down to the fact she was neutered a couple of weeks back and her staples were still in place. I got a little worried when she started vomiting and ended up having our vet see her on a Sunday (he's a very patient man!). After examining Poppy he concluded it was either (a) a hairball problem or (b) Irritable Bowel Syndrome. She got a shot and was put on special food for sensitive tummies for a week and a twice weekly dose of liquid paraffin. After that she was fine!

I was quite worried at the thought of her having IBS, it would mean keeping her on a special diet and as a two cat household it's difficult to prevent them eating each others food. At the moment she's back on regular old Whiskas, which seems to be suiting her fine. I think it was just a hairball, probably from all the grooming of the area around her operation wound. I think prevention is probably better than cure in the case of hairballs.

I've had a look on for some advice on hairball prevention and treatment in case it's of use to anyone else. This more or less summarises what I came across..


Hairballs can cause vomiting, loss of appetite and constipation in your cat. In rare cases, removal may require surgery. Spare your cat from these problems by following these guidelines.
Steps
1
Brush your cat daily, especially while she's shedding, to help prevent hairballs from forming in the stomach.
2
Use a bristle or rubber brush for short haired cats.
3
Brush long haired felines with a wide-toothed comb or wire slicker brush.
4
Feed your cat a "hairball control" cat food high in vegetable fiber, or administer a commercial hairball prevention preparation available from your veterinarian or at pet stores.
5
Alternatively, mix 1 tsp. mineral oil or petroleum jelly per 10 lb. body weight into your cat's food, as a home remedy. (The average cat weighs 8 to 10 lbs.) My vet recommended Liquid Paraffin.
6
Understand that feeding other oils, such as vegetable oil, to your cat will be ineffective, because they will be digested and absorbed.

The Beginning....

It's fair to say I wasn't always a cat lover. Growing up our family always had dogs, never cats (my Dad is not a fan of cats). I admit to being of those people who felt cats were only out for what they could get. But in the summer of 2004 all that changed...

An American friend was staying with us at the time and one day around the end of June, I arrived home to find him in our kitchen with the smallest, most miserable looking kitten you have ever seen! He had found him wandering around our back yard, almost blind and half dead with cat flu, only a few weeks old, having been abandoned by it's mother. What a start! The vet had a look and said the kitten was lucky, another couple of days and he would have been a goner. So our work began, nursing this little guy back to health. As he was so young, we had to feed him with a plastic syringe on special formula (much like a baby really, including the night feeds)! We named him Oliver (like in the musical) because he was an orphan and he became part of our lives.

Oliver has gone from strength to strength and as you can see from his photograph has grown into a gorgeous tom cat.

We remained a one cat family for over two years, then in November last year, fate intervened again and Poppy joined our little family. Another homeless kitten, found this time by my aunt ended up in our care. By coincidence, she is the same breed as Oliver, with very similar colouring and markings. Her nature however could not be more different! Where Oliver is a very laid back, chilled out cat, Poppy on the other hand, is as hyper as you could imagine! One thing they both have very much in common is that they are extremely loving and affectionate creatures. Their antics never cease to make me laugh on a daily basis.

Welcome

Ok, here we go! This is my first ever attempt at writting a blog, so bear with me. Things might be slow to start but, hopefully, I'll find my feet and things should start running smoothly! Bit like life in general I suppose.


I'm not setting out to change the world here, I'm starting this blog because I love cats. Especially my own babies, Oliver and Poppy. I think most people I know are used (if not a little tired!) of hearing me ramble on about these two bundles of joy, and so I thought I'd share with a wider audience. At least here you can navigate away from the page, if only my poor family and friends had such an easy option (smile!).

Having said that, I also want to use this blog to share anything I think may be helpful or interesting with other cat lovers out there. Feel free to email relevant articles, advice or tips to me and I'll do my best to post them on here.

I look forward to sharing my day to day experiences of being a cat owner,
though it is said cats own their people, not the other way round ! I recently read a sign that pretty much sums up the difference between cats and dogs...
"Dogs have masters, cats have staff."
I most definitley agree, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Welcome to our world :)