News Update!

Well, I'll hang my head in shame for not updating since September. Freya's been fine, with no problems, so I guess that's why I've not felt the urge to write.

We had an adventure at Christmas, where Freya went with us to Anna's parent's house 4 hours drive away.

We borrowed a big cage off a friend, and equipped it with padded cushions, and covered it with puppy pads (sheets of nappy material). Sprayed Feliway all over it, and in all honesty, I don't really think it had any effect. She didn't appear to sniff where we'd sprayed it, and she yowled for abut 3 hours and I guess wore herself out for the last hour of the journey.

Once we got there, we confined her to whatever room we were in, so she never had the run of the house. This turned out to be a very good idea, as for the first day or two, she would have her own hidey hole in each room, and woul donly come out for food, biscuits, and sometimes cuddles.

Overall I don't think it was a bad decision to take her. There may have been some stress for her, being away from home, but she was with us at all times and protected, and there was a lot of mental stimulation for her too, and that's never a bad thing...

I wish I'd taken some pictures! Instead, here are some upto date ones instead






Freya loves her biscuits!

Wee problem - SOLVED, YAY!

We've been having a bit of a rough time recently with Freya weeing pretty much anywhere. Almost with no pattern except that she never weed in the lounge. Pretty much every room in the house was fair game!

we tried all sorts of different litter, the "Cellulose" based one - That was a good laugh - why not just call it paper? :-) That went soft and looked unpleasant to me too! she used that a couple of times, and then stopped. I assumed that was because it went soft, and she likes to have a good dig around.

So then I bought that expensive white granulated litter, and really don't think she used that once! It was when we were trying that litter that I discovered "poo corner" in the far corner of the studio. Looked like she'd gone there about 2-3 times! Luckily they were all dry and just scooped up with no mess at all. PHEW! By this time, I'd try and tempt her into the litter tray, and she wouldn't even sniff it, just walk out and away again.

We kind of noticed after then, that the most common place for her to wee was in the hall, about 1 metre from the front door. In desperation I put the litter tray there, and SHE USED IT!

I really can't think why the upstairs location became no good for her - she'd used it absolutely fine for the first 2 months, and then with no real changes, she just stopped using it. The only thing I can think of is that she liked to wee at the entrance to her domain?

It's not like she ever goes out of the front door anyway, but maybe she sees us going out and in, and knows it that way? The other possibility is that the late Auntie Scampie used to have her litter tray there, and maybe there's some smell left.

I just know that still, even after about 3-4 days, every time I hear her scratching around in the litter tray, I have a happy feeling inside, as it means I'm not going to have to scrub up the carpet! :-)

But why did she use upstairs for so long before deciding it wasn't for her??

Anyway, here's some pics of tin foil carpets! I'm not sure when I'll have the guts to take up all the foil, and besides, it stops the FBI and their mind control rays!

OOOH... Maine Coon!

We went on a day trip to our local Cat rescue home Foal Farm. We often go there, just to look and coo (we never cry either, oh no, not us, no never!) at all the lovely kitties there, waiting to go to their forever homes.

There's always at least one cat there that really grabs us, and if we had some lottery money, and acres of land, they'd probably come home with us, there and then.... (Don't tell Freya!)

Anyway, this week's cat of note is Nanook, on the Getting Desperate page (click the link and scroll down to see him)


They say about him: "If you like big cats, look no further! He has lost his home as his owners have moved to where pets are not allowed. He is very easy going but not really a lapcat. He would love to meet you!"


Well, they were NOT JOKING about big cats! Nanook has to be about 3-4 feet from head to tip of tail! He is just magnificent! I would just LOVE to see peoples faces as he walked past in my street! If you've neer seen a Maine Coon in person, you just can't imagine how big they are! I've often heard of them, but meeting one is a special treat!

And to think, most people comment on how small and petite Freya is! If we got Nanook, Freya would look like his little pet! (just for the record, we won't be getting Nanook.... Just in case anyone was thinking!)

This is a picture from the internet, to give another idea of their size!

Mummy's girl no more?

Freya's always been proud and unashamed of being a Mummy's girl.

Whenever Anna sits down, Freya is never far, and automatically jumps up to sit in her lap. She snuggles in, and kind of gloats at me, as if to say, Ha! I'm getting the cuddles round here, and you're not!

You can see by these pictures, she knows who's boss, and who gets first dibs on Anna's lap, and I can assure you, it's not me!

This week, Anna's been away, and taken her lap with her.










Freya manged to hold out for about a day, but soon enough, she succumbed to the dark side - that is, Daddy's lap.

We've had some wonderful cuddle time this week, and I've hardly had to bribe her with treets at all!

We still have a bit of a disagreement about my guitar playing, but I'll wear her down eventually.

In the last picture, it's almost as if she's saying "HEY! NO PHOTOS! I DON'T WANT MUM TO FIND OUT!!"

Feliway dissapointment :-(

It seems that Feliway hasn't been the magical cure I was hoping for. Not necessarily to say anything against it, but I think Freya is just weeing, not spraying.

So far it seems only in the one place, which just happens to be in the corner of my bedroom. Now, I feel I should explain, just so you're sure to have the complete picture. Originally, it was the garage, then it was the office, (Freya first wee'd in here when it was a barely used office) but now it's my bedroom. (The big rooms upstairs are now work related). OK all making sense? As if.

Anyway, she did it Thursday at 07:30, and on Saturday at 06:30. Luckily, something woke me up, and I caught her seconds after the offence was committed, which I thought was a great thing, so I picked her up, carried her over to the floor patch, held her next to it (against her struggling) and said very firmly NO!

I wouldn't dream of rubbing her nose in it or anything like that. I consider that definately NOT something an animal lover would do.

Since then, Anna has read a cat behavour book, and the author said that bad behaviour is usually as a result of stress, and telling off your cat will usually increase that stress, and damage the bond that you have with her.

So now I'm stuck!

My only other option, is regarding the litter tray. Now it may be that I was exceptionally lucky with my last kitty, Scampi, and she was very tolerant of a less than pristine litter tray, and conversely, Freya is a right little princess, and doesn't like to use a litter tray that isn't empty (and diamond encrusted). So I'm going to have to make a concerted effort to empty it more often now, and hope that makes the difference!

Fingers crossed!

Since every blog needs pictures, here's some.
This is the exceptionally clean corner of my bedroom - I've cleaned it about 5 times with the new Vax machine!










This is what a bedroom in a garage looks like! that's the boiler above my head, so I get a nice (weird) sort of alarm clock about 8AM. And before you ask, yes, I have a carbon monoxide detector in the room. :-)

Feliway result..

Of course, I could certainly be talking too soon, but she hasn't sprayed anywhere but the litter tray so far, Maybe it's the Feliway, maybe not. It's a bit soon to be making proper scientific conclusions, don't you think?

Almost every morning, I spray the 2 places where she unrinates, and that's all I do. When I've sprayed (the Feliway!) my fingers are a bit wet from the spray, and it smells very alchoholy... after a few seconds the alchohol evaporates, and there's no real smell that i cna detect. if I hold my fingers infront of Freya's nose, she doesn't really react significantly... I wonder what's in it?

well, as long as it works, I'm happy.... and if she goes anywhere but the litter tray, you'll be the first to know!

Wee problem, ongoing...

Freya still hasn't got over her weeing problem.

There are 3 places she wees or to be more accurate, she "marks".

• By the front door.
• in the corner of a dark downstairs small room, that's not used very often.
• upstairs by her litter tray.

the third one may be a bit strange, but let me explain... Whe have the litter tray upstairs on the landing, in theory so that the smells don't fill downstairs. the landing overlooks the stairs, and a couple of times, we've caught her standing up in her litter tray, (not squatting as usual) and weeing, so that the stream lands halfway down the stairs. I have a feeling that the standing and weeing, rather than squatting is a classic sign of marking, rather than weeeing.

Anyway it smells, and is a real pain to clean up.

I've ordered some Feliway, that is supposed to work miracles, and I have to give one spray a day to the 3 areas where she wees or marks, and magically, that will stop her.

It seems quite scientific/psychological how it works, using pheremones...

Anyway, the other thing I'm thinking about, is that marking is usually a sign of anxiety or stress. I can't really see it, as nothing significant has changed in the house (apart from a load of moving this week, but the problem started ages ago)

I have heard that it cna also happen from a poor spaying operation, where "some female bits are left in" but I don't really know if that makes sense to me...

I'll let you know when the Feliway arrives what happens.

She doesn't like my guitar playing!

I've been learning the guitar for 3 days, and it seems that Freya has an opinion on my playing ability!

When I start playing, at first, she just chirps, the same way that she does when she sees a bird outside, even in her sleep! Then, as my playing goes on (and on, and on) just look what she does about 2/3 into the video!



Now, she may be the cutest cat in all the world, but that's just plain rude!

Every time we watch this, it just makes us laugh so much!

I don't she really hates it *that* much - I mean, surely she'd leave the room if she really didnt like it? Ahh well, she'll just have to put up with it until either I get better or completely bored of it!

New Toy MkII

ok, so the back to front carpet idea didn't work, and I thought about buying the proper scratch post sisal string, but the cheapest I could find it online was about £30, and that seemed too much.

Then Anna and I were visiting a hop farm and they were selling hop string, £8 for about a mile of the stuff!

Later on, we spent an ecstatic 3 hours winding hop string round a heavy 2.4 meter fence post, but the good news is it looks great, and works EXACTLY as we wanted it to!

We can wedge treats into the gaps in the string at the top of the post, and Freya will climb up, without any aparent difficulty, and pull them out and then back down safely too.

We originally made the scratch post to give her a bit of a challenge to climb to the top, but seeing her climb up it's just a joy to behold. She climbs up the post without any difficulty at all!

Designing another new toy?

I I had an idea to make a floor to ceiling climbing post.

The ceiling is about 2.4 metres, and the fence posts that my local wood shop sold were around 2.4 metres, so bingo! My plan had a chance!

Next in the plan was to cover it in that stringy-rope stuff that scratch posts are wrapped in. I did a little calculation, and figured out, that to completely wrap the post, I'd need a little less than 90 feet of 8mm rope!

So that was out of the question - then I had a great idea! I'd wrap it in carpet - cats always like climbing up carpet don't they? and even better, I'd use the string-backed carpet, and put it on back-to-front, with the string showing so she'd have more to grip on.

It took quite a bit if coaxing to get her to climb the post, but she got there by me cutting little holes in the post, and inserting little buscuit treats in the holes!

Unfortunately, I think the holes in the string aren't very comfortable for her, as she doesn't really seem to like it that much, and often seems to act as if her claws are getting stuck.

So back to the drawing board, and I'm going to take off the carpet that's already there, and I'm going to recover it with carpet the right way round so that it doesn't hurt her claws!

Hope she likes it!

(Sorry there aren't more photos, I guess we were so excited we forgot! There is some video, so I'll try and post that soon.)

Thanks for reading!

Spot the cat!

Since getting Freya, Anna's developed an amazing talent for spotting Leopard print items! (Of course we're obsessed!)

So far, in a few short weeks from the local charity shops, we've got a leopard print cushion, hot water bottle cover, and get this - a fetching leopard print satin bed sheet!!! Can you imagine anyone buying that new? (outside the 70s of course) It's great for 50p, but I'm not sure I'd ever put it on my bed!




(Did anyone even have leopard print bedsheets in the 70s?)

Anyway, Anna thought she'd have a laugh, and try and do a spot the cat picture, and laid it all out on the sofa, and good old Freya obliged by lying down right in the middle.

I walk in, and see this lovely leopard print nest on the sofa, and think "I know, I'll lie on it, snuggle up to Freya, and pretend to go to sleep.

Next thing I know, it's 30 minutes later, and Anna has some extra photos!

(click for bigger versions of the photos)

Freya's Collar

I took Freya's collar off a couple of days ago...

One evening, i noticed that she seemed to be scratching it every 5 minutes, and I couldn't work out why, since she'd pretty much got completely used to it by now.

I'm still on the search for the perfect collar that I want - it's a kind of woven material, in black. Simple eh? But you try finding one of those that DOESN'T have cutesey paw prints on it, or in flourescent green.

Still, I kinda like the look of her current velvet collar with diamonds in (well, kinda velvet, and kinda diamonds!) it makes her look like a completely spoilt and pampered Fru-Fru cat. :-)

Which, of course, she is.

Proud moments

I had a client round today, and I did the usual round of "are you ok with my cat" etc, and he cooly proclaimed, "ahh yes, we have an office cat too, she's called rowly" and on cue, Freya jumped on my lap.

As she did that, he stumbled in mid sentence, did a cartoon-type double take - and literally gasped "um, those are um, unusual markings....?"

Yes, I beamed, she's a Bengal... :-)

What a lovely start to the day.

More about the wee problem

It's been a few days since her last "accident", and I can categorically say that cotronella DOES NOT HELP AT ALL.

I'd wiped it on the wall where she sprayed, all over the floor, and even left the soaked citronella cloth in the middle of the patch.

And she wee'd on the cloth!! :-)

I have a suspicion that she likes her litter tray to be especially clean and clear, so I'm trying to be more fastidious about scoping her litter tray, and at least it hasn't happened for a while, but it's hard to be completely scientific and consistent with a problem that only happens once a week or so...

Going outside

We're still in the planning stages of letting her outside (read: we're building up the courage to do it) and she's actually remarkably good at wearing her harness.

We walked out at the front of the house yesterday, and she really seemed keen to go back in - although when I carried her out in my arms, she was fine and calm, but then, that doesn't really count as excercise, does it? :-)

We're trying to take her outside ideally once a day, and for the last two days, it's been great - I just can't wait to let her off the lead, and see her gallop!

I can't help wondering what she'll be like with other cats too - whether she'll be a scrapper, or a scaredy cat?

And in spite of being an unfit Bengal, will she still easily be the match of a domestic cat in speed and agility, or is the difference not that great?

A couple of updates... Tigers and STINKY!!

Looking at the last batch of pics, I loved the one with her mouth open, and so I thought I'd enlarge it a little. click for an even biger version - I love the way her bottom lip pulls down - looks a bit like a big cat's mouth. (Hey, if all her kittens look like lions, I can imagine she looks like a tiger!)
















Her wee problem is still ongoing. One suggestion was to put some citronella oil down as cats HATE the smell. Just for the record, humans HATE the smell too.

I've never used citronella before, and not wanting to waste time not putting enough down, I put two saucer-fulls down, thinking that should do it?

About 20 seconds later, Freya and I both had to evacuate the house to the upstairs because the smell was too foul! I pleaded and begged Freya to go down and put the saucers outside, but she said cats don't like citronella, so I would have to do it.

Down I went, to try and reduce the smell - emptying one saucer into the other, I took the foul-smelling concotion outside, and emptied it on the lawn. I'll let you know if it burned a hole in the lawn in a few days!...

Oh, and Vax carpet cleaners are dead cool, but they take quite a lot of fuss to set up. And they don't clean the underlay through the carpet very well either. I've found it's probably better to cut out the piece of wet underlay, and rinse it in the shower.

The Wanderer!

So.... Freya went outside to explore the garden today!

She seems pretty fine on the harness, as long as we weren't too bossy with it - at first, every time we gave a little tug on it, she'd sort of fall over backwards and lie down, but she soon got over that.

She had a good walk around the garden, pretty much jumped out of her skin every time either of us trod on a leaf or a twig, and after a pretty leisurely stroll around sniffing everything, and chewing some other things, she walked back indoors of her own accord!










Looks like a ROAR, but actually more of a nibble












on a mission!











*Just* like a ballerina. or something.












Jungle cat!












Yuk!
Licky-licky, to get rid of the nasty harness smell!

Correction on cat psychology.

You know I said that Cats don't wee where they eat?

Well. some very naughty cats do. ok?
Yesterday, we had a wee-free day, and then this morning, she blew it. Pretty much straight after breakfast, (in wee corner) she went.

Maybe she's pleased how easy I've made it for her? Maybe she's secretly a bloke cat, and just LOVES the idea of having a toilet right next to her breakfast bowl? I've considered it might be convenient myself in the past...

Anyway, I don't have any idea what to do at the moment, so I'll have a think. (After cleaning it up of course) but those wet/dry vacs are looking mighty good at the moment too.

Oh dear... she gone and dun it again!

Well, on Sunday, we were out for the afternoon, and when we came back, after a short while, Anna noticed her skulking around under the desk again, and yep, she'd had a wee in the same spot again.

My instant guess is it's a psychological issue, rather than a physical/medical one, but we'll see. It seems that both times she's done it, we've been out for 5+ hours, and she's had a wee pretty soon after we've come home.

I'd read something years ago about feeding a cat where it's weeing, as they never do bodily functions where they eat. Seems plausible, so for now at least, she's geting fed next to her wee-spot, and we've been about 18 hours with out an issue! :-) Do you think that proves anything? :-)

Stinky cat! (Hope she's ok!)

This afternoon, we came home about 16:00 after being out since breakfast, and after about 20 mins, Freya went to the back of the desk in my office and had a wee on the carpet.

IT STINKS!!!! Much worse than her litter tray has ever smelt. It' was an ammonia sort of smell, so I'm pretty sure it's wee.

She's never had an accident before, and this morning, I scooped the solids out of her litter tray and topped it off with fresh litter as usual.

It's just strange why she didn't use the litter tray, and there's been no other strange behaviour...

ahh well, fingers crossed it's nothing....