wordinista (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wordinista) wrote2005-12-28 08:20 am
wordinista) wrote2005-12-28 08:20 am
A birthday wish and cat musings
First off: Happy Birthday ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
therhoda!! May you get everything you want -- and then some! *huggles*
I was poking about on LJ this morning (you know how it is -- someone says something intelligent in a comm, and you go out and check their LJ to see what they're like) and stumbled across the LJ of a cat-owner who, out of four cats, had two declawed. Now, I'm pretty neutral about declawing -- Bronte and Kisa aren't, but Pandora was, and I've never known a more affectionate kitty. The thing that caught my eye was the fact that this person said that people had unfriended her after she mentioned that two of her cats were declawed.
This made me scratch my head. I mean, yes, I know about the process, and it was only after I explained the process to Tora-kun did he sway from wanting them declawed as kittens to not declawing them at all. (Of course now he's making noises about having them declawed, and I have to explain to him it's a really bad idea to do that to an adult cat -- and they'll be two in May, so they're pretty much not kittens anymore.)
Now I've had my own trials and tribulations with the kitties and their claws. I've tried Softpaws, and didn't like them (they fell off Bronte's claws too easily, while they didn't seem to come off Kisa's at all -- and besides that, for some reason Bronte's claws were in really bad shape, dull and splitting, so I hated putting them on her -- though that's changed now). I've tried clipping their nails, too, but I've yet to find a nail-clipper that doesn't suck. The one I got most recently was -- supposedly -- the best they had at Petsmart, and it wouldn't make a clean cut on the nails (I want to say the brand was "Bamboo," or somesuch). Big problem with splitting, there. (Anyone care to make any recs on kitty nail trimmers?)
My question to y'all is this: Would you unfriend me if I got the kitties declawed? (Not planning on it -- I'd like to find a pair of trimmers that actually works, though.)
Not completely unrelated, the girls have apparently lost interest in their scratching posts. I'm wondering if it might be time to get them a better, bigger post. You know the kind -- the tall ones with wild hidey-holes and such. They used to be uge fans of their "clubhouses," but more and more often we've had to yell at them for clawing the carpet. I've also seen scratching "discs" made out of heavy cardboard, with catnip hidden inside. That might not be a bad idea, either.
A definite plus is that neither of them have made any attempt to climb the Christmas tree (which is more than I could say for Pandora). However, Kisa was sniffing intently at one of the candy canes hanging on the tree. It was pretty cute, actually. She got up in her meerkat stance and started sniffing at the candy cane like, "Hullo, what's this?" Meerkat!Kisa never fails to amuse me. :)
Bronte... well, Bronte's amusing in her own way. Her preferred hiding spot lately is under the comforter on the bed in the spare room-- ever since the hurricane, at least. She's also getting really big. We used to be worried about Kisa's weight because she was so thin and fragile, and now (after having her spayed), she's filled out a lot, and no longer feels like a bag of bones. Bronte has also filled out, but she was less in need of it. I picked her up the other day, and my girl is quite the armful. I've got to make appointments for them to get their rabies booster (with a new vet NOT a half hour away, kthx), and when I take them, I'll be interested to find out what they weigh now.
Something else strange that Bronte's doing lately -- she's been trying very hard to sneak into the bedroom with me when I turn in for the night. Like, trying really hard. Trying-to-slip-her-increasingly-wider-butt-past-me-while-I-put-up-the-baby-gate hard. (We put a baby gate up in our door at night because Bronte will stick her paw under the bedroom door and jiggle it in the frame. She'll also get up on her hind legs, place both front paws on the door, and run her claws up and down the door -- but not hard enough to scratch; just hard enough to sound damned annoying.) We've tried bringing them in there at night, but it's always the worst night's sleep EVAR, because they still think nighttime is playtime.
Something's bound to change when we get Darwin, because until he can sleep through the night, we're probably going to be taking him outside periodically through the night. And I don't think a sleepy Bunneh is any match for a determined Bronte at 3 in the morning. I know that if I wake them up while they're napping during the day, they're more apt to sleep the night through, and I'll probably start doing that, to tell you the truth. If we can get them to sleep through the night, they're more than welcome in the bedroom. It's this whole "OMG WHAT'S MOVING UNDER THE BLANKETS?!" game at four in the morning that's got to stop. Oh, and Bronte thinking my head is an appropriate stepping-stone. That's got to stop too.
therhoda!! May you get everything you want -- and then some! *huggles*I was poking about on LJ this morning (you know how it is -- someone says something intelligent in a comm, and you go out and check their LJ to see what they're like) and stumbled across the LJ of a cat-owner who, out of four cats, had two declawed. Now, I'm pretty neutral about declawing -- Bronte and Kisa aren't, but Pandora was, and I've never known a more affectionate kitty. The thing that caught my eye was the fact that this person said that people had unfriended her after she mentioned that two of her cats were declawed.
This made me scratch my head. I mean, yes, I know about the process, and it was only after I explained the process to Tora-kun did he sway from wanting them declawed as kittens to not declawing them at all. (Of course now he's making noises about having them declawed, and I have to explain to him it's a really bad idea to do that to an adult cat -- and they'll be two in May, so they're pretty much not kittens anymore.)
Now I've had my own trials and tribulations with the kitties and their claws. I've tried Softpaws, and didn't like them (they fell off Bronte's claws too easily, while they didn't seem to come off Kisa's at all -- and besides that, for some reason Bronte's claws were in really bad shape, dull and splitting, so I hated putting them on her -- though that's changed now). I've tried clipping their nails, too, but I've yet to find a nail-clipper that doesn't suck. The one I got most recently was -- supposedly -- the best they had at Petsmart, and it wouldn't make a clean cut on the nails (I want to say the brand was "Bamboo," or somesuch). Big problem with splitting, there. (Anyone care to make any recs on kitty nail trimmers?)
My question to y'all is this: Would you unfriend me if I got the kitties declawed? (Not planning on it -- I'd like to find a pair of trimmers that actually works, though.)
Not completely unrelated, the girls have apparently lost interest in their scratching posts. I'm wondering if it might be time to get them a better, bigger post. You know the kind -- the tall ones with wild hidey-holes and such. They used to be uge fans of their "clubhouses," but more and more often we've had to yell at them for clawing the carpet. I've also seen scratching "discs" made out of heavy cardboard, with catnip hidden inside. That might not be a bad idea, either.
A definite plus is that neither of them have made any attempt to climb the Christmas tree (which is more than I could say for Pandora). However, Kisa was sniffing intently at one of the candy canes hanging on the tree. It was pretty cute, actually. She got up in her meerkat stance and started sniffing at the candy cane like, "Hullo, what's this?" Meerkat!Kisa never fails to amuse me. :)
Bronte... well, Bronte's amusing in her own way. Her preferred hiding spot lately is under the comforter on the bed in the spare room-- ever since the hurricane, at least. She's also getting really big. We used to be worried about Kisa's weight because she was so thin and fragile, and now (after having her spayed), she's filled out a lot, and no longer feels like a bag of bones. Bronte has also filled out, but she was less in need of it. I picked her up the other day, and my girl is quite the armful. I've got to make appointments for them to get their rabies booster (with a new vet NOT a half hour away, kthx), and when I take them, I'll be interested to find out what they weigh now.
Something else strange that Bronte's doing lately -- she's been trying very hard to sneak into the bedroom with me when I turn in for the night. Like, trying really hard. Trying-to-slip-her-increasingly-wider-butt-past-me-while-I-put-up-the-baby-gate hard. (We put a baby gate up in our door at night because Bronte will stick her paw under the bedroom door and jiggle it in the frame. She'll also get up on her hind legs, place both front paws on the door, and run her claws up and down the door -- but not hard enough to scratch; just hard enough to sound damned annoying.) We've tried bringing them in there at night, but it's always the worst night's sleep EVAR, because they still think nighttime is playtime.
Something's bound to change when we get Darwin, because until he can sleep through the night, we're probably going to be taking him outside periodically through the night. And I don't think a sleepy Bunneh is any match for a determined Bronte at 3 in the morning. I know that if I wake them up while they're napping during the day, they're more apt to sleep the night through, and I'll probably start doing that, to tell you the truth. If we can get them to sleep through the night, they're more than welcome in the bedroom. It's this whole "OMG WHAT'S MOVING UNDER THE BLANKETS?!" game at four in the morning that's got to stop. Oh, and Bronte thinking my head is an appropriate stepping-stone. That's got to stop too.
no subject
I'm more likely to unfriend someone for buying cats in the first place. :-p
no subject
Lucky thing I didn't buy them, eh?
no subject
Given the number of social events I have to decline because I can't enter the house, I don't feel unreasonable in my opinions. I have few enough friends and the inability to spend time with the ones I do have gets frustrating.