Ever read the children's "Catwings" (Ursula LeGuin) series? (Or did I
mention this a while ago? Possible.) They - mamma cat's kittens - start out
life next to & under a dumpster in a concrete jungle.

Cathy

--
"Staccato signals of constant information..."
("The Boy in the Bubble") Paul Simon

When I brought mine home, I smeared catnip all over it before I brought it
in the door.

I have a sweet pic (if I ever get it developed) of Pi the first day the
post arrived. He wanted to rub against the nip, but he also wanted to
scratch, so he solved the problem by hugging the post and scratching the
other side. :-)

Chakolate

--

On sadness:
The cure for this ill is not to sit still,
Or to frowst with a book by the fire,
But to take a large hoe and a shovel also,
And to dig till you gently perspire.
--Rudyard Kipling

On 16 Oct 2003 03:19:18 GMT, Chakolate


LOL! That is a pic I would LOVE to see!

Cathering
-- "Everything I've ever let go of has claw marks on it." - Anne Lamott

.......You may reply to email in header but be sure to delete the word SPAMFREE from the address.

Awwww.

Sharon........A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.

frankenmel@aol.comDONT (Frankenmel) writes:

When you say "litter box" I guess what you mean by an "indoor" cat is
noe who is not allowed to go out. I think it would be cruel to take a
full grown feral, who has shaped his or her whole identity in terms of
the out doors, and in effect imprison it. It would be ok if the cat
were allowed to go in and out freely as it liked, via cat flaps for
example. A feral who has learned the cat martial arts of street
fighting as part of their survival and social skills would also IMHO
be seriously freaked by being declawed. It would be a severe reduction
in status. The front claws, and the swipes they can do with them, are
one of the very important eveners of the odds between cats and their
larger enemies, dogs.

However cuddly and cute they are capable of being, I think we must
remember that a feral cat is a hunter and warrior, and lives by what
corresponds in cat terms to a hunter's and warrior's code of
honour. It's not as different as you think from a human hunter's and
warrior's code. That's why human hunters and warriors have such
respect and sympathy for their animal kin.
--
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

"Cathy Friedmann" <clfr@adelphia.net> writes:


My wife likes cats, and she also likes the kind of furniture that cats
will destroy. Our solution is to that they have access to two
connected downstairs rooms, the kitchen which opens out to the garden,
and a sitting room which is connected to the kitchen. They're allowed
in those two rooms but no further. Of course, we can't prevent the
occassional escape, so I've fitted a cat flap to one of the doors
which opens to the rest of the house, and set it the one-way mechanism
so that cats can only return from the rest of the house, never go into
the rest of the house from it, via the flap. So we mostly just ignore
the occassional esape. Most of them are good most of the time. The
worst offender is an elderly lady cat who is unshakably convinced that
the bottom of the staircase is a specially attractive cat toilet. We
come down that staircase every morning in bare feet :-)

The most difficult training problem was training my wife not to throw
all the dors open to air the house, and then complain about the
naughtiness of the cats in the rest in the house. It's taken a few
years for her to learn about keeping the cat access doors closed,
which is reasonable for human training, I think :-)

--
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

Priscilla Ballou <vze23t8n@verizon.net> writes:

They like something they can stick their claws into, then rip down and
through. That gives the best cleaning/sharpening. I find plain old
unvarnished untreated pine is often chosen.
--
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

The latest catalog from Drs. Foster & Smith has an "Outdoor Heated Kitty Pad",
12" x 18", with a 5-1/2 foot cord, using a 40 watt heater.


All E-mail to this screen name is blocked to thwart spammers
Reply to harryandruschak AT aol DOT com
Honorary Menobabe with golden toenails
Abject, humble Cat Harem eunuch slave
http://www.despair.com/arrogance.html

All of my cats have used or are using those horizontal scratch pads of
corrugated cardboard (to which I add catnip). I have vertical posts all over
the apartment; sisel, carpet, and wood. Nope, the corrugated cardboard gets
their vote. Go figure.


All E-mail to this screen name is blocked to thwart spammers
Reply to harryandruschak AT aol DOT com
Honorary Menobabe with golden toenails
Abject, humble Cat Harem eunuch slave
http://www.despair.com/arrogance.html

The problem with this sentimentaility is that most feral cats live lives which
are nasty, brutish, and short. Also, I get the impression (I may be wrong) that
you feel "once a feral, always a feral" and that such cats cannot adopt to an
indoors-only life style.

Statistical Sample Of One: my 2nd cat, Pearly, started as a feral, and much
later was brought indoors by a lady who did not bother to try and socialize
her. After the lady died, Pearly was transferred to me. She eventually bonded
to me, and as far as I can tell was quite happy to be a spoiled rotten indoor
cat away from all those dangers. Just because a cat CAN hunt does not seem to
require that a cat MUST hunt.


All E-mail to this screen name is blocked to thwart spammers
Reply to harryandruschak AT aol DOT com
Honorary Menobabe with golden toenails
Abject, humble Cat Harem eunuch slave
http://www.despair.com/arrogance.html