While you are gone

What's Willow doing? She looks so intent.

What's she's watching?

Swimming geese...

and chickens...

and big yellow birds...

and big black birds...

Oh, and there's a kitty!

That kitty's playing string!

I wanna play string too!!

Oh, and look at those delicious fishies!

That was fun! Now, I sleeps in front of TV just like human.

Willow's watching DVD For Cats: While You Are Gone, which is a series of short video's just for cats! Lots of butterflies, birds, ducks, fish and kittens! There is even a wiggling string and teaser toys! The complementary sounds and music are fun too. Willow watched the whole thing straight through. She was totally into it and followed the critters with her eyes. She almost pounced on a chicken when it moved suddenly.

My local library had this fun video. It's meant to provide entertainment for the cats while they are left alone all day. I don't think I'll be leaving it playing while I'm gone, but I'm not opposed to giving Willow and anyone else who wants to watch it some special TV time!

Here's a two minute video of Willow enjoying watching her chickens:

well loved

The ferals sure love their Nip Nanners!

Back in April it was clean and bright yellow.

April 2012

Now it's brown and is filled with thousands of teeth holes.

July 2012

July 2012

I think it's time for a new Nip Nanner for the ferals.

new weather proof cat door

First an update on Oliver. Thankfully, he did reappear last night and stayed warm and dry all night in his larger house. He even woke me up in the middle of the night, crying on the roof outside the second floor window - poor guy, he hadn't got any loves all day and he was needing some. He didn't get any then though because I had to attend to my wounds received in trying to stop Buddy from trying to get through the window. Anyway, I love that he's back!

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Last year I installed the windoor to the front porch, which gives the cat's access to the enclosed front porch whenever they so choose. It works well for us, due to giving us easy control over when they have access and when they do not just by removing the unit from the window.

Theo loves hanging out on the enclosed back porch, so a solution was needed to allow the cats controlled access to the back porch without letting the cold air in. The answer is the Small Ruff-Weather Pet Door. It has two flexible flaps and an air space in the middle between the flaps. Each flap has magnets on the bottom, so they always seal up fairly well and do a great job at keeping the cold air from getting in. I installed it in the wall near the back door to the mudroom. 

Nahum navigates the new door.

Theo squeezing through. The door is a little small for big Theo, but he manages.

Buddy, working his way through the door. You can see the first flap on his head 

while he is about to go through the second flap.

Success!

This new cat door has been in and working now for a little while, and I am very impressed. It does a great job keeping the cold air outside. Installation was a bit of a challenge, but that may have been more due to installing it in an old house.

pet cam

On my recent Thanksgiving trip away from home, I have made reference to my Pet Camera. I thought I might tell you more about this fun little device.

I have the Panasonic BL-C131A Network Camera. It is supposed to work wirelessly, which is one of the big reasons I bought this particular model, but I haven't had much luck getting the wireless option to work consistently. Being wired means I am more restricted on where I can place it. If I had a wireless one, I could keep better tabs on Oliver as he roams his yard, which would be fun or set it down on the floor and watch the cats from their level!

The camera has a lot of rich features that actually do work. When viewing the camera remotely, you can pan and tilt the camera in any direction. If you're viewing the camera from a PC then you can also listen to the sounds in the room on a built in microphone and use the digital zoom.

When logged in remotely to the camera, this is what you see:

The camera has a built in motion detector. I currently have the camera configured to send pictures over to my Flickr account when it detects motion. It will also text my phone letting me know that motion has been detected. I can either look at the pictures on Flickr or access the camera through the internet anywhere I am and see what's going on in my home. The software can handle up to four cameras, maybe someday when I win the lottery, I can get some more. I think it would be fun to have some cameras outside, so I can watch Oliver and his family in the yard and to have one in the Dining Hall to watch them eat!

Here are a few images that were captured by the camera over the Thanksgiving holiday and sent to my Flickr account. I tuned in often to see what my kitties were up to.

Willow and Nahum looking out the window. Probably watching Oliver.

Rose, Nahum, Willow and Theo. Can you find them all?

Rose and Nahum window watching.

Rose walking and Buddy enjoying the fire warmed ottoman.

Nahum, Willow, Rose and Buddy.

It's always hard for me to leave my kitties to travel. With the pet camera, I can feel a little closer to them as I spy on what they are up to. In some ways seeing them adds to the pain of not being with them. The cat sitter doesn't feed the cats at the same time we do, so I got to watch Theo stress out for several hours as he wondered if he would ever get food again. Seeing Theo suffer like that and being 3000 miles away is not easy. In the end, seeing them gives me more comfort than distress.

The camera also functions as a security device. When the druggies break into the house to steal my valuables, I'll have their pictures stored in my Flickr account.

I purchased my camera used from Craigslist for a great deal. It is a fun toy, but it's worth the $278 that it currently sells for on Amazon.

stockpiling nuggets

A surprising amount of logistics are involved in running a hobby cattery. With five indoor cats and a colony of outdoor cats, we go through a lot of food. I often wish we could buy in quantities greater than the large bag to reduce the number of trips to the cat food store.

On a recent cat food shopping trip, I was admiring the sealable food storage bins. I have been wanting something large enough to hold full bags of cat food, so I can buy several bags at a time. However, the only place I have to store extra supplies is the basement, which is frequently wet. So that means the storage bin would need to be sealable to keep out the moisture.

I found a 67 quart Airtight Food Storage Container at Petsmart that was decent, but the $42.99 price tag was too much. The next stop was Costco, they had a huge 34.5 gallon plastic chest for $16.49. The lid didn't have a seal, but that was easily fixed with a stop to Lowe's to get some rubber window weather strip for $5.97. Just a matter of applying the weather strip to the lip on the lid, something that took all of five minutes.

$22.46 later, I had this:

The bin is huge, I bet I can get at least 5 big bags of cat food in there. When Theo learns that we have five bags of cat food waiting for him in the basement, he won't be able to contain himself!

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Oliver and his family are now coming by for breakfast as well as dinner and sometimes even lunch too. This morning Oliver's kittens beat him to the warm wet food that I leave out for him in the mornings. That'll teach him to lollygag on the roof! Of course being the cat-codependent that I am, I felt sorry for him when he finally did show up, so I brought him out some too.

Mama Kitty and her kittens having some dinners this evening.

 Some eye candy:

Willow, looking gorgeous as ever!

I've been getting lots of good questions in the comments. Here are the answers...

Buddy - Sweet Buddy is 12 years old. I don't know if Buddy has been pooping, that is a very good question. If he is constipated, that would explain why he's not interested in eating. With five cats it's hard to tell whose producing and whose holding it. But, I will try to keep a closer eye on Buddy in the box. Maybe I should move the network cat-camera to record the litter box action! Yuck!

The vet x-rayed Buddy and found no foreign or domestic objects. Since getting Buddy back in June, I haven't seen him have any hairballs, but that is certainly a good possibility, as he does have medium hair. Amazingly (and thankfully), with all five cats, hairballs are rare. Nahum sometimes gets the hairball goop, but it wouldn't hurt to give Buddy some too.

I am giving serious thought to the possibility of Buddy's condition stemming from too much stress. He certainly is quite anxious about Oliver being around. He patrols the windows frequently. I have been giving Rose Anxitane to reduce her anxiety and it has been working well. If Buddy doesn't improve I may try giving him some too.

Oliver - I did cover up the office windows, so if he's still getting on the roof, the inside cats at least can't see him. Hopefully, he doesn't start making noise up there.

I think this weekend, I'll lock the cats away and invite Oliver to explore the kitchen - one step closer to him becoming inside kitty!

new stuffs

I did some shopping for the kitties yesterday and got some new kitty things.

A new bowl for Willow. 

She prefers to eat off the floor rather than from a bowl. In the past she would take a mouthful of nuggets from the bowl and dump them on the floor and then eat them from the floor. So I used to use the little carpet square in the background as her food spot, but I got worried about not being able to clean it properly. I also didn't like that they would all spend loads of time just licking on it. I bought this shallow and wide bowl hoping she wouldn't think it of as much as a bowl. So far, it seems to work.

New toy! A cork ball.

I always have to look over the kitty toys when I go into the kitty store. The cats certainly don't need any more toys, but it's fun to buy them new ones. This cork ball was cheap and I could see Rose having a good time with it. Since giving it to them, it has disappeared somewhere - so, some cat must have had a good time with it!

The time had come to expand the litter box offerings.

I was operating two jumbo litter boxes for four cats, one upstairs and one downstairs. Even though I was emptying them at least twice per day, sometimes more, they will get too full for my liking. The cats never complained about it, but I wanted to be proactive and prevent them from communicating their displeasure. I didn't do a scientific study but it seemed like the box was getting fuller, I wondered if it had to do with Rose transitioning from a kitten to a cat. Anyways, it was time to add more litter box.

The downstairs box saw the most traffic, so it was the obvious choice for expansion. Fitting another large litter box in the bathroom closet would be a challenge. I was looking at a nice corner model that was on clearance, but I finally decided it would be too small. I have made that mistake before - I attribute it to being in denial about Nahum's large size! So, I got another jumbo covered model like the one upstairs. Now the entire closet is filled with litter boxes. We didn't need that closet anyway, I am thankful the cats let us use the closet for as long as they did.

The store I like shopping at for kitty supplies, Next to Nature, usually has a bunch of adoptable cats roaming around the store. On Wednesday, when I was there, they were all confined to their room because they get deliveries in the front door and they could escape. They all wanted out though! And of course I wanted to take them all home!

On a different note, Willow decided to celebrate yesterday's Willow Wednesday with a full afternoon of lap snuggles. Getting Willow laptime is still a rare and delightful treat.

Neko Flies Kragonfly "bug toy" review

Finding amazing cat toys can be a real challenge. There are lots of cheap toys out there that are so cheaply made they break quickly or the cats lose interest after only a few minutes. I am always looking out for quality cat toys and I found a winner with Neko Flies.

Back in Sept 2010, I bought the Kragonfly with wand for around $20. I don't usually spend that much on toys, so the test was on to see if the Kragonfly would prove to be worth that much money.

The first thing I noticed was the quality of materials. These toys are very well made. Even the wand feels sturdy and well made, it has a comfortable handle and the end where the toy connects to the wand swivels - this is a major plus as it virtually eliminates the string getting all twisted up when in play. The bug part is very real looking, I was quite impressed.

But I didn't get the toy to impress me, the true test would be if it would impress the cats. I actually bought it for Willow. She loves hunting bugs in the summer, but there are no bugs for her to hunt in the winter. I was hoping the Kragonfly would keep her hunting skills fresh all winter long. Seemed like a good idea at the time, sadly it would not work out as I had hoped.

The Kragonfly, fresh out of the box. The string is sturdy. Notice the workmanship of the toy, in particular the various materials used. The sparkly wings and dangling legs are both very realistic looking.

How did the cats respond to the Kragonfly? They loved it! Theo in particular, went absolutely crazy over the Kragonfly, which was completely new for him, he never got that excited about any other interactive toy. Willow hardly ever got a chance to play with it because Theo dominated the time. Eventually, the Kragonfly became known simply as the "bug toy". 

Theo, loving on his favorite bug toy.

Whenever Nahum catches the bug toy, he wants to run away with it to a safe place and chew it up.

Theo goes nuts over his bug toy.

Rose is showing she loves the bug toy too.

This is a rare sight. A tuckered out Theo. The Kragonfly is the only toy I have found that can tire out Theo! He usually has boundless energy.

"Bug toy, meet Nahum paw!"

"Ack!! The bug is gonna get me!!"

Focus

After all the other cats are tuckered out, Willow finally gets a turn!

Here it is 6 months later and the Kragonfly looks battered. I think it has lost a few wings and all of its legs. Even though it only looks vaguely like it's former self, the cat's still love it!

I have found the Neko Flies Kragonfly to be the best interactive cat toy I have found. I base this conclusion on both how the cats love this toy above all the others and the quality of materials. Any cat toy that is loved well will take a beating and won't last forever. The sturdy construction of the Kragonfly assures it will accept a beating and won't fail early. Initially, I was uneasy about the price of the Neko Flies, but after playing with it for 6 months, it is certainly an example of 'you get what you pay for' - with Neko Flies, you get a great product that results in hours of shared kitty and human delight!

My only complaint about the Kragonfly is that it almost overstimulates the cats. As soon as they see the bug toy coming out they immediately go nuts! After awhile of playing, I have to store it away in a secure location. In the end, I am not really sure that is a drawback of the toy though!

I would compare the Neko Flies to the Cat Dancer in terms of guaranteed feline enjoyment, but if I had to choose, I would go with Neko Flies. Being a wand toy there are more possibilities for play and I always fear with the Cat Dancer it may inadvertently poke the cat in the eye. The Neko Flies seem safe, although, now that the toy is extensively used, the backbone of the Kragonfly (a small formed chunk of metal) is exposed. I worry a little about them breaking a tooth as they try to chew on it, which probably means it is time to retire the first bug toy and buy a new one! 

Now that I have the wand, in the future I can buy just the replacement bugs, which will save money. With five or so different bugs to choose, there are plenty of options! The Neko Flies Kragonfly is a real winner here at the fourwhitepaws hobby cattery!

(Note: This is a completely independent review. Neko Flies has not influenced this review in any way. Neko Flies is not a sponsor of and is in no way affiliated with fourwhitepaws.)