Friday, February 17, 2006

Friday Moggblogging



This cat position is known in my family as 'practising for the Dilly Duck Prize'. I don't think I've ever known what the Dilly Duck Prize was for, but my wild guess would be deportment.

This position is particularly effective when taken up on a mantelpiece, as it allows one to drape one's tail gracefully.

10 comments:

comicstriphero said...

Love a good bit of mogblogging.

Just for the record, I have driven 350kms this morning, primarily to visit my cat. As he is very much a cat (despite how many human characteristics I attribute to him), he is ignorning me.

Nothing beats the real thing, but please keep mogblogging.

Helps to make up for kitty withdrawal symptoms.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

I may be sorry I asked you this, comicstriphero, but why are you 350kms from your cat?

I had major surgery a few years back, and as I padded empty-handed and bare-arsed (well, virtually -- you know what those surgical gowns are like) down the corridor towards the operating theatre, all I could think of was how much I was missing the cats.

ThirdCat said...

you know, you have almost convinced me to get in the car, drive straight to the nearest animal shelter and bring a cat back into my life. i gave up on them after my brief stint in the hills watching my last cat bring in thirteen skinks in an hour. but i don't know: can i spend the rest of my life without another cat in my life?

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

My cats live permanently inside, which the RSPCA says is best. This is partly to protect the wildlife, partly to protect the neighbours (whose own cats have wrecked my flyscreens and, repeatedly, bits of my garden), and, by no means least, to protect the cats themselves.

Disadvantages:
-- they could wreck the house trying to get out (keeping them inside from the beginning minimises the chances of this)
-- no road sense if they do get out
-- necessity for scrupulous and frequent cleaning of litter tray
-- lots and lots of shed fur

Advantages:
-- no fleas
-- no fights (except with each other)
-- no wildlife brought inside and dismembered and/or vomited up on rugs, beds etc
-- no heartbroken scooping of little broken bodies out of the gutter

lucy tartan said...

I came in to say, that is such a beyoootiful girl! I used to have a cat with the same sort of fur, so I can imagine exactly what it would be like to pat her.

But now i'm overcome with terrible, terrible anxiety about if Basil ever gets hit by a car. He's allowed out during the day. (I'm afraid if it comes down to the wire I can't live with a litterbox inside and would rather be catless. Plus he loves it so much in the yard.) The street used to have lots of speed bumps but the council took them out late last year and now we have a lot of people who drive too fast. My last cat was killed by a car. And once when Dorian's parents were overseas we were meant to be looking after their (indoors) cat but it got out and the poor thing was run over straight away.

I feel bad about the skinks, but at least half the time he eats the tail and forgets to look for the other half, which I find cowering in the corner of the hallway. And he makes up for it by eating cockroaches.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Yeh, I know - these girls were allowed outside for a short time, and I do feel mean now, because I know they'd love to sunbake and dust-bath and cement-rollover and chew grass, but there were just too many unfortunate incidents (snail bait scare, stolen eggs from nests in tall trees, flea infestation etc etc). And the live sparrow in the hallway was the last straw. The high litter tray maintenance is nothing by comparison.

I think some sort of house-to-yard cat run is the answer. A bit zoo-ey, but an acceptable compromise, if only I could get round to organising it.

lucy tartan said...

Yes. I agree, and I think it's time I did something about organising one.

There's a really nice one attached to John & Sunday Reed's old farmhouse at Heide - unfortunately the curators have decorated it with two of those dead creepy fake rabbit fur cats you see in weirdo gift shops.

comicstriphero said...

Well, I'll try to keep this brief.

Frank, my cat, is quite elderly and has been with me since I was about 12.

When I originally moved out of home (from one side of Sydney to the other) he wasn't particularly well and I decided that it would probably be detrimental to him to transplant him from all his favourite sunny spots and his big, grassy backyard home.

He's quite a sensitive little soul and at the time I thought this would probably do him in.

I only moved across town, so I was able to visit him (and my parents, I guess) a couple of times during the week and despite being cranky at first, he seemd ok with this.

Then, a few years back, I jumped on the public service bandwagon and relocated to Canberra. I only thought I'd be here for a year, so I thought about it, and decided once again that despite my absolute heartbreak at the situation, leaving Frank at his home was best for him as by that stage, he was nudging 15 years old.

I was moving to a top floor flat and he had always been a backyard cat since he suddenly appeared on our doorstep when he was about 1 year old.

I also planned to spend every second weekend in Sydney, so moving him to a top floor flat and being absent every second weekend I decided probably wasn't in his best interests.

So, I've been here in Canberra much longer than I ever thought I would be, and he is doing quite well in his old age in his big sunny backyard. As much as the situation is a real bummer for me, I know he is better off where he is.

Big sigh.

Anonymous said...

What is it with the predeliction for dust baths? What is that all about?

I sit down here to read here and a cat comes and flomps into my lap, shaking orange dust everywhere.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

El, this gave me the most wonderfully vivid mental picture and cracked me up. Dust baths -- maybe the same reason dogs roll in cowpats? Otherwise it could be to de-grease their coats -- I've got some special Cat Talcum for grooming the Madam, who tends to get a bit Elvis-like from time to time.