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Any leftovers? Spoil your cats!
Dutch
version of this page.
While visiting this site you may have
encountered some pictures of cats. These are my cats, At the moment I have
about two and a half cat. One male, a cypers ginger-and-white castrated tomcat
who keeps dissapearing, and two
younger tomcats.
Cats are just like human beings: no two
alike. Each cat has its own preferences and dislikes of foodstuff as well
as people. Everybody thinks his/her own cat (or dog) very special, and I
am just the same. On this page wou find a description of my very special
(at least, imo) pets.
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City
(1996) the tomcat is a real gourmet, and eats everything
cat or man can eat, given the chance. When I am preparing a Japanese meal (one
of my favorite cuisines) he follows my doings with almost religious attention.
It has happened that he jumped right on the dinner table during a Japanese meal,
he couldn't resist the sashimi.
City is also the hunter of the family. At night, around three a.m., he shows his
affection by delivering living mice to my bedroom. He lets go of the mouse under
my bed, and expects us to "play" together with the unfortunate mouse.
I catch the mouse by throwing a towel over it, and then I let the poor little
thing loose in the garden. I love to cook and eat all kinds of food, but mice
...
City eats everything, including the food of the other cats. He gobbles up his
own food in record time, then he positions himself in full view of the other
cats and directs an intimidating glare at them. Poesjenel steps aside,and if I'm
not standing guard he cleans out her bowl. There is always a bowl with dried cat
food just in case, so she'll never have to go hungry. Betje just ignores City's
pointed stares, but as soon as she has returned to her cushion he finishes off
whatever is left. So I have to keep an eye on that too.
He is not pleased with our move to Kortenhoef. I´ve lost count how many times he has
walked back to his old hunting ground. Our neighbour keeps watch every
time, and warns us when he has arrived. We have tried everything,
pheromones, an animal behaviourist, but nothing helps. Our neighbour
very kindly keeps an eye on him and even provides cat food, so when
I pick him up once in a while he looks good. During winter he
sometimes stays longer, but in the summer I barely get the time to
treat him against fleas, ticks and worms before he takes off again
after one night. City and Hiro have a hearty dislike to each other,
but Micah is tolerated.
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My calico she-cat is named
Poesjenel (1997-2005). Her mother was a wild stray cat that was caught to be
sterilized, but she was already pregnant. Poesjenel is a real diary cat, and
loves
butter, cheese, cream, yoghurt. She'll have a nibble of freshly cooked
meat or fish, but given a choice, she prefers canned catfood. Poesjenel is
named after a pussycat from a Dutch children's verse. She loves to play
with small beads and rubber bands (preferably pink, a real girl, and I am
NOT making this up!). When she is finished playing with them she deposits
them very tidily in her tray with dry cat food. She then eats around them.
She is very affectionate to those she knows, but easily scared. I think
that is because the first six weeks of her life were spent with her
wild mother in a cage at the vet's. The mother was released after her
kittens were weaned, she was too wild to be domesticated. One of her great
charms is that she talks. She always answers back when you address
her, and has a whole repertoire of meows and mewls to convey her meaning
on things.
To our infinite sadness Poesjenel has died suddenly on November 14, 2005.
She was only eight years old. We will never forget her.
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From a culinary point of
view Betje (1985-2006) is not very interesting. She has deficient
kidneys, drinks a lot of water, and eats diet food. The vet has
advised against giving her fresh meat, too much protein is bad for
her. But she eats her diet food and senior cat food well.
Once in a while Betje is treated to a small spoonful of liver paté.
The vet had told me a trick to make sure she swallowed the
antibiotics she needed when she was ill: roll two little balls
(size: teaspoon) of the liver paté. In one them you hide the pill.
First you offer the ball without the pill, then the other. That
worked excellently. She is off antibiotics now, but she sttill gets
her little spoonful of liver paté occasionally.
Betje has been outside her whole life. But now that she is twenty
years old and finally has her own cushion in a warm home she has
decided to never, ever set a paw outside again. Sometimes, when the
weather is good, I try to lure her out into the sunshine. When she
is awake she aften follows me around when I am on the groundfloor.
So I just walk through the kitchendoor or the frontdoor, and Betje
follows me step by hesitating step, until she reaches the threshold.
She stops, glints suspiciously at the green grass, and resolutely
turns around. She really has had it with outdoor life.
Betje has passed away peacefully on April 5, 2006. See this LJ-Post.
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Clio (2005-2008) arrived at our home after Poesjenel.
She was almost nine weeks old when we took her in, and after two days of
adjusting everything a
kitten should be: lively, curious, naughty, affectionate, playful. It is
hard to say yet how her food preferences will turn out. I have given her
some poached white fish and some roast beef. She obviously liked that a
lot. For daily food she gets "junior" dried food and canned
food. I can understand the reason behind special junior dried food: the
chunks are smaller and not as crunchy as those for big cats, but with
regards to canned junior catfood I wonder whether I am not just
buying a clever marketing trick. Fact is that not only Clio loves her
juniorfood, City and Betje love it too. To prevent Betje from eating
Clio's food it is enough to put it somewhere a lttle higher, because Betje
can't climb or jump anymore. But I really have to keep an eye on hog
City.
Clio is the most relaxed cat I know. If you lift her she remains
completely limp, and when you put her on your lap, she just drapes herself
as if she were a silk handkerchief.
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Now (2007) Clio is two years old. She was
in heat during the last week of August (see
post on LJ),
and two months later she became the proud mother of three kittens, all
male. The fathers (because a female cat can be impregnated by more than
one male at the same time) are cool tomcats from Kortenhoef.
Clio has turned into a svelte, elegant cat, and a very good huntress. She
is also a very patient mother. The kitten that we have kept was still
allowed to drink when it was eleven weeks old. But now she has been
sterilized. One litter was enough.
And now, two weeks before her third birthday, Clio
is gone. On September 6 she was -probably- hit by a car. I am grateful to
the person who took the trouble to call the animal ambulance
('dierenambulance', the equivalent of 'animal rescue team'?). At least we
know what happened to her.
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Hiro (2007)
is, according to the vet, the son of a Norwegian Forest Cat. Mother
Clio has been carousing in good circles! He was the firstborn of the
litter, and was stuck for almost four hours in the birth channel. And
he has something strange: after seven weeks the whiskers just
dissappeared, and we never found out why. Luckily they are growing
back, because a whiskerless cat is slightly handicapped.
Hiro is extremely interested in our food, so he has to be taught to
only eat from his OWN plate. He's the first cat that is also
interested in anything we happen to drink. When he gets the chance he
dives into any glass or cup to take a sniff and a taste, often
emerging spitting and snorting. But his own water supply is a
playground for him. He likes to stand with his two front paws in the
water and splash it around.
Hiro was named after the Japanese hero from the American action
series
Heroes.
My daughter thought she saw a resemblance between Hiro Nakamura and
the newborn kitten.
Another picture of Hiro.
Hiro is a hunter, like is mother. But our new environment has
different prey. In April and May he dragged maybugs through the
catflap, to play football with them. I saved the dizzy insects and put
them back outside. After the maybugs, he concentrated on frogs. At
first I thought he had killed them, but these clammy animals just
'played dead' so that he would lose interest. These I picked up and
threw back in the garden pond, where they swam to the bottom as
quickly as possible.
Hiro keeps challenging our oldest cat City. I don't think they will
ever be friends. But he´s great buddies with Micah.
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Mortje en Manje (2007) are Hiro's brothers. When they were
nine weeks old they moved in with a friend of mine. They love their
new home and human. She lives at the edge of Hilversum, with lots of
meadows behind the house that
provide a great hunting-ground for them. And they love to hunt! I get
regular updates on the latest prey they've dragged inside the house
(anything from doves to a big crayfish).
In the picture the kittens were nine weeks old. To the left are Mortje
and Manje, Hiro is on the right side. Manje resembles his mother. Hiro
and Mortje are clearly brothers, but
Mortje has four white socks and a white pointed tail.
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Micah (2008)
came to us a few weeks after Clio's death, ten weeks old. Naturally we
love to have a new kitten in the house, but it's for Hiro we did it!
The little cat was offered us as a female, but when we were so
impolite to glance under its tail after a few days, 'she' appeared to
be a 'he'. The vet agreed with us, and told us he had eastern ancestry
(Siamese). Our kitten would grow into a bloody-minded, pig-headed, but
affectionate and communicative cat. It took only a week for Micah and
Hiro to become friends. City is still wary.
Micah seems to copy his 'big brother' in matters of food: he loves
yoghurt. He has almost doubled in weight in four weeks' time, and is
very, very active.
Now he is an adult, Micah has developed into a beautiful, friendly but assertive cat.
Whenever our other cats just look at feline visitors from a distance,
he walks up to them. And ... the other cats walk away. Micah is
Topcat.
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Cat
Food.
When feeding your cat , NEVER give anything
straight from the dinner table. Always put the food on a dish at their
usual feeding place. A beggar cat is not nice.
What can you give your cat, besides tinned
catfood? If you make meat stock, save some of the meat for your cat. Since you
should never add salt when making stock (you add salt afterwards), this meat is
fit to be eaten by animals. Cut the meat very small, and steep a piece of brown
bread in the broth. mash the bread with a fork, mix it with the meat. Instead of
bread, you can use cooked rice. Cats love it when it is still luke warm. Always
check on small bones, and always be very careful with food that is meant for
people. Spices and salt are not meant for cats.
Cats can be very peculiar in their taste. To love diary products, fish or
meat is what you would expect in a cat, but a friend of my daughter has a
cat who loves to eat broccoli! And speaking of peculiar tastes, some years
ago I discovered in a forgotten closet the lair of a mouse. He had
collected a supply of dried cat food, taken straight from their bowls.
Very strange: Hiro and Micah spurn wet cat food, they only eat dry food,
voluntarily. With one exception, whenever City is in the house, they
gobble up the wet cat food.
More pictures of my cats on this site: Poesjenel
loves icecream, Poesjenel
samples some fish, Poesjenel
samples spilt milk, City loves
salmon,
City also loves salmon trout,
Clio's first taste
of Japanese cuisine
Cat posts/pictures on my LJ: Inscrutable
felines, First
mouse, My brave
cats, Shameless
Cats and Magpies, My
biggest fan ..., Refugee
Cat, Family
Extension, Update
on Betje, My
cat Poesjenel, Pleased
to meet you, my name is Clio ..., Cats
and Brussels Sprouts, My
new keyboard extension, Goodbye
Betje,
Kittens?,
Kittens and Cookies,
Portrait
of Hiro, Sad
cat post, again ...,
New
recipe (and new cat),
Micah
loves Sushi Day.
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