The Cat and the Rat

What most of my readers don't know, is that before I had a cat, I had a rat. 

Her name was JoJo and I got her in my final year of undergrad. Until Kitten, she was the best pet I had ever had. I would let her out of her cage and she would just run around my apartment exploring. She would also steal food that she found (or my roommates and I gave her) and she would hide it in my one roommate's shoe. We actually didn't know she was doing this until one day my roommate decided to wear flats and found a shoe full of carrots, crackers and Jelly Beans.

Funny story though, when I bought JoJo, she was apparently pregnant. I found out when I woke up one morning to hear little squeaks coming from her cage and saw a pile of what looked like thumbs or fetuses. I called the pet shop to return my unwanted rat babies, but coincidentally they were having a rat baby sale so they were all stocked up. We let the rat babies grow up a bit before deciding what to do with them. In the end, I set them free in a ditch. (Don't judge. It was that or the Reptile Zoo.)

Also humorous, my roommate Sarah lost the runt of the rat babies (we called him runt face) shortly before I freed them and I swear to you, we never found him. 

She really had been the best. One time when she was out, she fell in the toilet and couldn't escape!

Sadly, JoJo developed cancer, a respiratory disorder and lice and I had to have her put down. People always make fun of me for this, but I loved her so much that I couldn't let her suffer. 

But wait! I am almost at the part about Kitten. I promise!

When I moved to Toronto, I really wanted to get another rat since JoJo had been so awesome. So I did. Her name never evolved beyond Rat and she was super lame. I mean she really, really sucked. She hated people and no matter how many times  Boyfriend and I would take her out and give her peanut butter, she just never got better. It was because Rat sucked so much, that we decided to get a kitten! 

Kitten was too little to understand what was going on when we first got him, but as soon as he realized that there was something living in that cage, he never left it alone!

He tried to be sneaky, but being Kitten, he usually failed.

 

By this point, Boyfriend and I had pretty much given up on making friends with the rat and just let her stay in her cage, which I am sure she appreciated since Kitten never left her alone. Kitten and the rat used to actually fight though the cage. Rat would come right up to the side of the cage to scratch Kitten. Since by now you know Kitten well enough, I am sure you have already guessed that Kitten usually lost. 

Sometimes, when I cleaned the rat cage, I would let Kitten and the rat investigate each other. I would watch closely to make sure no one got hurt (Kitten), but usually they were more curious than agressive. Though Kitten does have a unique way of investigating things; it involves lifting up his paw and hitting whatever he is interested in. 

By the way, did you notice the door on that cheap entertainment unit?

In case you were wondering what happened to Rat, I gave her to my sister (though she "passed" shortly after - the rat, not my sister). Boyfriend had taken an allergy test and it turns out that he is allergic to a million things, rats included. My sister ended up getting another rat afterwards, who you can see a picture of on the NOT Kitten post. I will admit, Rattigan doesn't suck, though she's no JoJo. 

I like to imagine that if JoJo was still alive, she and Kitten would be best friends and they would share cheese and Nibs and JoJo would ride on Kitten's back and clean his ears for him. But I guess if that were true, Boyfriend would always be sneezy and goopey eyed and I wouldn't want to have to wipe two sets of goopey eyes a day.

Photo Booth

I hope everyone had a great long weekend! I have been eating lots of chocolate (something Kitten is NOT allowed to try) and catching up on some cleaning that got neglected during exams!

A few posts ago I asked my faithful blog readers to vote for who they thought Kitten most resembled. Well the votes are in and this is what the majority voted for:

I can't say I disagree, though I think my favourite was the Grinch... You can see the results for yourself on the Old Poll Results page.

I also have a quick update about Kitten's regularity issues (see here). Shortly after switching the dry food and starting with some wet food, Kitten had what you might call a "reversal" of his previous problem. I'm not going to get into this one, but it seems to be back to normal now. 

Today I thought I would share with you some photos that Boyfriend and I took a while back with my laptop. They were taken with the Photo Booth program and I think you will enjoy them!

I apologize. Kitten isn't as good at making faces as Boyfriend and I.

I think I was trying to make it look like I was eating Kitten. It didn't really work.

Clearly, we were pretending to be sucked into Kitten.

I can't decide if I like Kitten or Boyfriend's face better in this one.

I personally like the droopy hairs above Kitten's eyes in this one.

I think this perfectly captures how Kitten was feeling at the time.

Boyfriend is attempting to make Kitten into a Cyclops.

Boyfriend realizes he doesn't want to be in the pictures without me.

We all look pretty normal in this one.

The end!

After going through all of these pictures, I realized that they might only be funny to Boyfriend and I, in which case I apologize for the lame Kitten blog entry. Bare with me, I am still recovering my brain from school. Keep checking in, and I promise Kitten will get his groove back!

The Quest for Regularity

WARNING: For anyone who may be squeamish and/or eating while reading this post, please do not proceed. The following is the heart-wrenching tale of how Kitten recently battled a severe bout of constipation. I will start from the beginning… 

As you may remember from A Paw Problem Kitten is always in and out of his litter box and tracking litter everywhere. I mentioned how he seemed obsessed with his litter and how sometimes he would just sit in there and do nothing for long periods of time. Well on Monday, the day before my last exam, Kitten went into his litter box first thing in the morning and just sat there with his head sticking out. Alone, that would have been weird for Kitten since he never leaves his head out of the litter box, but on top of that, he stayed in there for over 20 minutes. I went and shower and he was still in there. I thought this was weird, even for Kitten, but with an exam the next day, I just ignored it. 

Later in the morning, Kitten was in and out of the litter at least 5 times. It was starting to drive me insane because every time he came out, I would need to sweep; if I didn’t, he would track litter everywhere. At one point, I accidentally hit him with the broom when I was trying to get the litter off him. He got quite mad and ignored me most of the day. I thought this was the reason why he wasn't being a good study buddy while I studied. 

That evening Boyfriend got home and immediately asked me what was wrong with Kitten. I asked him why he thought there was something wrong and he said that Kitten ALWAYS comes to meet him at the door and because he didn’t, something HAD to be wrong. I told Boyfriend he was being crazy and I went back to studying. A while later though, Boyfriend said that there REALLY was something wrong with Kitten. I asked him what he meant and he said that Kitten had been sitting in one spot without moving for at least 10 minutes. I told Boyfriend that the same thing happened in his litter box this morning. 

At first, we thought that Kitten was having a seizure. We tried pushing him and he just slid across the floor, frozen like a statue. When we realized he wasn't have a seizure, we got out the cheese to try to lure him away from where he was sitting. The moment Kitten looked at that cheese with distain, we knew something was very wrong. Slowly Boyfriend and I put it all together and realized that Kitten was severely constipated. He hadn't pooped in a day or two, yet he was in and out of his litter ALL the time. He wasn't eating. He was licking his “behind” constantly. He wasn't walking and when he did walk, he walked like there was a pickle in him.

Boyfriend immediately searched online to see what we could do. Since cats are lactose intolerant, we gave him some milk to see if that would help. Boyfriend was also convinced that he could manually push it out. He tried pretty hard and said he "could feel it," but unfortunately wasn't able to squeeze it out. 

I was very worried since it was so bad that Kitten could barley walk, but Boyfriend assured me that he would keep an eye on Kitten when I went to bed (though he also told me that animals can die of constipation). Boyfriend then said that if Kitten didn't go by tomorrow, he was going to give him an enema. I am dead serious. Boyfriend was going to give Kitten an enema. Thankfully, Kitten did go over night. Though he still seemed a bit off the next day.

Boyfriend and I looked into things we could do to help Kitten stay regular. Boyfriend promised he would stop giving him cheese, and we decided we would switch his dry food and start giving him wet food again. 

Yesterday, I went to the pet store to pick up these supplies. I told the pet store girl that my cat was constipated and she was very sympathetic and told me that cats don't naturally drink a lot of water, so they should have wet food daily to get their fluids. She also told me that if it got bad again, to mix some pure pumpkin puree into his food. I held off on the pumpkin, but I will say that I was a bit frustrated to be buying a brand new bag of cat food since the one we had was only half done and we buy pretty expense food for Kitten. 

This is what Kitten had…

And this is the new one I got for him. He also got a few cans of fancy wet cat food.

On top of all of this, we also bought Kitten cat grass to get some fiber into him. The store only had the kind that you grow yourself. I just planted the seeds last night, so hopefully they will actually grow.

Honestly though, Kitten eats better than boyfriend and I. The products in Kitten’s food are all grown in Canada, the meat is free range and there are no preservatives. And Boyfriend and I eat things like this:

Luckily, Kitten seems to be getting back on track (no pumpkin or enema needed). He has been running around and breaking things like normal all day, which makes me very happy.  

Oh, and don’t forget to vote for Kitten’s Look-A-Like!

Look-A-Like

Exams are finally over, which means I can get back to regular Kitten blogging! When I sat down to do my first post-exam blog, I wasn't sure where to start. I've had so may ideas floating around in my head the past few weeks and Kitten has also been up to so many crazy things. After much thought, I finally decided on a look-a-like post. 

Over the break, Erica sent me a picture of a baby ewok that looked just like Kitten in a picture from the post Sandwich Fail. This was definitely not the first time that I had thought Kitten looked like an ewok. When he was little, Boyfriend and I used to call him our little ewok. But an ewok isn't the only thing that Kitten has had a striking resemblance to. When I showed Boyfriend the ewok picture, he said that I should do a look-a-like blog, and have people vote for who they think Kitten looks most like. And viola; today's blog!

Below are what I feel to be the best Kitten matches. I have set up a poll on the left side of the blog for you to vote for who you think Kitten looks most like. Enjoy!

 Ewok

Gizmo

The Grinch

 Zuul (from Ghostbusters)

Don't forget to vote!

Full-Time Study Buddy

First, I want to for apologize for my absenteeism. Unfortunately, there was just no way to justify Kitten blogs during this round of studying. But, while I may not have been able to post anything during the past week, I did manage to take many pictures of Kitten as he helped (impeded) me in my studies. 

Also, I know this isn't much of a post, but I do have a few more elaborate ideas in the works for when exams are actually finished, so stay tuned...

Oh, and those books to the right found their way into the recycling about 2 minutes after the exam.

Please enjoy some of the best Study Buddy moments...

Kitten's favourite place to be when I am studying is right behind my laptop. Most days he will stay there the entire day as I study. Though, sometimes he likes to see how how many highlighters he can knock off the table before I get mad (the answer is one). On occasion, he will get a sticky-tab stuck in his tail and I usually get a few moments of enjoyment watching him frantically try to get it out. 

Sometimes he would try to steal my spot when I got up. I am not too sure what his plan was, but I assumed that he had not taken over my spot to finish my notes on future interests, so I would move him.

This usually made him mad, but he would just look at me with his ears back and then go back to lying behind the laptop.

Then there were other times when he would just be so adorably cute that I would need to stop and pet him. Of course that would just get him purring like a little motor boat and be an even bigger distraction.

There were also times when he would try to attack my headphones. It was cute at first, but he started getting really aggressive. Some of you may be aware of what Kitten has done to my laptop cord; I didn't want that to happen to my headphones too.

And yes, my favourite mug is a Jonas Brother's mug. I love it NOT because I have a secret love of the Jonas Brother's, but because my wonderful mom bought it for me for Christmas AND she bought it NOT because she thought I would like a Jonas Brother's mug, but because she knew I wouldn't, and that is why it is the best mug. 

As you can see above, I was also able able to snap a picture of Kitten mid-yawn. I thought it would be super cute, but it wasn't. Apparently there is a brief moment during his yawn when Kitten turns into Predator.

I really have no idea what is going on below. At one point during the study marathon, Kitten jammed his face under a pile of books. He slept like that for a really long time. It was bizarre, even for Kitten.

Also, here a a couple of the videos I took. The first one is Kitten battling my headphones and the second one is Kitten being super adorable. If you turn the volume up all of the way, you should be able to hear Kitten: (1) Make a cute sleepy noise; (2) Purr; and (3) Lick his lips.