Study Sessions: Kitten and The Blonde One

Welcome to a very special edition of the Kitten Blog.  

Today's post is a recap of my exam study sessions!  

Now, hear me out.  I know that might sound even more boring than watching paint dry, grass grow,  any baseball game, etc., but you would be wrong.  To help me make it through exam time without losing all sanity, I frequently invited friends over to study with me.  This led to many ridiculous Kitten/friend interactions, which I thoroughly documented.

A lot went down during exams, so I'm going to share my stories in two posts.  Here's the first:

Kitten and The Blonde One

Let me give you some history about The Blonde One.  One time, I took Kitten to the Blonde One's house when my apartment was under some repairs and I couldn't have a cat hanging around.  Kitten did not have a good time. 

At The Blonde One's house, Kitten hid behind the couch or under the bed the entire time.  When I went to retrieve him, he had to be lured out from under the bed.  Apparently, he had not used the litter box once... in three days.  I don't even know how this is possible, but she never did find any accidents, so I can only assume Kitten absorbed everything during that time.  

Now, you would think this incident would traumatize Kitten and instil a fear of The Blonde One in him.  It did not.

Kitten immediately took to his weird humping routine with her.  

Pictures aren't good enough? Here is a video of the deed going down.

This isn't the first time that Kitten has been weird with my friends, and it sure wasn't the last time this happened during exams (but I'll tell you more about that in my next post).  Below you can see that once he is done using my friend, he has a tendency to go and expose himself somewhere nearby.  Like, close enough they can see, but not so close that it is 100% obvious that he is doing it for their benefit.

If you are super interested in the whole weird process, here is a video of what happens after the humping.  And it literally happens every time. No jokes.

After Kitten's seduction attempt failed, he decided to check out some shit outside.  

This was all fine and dandy until The Blonde One thought it would be funny to get back at Kitten for violating her.

As if that wasn't enough, The Blonde One then decided that Kitten was the perfect tool to clean my windows with.  Though, I can't really argue with her.  He did a pretty damn good job.

To be fair, Kitten deserved this.  

Like I've said before, he can be quite the jerk (I'm going to give some more detail about this in a future post), and it's really only karma coming for him.  

He also needs to learn that his behaviour around my friends is wholly inappropriate.  I mean, if Kitten were a person, he would be charged with a criminal offence for his actions. Unfortunately, Kitten is dumb and cannot grasp the concept of social norms, let along object permanence. 

After The Blonde One used Kitten as a window cleaner, she decided to try to play with him.  However, her concept of "play" seemed to be chasing Kitten around in a frenzied way, causing him to become quite agitated and panicked.  

Here is the video I took before I started yelling at her to stop:

Well, that was the post about The Blonde One.  

Next post I'll tell you all about Kitten's study adventures with Elena.  Elena is much kinder than The Blonde One. Instead of tormenting Kitten she helped him with some personal higiene issues and actually played with him.

Sadly, kindness tends to go unnoticed by Kitten, who humped her as well. 

Survival of the Fittest: Video Edition

I am artificially keeping Kitten alive.  No, this does not mean that I have Kitten hooked up to some sort of cat life-support system with a morphine drip and feeding tube (though I have given Kitten morphine before).  What I mean is, that there is no chance, not even a sliver of a possibility, that Kitten could live in the wild (urban or otherwise).

I know I have written on similar topics before. Select examples include: Kitten has an Intellectual Disability,  Kitten Almost Died, RIP Cheap Entertainment Unit Door, and 5 Reasons Kitten would not Survive the First Week of a Zombie Apocalypse.

But I still feel like without some concrete evidence, it is difficult for people who do not personally know Kitten to fully grasp how dumb he is.

To help you better understand the level of Kitten’s inability to function as a living being, I have compiled this brief and very incomplete video collection of Kitten’s shortcomings.

Kitten loves to chase things, however, he has little concept of how to come to a proper stop and also forgets very quickly why he was running in the first place.

This is how Kitten eats.  It involves a lot of weird jerky head movements and inability to actually get any food in his mouth.

Kitten will not let me brush him and since the following is his idea of bathing, he ends up covered in mats, necessitating stupid haircuts.  Please note that this is actually the full extent of Kitten’s concept of what constitutes appropriate personal-hygiene measures.

Kitten does not understand object permanence (or in this case, world permanence).  To be fair, neither do babies.  But, even minimally sentient beings often understand that they can escape from underneath blankets.  Kitten does not.  If you put a blanket over Kitten, he will stay they until you take it off.  He accepts that warm darkness has become his life, and at a certain point will begin to welcome it.  That point is at 1:29 in this video, where Kitten begins to purr in his dark sanctuary.   

In the same vein, Kitten simply does not get what is happening when you put something as small as a washcloth over his face.  It is basically the end of the world.

Kitten has a love-hate relationship with cat toys.  He loves to chase them, but has an irrational fear of being chased/attacked/murdered by them.  He doesn’t understand the concept of “play.”

Bags. Kitten loves bags. I know I have said this many, many, many, times (and once more).  But Kitten’s favourite home has always been and forever will be, a crusty paper bag.

It is basically a miracle that he remembers to breath.

Were you going to eat that?

I've said this many times, but Kitten is a jerk. 

He has zero manners.

From knocking highlighters off the table, to eating my food when I am not looking, to walking on my face while I sleep, Kitten has no boundaries.

He is a rude, unhygienic, furry roommate who refuses to pay rent or help out with any chores. 

This is what I have to deal with on a daily basis:

...Back Again

Today, I was very busy. I had a lot things that had to get gone now.

So of course, Kitten decides to act like he needs to go back to the vet (missed that? go here).

Starting mid-day yesterday and continuing into this morning, Kitten started doing exactly what he was doing before I took him to the vet: he would climb into his litter, not do much, jump out, meow to himself, and generally lie there looking depressed. He would do this on repeat every half hour or so.

When I spoke with the vet on the phone yesterday, she had told me that this might mean he was "clogged up" again and that if it continued into the next day that I should bring him back in. So this afternoon around 12:30, I dropped everything I was doing and hauled Kitten back to the vet.

As it turns out, Kitten was perfectly fine. 

Though it would probably be unfair to say that his behaviour was "faking it," since the vet informed me that he is probably still in a lot of pain from the infection. She suggested an anti-inflammatory along with some pain mediation.

Gah.

I am so poor. 

I wish I hadn't taken him at all, since realistically, the trip and the two new mediations were not necessary. I know I could have turned the new prescriptions down, sucking up the cost of the actual visit only, but (a) I didn't want to look like the worst pet owner alive; and (b) I really do want to help Kitten feel better.

So another $158.25 later... 

I labelled them to keep track of when Kitten gets what.

How am I suposed to make this work?

I already lost THREE doses of antibiotics this morning trying to: (a) jam one down Kitten's throat (he foamed at the mouth... again); (b) crushing the failed-pill into wet food (that he wouldn't touch); (c) crushing a new pill into milk (that he wouldn't touch); and (d) crushing a third pill into peanut butter (that he licked once and quickly realized was tainted).

The vet suggested that I coat the pills in butter before jamming them down his throat to help them slide down.

Awesome.

Luckily one of the new medications is in liquid form and I have been informed that this is often much easier to administer to a wary cat.

Well, I'm off to grease up some pills in hopes that they will just shimmy right down Kitten's throat.

Mission Impossible

Remember that time I wrote about how Kitten destroys every living thing he can set his paws on?

Or the time I got Kitten some cat grass in hopes that he would stop trying to eat the only plant left in my apartment?

Well this is a story about that plant. That sad, sad plant. 

The plant lives behind my TV and is elevated by a small stool and a pile of old textbooks. The plan is to coax the plant into growing up the wall. But Kitten is thwarting this plan. 

Even though the TV is on an angle, essentially blocking off the corner that the plant is in, Kitten finds ways to jump up on the ledge of the cheap entertainment unit that supports the TV and eat that poor, poor plant.

First, I tried blocking both "entrances." I placed a wooden statue on one side and fully opened the kitchen door on the other:

Unfortunately, and to my surprise, Kitten actually learned how to open the door to get to the plant. This came as quite a shock since I still stand by the fact that Kitten is intellectually disabled.

I tried placing my backpack in the space, thinking that he wouldn't figure out how to jump over it and onto the ledge.

I was wrong.

Again.

Kitten learned how to open the door and manoeuvre around the backpack.

I started placing textbooks in front of the door to keep it in place. This seemed to work for a few weeks and I started to think that Kitten had given up on getting to the plant. I eventually removed the textbook and just tried to remember to keep the door closed.

Then, a few days ago, I was woken up by a large crashing sound. I often sleep wearing earplugs, so this sound was undeniably loud to have woken me up. I assumed the noise was just Kitten being a jerk, but figured I should get up just to confirm it was nothing serious.

I walked around my dim apartment looking for what had make the sound. After seeing that everything was in it's place, I headed back to bed assuming the noise had come from a neighbours balcony.

Then I realized something was, in fact, amiss.

Kitten was not at my feet, nor was he running around in circles squawking, nor was he crashing into things in the Kitchen. If I can rely on Kitten for one thing, it is that he will, without fail, assume that if I am out of bed any time from 6:00am onwards, it must be to feed him.

It was 7:00am, and Kitten was not in sight.

I began to call his name. He didn't come. It then occurred to me that I should take my earplugs out. I then heard a faint scuffling sound coming from under the TV. I pulled the kitchen door open, which had been slightly ajar, to find the plant lying on the ground behind the TV along with a pile of books that had once been propping it up.

I can only assume that Kitten missed the jump to the plant, pulling the plant and books down with him. Kitten himself had some how slithered under the stool at the bottom and was lying there in a pathetic mess of failure and plant dirt. Sadly, this image went un-captured since I was eager to return to my sleep.



The next day I reinforced the kitchen door with my old Income Tax Act and made sure the statue on the other side was in place.

Everything was fine until two days later when I came home to find that Kitten had been at it again, this time tracking his evidence everywhere.

There was plant dirt and debris all over the apartment, yet the Income Tax Act was still in place.

Though Kitten may have proven that he can open a door, I was unconvinced that he could move the book, open the door, commit his act of mischief and then replace the book.

No, Kitten must had found a way around the wooden statue and then also figured out how to escape from behind the TV.

This was the story that I sat down to write. But as soon as I sat down to begin telling you about Kitten's mission of plant destruction, I heard a thud. Kitten had jumped past the statue in my very presence and had become lodged behind the TV.

After watching him struggle for some time and taking a short video of his misadventure, I pulled him out by the scruff of his neck.


I thought he had learned his lesson.


He had not.

It happened three more times in a row. 

I am not sure what to do. I used another book to block the statue side, but feel like this is only a very temporary solution; even if Kitten doesn't figure it out, I should probably actually do my Administrative Law readings sometime...

But I think Kitten will find another way. After placing the book there, Kitten has just been lying in front of the TV with a melancholy look of dispair on his face. I can't tell, because his eyes are blank and they always seem blank, but I think he is planning his next move.

I should also note that anytime Kitten does succeed in eating the plant, he vomits shortly after.

It seems hardly worth it.

But I guess I shouldn't  expect much forethought from this:

Potty Training: The Final Chapter

I know I have been promising this for a while, but I am finally going to tell the final chapter of the Potty Training Saga. 

For those of you who are new to the Kitten Blog, or simply have a poor memory, you can get caught up on the Potty Training Saga: here, then here, then here and finally the last paragraph from here.

The short story is, we failed. But let me start from the beginning:

After an initial rough start...

...things seemed to be going pretty well.

Kitten was using the litter tray on the toilet. As you can probably tell from his facial expressions, he didn't really enjoy it; but since it was the only option, he put up with it.

Unfortunately, as we took out more and more rings, Kitten still clung to using the litter. He would perch right on the ring of litter when we was supposed to be sitting on the edge of the toilet seat.

Then one day, for no apparent reason, Kitten decided that he would only pee in the litter. I have no idea what happened, but out of the blue, Kitten started doing "number two" in anything porcelain, except the toilet. As soon as Boyfriend or I heard scratching in the tub, we knew what Kitten was up to.

Boyfriend looked into this online and found out that this is a pretty common problem with cats being toilet trained. For some reason, most cats are okay using the toilet, except for "number twos." 

We weren't ready to give up, so we decided that we would keep toilet training, but provide Kitten with litter for "number twos." We filled a small tray with litter, put a lid on it, and kept it under the sink. Kitten was pretty good at letting up know when he had to go, and we would pull it out for him to use.

Things seemed to be back on (the altered) track. But then, Kitten got sneaky.

He started pretending to need to go "number two" and would then proceed to pee in the litter box. Next thing we knew, he was refusing to use the toilet at all. And not only was he refusing to use the toilet, he devolved from using porcelain to using the bath mat, which he would kindly flip over when he was done, leaving a pleasant surprise when Boyfriend or I went to shower. 

The whole situation fell apart and Boyfriend and I (once again) conceded defeat.

We really did not want to go back to using litter though since Kitten's abnormally furry paws track litter everywhere, sometimes making it necessary to sweep three to four times a day.

Abnormally furry paw.

I did some research, and have come up with some form of a solution: Pellet Litter.

There are apparently many types of pellet litter. The one I bought is milled grain. Since the pellets are larger, they shouldn't get caught in Kitten's fur the way little flecks of regular litter do. 

At first Kitten was not too impressed. I tried to put him in the pellet litter and he absolutely freaked out. He didn't seem to like the feel of the pellets, so I ended up putting a pretty thick layer of regular litter over the pellets and he now seems okay with it. I think next time I can get rid of the litter completely.

Since switching to pellet litter, I have only seen a few pellets on the floor. A few pellets a day is pretty exciting for me; a massive improvement from handfuls of litter.

Ultimately, I am still sad that the potty training failed, but I am happy to have found a better alternative to regular litter.

And that my friends, is the end of the Potty Training Saga.