How to Pill a Cat

...or "It's been awhile and I couldn't think of anything else to post."

Note: not original work. This is someone else's and I can't help myself.

1. Pick up cat and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat’s mouth and gently Apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As cat opens mouth, pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.
2. Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.
3. Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.
4. Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm, holding rear paws tightly with left hand, force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of ten.
5. Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call spouse from garden.
6. Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, hold front and rear paws. Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill down ruler and rub cat’s throat vigorously.
7. Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered figurines and vases from hearth and set to one side for gluing later.
8. Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with head just visible from below armpit. Put pill in end of drinking straw, force mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw.
9. Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, drink 1 beer to take taste away. Apply Band-Aid to spouse’s forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.
10. Retrieve cat from neighbor’s shed. Get another pill. Open another beer. Place cat in cupboard, and close door on to neck, to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with elastic band.
11. Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on hinges. Drink beer. Fetch bottle of scotch. Pour shot, drink. Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot. Apply whiskey compress to cheek to disinfect. Toss back another shot. Throw Tee shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.
12. Call fire department to retrieve the damn cat from across the road. Apologize to neighbor who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat. Take last pill from foil wrap.
13. Tie the little bastard’s front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table, find heavy-duty pruning gloves from shed. Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of filet steak. Be rough about it. Hold head vertically and pour 2 pints of water down throat to wash pill down.
14. Consume remainder of scotch. Get spouse to drive you to the emergency room, sit quietly while doctor stitches finge rs and forearm and removes pill remnants from right eye. Call furniture shop on way home to order new table.

How to pill a dog:

1. Wrap pill in bacon

2. Toss bacon in air. 

Genius Pets and Sammy

I've grown up with pets. Before Jazzy there was Tigger and Sammy and PJ and before them there were guinea pigs and a rabbit and a hamster, birds, horses and other dogs and cats. What I have noticed is that there is a distinction. Some critters are smarter than others. 

A whole lot smarter.

Take Tigger, for instance.

That's him in the picture there. Yes, he's very skinny. Yes, he does not want for food. Yes, we've taken him to the vet. Yes, the vet says he's fine. Really. He's just skinny. Like that person you're required to hate because they can eat a whole cake plus ice cream and never gain weight while you can't even look at a slider without gaining ten pounds.

Tigger is a freaking cat genius. He sets traps. He knows exactly how to execute them. He (and this is important in some universe) profiles his victims! That's right. He knows exactly what his intended targets are going to do next and attacks them. And he's still a cuddle bug. 

Mom has the giant plastic tumblers and she fills them with water and leaves them all over the house. You'll never go a day without finding one. Neither will Tigger. 

Tigger had a thing for sticking his face in the water and drinking as much as he could reach. The second he couldn't get to any more, he'd crouch down and start batting at the cup. Bat bat bat bat. Then he'd knock it over. You'd think this was because he figured out that he could get more water out of the cup if it just wasn't in the cup anymore, but he'd walk away. Almost as if he was saying "Yup. I'm smart. Deal with it." 

When Sammy was a kitten Tigger sat down behind a wall in our open floor plan home. He started flipping his tail up around the corner. He flipped his tail and waited. And waited.

And w a i t e d...

Until Kitten Sammy came barreling down the dining room and pounced on his tail. The second he did so, 

POW!

Tigger bopped him on the head. This was all he'd intended to do in the first place. He'd intended to get that kitten and show him who's boss from the second he'd sat down at the wall. 

PJ is equally bright. PJ is a poodle/bichon mix. The poodle is an incredibly smart breed of dog, the bichon was bred originally as a circus dog, and then as a companion dog for sailors. This means that we have a super smart dog who loves to get attention. 

In that picture he's actually saying "I could calculate special relativity for you, but you need to be watching or I won't do it." 

PJ will only do something twice if you trick him into it. Like sticking his head into one of Mom's ubiquitous tumblers. He'll stick his head into an empty one a couple of times and shake it around trying to get it off, but then you try to get him to do it again and he shoots you a look. It says "I think we've established that there's nothing in the cup. You are aware you're being outsmarted by a dog, right?"

But Sammy... Sammy's a different story entirely.

Yes, that photo is of a different cat. That's Sammy, my mom's orange tabby. No, he and Tigger are not of the same litter. They are not brothers, and the did not come from the same momma cat.

The only similarities between Tigger and Sammy are that they are both orange tabbies, and they are both cats. 

You see, Sammy's really really dumb.

There was this line from a cartoon I watched when I was a kid and one of the characters said "If brains were gasoline, he wouldn't have enough to power a motorcycle around the outside of a penny." That kinda describes Sammy. When it comes down to it, he's not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. When Sammy encounters the tumblers, he stares down into them and tries to figure out how to drink out of them. He hasn't learned how to bat them over like Tigger. So Tigger comes by and... bat bat bat. Water all over the counter and floor for everyone!

He's also really ornery. Okay, he's ornery to the rest of us. To Mom, he's Mr. Lover Cat. He absolutely loves my mother. The rest of us... well, we're obstacles in his path of getting to Mom. 

When we play with the laser pointers, Tigger plays for a minute, then realizes where the little blinky light is coming from. Sammy will chase that sucker for hours. The most fun thing to do with him is make the laser pointer light run under a bookshelf or the entertainment center or something and turn it off. Sammy will watch, intent on catching that darn light once it decides to show its stupid face!

Meanwhile, Tigger and PJ are looking at Sammy and going "Idiot." 

See, Tigger's like that kid you might have gone to school with who was four years younger than everyone else, but was also graduating class valedictorian and flat out didn't care. It's not like he was even trying. He just sat back and knew he'd get an A on that math test you'd studied your tail off for and were hoping for at least a B, and he didn't even crack a book. 

That kid was irritating, but you probably didn't have him in school. If you did, you hoped he'd either tutor you, or be the person you'd get paired with for the science fair project. If he was either one of those, that kid was your best friend. Mostly because now you got to mooch off his brains and if you were nice to him he might stick by you because you're his friend so you're guaranteed a good grade on every group project for the rest of the school year.

On the other hand, Sammy is like that one person we all know we're going to have in our class. We know after graduation they'll be either working at Wal-Mart or finishing every work sentence with "Ya want fries with that?" And it's not for lack of trying. They try hard to be smart and study for their tests, but the reality is that they're about as dumb as a bag of rocks but that's okay because they know it and they know it's probably funny. 

If they're nice, you don't mind because, hey, the world needs more nice people. If they're obnoxious and that person who doesn't know they're dumb and acts like you're the idiot in the equation, all you want to do is slap them or otherwise make them look very, very silly. You might have, I don't know.

It's most evident in their behavior when strange critters come to stay with us. 

A family friend's dogs came to stay for a weekend. They liked to chase cats. Sammy would jump up on to the ottoman and try to claw their faces. Since Sammy has no claws, it's pretty obvious how well that worked out for him. 

Tigger, on the other hand, realized that Mom had left a full tumbler on one of the tower cabinets of the entertainment center when she went to answer the door. So he waited until one of the dogs walked over and looked up at him from the floor. 

Bat bat bat bat...

Dear Cat

... I've noticed that recently you've become remarkably adept at giving me dirty looks. When I decide to take a cute picture of you instead of petting you,

when I tell you to stop trying to eat my lily plant on the patio because it can make you sick, when I wake you up to get you off my bed so I can sleep,

and then when I tell you that no, you may not sleep in my room because you don't sleep, you walk all over my sensitive bits, you look at me like you're a teenager and I'm some out of touch parent that's ruining your life. 

Yes, I know it's your apartment and I just live here. But if we're going to be roommates then I'm going to have to insist upon a few ground rules. 

1) You are not to give me dirty looks when I am doing Things That Are Not Petting The Cat such as sleeping, eating, preparing food, cleaning out your litterbox, working, and standing up.

2) You are not to sit outside my bathroom, crying to be let in and shoving your paws under the door.

3) You are to...

Aw...

Hehe... what was I saying? Was it something important? Must not have been. Oh, just keep being adorable, kitty. 

The Ubiquitous Jazzy

She's everywhere and in everything! Remember last post when I said I was working on getting a cat? Well, now that I've found my camera (things tend to disappear for short periods while moving) I can show you some pictures!

 "Hey look! Stringy thingies!"

"Your pillows are quite comfortable. Wait, I mean my pillows."

"I don't care that I have a nice cat tree. This sink is much more fun."

"Can you see me? I'm good at hiding."

"You can keep Mr. Chan and his crazy Kung Fu stunts. Looks too strenuous. I'm going to sleep."

Ah yes, Jasmine (I call her "Jazzy" for short). You'll have a following in no time.

Adopt First

I'm working on adopting a cat. More than 12 million dogs and cats are euthanized every year because there are simply more animals than there are adopting families. Please consider adopting your next pet.

A Video Countdown to Christmas - I've Lost Track

This is what happens when you go home for the holidays. Despite my best intentions I haven't posted a video countdown in three days. No, I'm not going to make up for it. That would be a lot of videos. I don't think you have time to watch four geeky flicks while your family is there and it's a better idea to go play games with them than watch funny videos on my blog anyway.

Sigh. Where was I again? Oh yeah. Video.

YouTube is known for having piles of animal videos, and in some of them the animals even talk. (Warning! Video is a little NSFW. If you don't know what that means, you may want to avoid that video.)

Simon's Cat Forever!

I absolutely love Simon's Cat! It's a great way to cheer yourself up.

Hurrah!

It's a new "Simon's Cat!"