Category: Cats & Dogs

Cats Hate Ear Drops

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Like I mentioned in the last post, having cats can be incredibly expensive, especially if they get sick or hurt and start incurring medical bills.  So, you have to be careful about how many you adopt, even if you want to take in every single one you see on the street.  As great as it sounds, you could fast find your wallet empty.  We do our best to take care the cats we have now.  It’s hard not to want to make sure they’re in perfect health when they’re this cute:

The newest affliction to hit my cats is a case of ear mites or ear fungus or something.  I’m not entirely sure, but I know it must have come into the house with Sushi.  That’s one of the bad things about bringing in strays.  You have to give everyone a flea and tick bath (unless you’re using Frontline or a similar product on your other pets) and then you have to fix everything that’s wrong with him or her.  Sushi has a bad cough, which has already cost us around 200 bucks in medications.  Now I find that all of my cats are scratching at their ears.

I didn’t really notice it until Thumper started going nuts and scratching at her right ear for an excessively long time.  When I checked, she had scratched her skin raw and was even bleeding.  So, I broke out the ear drops.  Applying the ear drops was a bit harder than I expected.  Thumper kept trying to get away.  Luckily, she’s still small and easy to control.  It’s not that hard squirting it in, but keeping them from shaking their heads long enough for me to massage the base of the ear to work it in was a pain in the ass, to be honest.  Sushi, who probably needs it the most, was the hardest to deal with.  She’s bigger, stronger, and, unlike Thumper, not afraid to use her claws.  I wound up having to practically sit on her and squish her between my legs to keep her in position for the application and massaging.

Neither cat was happy about it, but Thumper was especially pissed.  She kept her ears lowered for hours afterwards:

By the way, all three cats love that red bed, but Thumper has more or less staked her claim on it.

Gu Gu The Cat

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My wife is a cat lover, and I’m fond of them myself. So, when my wife said that she’d heard about a movie called Gu Gu The Cat, I knew right away that we were going to see it. This was one of those times when I had to give in. Besides, it looked funny, so I figured it couldn’t be that bad.

Going to the movies here in Singapore is a very expensive outing, and will usually wind up costing about 35 bucks, including transit and a few light movie goodies, so she wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to make it. We’re getting ready for a move and our finances are tight. As sort of an answer to her prayers, her coworker won free tickets to the sneak peak showing for last night and wasn’t going to be able to attend. So, she asked my wife if she’d like the tickets and of course my wife jumped on the opportunity.

Last night we rushed out of the house at about 6pm, not sure if we were going to make it on time. The directions on the e-mail announcing the free tickets was a bit vague. It just said “GV Plaza 4.” So, she contacted a friend and asked where that was, and was told it was at Vivocity at Harbourfront. So, off we went! We managed to make fairly good time and were a bit anxious as we waited for the train to reach Harbourfront. We literally ran through the tunnel and dashed up the escalators to make it to the theater on time and sure enough, we got to the theater right at 7pm. Unfortunately… we were at the wrong theater. The sneak peak showing was at Plaza Singapura, and we were already out of time.

My wife was crushed. She really wanted to see the film. Like I said, she really loves cats! So, I consoled her by telling her that we’d set aside money and definitely catch Gu Gu at the regular opening on the 23rd. To cheer ourselves up we wandered around the mall and wound up having a pretty good time (more about that later).

Last night when we got home she started searching the internet to see if she could find a copy to watch. The film isn’t new, it just hadn’t been shown in Singapore yet. That’s nothing new. There’s a movie called Traitor that’s starting here in Singapore soon, but we saw a DVD copy from the US months ago. She found a copy on YouTube, but by then it was pretty late and she had to work today so I downloaded the files and set it up to watch tonight.

So, she was very excited and got home from work early. After we ate we got comfortable and started up the movie. For the first 15 minutes or so, it was interesting, to me at least, but after that it was painfully slow. The movie is more of a drama about life in general than about cats, and it seemed to focus more on the people in the story than on Gu Gu. Gu Gu was more there for comedic relief than anything.

Don’t get me wrong. The movie has its high points, and there’s something to be learned from it, but if you go into it thinking it’s going to be a comedy, or very cute, or happy, you’ll be let down. The movie deals with a lot of heavy themes about love, relationships and missed opportunities. It even touches on the pain and loss of death.

So, I can’t say it was a bad movie, really. It just wasn’t what I expected.

Here are a few screenshots of the movie, courtesy of AsianFanatics.net, as well as the first segment of the movie (video was removed due to terms of use violation) movie trailer that’s hosted on YouTube:

Dapper Recovers; Thumper Gets Sick

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Dapper

A few days ago I posted about our cat Dapper getting spayed.  I mentioned at the end of the post that she came back with a cough.  I was planning on taking her to the vet, but my trip got put off.  Then, somehow, her cough started to clear up on its own overnight.  Perhaps the whole thing was related to her surgery.

So, I’m glad to report that Dapper is feeling much better now.  It’s been about a week and a half since she was spayed and she seems to be back to her old self.  In fact, she seems even more active and happy than before.  I think going into heat over and over was driving her crazy.  My wife and I were talking about it earlier tonight, and Dapper seems a lot more affectionate.  It’s as if she’s a kitten again.

She has also started meowing again, which is nice.  She was a very vocal cat and I missed it.  Her meow does seem a bit huskier now, but that’s fine.  I’m just glad to see she’s recovering.  All that’s left for her, it seems, is to grow back the hair on her belly where it was shaved for the surgery.  It looks a little funny.

Thumper

So, what now!?  It seems like it’s one thing after another with our cats.  Now that Dapper is well again, Thumper seems to have taken ill.  He’s been listless, sleepy, and he’s running a fever.  I wonder if he caught something from Dapper?  It’s possible that Dapper picked up a virus from the cats she came in contact with at the vet and brought it home with her, and that Thumper picked it up from her.

The fever isn’t too high, so we’re keeping him home.  I’ve been making sure he drinks water and eats… even if he doesn’t want to.  I think he’s pissed at me now, but thanks to my efforts he’s more active and aware and seems to be getting better.  We also bought some wet food to tempt him into eating, and he gobbled down quite a bit of it, complemented with more dry food, before going back to sleep.

Hopefully he’ll feel better in the morning!  Oh, and it’s quite an interesting experience to stick a thermometer in a cat’s butt.

Poor Dapper, I Took Her Horny

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Dapper’s Coming of Age

Shortly after returning from a trip to the Philippines at the beginning of last March, our eldest cat, Dapper, went into heat for the first time.  For anyone unfamiliar with the term, it means her hormones kicked into overdrive, turned her into a little hornball and caused her to be non-stop noisy.  In the picture above, you can see her showing off her cat cooter, a typical symptom for cats in heat.  For a week at a time she would be going nuts, and in the process she would keep us up all hours of the night.  It was starting to make us go nuts as well.  No amount of verbal reprimand or slipper throwing would quiet her.  So, after the second time she went into heat I decided something had to be done, and that something was spaying.

Spaying would prevent her from going into heat again, which meant that she wouldn’t be meowing all night and we could get a decent nights’ rest again.  Dapper was one of those unusual cases, in that she would go through a heat cycle, be normal for 3 days, and then start up again.  From what I read, cats typically only go into heat once every 2 to 3 weeks.  Dapper’s hormones must have been working overtime.

Other benefits to getting her spayed would be that she would be in compliance with the Singapore standard.  Cats here are supposed to be spayed at six months, and Dapper was already close to her 1st birthday.  In addition, spaying supposedly lengthens a cat’s lifespan.  Dapper has been with us for a year, and I’d like to keep her around as long as possible.

So, in the spirit of keeping her safe, and keeping us sleeping at night, I looked into getting the operation performed.

Penny To The Rescue!

My wife and I have a friend named Penny that lives in Yishun.  She’s something of a fanatic when it comes to taking care of cats, but in a good way.  She lives a quiet life and dedicates the vast majority of her time and funds to caring for, as well as spaying/neutering the local feline population.  I’m not quite sure where she gets her funding from, but she seems to have made it her mission to spay or neuter the entire feline population of Yishun, and she’s well on her way to accomplishing that goal.  I imagine she gets donations from individuals who have money, but no time, whereas Penny has time, but lacks funds.  So, that works out pretty good.

On average, she manages to spay or neuter an average of 8 cats per week.  Typically, having a cat spayed or neutered can run you between 80 to as high as 179 SGD, depending on where you go.  Shocking, right?  Due to the volume of cats she brings in, she has a special deal worked out with Mount Pleasant Animal Clinic to have the operations performed for 50 SGD per cat, or 70 SGD if they’re brought in pregnant. 

We took advantage of this fact and talked to Penny about having Dapper brought in for spaying.  Doesn’t hurt to use a discount if you have one available right? She was happy to help out and we agreed to meet the following week in Yishun.

Horny Remover

With the problem more or less resolved I was relieved, and started teasing Dapper that I was going to “take her horny.”  This is sort of a personal joke based on an “Engrish” picture I found posted on the internet, which showed the window of a spa or beauty parlor that offered “horny removal” as a service.  I imagine they were talking about callouses, but from a native English speaker’s perspective, “horny removal” on the window of a spa that also advertises full body massages is seriously funny!

Dapper Fights Back

Well, Dapper had one last trick up her sleeve for me, and it wasn’t good.  The day after I made arrangements to have her spayed she went into heat again.  I had read that having a cat spayed while they were in heat could cause complications, and could be more expensive, so I was worried that it would cause problems with the arrangements I had made. 

My wife was urging me to put off the operation, but I decided to wait it out and see what happened.  With Dapper going into heat so frequently, lining up a time when she was ‘normal’ and when Penny was available seemed like a tricky business.  Thankfully, the night before her operation, her heat cycle ended.

Curiosity Spayed the Cat

The morning of Dapper’s operation I got up early to make sure everything was ready.  I’m sort of a night owl, so I didn’t get much sleep, but I was anxious to get the whole thing over with.  After getting ready, I brought down the cat carrier from on top of the wardrobe.  Being the busybody she is, Dapper immediately came to investigate.  I decided to try to take advantage of the situation and opened the carrier door and took a step back.  Sure enough, she went ahead and poked her head into the carrier, giving me a hassle-free opportunity to push her the rest of the way in and get the door closed.

Surprisingly, she didn’t seem too upset about being locked in the carrier and was quiet as I took her out of the house.  I expected her to have a fit and start meowing, since the last time I took her out of the house in the carrier it was to drop her off at a cat-sitter while my wife and I were on vacation.

Taking Dapper’s Horny

So, Dapper and I made our way to Yishun and met up with Penny, who was waiting for me at the McDonald’s at Northpoint Mall.  She had three other cats with her, each in their own carriers.  We hopped onto a bus which would take us to the clinic.  We were an interesting sight, carrying two cat carriers each, and with my being a caucasian foreigner on top of it.  Despite it not being necessarily illegal, it’s still an uncommon sight to see cats on the bus, much less four at a time.  Most of the passengers were amused and some even made “meow meow” sounds to try excite the cats.  Dapper took it all well, and laid down quietly in her carrier.  I think she enjoys the vibrations from the bus.  Penny’s lot, on the other hand, were noisy and terrified.

We reached the clinic after a short ride and I stroked Dapper for a while before passing her into the hands of the vet.  Hey, you never know.  What if something goes wrong, right?  Dapper is a very sweet cat, even if her horniness was driving me crazy.  I left the clinic hoping for the best and went around the corner with Penny to sit down for a while.

Thursdays With Penny

There is a hawker area right next to the clinic and Penny offered to buy coffee.  I’m an avid coffee drinker, so I couldn’t turn her down.  It turned out to be a great way to spend an hour. 

We got to talking, and Penny’s a very interesting woman.  We’d spoken briefly before, but never at any length or about anything other than cats.  She’s very outspoken and she has a lot to say, not just about cats, but about Singapore, and life in general.  The most amusing point of our conversation was that she hopes to travel to Australia and snag herself an eligible bachelor that she can settle down with.  Coming from Penny, with her blue-highlighted hair and no-nonsense attitude, it seemed so out of place that I still smile when I think about it.

As we finished our coffee and it got close to lunchtime, we decided to get going and agreed to meet up again at 3:30 to pick up the cats.  I took the opportunity to go back to Tampines and meet up with my wife during her lunch break to check out the new mall, Tampines 1.

Dapper Comes Home

When we went back to pick up the cats, Dapper was awake in her carrier, if you want to call it that.  She was in an anesthetized daze, watery eyes and all.  Of course, that’s to be expected right after a surgery.

When I got her home later, she seemed unsure of where she was, and she couldn’t seem to stand up, so I put her in her cat bed and put the food and water bowls right next to her.  She tried to walk a bit later but kept falling over.  Eventually she made it to her litter box and after about 20 minutes managed to … well you know.  Then she went back to her bed and slept for about 8 hours.  Every so often she would wake up and try to walk around.  Then she would go back to the cat bed and go back to sleep.

I stayed up, keeping an eye on her and eventually tried to spark her appetite by giving her wet food.  She sniffed at it a bit, but didn’t seem to be too interested.  I think our kitten, Thumper, wound up eating it all.

Who Are You?!

One interesting thing to note about this whole trip to the vet is that when I brought Dapper home, Thumper initially had no idea who she was.  Dapper was only out of the house for about 10 hours or so, but Thumper initially reacted as though we’d brought home an entirely new cat.  It was strange and a bit upsetting.  Thumper made that strange mewling sound that cats make when they’re pissed or trying to look tough around strange animals.  Dapper seemed a bit perplexed by Thumper’s reaction but wasn’t very interested in anything other than sleeping at the time, so she ignored her. 

Eventually, Thumper started trailing after Dapper, watching her whenever she would visit the food bowl or the litter box.  I think Dapper came back carrying the scent of other cats and Thumper viewed her as an outsider, a crazy one, that was helping herself to her and  the real Dapper’s territory.  Eventually those other scents must have faded, because the following day I woke up to find the two of them curled up next to each other.

Get Well Soon!

It’s been almost 6 days now since her spaying.  She still seems a bit odd, compared to usual, but every day she seems to get a bit more active.  Today, she started to playing with Thumper again, which is nice.  Thumper was starting to get annoyed because he would try to get Dapper to play with him and she would smack him in the head and lay back down.

One thing I definitely miss about her is her friendly meow when she wants you to pet her, or when she greets you at the door when you come home.  Since her spaying she’s only meowed once, and that was tonight.  Hopefully, she’ll be back to her old self before long.

I can’t help but wonder what the longterm effects of the spaying will be on her personality, but for now she seems to be coming back to herself, much to my wife’s relief.  According to her, spaying isn’t a common practice in the Philippines, so I think she was more worried about the whole thing than I was.

What Now?

It seems like every time we get one thing taken care of with our two cats, another problem crops up, resulting in another visit to the vet.  Dapper came back from her spaying with a dry, hacking cough.  I think she might have picked it up from one of the other cats at the clinic, and fromw hat I’ve seen on the internet it’s probably an upper respiratory infection.  Coupled with the fact that she’s recovering from surgery, it’s starting to get bad.  So, tomorrow she has to take another trip to the vet with me.  I wonder if she’ll be as willing to get into the carrier on her own this time?

Taking on pets is definitely a big responsibility, both in time and care as well as financially.  Still, she’s part of the family and I can’t stand to see her coughing and hacking like that, and I’m anxious to get her checked out.  At first I thought it was a side effect of the surgery, but now I’m almost positive it’s not, and I don’t want to take any chances.

Hopefully this will be the end of their vet visits for quite a while though!

Lots of Cats, and Some Dogs Too!

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My wife really really loves cats. She loves all sorts of pets, but she has a particular weakness for cats.  From what I can tell, she always had cats of her own when she lived in the Philippines and now we have cats in Singapore.

I know where my wife got her love of cats from now: her dad. On my last few trips to the Philippines we didn’t have the time to go to Pampanga to visit her parents at their apartment. We only saw her family’s house in Antipolo, in Rizal province. That’s not to say they don’t have pets there, because they do. There are quite a few cats running around and there are even two dogs as well. That’s different though, because the cats all belong to different members of her family. It doesn’t seem unusual for a person to have one or two cats.

On the other hand, the only person that really lives out of the apartment in Porac, Pampanga is my father-in-law. My mother-in-law is there sometimes, but she usually lives out of her free apartment next to the school where she teaches. So, all of the animals there can be attributed to him. Walking through the yard and the apartments there is like walking through an animal shelter.

The first animals you’ll notice are the three dogs in the yard. One of them is named Happy (the brownish one) and one of the others is named Mayumi (one of the white ones). I can’t recall the name of the other white dog, and I couldn’t tell them apart anyways. Once you get past the dogs and into the apartments you’ll find cats everywhere.

The apartments don’t have air conditioning, so the windows are open all the time. Surprisingly, they’re not screened in either. This is going a bit off topic, but I never understood why window screens aren’t in common usage in Singapore or the Philippines. With high levels of mosquito borne illnesses, like dengue for example, which can be fatal, you’d think window screens would be in high demand. That doesn’t appear to be the case though. Anyways, like I was saying, the windows are always open and they aren’t screened so the cats go in and out at their leisure. They seem to get along well enough with the dogs too, so you might see the cats hanging out in the yard. There must have been about 11 cats and kittens running around. I only took pictures of a few of them.

One cat in particular caught my attention. Her name is Samsung. She’s incredibly friendly and purrs so hard she nearly chokes herself when you put her on your lap and pet her. What’s especially strange about this cat, though, is that when you pet her, she crawls up towards your shoulder, starts kneading against you, and then starts licking/sucking/slobbering on your shirt. My father-in-law says it’s because he found her when she was really young and she never had the chance to do much nursing. When he took her in, he kept her wrapped up in blankets and she would try to nurse on the blankets when she was hungry. Apparently she never lost the habit. Great cat, but you can’t hold her when you’re wearing a nice, clean shirt that you want to go out in, or you’ll wind up having spots of cat drool on yourself.

Another interesting cat is named Jumong. I called her Captain Hook because she only has one eye. According to my father-in-law, some kid in the neighborhood shot out her other eye with a pellet gun.

The Day of the Flight

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Getting ready for our trip to the Philippines was a test in patience and stress management.

Our biggest concern was finding someone to watch our cats while we were away. We live in a condo in Singapore that we share with four other people. The place is big and the rent is high, so it’s a convenient arrangement, most of the time.

The last time we went on a trip someone in our condo watched our cats for us. This time, we initially assumed that we would use the same arrangement. It should be simple for someone who lives across the hall to take ten minutes out of their day to maintain our cats right? Somehow, everyone found a reason why it was going to be an impossible task for them. “Oh, I have allergies.” “Oh, I won’t be around.” “Oh, I’m scared of cats!”

Three days before our flight we finally landed on someone that would be able to help us. Previously, we had adopted two cats. One of them we still have, named Dapper, but the other, her sister Whitty, had a problem. She was paralyzed and required constant care. I had intended to have a job quite a while ago, and it would have been impossible for us to take care of her with both of us being gone all day, so we gave her away. The person who took her in is named Penny. She’s a great woman that lives in Yishun and spends a lot of her time, effort, and money on caring for cats.

When we initially got in touch with her, she was hesitant to agree. With the current financial problems in Singapore, a lot of people are packing up and heading home for good, and Penny was worried that we were going to take off and leave her stuck with our cats. We had to convince her that we were planning on coming back. Even still, I worried that she may have thought we were just telling her a story to get her to take them. I was worried she may have tried to adopt out our cats before we got back!

We arranged to drop the cats off at her place during the morning of the day of our flight. We weren’t able to sleep well the night before. It’s always that way for me, and my wife was really excited as well. She always gets that way before going home to see her family. We were up late talking, until about 4:30am I think, and when the alarm went off at 9am, we had to struggle to get out of bed.

We decided that it would probably be best to shower after dropping them off. Penny was doing us a favor and we wanted to get there on time. I’m pretty sure she had work that day and was taking time out of her schedule to help us out. So, we got our cats into a carrier and packed up their litter box, a container of food, and a bag of toys and went downstairs and caught a cab.

At first, we actually weren’t sure we were going to be able to find the place. I realized after we were already downstairs that I had forgotten to ask Penny what her address is. The last time we had gone there was six months previous. She didn’t answer our calls or texts either. Later we found out that was because she has problems with her phone, but at the time, riding in the cab, it was added stress to an already stressful situation. No one wants things to go wrong on the day of a flight! On top of that, we were still worried that she wasn’t going to take them. We wound up getting her address from someone else that knows her. Things seemed to work out for the best though. When the cab pulled up in the parking area, Penny was just walking up.

Once we dropped the cats off, everything else seemed easy. We went back to the house, ate a light meal, showered, weighed our luggage (who wants to pay overage fees at 15 SGD per kilogram?), and headed out the door. It was a short taxi ride to the terminal and we enjoyed a good smoke before going in.

Getting Your Kittens Adopted, Done Right

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This is the right way to get your kittens adopted.  You post an ad on your local board, with a link to something like this:

I saw this, got hooked on the music and wound up taking in both Cat2 and Cat3.  The tune is so catchy that you might find yourself humming it after a while.  I plan on setting it as the ringtone for when my wife calls.  She’s a big cat lover.  If you’re curious it’s called Meow Meow Meow by a Hong Kong group called At17.

Green Sign Cat Litter Is Horrible!

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I know it’s kind of odd to actually write a post about litter, but I just wanted to mention this to hopefully save someone else some hassle and wasted money.

I got this Green Sign litter at the local pet shop. I normally buy Fussy Cat, but I saw this sitting out on display so to speak with a sale tag on it. Normal price: 24 SGD. Sale price: 12 SGD. So, I thought, ‘Hey, it’s on sale! Something that normally costs 24 bucks has to be good right?‘ So I grabbed a bag and went up to the counter. I did ask the girl there if the litter was good, and she said that it’s supposed to be good for the environment. I told her that I’m not really interested in that. I just wanted to know if it was good for cats. She gave some ambiguous answer that I can’t remember at the moment and I proceeded to buy it.

In retrospect, my first thought shouldn’t have been, ‘It usually costs 24 bucks so it must be good.‘ My first thought should have been, ‘It’s on sale for more than half off. Why?‘

Well, I found out why.

1. My cats hated it. They actually refused to use the litterbox for over a day. I was getting worried they would crap or pee on the floor somewhere so I had to put them both in a cage with a litterbox full of this stuff until they used it. I later found out that cats get partial to their litter type and don’t like to switch up. So, that may have been part of it, but the whole time I had it I swear they ate less and went to the litterbox less. So, why didn’t I just dump it and get the regular litter? Well, litter isn’t cheap, and Fussy Cat isn’t light either. They just had to deal with it until it was time to get fresh litter.

2. The stuff is MESSY!

As you can see from this lovely image, it does clump… sort of. What actually happens is that it turns into a green gel like substance that adheres to the bottom of the litter box and has to be scraped off with your scooper. In fact… I still have to clean my scooper now that I think about it. (I just replaced the litter today.)

3. Cats play with the darndest things. These weird litter pellets seemed to fascinate them in ways I hadn’t anticipated. The cats were very quick to dip their paw into the box, pull out a few pieces, and then play kick with them all over the place. I’m sure I’ll be finding these litter pellets under and behind furniture for weeks. Fussy Cat (sand-type) litter isn’t much better, but at least it doesn’t give cats the notion that it’s a toy.

So, save yourself some time and bucks and avoid this fancy enviro-friendly junk. Just stick with your regular sand-type litter. Oh, and Fussy Cat is great! It really helps to reduce odor, and it clumps up very nicely.

My Cat is in Heat

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A few days ago, we noticed that one of our cats, Bouncy, was acting funny. She was being a lot more affectionate than usual. Typically, this cat is the epitome of the aloof bitch cat. So, we were wondering what had happened. She was even coming to us and rubbing against our legs.

This went on for two days, and then she started making these weird mewling noises in the night. I was beginning to wonder if she was sick, and then it dawned on me. She’s about 8 months old. Maybe she was in heat? Sure enough, that’s what it is! Today, she started assuming the position and scuttling around with her butt in the air. It’s kinda weird really. It’s like my cat is hitting on me. To make things more interesting, we have a male kitten in the house. He’s only two months old, but Bouncy apparently thought he could satisfy her urges. She started laying down near him with her butt in the air. Being a kitten though, Timmy was only worried about one thing. He wanted to PLAY! So, when she poked her butt up at him, he bit and swatted her tail. Then he started slapping her cootchie. She didn’t like that much. She would scoot forward a bit, meowing strangely, and then poke her butt back up in the air.

We wanted to double check, to make sure it was actually her being in heat and not some weird cat illness, so we looked it up on the internet and found the following information on About.com:

  • Immediately preceding oestrus, your female cat may become unusually affectionate, by sidling up and rubbing her hind quarters against furniture, stuffed toys, other cats, and/or her favorite human.
  • She may spend excessive time licking her genital area. Note: Lacking the other behavioral traits on this list, genital licking can be a symptom of a urinary tract disorder, which can be serious if not treated promptly.
  • The Queen (name for female cats of breeding age) will vocalize loudly. This “calling” may go on for several days, unless she mates.
  • She will assume a mating position: head down, forelegs bent, rear quarters raised to expose the perineum (this raised posture is called lordosis), with the tail raised and held to the side of the body. Her rear legs will tread rhythmically, as if walking in place.
  • Queenie may also spray vertical surfaces with a strongly scented fluid. She will accomplish this by backing up to the surface and raising her tail high. The tail may quiver, and she may perform the rhythmic treading described in step four.
  • If your female cat does not mate, she will go into oestrus as often as every two to three weeks, for several months each year, until she either mates or is spayed.

 

We also found the following tips:

  • Unless she is a qualified pedigreed breeder, your female cat should be spayed. It will not only cease the uncomfortable heat cycles, but prevent certain serious medical problems.
  • Your veterinarian may be able to give your female cat hormones to stop the oestrus, if spaying is not immediately possible.
  • Female cats as young as four months can go into oestrus.

 

So, bad news for Bouncy! Looks like she’s in an “uncomfortable heat cycle” and will have to get her junk chopped up in the near future. Poor Bouncy. At least she’ll get a cool ear tattoo out of the deal. (Spayed/nuetered cats in Singapore either get their ear clipped, or get an ear tattoo to indicate completion of the procedure).

I managed to get some of it on video, so for your viewing pleasure:

Horny Cat, Playful Kitten

Itim Na Pusa Photo Update 2

Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

My, my! Look how Timmy’s grown! He’s getting so big so fast! He’s a really good cat. I wasn’t sure about him at first, but now he’s very energetic and playful. Our other two cats have both taken a liking to him. My wife is really fond of him too. What’s best about Timmy is his poses. I’ll try to get some pictures of that later. When he sees something that interests him he stretches his neck to look and his eyes get really really big! I’ll try to get some photos of that for next time. The only thing about Timmy that disappointed me is that his bright blue eyes turned green. A black cat with bright blue eyes would have been really cool. Still, a black cat is neat. Sometimes he’ll sleep on a black blanket, or in a shaded spot and you won’t even see him til you’re almost standing on him. It’s fun, but sometimes it scares my wife. We’ll be laying on our bed, watching a horror movie, and all of a sudden Timmy will pop up out of the shadows next to her and startle her. I think it’s funny…