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You even got Sugarplum inside!
Are Fluffy & Gracie that stand-offish when you donât have a camera? Animals donât know what cameras & phones are; they only see a big hooman staring at them while hiding behind something. Iâve always believed that confuses them and makes them feel uneasy.
You might be able to lure them in with food by placing it a little closer to the door at each feeding, until itâs right next to the (slightly open) door. Then proceed to putting it in the doorway, and ultimately insideâŚ
Cats learn from each other, so Fluffy & Gracie might decide that itâs OK to go inside, based on Sugarplumâs example.
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Oh, sheâs been inside for a couple of years now. Itâs been the last year that she decided not to be in the house proper and live in the screened-in back porch.
Theyâre weirdos. Fluffy will at times follow me around and get very affectionate, getting roly-poly-kitty-oly on the ground. But Gracieâs been reserved from the very start.
Fluffy does come onto the back porch but always stays close to the door. Iâve been able to pick Gracie and bring her in, but she can get spicy! Fluffy wonât even let me pick her up.
And theyâve seen me pick up Plum, Iâve demonstrated to them that sheâs okay with me. But sheâs still not quite okay with them.
Cats have been a part of my life since Iâve been born, and I seem to be somewhat of a âCat Whispererâ; though all it really takes is loads of patience. Iâve been caring for strays since I was a kid, when my folks would allow it.
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My son took this one yesterday.
And he took this one today - yes, Fluffy came in - lured with brekkie this morning.
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From earlier this evening:
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from yesterday.
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Because of the nasty weather - and my fear of asking for help with them - Fluffy and Gracie havenât yet been to the vet. SIGH.
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Allspice has learned to fetch. And not the lame kind some of our previous cats used to do, where theyâd bring a toy back halfway and expect you to go get it and throw it again. Allspice will bring it back and lay it between my feet, and rub against my leg. Over and over. He does this with his favorite toy, a âSquiggly Wormâ 
that looks something like this:
except it has a jingle bell at the top.
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Our guys love those! Except that Ernie loves them so much that he just demolishes them. I have found several haves and pieces 
Did you have anything else to do all day besides ministering to the needs of Allspice, who may have thoughts on the matter?
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So far Allspice has been good about not eating them!
Other things? You mean there are other things to do aside from staffing the cat house?
For one thing, Allspice insists on nursing my wifeâs pajama tops at night, accompanied by an awful slurping sound that I have to mask with sounds of a rainstorm from my cellphone. The two kittensâ mother (a barn cat) disappeared, so they were weaned too soon. I think their foster mother fed them with a syringe at first.
He and Nickel also demand their treat every night. But they are both good kitties, who delight us every day.
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My Ernie and Lily were weaned too soon also, because their mother died when they were two weeks old. She was a shop cat at a mechanic. We used little bottles until they moved to a plate of milk with wet food. Ernie will nurse on anything fuzzy and some other fabrics, and demands to be held a lot. A. Lot. Lily is needy for a cat, but she doesnât leave my stuff wet with spit.
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I need to find some of those worms. The tots would love them⌠and tear them to bits.
More kitty quirks:
Jack would lie on my shoulder and lick my shirt. I had to get used to falling asleep with a sopping wet collar.
Cricket (I donât have any scanned pictures of her, yet) mustâve been weaned too early. When I adopted her she was small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. They had her in a small room with many other kittens; she was terrified of them all and curled up so tightly that she was shivering. A person next to me saw her and said, âI wouldnât want that one! Thereâs something wrong with that one!â I had already made up my mind that she was coming home with me. She was a very timid girl at first, afraid of everything, but she came out for me and would dance around my legs when I came home from work. She thought it was fun to steal things from me. Iâd be working at my computer and Iâd see her little paw reaching out from behind the monitor to snatch something, then sheâd run out of the room with her ill-gotten gains. At night she would curl up next to my head, and occasionally sneeze on my face.
The things we do for love.
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Thatâs such a sweet story. Good for you for adopting the little one.
Years ago, we saw a picture of tiny tortoiseshell cat on the shelter website and decided to adopt her. The foster mom warned that she had a lot of medical problems, but we adopted her anyway and named her Gloriosa. She had a suspicious mass our vet removed while spaying her. She also had a damaged eye and four inverted nipples that had to be removed (because they were painful I think). Fortunately the eye didnât get worse, and we had her for 13 years. She was a sweet wonderful little cat, who had the LOUDEST meow you ever heard. She would meow over her water bowl. We think she used sonar to find the water surface.
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No particular story here.
I make my Dad (heâs 87) a calendar every year.
So Iâd like to share a few months of Baillie with you:
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Iâm a hardcore cat person but Baillie is a dreamboat!
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We had to have the plumber in to clean out the drainage in a bathroom, using their largest snake. A few days later we happened to notice the hair strainer in the bathtub was missing. We figured somehow the plumbers had misplaced it. A few days later we found it under the bed:
How the cats managed to get the springy cat toy twisted into the strainer is a mystery we are not meant to know.
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Allspice got up on a table, then on to papers in an open file cabinet my wife was filing something in, to bat at a blinds cord.
I said âHe wants to bat that dangly thing!â
And I said (as I often do), âHey that would make a good song title!
'Bat That Dangly . . . . oh.â
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