Conference misery::feline_v1

    I was working around in the kitchen, in and out of the cabinets,
    then I realized Pussycat didn't seem to be around.  I looked all
    over.  Then I thought....and opened the cabinets, to find a large,
    lovely Morris-type cat sitting quietly in the cabinet over the
    sink.  guilt.  worry.  sigh.  poor puss, what a terrible Mom I
    was.
    

    I've ALMOST forgotten to put the litter in the box.  The best one
    I've done is once during a party (which my cats usually spend hiding
    under the bed - my house is very small, and there is no good place
    to shut them up for their safety during a party) I spotted Nebula,
    the bolder of the pair around noisy crowds, acting strangely at
    the end of the hall near the bedroom where she had been hiding.
    She was investigating the carpetting, looking nervously at the hordes
    of strangers trooping uip and down the steps - their cat box is
    in the basement, as well as my husband's collection of pinball
    machines, which is why so many people were down there.  I grabbed
    her and took her downstairs and dumped her in the box!  She did
    her business and then meowed plaintively until I carried her back
    up and put her back under the bed - I guess she was afraid she would
    get stepped on (as a black kitty in a dimly-lit stairwell) if she
    tried the trek on her own, and was considering how much trouble
    she would be in if she used the carpet! Good thing I was watching!

    I was putting clothes away in the various drawers of my kids room
    and very nicely (and neatly) closed all the drawers.
    
    I have two cats that are very lovable and quiet (except at feeding
    time) and did not miss them until a few hours later.  When it came
    time to feed them, only one cat came to the `dinner' table.  I searched
    the whole house from one end to the other with no luck.  I even
    searched outside figuring the baby had snuck thru the door when
    someone opened it.  After one VERY frantic hour, Deja decided to
    let me know where she was.  I had closed one of the drawers with
    her laying inside.  Why she didn't let me know she was there earlier,
    I will never know.  What a brat...
    
    Sandi
    

    Re: previous, and my cabinet story
    
    Does anyone know _why_ cats shut up in dark places generally don't
    make a sound?  What is going on in their furry little heads?
    

    I also closed the drawer on Snuggles.  When I went to get him out
    he almost got stuck.  He must have put his head up when I was opening
    the drawer.  Boy was I scared for a minute, but I managed to get
    him unstuck without hurting him.
    
    Snuggles has also snuck into the closet when I get my coat to go
    to work.  Talk about feeling guilty.  I've come home from work with
    no greeting and go frantic looking for him to find he's been in
    the closet all day with no food or box.  Now whenever I go out I
    always am sure to find him and say good bye after I get my coat
    out of the closet.
    
    Re: -1 I have no idea why they are so quiet.  Maybe they're waiting
    there to surprise you.
    
    Kathy

    Re .last_several:
    
    It doesn't always work that way.  When my Merlin was still a kitten,
    he discovered how to go up the _back_ of a chest of drawers, pushing
    each drawer out just a bit, and finally squeeze througfh the back
    of a drawer into a nice resting place.  [I mentioned elsewhere he's
    not only a cat genius -- his is the equivalent of a feline I.Q.
    of about 180 -- but he likes to find obscure hiding places.]  He
    started this trick young, and kept it up until he was too big to
    fit through the back of the drawers.  You have no idea how
    disconcerting it was to open a drawer and find a cat placidly looking
    up at you....
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Three times I have had one of the cats (different ones each time)
    get left in the recliner. There is a spot they can get in when the
    chair is open but not get out when the chair is closed.
    
    Each one has spent long times-the longest was 24 hours.My housekeeper
    evidently shut one up. The second longest was about 12 hours.
    
    Each time it was a case of a missing cat -where are they etc.
    None of them ever let out a peep.The one that stayed 24 hours
    was weak as it was fairly warm and the only reason I thought 
    to look was I was searching for cat Poop odor.
    
    It is hard for me to check under so now I take a broom and spiggle
    under it before going to bed everynight. Several times one has
    come out from underneath. I never see them go in though.
    

    My two cats deliberately try (and sometimes succeed) to open
    cabinet/closet doors and then go hiding behind a pile of linnen/towels
    for hours. At the beginning I used to automatically shut these
    doors which were just ajar when I walked by them without looking
    inside. By now I know better, I either leave the doors open or
    check on which shelf the cat is chase him/her out of the closet
    and then close the door. This approach however always gets me an
    angry meow and the cats turn right around and try to open that door
    again. Oh well, you learn to live with these things when you have
    cats.
    Martha
    

    
    Re .0
    
    Yesterday I picked Mandy up from the vets.  First thing she wanted
    was food, so naturally mommy filled her bowl.  While kitty was chowing
    I figured I could run upstairs and clean the litter box.  Well we
    have one of those boxes with a little cover on it ( Mandy likes
    to wipe her dirty little feet on the walls around the litter box).
    I took the cover off and placed it behind me.  I then proceeded to
    empty and refill the box.  Well I turned around and picked up the
    cover and to my surprise there was Mandy underneath it peeing on
    the bathroom rug.  Poor little dear mustn't have gone in a long
    time.  Well I never laughed so hard - What a silly Mommy I am!

    When I drove out to Mass from California, I had my cat Dazdee
    keep me company on the drive out.  He was great in the car 
    (slept all day while driving).  However, I stopped in Tulsa,
    Ok to visit my great Aunti Pie.  Aunti Pie has china, and 
    little nicknac type of BREAKABLE expensinve stuff all over
    the house.  I couldn't let Dazdee loose  in the house and
    was afraid to let him loose in the yard for fear he would
    get lost in a strange neighborhood.  So I had to keep him in
    the car for 3 days.  (I had food, litter, and water with the
    car parked in the shade with all the windows down more then
    a crack)  I felt so guilty having to leave him in there I
    still hate myself for doing this to my baby.  He didn't seem
    to have any ill effects, but guilt over this will plague me
    forever.
    
    Katie
    

    Well, we've partially solved the problem of kitties hiding in linen
    closets and cabinets.  Our two would decide they wanted in the cabinets
    sometime during the wee hours of the morning.  We would be "treated"
    to the banging of the cabinet doors as they attempted to open them,
    then the crash of cookware or dull thud of linens as they got
    comfortable. I finally went to the hardware store and bought small door
    magnets. They work great.  There's just enough tension to keep the
    cats from banging or opening the doors, but not enough to make it
    difficult for us to get in (unlike the childproof locks we've recently
    had to install for our son!).  Kind of a mean mom for taking my
    kitties fun away.
    
    We also had a problem with the cats tearing around the house and
    shutting themselves in a room in the process.  I again went down
    to my local hardware store and all our doors now have doorstops.
    Kitties just looked so pitiful after being shut in 1 room all day that
    I couldn't stand it.
            
    We now have a cat-proof, semi-childproof house.  Our biggest challenge
    is yet to come - childproofing our cats, or is that catproofing
    our child?
    
    Lynne
    

    re .13 (Lynne):
    
    >....I finally went to the hardware store and bought small door
    >magnets. They work great.  There's just enough tension to keep the
    >cats from banging or opening the doors, but not enough to make it
    >difficult for us to get in ...  
    
    Merlin, my genius, taught himself how to use leverage to open _latched_
    doors.  Such magnets don't slow him down for a minute (one of his
    occasional sports: to open and close magnetic-closed under-the-sink
    doors in the bathroom, noisily, when my wife and I are trying to
    sleep).  We had to get a bolt for a couple of doors on account of
    him.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    re .14
    
    Oh no, thank goodness my fur-balls can't read!
    
    L.

    Steve,
    
    Manxes can open ANYTHING!  Haven't you figured that out? ;-)
                                         

    Rita_who_lived_with_a_refridgerator_opening_Manx_with_a_special_penchant_
    for_prime_rib

    I learned a valuable lesson with Alex that caused me considerable
    guilt.
    
    He was an indoor cat, so he had never needed a collar for
    identification or fleas.  One Christmas, his Grandma gave him a pretty
    collar with him name embroidered on it.  I was concerned about making
    him uncomfortable with the new adornment, so I put the collar on
    somewhat loose.  A few days later, when I came home from work I noticed
    he was limping quite badly.  I immediately checked him out and found
    that he had worked his front leg inside the collar and couldn't get it
    out!  No telling how long he had been stuck like that, but I took the
    collar off and put it away forever!!  I felt so guilty for having
    submitted him to such discomfort.  He forgave me instantly, however!!
    
    I do think it is very important to have a collar tight enough to avoid
    this happening to an outside cat who may find himself or herself caught
    on something with much more serious consequences. 

    Re:  .17
    
    My indoor cats wear collars with id tags -- you never know when
    someone will break into the house or whatever and they'll somehow
    get outside.  Natch, I make sure the collars are the correct tightness
    (being able to slip two fingers underneath is the rule of thumb
    I've heard), adn they're expandable so they can get them off if
    they get caught on something (so the theory goes, I hope it never
    comes to the test.)
    
      

    RE: .18
    
    My indoor kitties also wear collars with ID tags for the same reason.
    I made a point to get "safety collars" so that if the animal got
    caught on something, the collar would come off and not hang himself.
    These collars are woven nylon and either have no holes (so the collar
    just slides through the buckle or have a regular buckle but have
    a elastic between two pieces of the collar so that they will stretch.
    Sounds real safe, right? Well, my heat seeker Eirene (who sleeps
    as close to the radiator as she can get) pulled her's off. When
    I looked at it, I say that one edge of the collar was longer than
    the other because it had *MELTED* and was chocking her. Thank god
    she was able to pull it off herself.
    
    I'd like to urge anyone that has a heat seeker that wears one of
    those brightly colored, woven nylon collars to check to make sure
    that they haven't shrunk (melted) and are chocking the cat.
    
    Deb

    Mandy use to  wear a flea collar when we lived in our apartment.
    We followed the old rule of thumb as was mentioned (2 fingers).
    She wore it for about six months without any problem.  Well one
    evening I came home to feed Mandy and then run out to meet my husband
    for dinner.  I knew something was wrong when I came home because
    Mandy didn't run to the door and meow.  She was behind the door
    looking at me with a funny face (if cats can have funny faces).
    Then I saw the blood all over the floor and her paws.  Immediately
    I assumed she cut her paws on some glass that she broke.  I got
    a cloth to clean her paws.  When I cam back in the kitchen, she
    was still looking at me funny and she still hadn't meowed.  Finally
    I realized that her mouth was hanging open and that the collar
    was stuck in her mouth.  She was scratching at her face to get it
    off.  My poor baby had one huge sore on one side of her face and
    a small one on the other side.  Needless to say we brought her to
    the vets instead of dinner.  After that we said no more flea
    collar ( she is an indoor cat anyway).  Well then there was the
    time she got out because of some idiots.  While she was lost I was
    cursing myself for not putting an ID tag on her.  
    
    So for Christmas, Mandy received a breakaway collar for christmas
    to put her ID tag on.  Well this red collar had a little bell on
    it.  We put it on her and the weight of the ID tag adjusted the
    collar so the bell was in back.  Mandy was playing for a while
    with her other present (cat nip mouse) when she decided to run
    around wildly.  Well when she heard that bell she flipped out, she
    was trying to run away from it.  She would stop look around, the
    bell would stop.  She would start to play and the bell would jingle
    and she would bolt to get away from it.  It was pretty funny, until
    5 minutes later she got so paranoid she wouldn't come out from under
    the couch.  Needless to say the bell did not last and she is getting
    use to her collar.  She now plays with the cutoff bell, I think
    she likes it better when she can see her foes!
    
    

    Mary - 
    
    We've had a somewhat similar experience in the past.  When my husband
    and I were first married, (we only had Momma Kiwi) we lived in an
    old apartment where the floors were crooked and the doors had to
    be kept ajar with a door stop.
    
    Well, one night (after I'm off to a deep sleep) Kiwi kept coming
    up to the bedroom and jumping on and off the bed.  Then eventually
    I became coherent enough to hear a faint scratching noise downstairs.
    I went down to see what she was doing and took one look at her
    (what an exasperated look on her face) and felt sooo guilty.  Somehow,
    I had let the door leading into the kitchen where her litter box
    was, close shut.  What she improvised was to leave her calling card
    next to my largest palm tree-type plant, and then proceeded to shovel
    all the dirt out to cover it.   What a Sight!  I'll never forget
    that look on her face . . . it said, "Mom, I was trying to tell
    you, but you just didn't listen, so I didn't know what else to do!"
    
    
    Ah Memories!
    
    Pam