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Tag Archives: danger cat

A Nosy, Too-Smart Cat

04 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by SaraS in Cats, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cat condo, danger cat

So I think Pippin is the world’s nosiest cat.

Lately he has been spending more time in the house. He comes in in the morning and hangs out all day. In the evening he is usually anxious to return to the cat room to eat his canned food. We then lock him up during the night (because of this).

Anyway, if there is a closed door, he thinks he should be allowed to see what’s on the other side. He has become very interested in the basement for some reason. If we leave the door open for a moment (say, to go start some laundry), there is a good chance that he will be on his way down the stairs as you come back up. Or he’s already down there, snooping around the camping gear and exercise equipment.

The basement door

The basement door

So we try to keep the basement door closed, but this door doesn’t latch properly. It shuts very tight, but no latch. Which means that clever Pippin has figured out how to open it. (This is, after all, the cat that has become very good at escaping the backyard. He is sometimes too smart for his own good.)

It is pretty amusing to watch. He sticks his front feet under the door to pull, and pushes his body against the wall until it pops open.

I managed to record this with my phone a few weeks ago. Not the best video but you can see his technique pretty well.

Not So Smart All the Time

All this food in this room is for dogs, you silly cat!

As smart as Pippin may be, he doesn’t always get it right. A few days after he figured out the basement door trick, he came in my office while I was getting something out of the office closet. And he discovered that we have a big box of dog biscuits, as well as the dog food bin, stashed in the closet. Apparently he can’t read the box that says “Dog” since he decided he really wanted to get into that box and sample the biscuits.

I shooed him out and closed the door and went on with whatever I was doing at the time. A little while later, I noticed Pippin attempting the same trick he used on the basement door – pulling on the door while pushing against the wall.

You will never succeed in pulling open the office door!

You will never succeed in pulling open the office door!

The only problem is, as you can probably tell in this picture, this door pushes in. So all his pulling and tugging in the world is never going to make a difference. Plus it does latch securely, which is a good thing or all the dogs would be in there all the time, raiding both the biscuit box and the food bin.

I find it just a little amusing to see him attempt this for a while, then glare at me in frustration as though it is somehow my fault.

Pippin’s Halloween

31 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by SaraS in Backyard, Cats

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

cat condo, danger cat

Several weeks ago, we replaced a section of fence in the back yard. There were two main reasons for this:

the old fence with Pippin perched on top

the old fence with Pippin perched on top

  1. It was a strange, old, ugly fence built out of logs, and it was starting to fall down in spots.
  2. Pippin had started escaping the back yard at night. However he was getting out, he couldn’t get back in, so he’d sit on the front porch and cry (loudly) in the middle of the night till we woke up and let him back in. We suspected he was using the concrete wall we added for the waterfall this past summer to jump the fence (he has no front claws so he couldn’t be climbing out).

Anyway, we replaced the fence with a more normal-looking fence, complete with a custom trellis to make it tall enough (hopefully) keep Pippin in. We finished it up back in mid-October.

new fence from the outside

new fence from the outside

Pippin stayed in the yard for several nights so we thought we solved the problem. We had several cold nights, so on those evenings we locked both cats up in the cat room to keep the heat in, so he didn’t have any opportunity escape for a while.

This past weekend, we finally setup the cat door in the cat room so that they could go outside when they wanted. All was fine for a few nights…

Until this morning (October 31), around 7 am when we heard Pippin crying at the front door again! At least this time he waited till morning instead of yelling in the middle of the night.

Hmm…a black cat with amazing escape artist abilities…and he waited until Halloween to demonstrate that he could still overcome the fence.

So…from now on, that cat is getting locked up at night.

Oh well, it is still a really nice fence and I’m glad that project is done – one less thing to worry about next spring.

panoramic photo from the inside

panoramic view of the fence from the inside

It was Totally the Cat’s Fault!

09 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by SaraS in Cats, Dogs

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

danger cat, rat terriers, vet bills

It all started with a cat learning how to use the dog door and ended with an expensive vet bill. Well, that may be bit of an exaggeration, but not much.

Pippin has been slowly checking out the dog door for coming into the house. He likes being out in the backyard, and he likes his luxury kitty apartment, but sometimes he also likes to come in the house. He expresses this desire by using the barbecue grill as a stage; he gets up there and yells and yells and yells until we open the door for him.

Then he just stands there for a minute, as though he isn’t really sure he wants in or not. He just wants the option to come in. Once he is in, he hangs out for a while before sitting at the back door and yelling again to be let out.

He sort of reminds me of this.

So we started encouraging him to use the dog door instead of just yelling. I’m not sure whether or not this was really such a good idea, but file it under “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

He might have figured it out anyway since his cat apartment also has a pet door installed, but it is a smaller, lighter one. The dog’s door is big to accommodate the standard poodles and it has two flaps to better keep out cold air. Still, once he got the hang of of the kitty door, it seemed likely that he would figure out the big dog door too. He’s certainly watched the dogs go in and out often enough.

Distracted by the Cat!

So Monday night we decided to run over to Noodle Express for a quick dinner. There are a few quick tasks we always do on the way out the door to make sure the dogs don’t get in trouble. The most important one is to lock the kitchen trash can in the bathroom to keep the dogs from getting into it. They are very good at knocking it down and having their own personal doggy feast. Usually they like to drag all the trash into my office to munch on. I’m not sure why my office is such a great place for trash eating. Darwin’s crate is in there, so he has to sit there and watch them chow down right in front of him, which always struck me as sort of mean on the part of the other dogs.

Anyway, we started getting ready to head out. I grabbed a coffee mug and a glass off my desk to put in the kitchen (just in case), intending to put away the trash next. On my way to the kitchen, I saw Pippin outside the dog door, standing up on his hind legs and poking at the door with his paw. Apparently all the time watching the dogs run in and out was starting to click. You could almost see the wheels turning in his little head.

We both stopped what we were doing and watched him examining the door. He didn’t try going through just yet, but he was definitely thinking about it.

An Express Exit from Noodle Express

We were getting pretty hungry for dinner, so we left Pippin to continue figuring things out and we headed on out to dinner. Ordered our usual rice bowls (I think they recognize us there) and two slices of their terrific chocolate mousse pie.

I’m not sure what made me think of it, but about halfway through dinner, I said “Did we put away the trash?”

Renee looked up from her rice bowl in horror and shook her head.

“Oh crap.”

We quickly realized that Pippin had distracted us during our normal pre-leaving tasks.

We got “go” boxes for the rest of our rice and had them package up the mousse pie to go. Renee drove like a maniac to get home. I hoped that the dogs hadn’t had time yet to notice the unguarded trash can.

When we pulled into the driveway, we knew we were in trouble. No dogs in the window watching for us. That was never good news.

I hurried in to the house. Sure enough, the can was knocked over and trash spewed all over the dining room carpet. Abby was in the bedroom; she doesn’t usually get involved in this. Strangely, the usual suspects (Sirus and Myka) were not in the room. Cricket, on the other hand, was standing right in the middle of the mess.

Not Innocent Dogs

These dogs are not innocent in matters of trash

Despite her small size, Cricket is not innocent when it comes to trash. I used to have a lightweight plastic trashcan, and she could grab the bag in her teeth and pull the whole thing over. I switched to a heavier metal can like we have now and she couldn’t do that anymore, but she could still sometimes get on her hind legs and grab at any items up near the top. She’s probably the one who taught the poodles to even notice the trash can in the first place.

Sirus and Myka were out in the backyard for some reason. Maybe they had eaten enough and just weren’t interested. Or they were startled out of their feast by Pippin actually coming in through the dog door, for he had finally managed to do it. I looked in my office to see if they had hauled any trash in there, and saw Pippin sitting comfortablely on my desk. He had also left a light paw-print on the lid of my closed laptop.

Here’s Where the Story Gets a Little Scary

We cleaned up the mess (the vacuum was more than Pippin could take and he bolted back through the dog door) and tried to relax the rest of the evening, but we were concerned. The trash had contained two quart-sized bags of old gorp leftover from our summer backpack trips. Peanuts, raisins, dried cranberries, and M&Ms. All things that aren’t good for dogs.

Sure enough, at three in the morning Cricket got up and started vomiting. Cleaning up dog vomit is never pleasant, but this was especially awful smelling puke. We stewed for a few minutes. Could we wait till morning, or should we just accept the cost of going to the emergency vet clinic? She sat uncomfortably in the bed and shook, not wanting to lie down and relax.

We decided it was emergency and got up to take her in. I was still on the phone with the vet clinic when she threw up bloody bile in the kitchen. Definitely an emergency now.

It was $95 up front at the emergency clinic. After a quick exam, the doctor said they would do an x-ray to check for any foreign objects, then provide some sort of charcoal treatment to bind up the rest of the trash and keep her from absorbing it, and then set her up with IV fluids so she doesn’t get dehydrated. We had to leave her there. We went home and went back to bed, although I really didn’t sleep all that well.

Cricket stayed at the vet hospital all day Tuesday. They told us she vomited again in the early morning (around 7 and again at 7:30). They didn’t want her to come home until she had kept food down for several hours, so she had to stay there Tuesday night as well. They told us we could come visit with her, but we figured that would just get her stirred up and then upset her more when we had to leave her there again.

Darwin wasted no time taking advantage of his sister’s absence; he tried to squeeze into her spot on the bed. This was OK at first because he curled up small. As the night went on, he sort of uncurled and stretched out and hogged a large portion of the bed.

Did She Learn Her Lesson? We Sure Did!

Finally this morning she was ready to come home. Apparently she was actually pretty good in her kennel and did not bark and cry as much as I would have expected. The doctor did say she started yapping at her when she didn’t get as much food as she wanted.

She was happy to see us when we picked her up, but then turned her head away to shun us. She was very angry that we took her to that place and left her there. She seems to have forgiven me more quickly than Renee; I’m not sure why. Maybe she expects less from me?

It would be really nice if Cricket learned a lesson from all this and would stay out of the trash from now on. After all, getting into trash just leads to bad things like vet clinics in the middle of the night, IV fluids, and sitting in a kennel all day. Unfortunately, I’m sure she has made no connection between the trash and the hospital stay. If she had the opportunity, she would do it all over again.

Hopefully we’ll do a bit better at staying vigilant when it comes to dog-proofing the house on the way out the door.

On a final note, I do know that the other dogs enjoyed some of that gorp as well. I’ve found plenty of evidence when poop-scooping the backyard, mostly in the form of undigested peanuts. But they seem to be doing OK and suffering no ill-effects, at least so far (fingers crossed that it stays that way).

Pippin Update

14 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by SaraS in Cats

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

danger cat, Pool

A very quick update about Pippin’s adventure in the pool last night.

This morning he was a bit cranky after being cooped up inside all night. But his fur is shiny! It was rainy this morning, so I don’t think it was a huge hardship to be stuck inside. Later, after we opened up his cat door again, I looked out my window and saw him sitting by the pool, leaning over and staring down into the water.

I guess danger kitty didn’t learn his lesson.

Pippin and the Pool

13 Thursday Oct 2011

Posted by SaraS in Cats

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

cat condo, danger cat, Pool

So earlier this evening we were out puttering in the cat condo and visiting with the cats. Pippin got bored with us and left, but Xena continued to enjoy pets and scratches behind her ears. Renee worked on some tasks in the greenhouse, getting things ready for moving the pond plants in for the winter.

The dogs fussed in the backyard, complaining that they are not allowed back in the cat condo.

For some reason, I happened to look up right as Pippin came back to the sliding glass door. Water dripped off his fur into a puddle. He was completely soaked.

That goofy cat went and fell in the pool again! And then managed to get himself back out.

When we looked at the pool deck, there were puddles of water right around the pool ladder we installed this summer. So I’m thinking he was clever enough to use the ladder to climb out of the pool. That is a pretty smart cat!

He didn’t seem too terribly traumatized, but took a long time working at cleaning the water off his fur. By the time we left the cats for the evening, most of his body was dry. We helped out a bit with towel and closed the cat flap to lock him in for the night. The cat is pretty smart, but sometimes he doesn’t have too much sense, and I could easily see him roaming around in the cold all night and getting chilled. I know he is going to be cranky by morning since he is used to having the whole yard for his entertainment at night.

This is at least the second time Pippin has taken a swim since we moved in here. Last October he fell in early in the morning while I was working. I looked out the window to see why the dogs were barking and saw a small black shape swimming rapidly across the pool. I had no idea till then that cats could swim so well. He was at the shallow end when I first saw him; by the time I got outside and on the pool deck, he had gone the full length of the pool and was trying to pull himself out.

It was a cold morning in late October, so I didn’t wait to see if he would be successful. I scooped him out, got a towel, and brought him in the house for the rest of the day to get dry and warm. This is a picture from that day:

Pippin warming up after his swim last October

Pippin warming up after his swim last October

This past summer, we saw some suspicious scratches on the side of the pool in the shallow end. I think he might have fallen in and then scratched up the pool wall with his back claws while climbing out. I’m glad he managed to get out that time since we weren’t around.

Pippin, also known as danger kitty!

pippin_at_fence

Pippin the danger kitty!

 

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