Friends of Gizmo
Archive for September, 2009
Natural-born comedians
Sunday, September 6th, 2009
Some side-splitting moments…
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It’s in the bag. Toilet Training: week I
Sunday, September 6th, 2009
That’s a wrap. Gizmo survived her first week of toilet training psychologically intact. Want the scoop?
As per the CitiKitty training guide, we’ve taken things slowly, moving the litter box closer and closer to the toilet in baby steps. It’s now at the halfway mark between the toilet, and its original spot.
Everything went smoothly—except for one little, yellow puddle pooling in the bottom of the bathtub. In her defense, there were some extenuating circumstances. (More on that next post.)
I did, however, gloss over one major detail—mostly for financial reasons. That is, swapping out her old litter for the new, flushable kind first. Cats can be finicky about just about everything. That trait doesn’t stop with kitty litter. A point emphasized by jazz giant Charles Mingus after he successfully trained cat Nightlife back in the day when flushable litter was called newspaper, and probably cost about a nickel. (more…)
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Kitty Cam
Saturday, September 5th, 2009
We’ve all heard the term: when the cat’s away the mice do play. Ever wonder what your cat does while you’re away?
One way to find out is get an electronic watch dog: the Pet’s Eye View digital camera. The 4.5-oz device fastens to any collar wider than 3/8 of an inch, and is both Mac and PC compatible. Compact, it’s a hair more than 2-inches tall by 2-inches wide.
The interval timer can be set to snap shots at one-, five- and 15-minute intervals. Short on space, it only stores around 40 .jpgs. So, the one-second setting will barely give you enough time to get out the door, while the 15-minute interval spans approximately 10 hours. Plenty of time to see some shenanigans. (more…)
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The trouble with toilet training
Friday, September 4th, 2009
Toilet training a cat certainly has benefits. For one, the environment. Stateside, more than two-million tons of kitty litter are piled onto landfills every year. That’s around 100,000 truckloads. {1}. It also makes economic sense. Litter ain’t cheap. And if you have a Persian cat, like I do—or any long haired cat for that matter—and use a specialty brand, cha-ching, it can really add up.
Precious Cat, which bills itself as to No. 1 long-haired cat litter, costs around $15 for an 8 lb.-plastic bottle which, surprisingly enough, doesn’t seem much larger than a gallon of milk, and can fill up my Gizmo’s litter box maybe 2.5 times. Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-. (more…)
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Poor little rich kitty
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
As the stock and real-estate markets continue to shakeout, Forbes magazine’s editors are hard at work rearranging their rich list. Everyone is feeling the strain of the recession. This includes pet owners, and yes, even pets.
Take Tinker for example, a rags-to-riches stray that once prowled the streets of north London by night just looking for a handout. And he got one. Today, he’s ranked as one of the wealthiest cats in the world after Margaret Layne, an elderly widow he befriended, left him her estate when she passed away—an $800,000 house and a trust fund totaling $226,000, according to cbcnews.ca. (more…)
Tags: wealthiest pets
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To Pee or Not to Pee
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
Where is the question.
It takes a sense of humor to live with a cat that pees in the bathtub. I have an idea what to do about it, but if I tell anyone—especially a non-cat person—I get the look. You know, the one with the really forced smile, like I’m nuts and they’ve had too many Botox injections.
All I can say is this: if I’m crazy, I’m in good company. The Angry Man of Jazz—Charles Mingus—toilet trained his cat, Nightlife. Fortunately for (most) everyone I know, I’ll not bore them with all the messy details of the kitty-toilet-training kind. Hence, a blog is born. (more…)
Tags: toilet train cat
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