Thursday, October 04, 2007
slinky's pet faves and peeves
Faves:Bicycles. She likes sniffing bicycle pedals, and saunters to one whenever one approaches. I believe this is because the neighbourhood cat lady does her rounds on bicycle. Slinky knows her as much as she knows me because that's how she gets fed when I am not around or whenever she doesn't want to come inside. As a result she like bicycles. There is a bicycle parking area nearby and she sometimes hangs out there with Spotty-cat who looks like her but is white with black patches.
My storeroom. She has scratched the storeroom door badly (notti-cat!) and whenever we open the storeroom door she scurries inside. We have since stopped her because it is impossible to extricate her when she hides inside - too many things within. Also, the first time she went inside we didn't realise and C shut the door on her. We went out for lunch and we couldn't trace the cat when we left (in the house or out?). We came home, wondering, calling 'Slinky!' and paused when we heard a small mew coming vaguely from somewhere in the house. So I stop her now. She gets the meaning of a loud 'no' and we have not lost our cat in the storeroom again since. Although still looks longingly whenever we open the storeroom door...
Whatever I am eating, especially chicken or fish. I enjoy feeding her tiny bits of my food if I know she will like it (minus the fats and gravy as much as possible). She once licked the cover of my ice cream tub though, and I think while it was interesting, coffee-chocolate flavoured ice-cream probably didn't really quite cut it for her. But yet she looks at me happily whenever I am helping myself to some food.
Nose rubs! I think this is a rather universal cat thing.
Boxes and paper bags. Her toys, in which she can pounce on or hide in.
C's laptop bag which she used to use as a bed, but has since moved on after C took it for a business trip and returned it in a less than ideal position for her.
Her other fave sleeping spots - the sofa, on the other end from me, the bed when no one else is on it, my chair when I am not sitting on it, the plastic boxes under the table, the corner behind the tv, and the bathroom mat.
I think she likes me and C although she often does the lashing out that cats do (quick reflexes and plasters help). She often sleeps on C's clothes lying on the bed, sits at our feet or anywhere near us, wags her tail when we call out her name. She also sometimes likes to sniff our legs and feet. When I see the doctor downstairs she will follow me. Into the clinic. And wait outside the doctor's room door in the clinic. I try to get her outside (sick people and furry cat together??) but she wants to be around and the other patients don't really seem to mind, they merely simply watch her. the cute one.
Peeves:
Crowds, like me! She kinda avoids people and physical contact with them unless she is wants to which is quite rare. She avoids going up the stairs to our flat when people are coming down it, she would rather not go out from the flat if she hears people on the stairs, that sort of thing. So to help her through the human traffic, I carry her. If I call her when she is downstairs to follow me home, she will mew at me to indicate she will follow, while stealthily avoiding human traffic along the way very carefully.
She rather hates being hugged and carried, and submits to it only rarely. Otherwise she mews and struggles her way out of my arms.
Catnip snacks and milk: strangely she does not take to these at all.
Other cats, except Gray Cat last time (who disappeared) and Spotty-cat. She is otherwise at loggerheads with all other cats.