As others said, they don’t like that!

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And the winner is ....

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Good catch
even with one eye

Cat Fishing....

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Need help. As everyone knows, I had to put my little baby girl down almost 2 weeks ago.

I still have her brother (11.5 years old).

What do I do? They were together since birth.

Will he act differently?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Find an equally old girl in a shelter. Then hope they get used to each other. He shouldn’t stay alone.

How is he acting now? I have one from an extremely bonded pair that I lost almost 2 years ago. She was very upset when her pal died, but over time and a lot of love she seems to have gotten somewhat over it. I do still find her checking out where he used to spend most of his time.

Try a meet n greet with a shelter cat of near the same age. Remember, nothing happens overnight, so time is what's needed. Feel him out, maybe he'll be ok. Make sure to spend lots of time with him as a distraction.

You still seem very upset yourself over this. I grieve with you. Our babies are so precious.

Jim

He was always more independent than she was.

He is spending more time with me and definitely wants more attention.

Sounds like he may do well on his own. Now, he will get all the attention and most important, all the treats. Any desire on your part to get another, maybe 2?

Have No Fear, Juniper is here.

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No desire to get another one.

I’ll never find another one with a heart as big as her. She was perfect. She always had a “I love you daddy” look on her face. He just tolerates me. lol

I put a cat condo in the living room tonight. I figure it gives him a little something more in that room.

I felt the same way when my Elvira died. A few months later I told my Wife, maybe we could get another cat but only if it was female, black and I could name her Leia. A month or so later, my Wife brought home a little black furball, I couldn't help but love her. As it turned out, she was in fact a he. It didn't matter, he was now my son and we kept his name as Leia. We had him for 17 years. He has been gone for almost 3 years now and I still miss him.
Give it some time, a little furball may one day come into your life and like me, you will fall in love with it.

I was working in Elvira today and Calvin reminded me it was time to pet him. So I did. For like 8 seconds. Then he went back to his covert lookout spot to watch the world outside.
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I’m very sorry that you lost your Princess. The pain for you will be real for a very long time.

In a year you will be able to think of her and smile even though the tears will still gather. It will get better and you do have those memories to cherish.

Your boy will either be forlorn and miss his sister or will cherish he’s extra time he can have with you now. Cats seem to go either way. We are on our third pair of cats from the same litter now.

Stay strong and give your remaining furr baby lots of hugs.

Those 8 seconds are what make the day better!

My wife feels the same

We had to put our 12 year old cat (Willow) down about 3 weeks ago due to cancer. Willow was a stray that adopted us. For being a grumpy old man, I admit I've shed a bucket of tears over my 4 legged buddy.

This applies to cats too...

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Long story short, this happened:
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I would give this 1000 thumbs up if I could. It's no longer about us, it's about them. We know we can't save them all, that's why it's imperative we save the ones we can. Giving just a little bit of your heart goes a long way.

Spot on. Over the decades, we've adopted 3 dogs and 2 cats. Gave them all a stellar life. But no doubt, they made our lives much better too.

Wonder how many cats in this thread were adopted or strays?

We have 6 now. 3 were adopted at the same time and the other 3 were strays. My wife puts food out for all the homeless cats in the neighborhood and then we proceed to take them in.

First picture has Mavis, Daisy and Salem all adopted. Also Jackson and Saffron, strays.

Second picture is our latest addition last fall, pumpkin.

Man the food and litter bill is killer.

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Thought I would share what to do under stairs….

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How old is Kevin Bacon?

How is he adjusting being a feral?

My 2, we found a litter of kittens (5) outside my brothers house. We had to watch them for 3 weeks. The shelter they were going too, is outside our district. They made us wait. Luckily, the kittens were only about 5-6 weeks old.

I adopted 2. One of my sister in law’s friends adopted 1 (she died at 5). The other 2 were adopted out within 3 days at the shelter.

The mommy cat was only only 2 when she had this litter. We got her fixed. Within a few years of taking care of her, she would come up to me and my sister in law. We were the only 2 that could pet her.

Thanks for finding the kittens homes.

Kevin is about 1 year old.

Ferals are wild (i.e. no human interaction), he was a stray (socialized, either a lost pet or perhaps played with by kids when a kitten). Early on when Kevin (we name all the outdoor cats) first started to show up, I took some wet out and he just happened to be out there, and he took off towards the woods. I called, him, he came running. I knew he was a stray. I did a quick touch on his back and that's all it took - I'm his new best friend. You could tell he was starved for attention. Just wanted to be with people almost more than eat, couldn't get enough of me petting him. I did all the usually social stuff for a 'found cat' so the owner could find him - no one ever contacted me or the shelter. And you could tell he hadn't been wearing a collar since the hair was not matted like usual.

I fed Kevin for a couple of weeks, he slept in a heated/insulated cat shelter outside, but no way was I going to bring him the house with Willow. Whenever I would fill the food and water bowls outside for any of the cats, I'd wear gloves, sanitize my hands, etc. to help keep Willow safe. Willow was my top priority. Kevin would show up every night about 6:40PM and wait on the patio looking towards the window, waiting for me to come out. I eventually got a cage; he walked right in to get the food, I shut the door, and off to the shelter we went the next day.

Willow had to be put down a couple of days later. I don't really want to tell that story, we thought we had at least a few more weeks. It hit me hardest out of all the animals I put to sleep.

So what the FB posting didn't elaborate about was Kevin was placed in quarantine for 4 days (same for all animals). All cats/dogs get vaccines, dewormed, flea/tick topical, etc. Then, being unneutered, he went into what my wife referred to as the 'gangster' cat cell - all the unneutered (and pissed off) males go there to waiting to be fixed. That had to be a stressful. Because of scheduling, that took about 2 weeks. That gave us time to decompress a bit and to decide if we wanted to adopt him. During that time we put our name on the adoption list, and it just so happened our name was first. No commitment on our end, we just considered that a place holder.

So you know how the story ends. Kevin already had a history with us, was just the friendliest cat, and just wanted to be with people...maybe it was fate after all and we eventually adopted him. We always joked our house is the 'Walker Animal Resort'. Once in, they get a life of luxury. The two or so weeks it took to adopt at least gave us time to think about it and not make a rash decision. In the end, we'd kick ourselves for not adopting him - he found us, just like Willow did.

We live in a rural area, but the shelter built a new facility recently just a few miles down the road. Once they opened, we visited fairly often to socialize the animals and to make donations. Great staff and volunteers.

He went from this:
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To this:
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He's adapted quite well to living inside.

Sorry, didn't mean to take the thread slightly off topic with a long winded story. Just a very odd chain of events.

I think the pinball portion is optional…

LOVE your history with Kevin Bacon!

Is he strictly indoors now?

I donate to my local shelter too. They do such wonderful work there.

Yep, just indoors. Just as a precaution, I stuck a Tile Sticker tracker on his collar just in case. Not sure how well that works, better than nothing. So far, he's shown zero interest in going back outside.

Your sister-in-law's friend definitely got the short end of the stick with her adopted kitten.

This is amazing stuff! I have all my tools under the stairs, but this makes a lot of sense. Do you have any more photos? I'd love to take this on as a weekend project.

Whenever I’m working on hulk, I always have a supurrvisor. He is great company !

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Sleeping on the job.

Well if you’re not going to give me a backbox, this is what happens.

What a handsome fella !

Thanks. You need a staircase at least 1m wide to fit cupboards underneath that are 400mm deep.

We have 3.4m high ceilings downstairs so our staircase has 6 steps then a 180 landing with remaining 14 steps leading to our attic. And yes we have carried pins up it with varying success.

Under the 6 stairs is a nook for litter and then a cupboard under the landing for washing baskets etc. our landing is halfway up an old external window which we have made internal. The cats get a little hidey hole with a grate on top to fill in the gap between landing and glass. They can look out here over the pinballs down stairs.

The thought process with this is cupboards in three different heights, a sleeping platform above the main door reusing the old glass above the door as another view for them and then walking platforms and boxes connecting everything up. Feeding platforms are like a bookcase with side protection so cats can’t steal rack others dinners. Worked with my old cats. Kittens have no manners. Scratching tree between feed area and cupboards.

Sorry if it’s not clear. More photos.

For cat flap cut into door you need a solid door. We just hinge the cutout behind with a barrel bolt to lock in closed position. We wanted a car flap without it being ugly.

Should have cleaned up the vomit stains, Charlie's a bit of a chucker...

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Don't think I ever posted this one of Molly. She's since passed away but she was a true pinball cat. In her honour.....

Fascinating! And now I have to ask: surely your pins are not outdoors?!

Omar comin'

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Someone loves the ball launcher!

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Beautiful colors on a big kitty!

Snake Jazz likes to keep close to me now a days. I fell asleep on the couch he other day, and woke up to this:
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Our poor little baby kitty Charlotte had a very bad accident involving an electric recliner. She was hiding inside, and her tail go caught in the ball screw. She was trapped for about 30 minutes while we worked to get her free. My sister (Trauma PA) was with us, and did some emergency stitches and repair, and we saw the vet the next day they were open.

It's been 3 weeks, and her tail is not healing, unfortunately. She has to have the portion below the wound amputated on Monday. She's otherwise doing pretty well, though another 10-14 days in the cone will be more misery. Over a month recovering from this now! We're 100% at fault. We had identified these recliners as a hazard, and thought being careful in their use would work. We've since unplugged them, never to be used again. I feel so bad for our little girl, but she'll be just fine with half a tail.

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Freya (duluted calico)and Cole (black)watching and helping Dad with the machines

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Sorry to hear about your kitty and the recliner. That's also a worry of mine.

You can buy a 'soft' cone, she might tolerate that a bit better if needed. A random screen shot from Amazon:
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Thank you for both the support and thoughtful idea, so very much. What a great community, with others chipping in with wonderful suggestions.

We've tried about a half-dozen cones on our little girl, and nothing kept her from messing with her tail. We ended up with the contraption shown above (clear cone backed up by a donut). It's the only thing we've found that works, unfortunately. This is apparently common with cats and tail injuries, for the obvious reason that can still reach it mostly.

We had her on painkillers for 3 weeks, and those just ended. This makes her sleepy and it really helps with her pain; she doesn't bother her tail at all while on those. She'll get another 2-week prescription on Monday with the surgery. The most upsetting thing has been the very-long recovery process and need to keep her in that damn cone. At least we have an end-date now.

All the best with her recovery. Our poor little Abyssinian kitten Nutmeg got caught in the seat part of a manual recliner 30 years ago. We were staying at our mums place. Can remember seeing the lump in the seat. Was ready to cut the seat open to get her out. Luckily she wriggled herself out of there when we opened the cat can for an impromptu dinner.

Would be good if furniture company put some sort of stretchy netting underneath to stop kittens from doing this. I’m sorry for her loss but overjoyed to see she is on the mend. Must have been an awful experience. Be sure to post photos once she’s mended.

It's tough watching our little pals dealing with an injury.

Ahhh...I didn't even notice the donut behind the clear cone.

This little guy almost got crushed with the Harbor Freight lift table. She has gotten hurt doing other things, like chasing lizards up the screened porch.

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So sorry to hear. I’m always to be extra careful with potential things like that.