Training HellBeast

HellBeast never misses an opportunity to beat up on Tsingy. Meal times in particular seem to send him into a frenzy. During meal prep, he runs back and forth between the kitchen and the cat room, pummeling Tsingy at one end and screeching and tripping me at the other. He gulps his food, then jumps up on her perch, shoves her aside, and eats hers too. Since Tsingy is a gentle, mild-mannered cat, she never fights back or stands up for herself. So if I'm not vigilant, she can easily go hungry.

Upul and I talked about this in the past but I never really did anything about it other than yell (ineffectually) at HellBeast. While I was in the US, Upul decided to take matters into his own hands. He trained HellBeast to go into an opened dog crate before the cat could get his food. HB could then be safely locked up until Tsingy finished.

This is nothing short of a miracle since it took me and Upul 15 minutes and the judicious use of a broom and partial dismantling of my bed before I could catch HB in a towel and dump him into a cat crate so I could cart him off to the vet for his shots. Blood was drawn (mine) and the dogs were totally freaked out.

But Upul did a good job. The cat will enter an opened dog crate with no command other than the opening of the crate door and wait patiently for his food bowl. He even waits quietly after he's done, so unusually quiet that I sometimes forget he's locked up!

I think I'm going to expand on this success. I am going to train the cat to enter his own crate under his own power.

The power of positive reinforcement.

Curse

I’m convinced by piles of anecdotal evidence /snark: it’s a pet peeve of mine that scientifically illiterate people believe that anecdotes can serve for facts or proof of anything, so I’m using “evidence” with some literary license/ that I have a curse. Before every upcoming trip, be it for business or pleasure, one of the menagerie experiences a health crisis that requires veterinary intervention. I don’t want to provide a detailed list of several years’ worth of crises as that will only make me sad. But I can give you a few details about the most recent data points.

We begin with Azza. Although technically this particular item isn’t a crisis, I decided to have her spayed before I go out on holiday. I’ll be gone for a month and the last thing I wanted was for her to have her first season while I was gone. She and Mimi still get along amazingly well (Mimi is displaying depths of patience that I had no idea that she possessed) but I am not sure how their relationship will change as Azza matures. Getting her spayed at seven months seemed to be a reasonable idea.

These operations are laparoscopic these days and the vet neatly closed the small incision with dissolving sutures. The site is healing cleanly. The problem was keeping this crazed beast calm and quiet for at least a few days to give the incision a chance to close up a bit. Azza is so large that it is hard for me to remember that she is still a baby. And quite unlike any other desert dog that I’ve worked with (I’ve now had close training experiences with about 10 of them besides her), she loves to play and wrestle with quite a bit of enthusiasm. If she isn’t exercised enough, she gets pretty manic and that’s not a good fit in my tiny hovel. Kinky was no help at all because he loves to play with her, taunting her by running back and forth and as a last resort leaping onto her head and rabbit kicking her in the face. I finally resorted to crating Kinky in order to give Azza a chance to chill.

The second data point concerns Tsingy. I don’t write much about her. She’s shy and spends most of her time in her room. For the past couple of weeks, she’s had this clear pink liquid coming out of one eye. Finally, both eyelids got red and inflamed. Took her in two days ago, and a really cool fluorescent dye test showed that she had something stuck in her eyeball, inside her cornea! I hauled her back to the vet yesterday for surgery, which took far longer than planned. The vet said it was a long piece of very soft wood (I can’t figure this out since there is no wood in her environment and she doesn’t go outside). He unfortunately couldn’t avoid some damage to her cornea in his efforts to get it out so she will end up with a small whitish-grey scar on that eye ball.

Now I’m treating her left eye for the conjunctivitis (already greatly improved) and her right eye with some special drops. And she has to go back to the vet tomorrow for a follow up.

So in the week and a half before I head out, that’s a total of four vet visits.

Having identified this curse a few years ago, I now simply assume that something is going to come up right before I leave and plan for it (I literally plan for it here by making sure I have some extra cash at home and a flexible work schedule). Of course, you might think that by being so hyperalert I am possibly manufacturing these events. But they are quite real (a piece of wood in Tsingy’s eyeball was the result of nobody’s imagination). And now I can take my trip knowing that the crises have already happened and no new ones should pop up at least until I get back.

Feline Detente

I'm so glad that at last the cats have reached some sort of understanding. First there was Tsingy's 5-day hunger strike (I kept putting the same darned bowl of food out twice a day; I figured she'd get hungry eventually). Then I discovered that they were taking turns trapping the other in the litter box--and not as part of a game. That was not pretty at all.

Kinky stretching and yawning after a nap.

 I supposed some line was crossed a couple of weeks ago because they started screeching and howling at each other, escalating up to some short but rather vicious fights (these usually took place around 1am so I didn't see many of them although Mimi would shoot out of bed to go investigate). Both cats ended up with shallow bites on their necks and shoulders. Just like with dogs, those aren't killing bites but mutual attempts to sort out their issues.

Even though I thought it was all excessively dramatic, they needed to work it out on their own terms. And so they have. This weekend was noticeably drama-free. Tsingy is strolling around like she hasn't a care in the world. Both cats came upstairs with the dogs when I went up there to change after work. No yowling, no puffed tails, no fleeing the scene. They hung out while I played a quick game of fetch with the dogs, then we all trooped back downstairs again.

Kitty attacks sisal post: news at 11!

I've tucked into the post some pictures of Kinkajou playing on their new cat castle--both of them like it but I only managed to snap pics of him.

Kinky likes the new furniture.

Meet Kinky Friedman

In mid-December, a very skinny orange and white tabby kitten started hanging out in my area of the Mango cluster-housing ghetto. He was loud and persistent and hungry. Because I am both stupid and soft-hearted, I fed him one night. And you can guess where that led. He showed up every night and started darting onto my porch every time I opened the gate. Not the best idea, I told him as I gently shooed him back out.

He wasn't feral--you can't approach or touch feral kittens. He hadn't been outside long because he wasn't torn up or scarred and wasn't really that dirty, mostly dusty around the edges. He looked to be about 10-12 weeks old, later confirmed by the vet. My guess is that he was abandoned.

I kept hoping that he would find another part of Mango to beg in but he kept showing up, surviving the gauntlet of feral cats, foxes, and dogs. On top of this, we were having a cold snap. So a few days before Christmas I decided to bring him into my house so I could figure out what to do next.

 Tsingy took one quick sniff at this stranger in the crate and ran upstairs to hide. The dogs were simply besides themselves with curiosity. I introduced the kitten to them that very night. There was a very hysterical moment, about 30 seconds long, in which the kitten was poised utterly motionless, back arched, every hair erect, tail puffed, making not a sound, staring at both dogs who were also utterly motionless (except for Mimi's tail) just a few feet away. In the end, nothing happened. Nothing at all. Quite the anticlimax. Kitten didn't run, dogs didn't chase. And that was it.

I have to give some credit to my dogs because I have no doubt they would happily kill any cat that they found outside. But once that cat is inside, well, their concept of pack is rather fluid. None of my dogs has ever known life without cats as part of the household.

I put the kitten in a very large dog crate with food, water, a cozy bed, and a small litter pan. And the next morning, I made an appointment at the vet. I wanted to make sure he was free of nasty things before he had any opportunity to interact with Tsingy.

Kinky in his dog crate.

Because we are only allowed to have two animals registered to one Aramco badge number, I had to find a "sponsor" for the kitten so that the vet could see him. I called up a friend from my dog classes who only has one dog and who isn't a cat person and thus is unlikely to get a cat in the future. She was more than happy to lend me her badge number and sign the form. The vet clinic is completely aware of how we multiple-pet owners manage to get around the system: Tsingy is on her original owner's badge while their new second cat is on the badge number of one of their friends. That's how the animal-owning community here in Dhahran makes it all work.

In the 24 hours between my call and the vet visit, the kitten fell horribly ill. Vomiting constantly, he became lethargic and wouldn't eat or drink. The vet didn't waste any time--he thought it might be kitty parvo, which is horribly contagious and often lethal. Kitten did not have a good prognosis. They whisked him off to kitty ICU and put him on fluids and antibiotics right away. There he stayed for five days. The vets called me with daily updates, even over the weekend. I told them, he deserves a chance. And if it was necessary to euthanize him, then he deserved to die with dignity and in as much comfort as we could provide. This is the least we can do for the least among us.

I spent the rest of that weekend cleaning my downstairs floor and everything kitten had touched with bleach. I was very worried about infecting Tsingy.

In the end, the vets decided that kitten did not have parvo (he tested negative for that and for feline leukemia) but instead had gotten an extremely nasty bacterial infection in his gut. He was a very sick kitten for several days.

In the end, he pulled through. The following week, I brought him back home, weak and much thinner. He spent a couple of days in the large dog crate until I could make sure he was able to properly use a litter box. He needed the extra rest, too. I would let him out when I was home in the evenings, much to Mimi's pleasure--she was fascinated by him. As the days passed, he became more active and curious about his surroundings and he got to spend more and more time out of the crate. His personality started to express itself. So he had to have a name. I chose to name him Kinky Friedman. Either by accident or birth he has a 90-degree bend at the tip of his tail (the kink). And it seemed to me that he had some sort of spiritual kinship with the famous Jewish cowboy/politician/musician, a feisty attitude and a love of life.

Mimi and Kinky.

During the past two weeks, Kinky's personality has really begun to shine. It's been a while since I had a young animal in the house and his energy is astonishing--and remember that I live with Mimi, the perpetual motion machine. Kinky, like Mimi, quickly figured out how to surf across the tile floor. The other morning, he gave one of his toys a big whack, took off and dropped into a slide, only to ram headfirst into the five-liter communal water bowl. Bong! It rang like a bell and a wave of water sloshed over the edge onto him. I laughed so hard I thought I was going to pee myself. Harry, being no slouch in the "I can get attention too" department, got up and brought me another cat toy. Logical, of course. If I was that amused by the stupid kitten playing with a cat toy, Harry wanted in on the action. I could only laugh harder.

Kinky has collapsed into a stupor from kibble gluttony but he can't drag himself away from the kitchen.

Tsingy has been the X factor in all of this--I decided that I would not keep Kinky unless I could get Tsingy to go along with it. Upon Kinky's return from the vet, Tsingy disappeared upstairs. She didn't eat, drink, or use the litter box for three days. I figured it wasn't very healthy for her to keep that up. So I changed the arrangements a bit. I set up Tsingy's food and water and litter box in her room and shut her up in there alone. And I set up a new litter box next to Kinky's dog crate. So there Tsingy sulked for a couple more days, deigning to eat three or four pieces of kibble (although she gobbled up the canned cat food I bought especially to tempt her). But at last she started to eat and use the litter box.

Group nap. Mimi usually takes the purple pillow but she was being polite for a change and didn't push the kitten off.

It has been a very slow process of integration, more difficult than my other experiences with introducing a new cat to an existing household. Tsingy is very stubborn and not at all happy about sharing space. But thanks to the blissful ignorance of kittens, Kinky blunders his way around ignoring her snits and snarls. Both litter boxes are in the office now, and Kinky has full run of the house. Tsingy is starting to resume her normal schedule. Kinky has claimed sleeping spots all his own and has his own routines. While these two cats may never curl up together in a patch of sun for a nap, I think that a general detente is being shaped.

I know this particular photo looks pretty tense but for the most part, the cats are ignoring each other.

So welcome to Kinky Friedman, the newest member of CircusK9!

Kinky lounging on one of the dog beds. He's got quite a tail (a kinkajou tail, to be exact; "kinkajou" is his new nickname) and you can see the kink a couple of inches from the tip.

Another Busy Day at T3i

THANKS, G!

T3i received a big shipment yesterday. This one was particularly smelly because of the bull pizzles and tracheas tucked in along with toys and beds. Perhaps that's why Saudi customs didn't open it...? Harry and Mimi are helping me unpack.

Harry gets down to business quickly. This is a cool toy--a plush cover for a plastic bottle. The SFTs can't resist any toy if there is plush involved. Plus it makes such an interesting crackly noise!

Thorough testing procedures are always observed at T3i. Mimi is now working on the plastic bottle while Harry is taking a turn at the gigantic squeaking, honking, furry raccoon. He is in his favorite position, draped across a dog bed with his hind legs out behind him.

Mimi played...um, I mean, tested, and tested and tested and took notes then tested some more--and she actually wore herself out. This is a very rare photo: Mimi nodding off due to exhaustion.

The production line of untested toys is full! T3i will be busy for months.

Tsingy has been put on the payroll at T3i as a specialized consultant. Here she is modeling a teal cave bed. Work it, girlie!

Proper product testing is hard work!

Tsingy's Obsession 2

Tsingy is such a strange little cat. Partially deaf, she can meow at ear-splitting volumes, especially if she thinks she will expire from starvation before I roust myself from bed in the morning.

She occasionally sleeps in the bedroom with me and the dogs. Never on the bed, no, the fox terriers would never allow that. She chooses different places depending on her whim. A couple of weeks ago I snapped this pic of her bed of choice.

Yep, that would be Tsingy curled up in the dog toy box in the bedroom. And yes, I would imagine that it is indeed quite lumpy and smelly--not all the toys are plush and some have been reduced to sticky, ragged shadow of their former glory.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about Tsingy's cardboard obsession. She has reduced a box that I'm using to store office supplies to a lacy network with her regular, vigorous scratching.

Thankfully, my mother included a sisal scratching post in the latest dog/cat care package.

Tsingy immediately transferred her scratching obsession to the post, although you can see her cardboard scratching tray peeking out in the photo below. She still uses that every day--but the post with the feathery toy on top gets her quite wound up in the mornings. 

Tsingy's Obsession

Tsingy has an obsession with paper and cardboard in all forms. She expends a tremendous amount of energy ripping any cardboard she finds into tiny pieces. She loves her cardboard scratching box but that isn't enough. Here is a photo of her next to her latest work: a storage box in my office located conveniently next to her bed. She rips on this box every morning after she has her breakfast and a run around the house.

A few weeks ago, I bought two bags of cat litter and left them in the office, planning to store one there and use the other that weekend. Well, paper, cardboard: it's all good to Tsingy. I was on the phone with my mother when I heard a commotion in the office. And this is what I found:

She's a very silly cat!

Tsingy Update

Tsingy is much more comfortable around the dogs now. She regularly spends the evenings hanging out with us and has found a few spots she likes to nap in. I still haven't left her loose in the house during the day when I am at work, though. The dogs are just a bit sketchy sometimes.

G asked about the two-animal rule. That's widely ignored but there is a catch. You can't have more than two animals registered at the Kennel Club to one badge number. (I won't go into the details but married women and children are under the badge number of the husband/father so for them, it's two animals per household.) Paul and Lou-Anne had Simba and Tsingy when they got their little shy black one. He's registered under the badge number of a friend of theirs. Tsingy will remain registered under Paul's badge number. The KC knows that this is how people manage and doesn't bat an eyelash at it.

Here's a nice picture showing Tsingy's tail and rear leg markings, the limestone weathering thing.


Mother in VA sent a big care package for Tsingy, including this giant pile of booty.


I can't show you any pictures of Tsingy playing with her new toys. Mimi eats cat toys. Doesn't matter what they are made of, she crunches them up and eats them like they were mixed nuts. So Tsingy plays with her toys at night when we are asleep and she has full run of the downstairs. I come down and pick the toys up in the morning before Mimi gets to them.

But I can show you Tsingy's sparkly new collar.


And her new bed. How about that pink? She wasn't too sure about the bed at first but I left it in her room today with her tiger tucked up next to it. You can see from the pic below that she is fine with it now!


Of course, Mimi simply will not miss an opportunity to poach so as I was writing this I turned around to see her curled up in the new pink bed!


Mother didn't leave the dogs out--they got some cool new stuffing-free toys. I showed them to the dogs then took this picture as I was heading upstairs to play with them (I was holding the toys over my head). They were so excited that I thought I would never get them to hold still long enough to take the pic!


This picture is so typical: Harry is the calm eye at the center of the Mimi storm.

Meet Tsingy!

Surrounded by terriers!

Tsingy is a new addition to my household. She is a young female cat, about 2 years old, quite small as all camp cats are. The picture above was taken this morning--she's been here about 36 hours and has already stopped hissing at the dogs and lets them get quite close to her, even lick her (we don't think she had ever seen dogs before Wednesday afternoon). She hasn't left the office yet on her own but I think that she will soon enough. Right now, Tsingy (sing-GEE with a hard g) is asleep behind me and Mimi is curled up on the dog bed to my left.

My friends Paul and Lou-Anne were her former owners. She is a "houseboy" cat, a young stray that wandered into the houseboy camp, later carried to P and L-A's house by their houseboy, and thus adopted by them. The houseboys also take sick and wounded cats to westerners who they know have a soft spot for cats. The houseboys obviously have soft spots for cats too but they don't have the resources to care for them. Houseboys aren't allowed to be members of the Kennel Club (the vet clinic) so taking cats and kittens to people like Paul and Lou-Anne is the best option.

P and L-A recently adopted another cat, a young male cat, solid black and totally beautiful. When their houseboy brought it to them, the cat was horribly torn up and they didn't think it would live but they carried it to the vet clinic where they were told, he'll live, we'll have him back to you in two weeks. So they've kept him ever since. It appears this little black cat was beat up by other cats--and that continued in their house. Tsingy literally hunted the little black cat and beat him up when she could.

So to keep peace, they had to separate Tsingy and their other cat, an orange tom, from the little black one. That wasn't really working out--they are not used to dealing with barriers, who is in, whose turn is it to come into the family room, etc.

I had dinner at their place and mentioned casually that I was interested in acquiring a cat. Do you know that none of my dogs lived without cats? There were always a couple of them around. I figured the terriers would be okay with this.

Well, I have to watch those casual mentions of things around Paul--he jumped right up and said, are you interested in Tsingy? After he explained all of the drama, I thought she might be feisty enough to deal with the terriers and young enough to be flexible and able to learn to live with the dogs.

So here she is. She is white with a partially black head, a black tail, and a black spot on one rear leg.

Tsingy was so worn out from playing with her toys all night long that she didn't hear me come back in with the dogs from the jebels this morning. She didn't wake up until I said her name.

I should explain about the stuffed tiger. Tsingy slept in the guest bedroom at P and L-A's curled up next to this stuffed toy. It was a brilliant stroke of luck that they brought it along. I made her a little nest with it the first day and I think it helped make her feel safer.

Both dogs were utterly fascinated with her and spent the first evening hovering around the puppy gate in the door to the office. When I introduced them to Tsingy yesterday, one at a time, they simply walked up to her and sniffed her. At that early stage, Tsingy got all puffed up and hissed and growled but she stood her ground. So it was a case of the dog not barking in the night, that is, nothing happened. It was a nonevent. Mimi still has to check that Tsingy is here every time we come back in the house from a walk, even a potty trip. Harry is quite a bit more blase about her now. But even when both dogs rush into the office and stand almost on top of her, Tsingy just sits there and purrs.

Here is Mimi meeting Tsingy the first day. Tsingy is not particularly happy about it--defensive crouch, ears back, and she was growling. Tsingy doesn't seem to be as worried about the dogs now.

She meows and starts purring whenever she sees me and is very affectionate and playful.

I think she'll do fine.

Update: Last night (Friday night), Tsingy joined me and Harry on the couch to watch BBC Antiques Roadshow while dinner simmered on the stove. She curled up in my lap and purred herself to sleep. Aww!