Rick, your stories about your cats are priceless! I can just see this going on with the turkeys and the cat!

Thanks, Rita! Toby is the storyteller. I just write down what he does.

But you could just HEAR those hens chuckling to each other about what BIIIIIG men Toby and Tom thought they were, and how impressive they thought their strutting and dignity were.

Even when I make Toby fall off a chair, I have to respect his dignity. Depending on his reaction, I either agree with him that (of course) he MEANT to do that, or I apologize profusely and take responsibility.

But soemtimes Becky can't stifle her snickers, and THEN Toby REALLY offended.

I'm not sure whether he has a gracious and forgiving nature, or just a short memory.

I think it's the short memory, because I can get him to roll off that chair more than once in a month, and you would THINK he'd remember!

Rick ....

I once had a cat named Toby when I lived down south. I called him a "roof cat" because he would go out the balcony door upstairs and over the roofs of the condos to go out hunting.

One time, he came down the stairs and dropped a mouse in front of Gabby, my retired Siamese cat. She instinctively made a grab for the mouse and then stood there looking at me with a mouse tail sticking out of her mouth. Toby was eyeing that mouse tail going back and forth, too. I finally picked Gabby up ... mouse tail and all .... and took her outside and kind of shook her so that she would get mad at me a yell, thus opening her mouth. She was totally insulted by being shaken and opened her mouth to tell me all about it. The mouse fell out of her mouth and took off at a run only to be captured by Toby because it was his mouse.

I do think cats are forgiving. Scamp gets seizures after his rabies shots, and I'll hold him until it has past and then take him to his insulated house in the woodshed that I made for him to let him sleep it off. He's always purring before we get to the woodshed.

Smiles,
Lyn

>> stood there looking at me with a mouse tail sticking out of her mouth. ...
>> only to be captured by Toby because it was his mouse.

Both great stories! I think there has to be a lot of love on both sides, for us to go to such lengths to take care of them (insulated cat house!) and for them to put up with our limitations and presumptions.

My brother-in-law set up a heated corner (light bulb) in their unheated porch for their cats. There's a lot of glass in that porch, so it met with their approval.

I think cats also like for their perches to be up high. Luckily, I have a LOT of boxes full of books lining my walls, so I have some pillows and blankets here and there for His Majesty Toby. He's getting older, so I'll rework "the stacks" so that he can make 2-3 small jumps instead of one big one.

I think I see what you mean about "retired". Toby sounds 10-20 times more active than Gabby.

>> I called him a "roof cat" because he would go out the balcony door upstairs and over the roofs of the condos to go out hunting.

My previous cat, Gideon (named after the captain in the TV series "Crusade") was very fond of John, a guy in the chimney-cleaning crew that used a garage for storage, located next to us on the same large driveway that served a couple of buildings. Gideon talked a lot, which delighted John.

Every morning, the crew would show up to load up on ladders and chimney-cleaning gear, but they had to wait for John to talk with Gideon and pet him for 5-10 minutes, which John called "giving him his lovin's".

Gideon became fonder and fonder of John, so that the morning chat was not enough.

After the chat wound down, he would make a beeline for the roof of that garage, and then meow. Good-hearted John thought that meant that Gideon couldn't get down, so he would set up ladders, climb up, and hand-carry Gideon back to the ground each day. Gideon liked that and told him so.

Well, of course Gideon COULD get down from the roof JUST as easily as he got up, which he did freely all day when John was not around.

I'm kind of sad that I finally told John "you know, Gideon CAN get down fine, all by himself". John was amazed at Gideon's conniving, but it didn't come between them.

They had both enjoyed their ritual, no matter how much it delayed the rest of the chimney-cleaning crew. They fell back to their usual 5-10 minutes of conversation and mutual lovings, which I guess left Gideon still wanting more.

Gabby was 21 when she died. She retired from being the boss of the neighborhood when she was 15. She was never in a cat fight with any of the other cats. She was full of bluff. Her Siamese yowl had them convinced that she could tear them apart if they even thought of fighting with her. She, too, was a small cat.

When she was 15, a younger male cat started calling her bluff. He gradually started taking over her territory. After he took over the front porch, she was stuck in a small back yard of the rental. I finally allowed her to become an inside cat rather than an inside/outside cat.

Re: the insulated house. It was given to me when a friend's cat was bitten by a rabid fox and he simply did not want another cat. Scamp uses it only a few times in the winter because he has his own favorite spots for keeping warm. However, after a seizure, he's quite content to stay in it while he sleeps off the impact of the seizure. Thank God, he only has to have rabies shots every three years.

Smiles,
Lyn

I just saw a rat in the barn ... must be feeding the cats too well, they are clearly slacking.

Oh oh, your cats better get working.

Please don't use poison! Most of the time it doesn't work and kills off native predators and family pets. I use a have a heart trap or a snap trap in a careful area so pets can't get near the traps.
Mickey
rid-a-rat.com

Sorry, but rat poison works just fine. If I did not use it I would be overrun with rats around here.

I am very careful, I only put that rat bait in the garage where only rats and mice can get into it.

I am sure I have them in the ceiling. But I am not sure if it is something running on the roof. The noise does interest the cats sometimes.

Oh gosh. Hate to have them in the house. The garage is bad enough.

Roof rat problem here in winter. Before Dixie came to live here the whole patio/dog run area was open to the dogs. Put D-Con in the crawl space...got to thinking OMG...what if a rat died and the dogs ate it??? since their "route" was where the dogs had acess. Called the 800 number. Was told that since the poison caused the rats to bleed out it would take 10 eaten per pound of dog weight for there to be a problem. Since my kids are/were 70 to close to 90 pounds I was told not to worry. Since Dixie the rat "route" is fenced off.

I'm always a bit disturbed when I hear about poisons.

Seems like the neighborhood foxes are likely to be endangered when they catch those sick rats... And the hawks...

Seems like that poison would just remove the predators from the wildlife garden, thus making the rodent problem worse....

Cats are indiscriminate killers, but keeping them inside in the daytime seems to protect the birds and lizards... And... they do a bang-up job on rodents...

Just the other day, I caught a radio talk about rodenticides, and the negative secondary effect the poisoned animal had on other populations (inadvertently killing predators and scavengers consuming the poisoned rodent). It also rather graphically described how the rodenticides work, and none of them sounded very kind or gentle - internal bleeding, kidney failure, etc. The upshot of this particular talk was that the tried-and-true snap-traps are the most humane method, death is quick, and there are no secondary casualties. I agree with Stone that cats are a good first line of defense. In the rare times we have not had outdoor cats, we've had a noticeable influx of mice and rats. I suppose my song bird population also takes a hit, although I think field mice are easier pickings than birds.