Scratching for Love

Friends, I know it sounds a bit strange that you could possibly scratch your people and they would give you love, but you know what? It's true!




Do you remember ages and ages back that my human and I were training each other when it came to treats? I'd put my paws up on her leg and she'd give me a treat. Reciprocal training, and as it had benefit to me, I liked it! Well, ever since then I've been really comfortable at putting my paws on the human when we're cuddling, or padding on her arms or her tummy or, well, wherever my paws happen to be. Whenever I do this she makes silly love noises at me and sometimes even gives me the dreaded kissie torture, so I know she likes it. This week, I decided to try something new. Let me tell you a play-by-play of how I did it today.





The human was tap tapping away on the flat keyboard thing that makes the man in the computer box talk to her. I didn't like the fact that he was getting all the attention. After all, that spot should perpetually be mine! I walked over to her and sat down at her feet. No reaction. Well, that was silly of me, cuz I'd walked quietly so that my bell made hardly any noise, and with the chattering of that silly little man, she probably didn't hear it. I wondered what to do next. now that I might have babycats in my yummy tummy, I don't think I should actually have to go to the trouble of jumping up to get a cuddle. it might upset them! I thought about it, then I remembered what I used to do for treats. But I'd put my paws on her thigh cuz she'd kneel down so I could do it. Cuz she was sitting, her thigh was too high for me, but I thought it might work anyway.





I balanced myself on my shapely ladycat back legs, and I put my front paws on her shin. Then I scrabbled at her to get her attention. You know kinda like you would with a scratching post? Sept I did it with only the tips of my claws out, so instead of scratching her I was just about snagging her jeans. Well, I tell you what, that got her attention good and fast! She put down the keyboard, bent over and started giving me all sorts of rubs. I'm sad to say I even got the kissie nasty thing a few times too, although it was offset by all the snuggling. I took my paws off her straight away, but to my surprise, she reachd under my chest and put them back, so it must be ok to have them there. she made a big fuss of me while I was standing against her leg. She says she wants me to feel comfortable enough to climb all over her when I want a cuddle if she's not paying me attention, and I must say that after today, I think I'll try the scratchy thing again! It didn't go down so well when I scratched the carpet at her feet instead of her trousers though, cuz that time i had my claws right out. She put her hand on me, tapped my paws and told me no in a very, very firm voice that she doesn't use often with me. As a mark of how brave I'm etting, I didn't run away and hide, ahem, I mean protect my territory. Even a few months ago I wouldn't have been that brave. I did give her ahead bumpie to say I was sorry though, and I haven't scratched the carpet again sept for a tiny bit by my scratching post, and I stopped as soon as she told me to.,/p>




So, scratching can gain you a no if you do it on the carpet, but boy does it bring the good stuff when you do it on a human!





oh, and just in case you haven't seen it, the post belowthis one is my yummy tummy picture post! you should all go and have a look. My human remembers when that picture was taken and she says that she could have eaten my yummy tummy all up! Personally, I think she's been mixing with Mom Trish and he Admiral's Mom too much. Their ideas are starting to rub off on her! Let's just hope neither of them threaten to eat me too! If they do, I'm running for the hills!

Molly Matters

I'm trying to convince myself she does. Well, that's not exactly true. She's all right, as stupid hound dogs go, but she's been taking up so much of my human's time over the last few days that she didn't even manage to post yesterday. I'm a nice cat. I'll talk about Molly before I get onto my stuff, so here goes.

I mentioned just after my human got back that we had Molly news. That news is that Guide Dogs think she has something called Arthritis in her left hind and right front legs. The human says that this is the same as what Fatcat had and it means joints are sore when they move. Molly is only 6, so she shouldn't have it already. I'm never going to get old, so I don't have to worry about it, I don't think.

When the human heard this, she took her to our own vet to have it confirmed. She'd noticed Molly walking slightly funny, but she's done this for so long and been checked so frequently that the human wasn't worried at all. She kind of swings her back left leg instead of bending the knee, you see. The vet (it was our nice vet man again) had a look at her and said that he thought it would be worthwhile having x-rays done to confirm it. That sounds pretty scary to me, but Molly's had it done before. They just make her very sleepy and then put her under some sort of peoples machine that takes a picture of her bones. It's just as well she's asleep. If she was awake and saw bones, she's so stupid that she'd try to eat them, even though they belong to her! I'm sure this is why they make sure she's snoring so hard that she never knows about the pictures.

The human got up really early again yesterday so that she could take her there before she went to the strange work thing. I think when she goes to work she's hunting. She says if she didn't, she wouldn't be able to give me food every day. Hunting is how you get food, so it's logical to assume, right? She never comes back with food from the work hunt, but she says they give her the stupid money things that she takes to the place where peoples hide their kills and swaps it for my food. I still can't believe any sensible peoples would take moneys for food, but she says it's true.

She left Molly with the vet. It wasn't our nice vet man. It was a lady vet but that was Ok, because she wasn't examining her. She took her to a cage thing in the vet building where she stayed until they made her sleepy. My human didn't go to the work hunt though. She came back home and stayed there for a while. (human note: I was lucky yesterday. My PA called to say she couldn't make it in. Without a dog and a PA, I'd lost all my available guides. I haven't learned the routes with a white cane yet, so couldn't go alone. Yippee! Day off for me! Do you hear me complaining?) I was a bit concerned that she hadn't gone until I noticed there was still food in my bowl. It seems as though she had enough moneys to swap, even though she was home for a day.

Hoover lady came over again a little while later, and she and the human went out. They came back with lots of different material. The human says she's fed up with me scratching at the collar, so Hoover lady has agreed to make me lots of different ones out of different materials to see if they can find one I won't scratch. I'm going to scratch anyway, but I think it's more fun to let them find out the hard way, don't you? If I do it really, really quietly, she might not even know! Do any of you have tips for stopping bells from jingling? That would make my life a whole lot easier.

As soon as Hoover lady left, another lady came. Judging by the dog stink of her, she was from the peoples who gave Molly to the human. She calls them Guide Dogs. Even though she was stinky, I kind of liked her. She's good at chin scratching, and she's excellent at admiring my yummy tummy. I even let her cuddle me, but that was after she'd assured me she had cats of her own. A dog people with cats? Ok, so she's not all bad, and it's so nice to hear I'm beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful, thank you so, so much for all of your comments on my pictures, and thank you so much to Whicky for posting them! A huge thank you also to Praline for the header on the blog. Isn't it pretty? I have them to thank for my pretty face staring at you all from your peoples' computer thingies! The human and I are sorry that we haven't responded personally to all of the comments you left. She says she's going to try and do some of them at the end of this post.

But look, I'm getting distracted now! Sorry. It always happens when I'm thinking about more than one thing at once. The human and stinky dog lady made talk noise for a little while, and then she left. After a little while, the human went back for Molly, but when she came home, she was very sleepy and upset. She kept crying all the time, until the human got so worried that she phoned the duty vet. Molly loves food even more than me. I thought I'd be sneaky and grab some of hers last night because it was yummy chicken and rice, which she doesn't usually get. She'll chase me away from the bowl when the human tells her she can eat, but last night, she just stood and cried. Now please don't think I'm going soft, but I actually felt kind of sorry for her, and if you ever remind me I said that, I'm gonna deny it all the way! you could see she wasn't herself, and she never stands with her head drooping like that. I gave up the bowl myself. I knew I could hassle some more food out of the human later, but molly has more trouble with that. Well, she ate, but it took her about four times as long as usual, and that worried us more than anything else. You know what she's like for food. Remember the cat food incidents?

When she showed signs of wanting to go to the toilet, but not wanting to squat, the human called the vet. They said she was probably just very sore from being pulled around for the bone pictures, but that if she got worse, they were there all night and we could bring her in. The human decided to wait and see what happened, but she slept with the door open so that she could listen to Molly.

This morning, she was a little better, but she still won't go to the toilet unless she's really, really needing to, and her walk is very, very slow. The human says her work is all over the place. They missed the door to the office today, whatever that is, and Molly is not even going half her usual speed. She's phoned the vet person at Guide Dogs to see what they say. She'd have taken her already, but the whining has stopped completely, so she's not sure if it's all pain related and whether she should wait or not. She's taking me to the vet tomorrow anyway, you see, so she's wondering whether to combine the two.

That's really all that's happened. My human has some things to tell you before we get to the comments though.

So it turns out that Molly has mild to moderate arthritis in hips, shoulders and elbows. She has an ongoing soft tissue injury to the right shoulder plus, judging by the gait, the start of cruciate ligament problems in the left knee. The x-rays didn't show this, but they don't when it first starts up. They've put her on injections for the arthritis, plus glucosamine supplements. They also want to start her on a course of hydrotherapy, but Guide Dogs want to negotiate a deal with the surgery before we start her. I hate waiting for treatment just because of money, but hydro's super expensive, so Guide Dogs have got to pay for this themselves. I now fully appreciate why she snapped at me, and because of this, I've been able to rationalise it and keep working with her. I've made adjustments in the house to take food well out of her reach. Poor Tia has to climb through an obstacle course to get to it now! I'm going to keep her on, but really scale back the work I do with her so that she can be as comfortable as possible. I doubt she'll work much longer in any case before she's ready for retirement, and I don't want her shipped from home to home before that happens. If the truth be told, I'm kind of relieved in a way that I can keep her without being scared of her. I love her too much to give her bakc, and I really wasn't looking forward to doing that. Update: Guide Dogs have just called me back. We'll be returning to the vet today. I feel like I've spent the most recent part of my life there! Molly last Thursday for skin injections, Tia on Sonday, Molly yesterday twice, and then again today. Tia has to go back tomorrow, and if everything's sorted on time, Molly will be there on Thursday for the start of her hydro. Even if she isn't, we'll be bakc on Monday for the second of her four injections for arthritis. It feels like it's never going to end!

Now that the human bit is done, it's time to answer some of the comments. Miss Kitty, my human doesn't use a flash box thing or Photoshop for photos. Her eyes are broken, you see, so she can't use either. It was the photographer man who took those at the show, and there was no alterings. The blue background is what I was standing in front of. My floof needs no prettification on photoshop either! Clowder, I'm going to get the human to have a look at Flickr to see if it's any better for us to use. Thanks for suggesting it. Hestorb, that's some good effort with all your noise on going to the vet! Did it make them stop taking you? I just tell my human off when she takes me there, but as I do this pretty much every day, it doesn't bother her all that much. She's hard, is my human. The starving kitten miaow that I do doesn't even get me extra food!

To all of you, the human feels the need for me to re-itterate that if we're not leaving comments on your blogs it's because we are struggling with it. My paws aren't good for using computers and her eyes are broke. She can't do the visual verification thing to leave a comment, and some of them just don't work with the software that she has to use. It's a little robot man thing that talks to her and reads what you all say, but sometimes it doesn't read everything. She's so glad that you're all still coming to the blog even though we can't always show you that we're reading what you say!

The human says she has to go now and take Molly to the vet. We'll update you as soon as we know more. Keep checking back to the blog regularly. Even though we won't post a new link on CB, we are going to email pictures to Whicky. If he sees it today, you'll get one of Molly to look at! So although they don't go up at the same time as my regular posts, they'll be there from time to time.