Chris's Random Ramblings
On the weekend we picked up a pet fish for Gizzy and Pipe and put him in the big bowl the cats use for drinking water. Apparently normally cats won't eat fish in fish bowls, but just in case something goes wrong we've named him Cat Snack, or Snack for short.
Gizzy has had pet fish before, and loves the fishy flavoured water, but ignores Snack. Pipe however is absolutely fascinated with Snack and spends ages following him around the bowl, occasionally sticking a paw in the water. At first Snack made sure he was always on the opposite side of the bowl to Pipe, but now just swims around ignoring him. He does stay pretty close to the bottom, but hopefully in the future will get braver, as previous fish that Kelly has had have been brave enough to nibble on her cats as they drink from the water.
Pipe has been having diarrhoea problems, and the very helpful people at the Canberra Veterinary Hospital recommended we try him on some hypoallergenic food. He hasn't been quite so eager to change his diet, and unfortunately got into the kitchen bin again on Friday night to rescue some pet food cans. Even worse, he also ate a small plastic bag in the process. We didn't find out till Saturday night when he started making some funny noises and then threw up a few biscuits along with what we hope is all of the bag.
Talked to someone from the hospital this morning and he seems to be ok now. So now the kitchin bin lives locked away in the laundry. Plastic bags bad for animals! And probably not so good eating for humans either.
Pipe's brother Gizzy is allowed to go outside, but Pipe isn't as he's a bit too trusting. So when Gizzy gets to wander supervised for a while outside, Pipe gets to stay in the bedroom. He's seen Gizzy outside through the window though. Pipe saw me take out the rubbish this morning, and in the afternoon he tried to sneak out by getting in the bin. Its either that, or he fell off the bed into the bin.
I'd heard and read that it was possible to teach a cat to fetch, but was rather skeptical that I could teach Pipe to do so. Amazingly he has started playing fetch without much prompting on my part at all. For a while he was carrying his favourite toys around the house in his mouth, and then began dropping them near me. He's always been a bit of a sucker for chasing a ball when you throw it, but recently he's decided its also fun to bring it back again. I haven't needed to give him any food as a reward for bringing his toys back, and if anything, seems rather disinterested in food when playing. Now if only I could teach him not to jump onto the dining room table (or at least not do it when I'm around which is probably the most you can expect from a cat).
Pipe arrived at 1pm this afternoon. Even after the 1 hour flight he seemed quite happy but even happier to see us. We took him home where Gizzy was visiting to welcome him to his new home. Gizzy hissed a little bit at him, but after not too long, Pipe was climbing on top of Gizzy, and Gizzy gave his tail a bit of a lick.
During the afternoon and evening, Pipe ate some dry food, some chicken kitten food and drank some special kitten milk. He miaowed quite a bit afterwards and it was pretty clear he wanted to use the kitty litter tray but didn't. He was getting rather distressed so Kelly went out to buy some different kitty litter that the breeder recommended, but that didn't work either. Finally we realised that the kitty litter was too near his food and moved it further away. He immediately went to use it, looking very relieved. Given he hadn't used the litter for about 12 hours he did a marvellous job for a little kitten. Looking very much happier, he then started exploring a lot more and jumping and playing around the house.
He even started surfing the internet.
On Thursday we went down to Melbourne to attend a wedding of one of Kelly's cousins, and took the opportunity to visit the kitten I have bought . Pipe was in a room with his brothers and sisters, and we were able to play with all of them a bit. Pipe was the friendliest and very cute. We also got to see his mum and dad. He arrives on this week so hopefully I'll be able to work from home for a day or two to get him settled in.
Spent Saturday driving back from Melbourne with Kelly and her parents, but will hopefully spend most of tommorow working on the Linux.conf.au hackfest code. Am running a little behind schedule in releasing the details on the competition. But I think I only need a couple of days solid work on the codebase to get it into a state where people can begin programming against it.
After probably years of thinking about getting another cat, I finally have reserved an Australian Mist kitten. A little spotted lilac boy.
Of course the hardest thing about getting a new pet is working out a name. I wanted something a bit geeky, and Kelly suggested Named Pipe since I've been implementing named pipes for K42. So Named Pipe it is, or pipe for short. Pipe is in Melbourne at the moment, but I'll be able to visit early next month and he'll be taking his very first plane trip up to Canberra not long after. I wonder if he can get a frequent flyer number.
I woke up this morning to find Moe lying in the garden and he promptly came up to the backdoor as soon as he saw me. I went out the front to get the paper first and Cassie rushed in. She was not particularly impressed to see another cat waiting at the backdoor and hissed quite a bit. She's quite a bit smaller than Moe and he didn't appear to be too fussed. I didn't want to risk them getting into a fight, so let Cassie out before letting Moe in. Maybe if they see each other a few more times she won't be quite as hostile.