We inadvertently left a foot stool near the Christmas tree after we trimmed it on Saturday, and our Tortie took full advantage of it. Why else do you have a foot stool but for cats to have a better opportunity to get to the Christmas ornaments that interest them? We have repositioned the foot stool to prevent wholesale ravaging of the lower ornaments.
How do you accommodate the animals in your life? Got any good pet and Christmas decoration stories?
Trail Baboon 
debbie used to be the christmas queen with decorations coming out the day after christmas but her audience aged and got busy… well enter ari…behind the couch is a long waist high table wher family portraits and pictures you usually visualize on the fireplace mantle or piano top . ari lives looking at them and touching them. i am quite impressed that debbie has allowed them to stay as she is an all things in there place kind of person and portrait jockeying is not ok in general. well last week she pulled the portraits and replaced them with the christmas stuff. ice rink with skaters going in random circles, some little cuurchy looking house with dickens like illuminated people going around and around past the windows back lit be a cheesy little bulb , those christmas scene houses with people sitting on a bench by the street lamp with snow on their hat… ari loves it . debbie watches him touch and pick up everything and makes sure it does back where it belongs. he is mesmerized she is handcuffed.
only touch it with your eyes became the new phrase yesterday, touch gently became the ornament mantra as he seats at the recently unearthed ornaments brought home from no the warehouse box openings as he swings the drumstick baton he wields at the handblown glass fire truck circa 1940 and the christmas cottage and santa in various poses
i know he won’t give up. we’ll see about debbie .
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Fun images, tim.
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my dogs surprise me with their keeping out of stuff. never had that before. they won’t mess with the cats food or packages left on the table
if you leave a plate if chicken fingers on the coffee table and leave the room bad on you but even then it’s better than a 50/50 chance they’ll be ok
the cats only raid plates christmas cookies and cheese sandwiches among their favorite delicacies
fish… nothin
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Our Millie loves ham. I also let her lick out my ice cream bowl when I finish.
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We had a possum right outside our window last night at about 11:00. Does that count?
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Oops. Clyde. Forgot to sign in
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We put a second dish of catfood upstairs so Millie wouldn’t have to go to the basement to eat. She lost so much weight when she was ill. Now Luna, the healthy cat is eating in both places, and she is getting really fat.
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If I’ve told the story before, apologies.
My first Irish setter was Katy Scarlet. She was 95% good dog but that remaining 5% could be naughty. One Christmas season when she was four or five, the tree was up and decorated (in those days we used to do popcorn and cranberry strings.) I was downstairs just puttering around, cleaning, picking up, maybe cooking something in the kitchen. I came through the living room and you know how Somethings seems wrong but you don’t know what it is? I looked at Scarlet, who was sitting next to the tree; she had about 6 inches of string hanging out of the side of her mouth. So then I looked at carefully at the tree and realized that there were no popcorn strings on the bottom half of the tree. I took a hold of the string and started to pull – about 10 feet of string, sans popcorn, came right out of her. That was the last year I did popcorn strings on the tree.
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That’s quite an image, too!
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With our first cat, a tortoiseshell named Corfu, we couldn’t hang any Xmas tree decorations lower than about 2 feet off the ground because she’d bat the heck out of those she could reach. Thankfully she was a bit chubby and unathletic, so she didn’t aspire to reach any higher.
Fast forward about 10 years to our second generation of cats, Calvin and Patty. Calvin was named after the comic strip character from “Calvin & Hobbes” and he was truly a hyperactive 6-year-old boy trapped in a cat’s body. He loved heights and climbing anything that was climbable, so after the first time he toppled the Christmas tree, we had to secure it to the wall with fishing line so it would stay up. He still tried to climb it until we started spraying the bottom of the tree with some sort of cat repellent that supposedly kept him well away from the tree. If I recall, it worked to a degree, but we’d still find the occasional ornament sitting on the floor in the morning. His way of saying “You’re not so smart, humans.”
Chris in Owatonna
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I should have told this last night for yesterday’s topic. After Sandy has a colitis attack, and she had a bad one last night, she wants McDonalds food, which she can handle at that point. I went to McDonald’s and ordered. A young man about 19 pulled out in a huge pickup at the same time as I did from the other ordering station. We both were not sure who was next. He had his window down next to me. I said go ahead. He waved. When I got to the pay window, they told me he had paid for mine.
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I love stories like this.
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Rise and Shine Baboons,
All I can say is that I would love to be a pet at my house. They get many accommodations and special treatment. Our little girl who was mauled on Sept. 25 has recovered remarkably now that treatment is finished. She had to have a second surgery to remove her drainage tube which adhered to scar tissue. Once that was gone she was like a puppy again. She seems to enjoy being an only dog, as well. We sure miss the energy of our other girl, though. She used to race up to us and smile when we came back home from anywhere.
OT mystery–I was tested for COVID and came back positive. I thought it was a sinus infection, saw my Dr. who agreed. I just did the test out of an abundance of caution. I have hardly been out of the house for three weeks, ordering groceries, and avoiding contact. I wear a mask and a face shield when I am anywhere. My first symptom was on 11/27 so this is my 14th day. Lou was also symptomatic–I think he may have picked it up, but he also masks everywhere. Thank goodness that on Thanksgiving we stayed home and saw no one.
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Whew! So glad you both seem to be OK, Jacque!
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I’m not sure I understand, Jacque. Are you saying the positive test was invalid? Either way, it sounds like you are comfortable. Good luck!
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I got sick and had the test which was positive. I’m not saying it was invalid. I was astounded though–I was one of the most careful people I know. Our contact tracing will be a challenge–no bars, no restaurants, no parties, no Thanksgiving. The mystery is, where did this come from?
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Did you meet with the folks who are going to remodel in person?
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Proves how insidious it is
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I’d say the mood in this building has gone from wary confidence to panic in just over a week. We’ve now been advised that seven health aides and seven residents have tested positive. This isn’t a large place.
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DILwent to her doctor today, who did lots of tests and decided that she had covid in November despite a negative test, and told her to limit physical activity for two months to prevent blood clots in the lungs. We are grateful DIL is alive. She was really ill in November.
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Now we can go to them in December and not worry about infecting eachother.
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It’s been almost 10 years since Charlie, our last cat, died. I remember getting them batting at low hanging balls, but neither of them was a real (indoor) tree climber, so I just kept the breakables up high. I would buy them toys like the Cat Dancer, or colored ping pong balls if I could find them, and of course, the crumpled tissue paper and paper bags.
These days I watch the squirrels, possum, the neighbors’ dogs and cat from the window. I may make some of those suet bird treats for the Birds’ Christmas this year…
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My sister’s cat, purchased when she was a toddler, moved to Minnesota with us and went on to live to 15 or 16 years. His passion was climbing around the interior of a Christmas tree eating tinsel. He only did that at night. It was odd to be jolted awake in the middle of the night by the sound of ornaments hitting the floor.
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My first cat, Franny, liked to bite bows. She wouldn’t pull them off the packages or chew them up, just bite one loop on each bow and leave teeth marks. My routine in those years was to wrap all the gifts in advance and put them under the tree, but wait till Chistmas morning to add the bows.
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Like the teeth marks in my red tomatoes in the garden.
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I just read this, from tim, at the end of yesterday’s comments:
“hanging with 2 grandsons on wednesdays
(did i forget to mention denver michael gashi was born 12/1/20 and ari is cranked too)”
Congrats, tim and family!
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Knocking on wood here as I say this but both animals really seem to be ignoring the tree this year. I hope I haven’t just jinxed it.
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The cats we had when we lived up north, and there were a few, slept under the tree but ignored it. I wonder if because they roamed the woods behind our house if they took pine trees in stride. Our dog was not allowed in the part of the house where the tree was, but he would have ignored it too.
I have told this story before: on the farm the dog Boots was not a house dog and did not like coming in, all that linoleum to slip for one thing. But we brought him in to find the box of wrapped box of dog treats he loved. When he smelled it, he tore it open and ate most of them, then wanted out. The second year he caught on more quickly. after that he knew what it was about. He would run in, find and tear open the box, eat most, then go to the door to be let out.
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