A Warning About Cheetos and Cats

For some reason, opening a bag of chips is a surefire way to get Cleo to appear out of nowhere and sit at your feet. She loves Cheetos. She loves them so much that she thinks any bag of chips is Cheetos. It all started when I let her lick my fingers after eating some of this addicting snack. Cleo the Kitten took one lick of my fingers and she was hooked. Now an adult Cleo harasses me until I let her lick my fingers or even give her one of the small, thin Cheetos. And if I set the bag down for more than a few seconds...

Kitty and her addiction.

Lights on the Wall

Some cats chase just about anything that moves. Sometimes it's a string. Other times it's a laser pointer. Cleo liked to chase the thin band of lights that a headlight makes through a crack in the bedroom curtain. It slid around the top of the wall in the bedroom, constantly taunting her as it slid from one end of the wall to the other. Eventually she couldn't stand it anymore. That light had teased her for the last time. Cleo waited patiently on the edge of the bed for the light to reveal itself. Finally, the moment had come. In a giant leap, Cleo sprung up from the edge of the bed, smacking the light near the ceiling with her paws...then realized she couldn't grip it and slid down the wall to the floor.

You would think that a 7 foot drop would deter a cat. It didn't. Cleo would still go after the lights. She just got smarter about it. Instead of jumping off the edge of the bed, she would jump from the head of the bed. It was positioned right up against the wall, thus ensuring that Cleo had a shorter drop (and a nice cushy landing). However, this made sleeping rather difficult, since the lights appeared at night and that's when my husband and I would try to sleep. There were many instances of Cleo landing on our heads in her attempts to get the lights. Those attempts were promptly followed by "Honey, YOUR cat is at it again."

Cleo and Water.

For a cat that does not like to take a bath, Cleo loves to play with water. I guess as long as getting wet is her idea, then it's ok. We used to have a tiny water dish for her, but she thought it was a fun game to flip it over and spill all the water on the floor. Eventually, we got her a water fountain. For some reason she prefers moving water over still water. I guess it's due to her animal instincts. If there was water dripping anywhere, Cleo would be there to lap it up.

After a while, the water fountain broke and cleo was back to her water bowl again (this time properly secured in the corner so she couldn't flip it). It was at this time that we moved. The faucets in our new tub were hard to turn off completely so there was always some water dripping. Cleo loved it. She completely ignored her water bowl and focused on drinking solely from the faucet. It made for some great entertainment. Especially when she would get water all over her head and rub up against Jerry. She seemed to think that Jerry was her own personal towel. She was so used to drinking from the faucet that when Jerry turned the water off completely, she sat in the bathroom and yowled and yowled until I came and "fixed" it. Now if only I could convince her that me giving her a bath isn't a bad idea...

Litter Love

Seeing as how I had to hand raise Cleo, I'm a little surprised that she litter trained so easily. She has never gone outside of the litter box except for a few incidents where she couldn't help it (poor kitty got sick). However, over the years, I have learned that when Cleo has to go, she HAS to go. For example. Jerry was changing out her box. Since it had been a while, we decided to dump out all of the litter and spray it out. Well, Jerry was finished with the cleaning and was in the process of pouring in fresh litter when Cleo decided that she couldn't wait anymore. She jumped in the box and right in the middle of the stream of litter and did her business right then and there. It was not fun giving her a bath afterwards. Another time, Jerry was cleaning the box again and had dumped all of the litter into a trash bag. Jerry started spraying out the box when suddenly he heard scratching and litter started to fly everywhere.  Again, Cleo could not wait and decided that since the bag was open on the floor that it would suffice.

Sticky Situation.

I wrote previously about Cleo's little escapade with the fan, where she got her revenge. Cleo is a very smart kitty who is very good at plotting. For example....

One day, Jerry and I went out and about. We stopped by one of our favorite places and walked around, then came home after several hours. As usual, Cleo had missed us while we were out (although it was more likely that she missed our hands since they fill her food bowl) and she proceeded to shower us with love and affection. After a bit, we settle down into our seats, then tried to figure out what to do with the stickers that our favorite spot had given us. I had proceeded to stick mine on my computer, but Jerry was in a fun mood and decided to stick his (very lightly!) on the cat. Cleo took one look at this strange thing that was stuck to her and quickly decided that she was not amused. She eventually figured out how to get it off of her hind end, but then had to figure out what to do with it. Mischievous Cleo suddenly got a brilliant idea. She took the sticker in her mouth, walked over to Jerry , placed it ON HIS ARM, then gave it a good smack with her paw to make sure that it stuck.

Kitty's revenge

Jerry hasn't stuck a sticker on her since.

Heart Attack Kitty

Some of you may be familiar with the series "The Walking Dead". It's a zombie show that airs on AMC. My husband Jerry is a big fan of the series and loves to watch it when he can. Even late at night. However, he has learned not to do this ever again when Cleo is around. Cleo has a habit of reaching around from behind the recliner and tapping Jerry on the arm. It's her way of saying "Hey. You're in my chair." In fact, both Jerry and Cleo have been fighting over who's chair it is ever since Cleo could climb into it. Jerry is winning so far, but only because he's bigger. Cleo is persistent. One night, Jerry was sitting in his chair in the dark and watching his show. Cleo decided that she wanted to use the chair, so she snuck up behind Jerry and reached her little furry paw up, tapping him on the shoulder. Jerry jumped and yelled, extremely startled by this sudden tap from nowhere. All he could see was a little white blur running off to hide under the bed, since poppa's yell had scared her.

"That's Not Tuna!"

From time to time I like to do some embroidery projects (assuming I have a free second to myself). Embroidering when you have a kitten is not an easy thing to do. You take out your embroidery floss and you INSTANTLY have a kitten magnet. I start my stitches and as I am trying to get the thread pulled through to the other side, the kitten attacks (with rather sharp claws, mind you) so the task suddenly becomes impossible. I almost had to give up. Suddenly, Jerry comes to the rescue. He calls out to her and offers her food. However she gets half way across the room, then see's the string and comes back for it. Food didn't work, so he offers her something more enticing. "Does Cleo want Tuna?" He asks her. Instantly she runs to her food bowl, excited about getting something special. Then Jerry does the unthinkable. He puts down regular cat food in her bowl. She takes one look at the food, looks back at him, looks at the food, looks at him, then walks back to me, huffing. She was angry at poppa. Jerry would reach out to pet her and she'd snub him. It was clear that little kitty was upset about being stiffed some tuna. This went on for about an hour, Cleo sulking near my legs and giving her poppa the stink eye. Eventually, Jerry relented and gave her the real deal. He put tuna in her food bowl. And poppa learned his lesson that day. Never stiff the kitten.

Revenge on the Fan

Cleo is very curious by nature. She loves to investigate things. She is the perfect example of the phrase "Curiosity killed the cat." For example, take our fan. It's tall, high powered, has a safety guard on it, we use it to circulate air in the apartment. Of course, the way our apartment is set up, we have to have the fan near our couch. And since it's a tall one, that puts the fan blades just above the couch back. Well, one day Cleo decided that she was going to investigate this strange device that blows air around and messes up her fur. She taps the safety guard around the fan blades a few times and almost manages to knock it over. However, she can't seem to get enough momentum to do it. This seems to anger the kitty. Especially since when it rocks back it goes away from her, then comes towards her when it rocks forward. So when the fan is standing still, Cleo reaches out and decides to try and bite it. Lo and behold, her lower jaw gets stuck in the safety guard. I'm not surprised that she got scared and started flailing. Her jaw came unstuck rather quickly and when I took a look at it, she was uninjured. But it just seemed to anger her even more. Now, Cleo is a smart kitty. She watches how momma and poppa do things and tries to mimic it. It didn't take her that long to figure out how to hit the power button on the fan to turn it on and off. So the next day she reaches up and gives the power button a good smack with her paw and the fan turns off. And this is why you should never make kitty mad.

The Storm of Doom

Cats generally hate loud noises. Cleo is no exception to this. Whether it's wind rattling the windows or the snow plow going by or even just a loud noise on the street, Cleo will run and hide in one of many places. I can usually coax her out with some treats after I find her. As her momma, I know where she hides. Or so I thought. One night (on my birthday!), we had a really large storm roll through. Wind, lightning, thunder, the works.

Still from a video. Sorry it's so bad. This is from the storm that night.

It was loud and windy and lightning was everywhere. We were lucky that we didn't lose power that night, it was so bad. I spent some time videotaping the storm with my camera, but after a bit I realized that Cleo must be scared. So I went and got her treat box and called out to her. When you offer this cat ANYTHING food related, you had better watch out. When I got no response, I got a little worried and started to look for her. I looked under the bed. Empty. I looked in the bathtub. Empty. I looked in her litter box (it's one of those big covered ones) Empty. I started getting even more worried at that point. Was she stuck somewhere? Is she hurt? Did she get outside? I looked around even more, and the more I couldn't find her, the more worried I got. Finally, I looked over at the pile of cushions on the couch and saw a little cat tail sticking out from them. I called out to her again and little head poked out from the pile of cushions.

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She stayed there the entire storm and didn't even budge after it passed. She just went to sleep in her little den. Needless to say, I was relieved to see that she was ok. However, that day I learned that there is no such think as a "usual" hiding place for this kitty.

Litter Training

We all know that cats need to use a litter box when they are indoors. Most of the time, when you get a cat from the shelter, they are already trained. You just show then where the box is and they're good to go. However, things were different with Cleo. When we got her, she wasn't even weaned yet. So when the time came that she could finally go to the bathroom on her own, we had to teach her how to use the litter box. We found one that fit inside her box (kittens will get EVERYWHERE if you don't keep them contained) and it left her with no room to get out of the litter pan. I was in touch with an online friend and she told me that if you take her little paws and push them into the litter, that kitty will figure out the rest. Well, what she didn't tell me was that sometimes kitty will think that the litter is an awesome play area and start digging around in it like a kid in a sandbox. It took her a while to figure out that she can do her kitty business in her new play zone (for a tiny kitten, she sure kicked out a lot of litter!) but eventually, she got the hang of it.

Outside

When Cleo was little I used to take her outside to let her run around. We didn't have a space for her inside that she could run around in so this was how I used to wear her out. I would set her down and let her run around and she would follow me. I would take a few steps, then let her catch up. She would find me and purr and rub up against me. She also started to learn how to climb stairs. She would climb the steps leading up until the street. At least until a car would go by. In a single leap she'd go from the top of the stairs and into the grass. She also would take the time to curl up in my skirt or in Jerry's shorts

Her favorite thing to do outside was to wander around and just explode. She loved to go into the grass, even though she had a hard time with it. She was learning how to walk and run and the grass was as tall as she was (which wasn't very tall). Sometimes she would even get stuck and Momma would have to come to the rescue.

Peekaboo!

Now that kitty is grown, she isn't allowed to go outside anymore so her favorite spot in the house is now an open window. 

Feed me NOW Poppa!

The other night I had trouble sleeping so I stayed up for a bit, read a book, then fell back asleep with the little kitty snuggled up next to me. I was still asleep when Jerry came home. He noticed that I was sleeping and tried to keep quiet but he made the mistake of walking past the cats empty food bowl. He's creeping by and all of a sudden the cat starts yowling. And yowling. As if she was trying to say "Hey! Poppa! Get back here! You forgot something! HEY!" He finally turned around and started trying to calm Cleo down, but to no avail. Little kitty was very upset and was not going to stop scolding Jerry until she got what she wanted. She was still scolding him as he walked to the cupboard to get her food and she only stopped scolding him when he put the food in her bowl.

The Name

I suppose at this time I'd better explain Cleo's name and how she got it. When we first got her, we assumed that She was a He. She also did NOT fall through the hole like the other 2 kitties. She was on the very edge. When Jerry saw this, the only thing he could think of was the movie "The 300" where Leonidus kicks the messenger into the huge pit

THIS IS SPARTA!!

So we gave this tiny kitten a huge name, Leonidus. Of course, we were only guessing at the gender. You can't tell what gender a kitten is until they get a little older. So we didn't know that little Leo was a girl until we took her to the vet (poor kitty got constipated). That's when we found out that 99% of all Calico's are female. Still, the vet's assistant picked her up and checked, much to little kitty's dismay. And that's how little Leonidus became Cleonidus a.k.a Cleo

The Evil Box

Ever since she has been little, Cleo has had a fascination with boxes and dropping things down the stairs. Her food bowl used to be at the top of a flight of stairs. When you would feed her, all you'd hear is  Thudathudathudathuda as this little kitten flew up to the top of the stairs. You'd hear it again when she would drop her toys down the stairs and chase after them. Then she'd pick them up, bring them to the top of the stairs, and drop them down again. Over and over again. She started to do this with her cans of cat food too. My husband and I would wake up to the sudden clanging of metal falling down the stairs. Well, one day she decided that she was going to attack a box at the top of the stairs. She sat on the stairs and swatted the box with every whack of the paw pulling it closer to the edge of the stairs until finally the little kitten comes flying down the stairs and the box comes chasing after her.

The Start Of It All

For the longest time I had wanted to get a pet. I love cats, but unfortunately, the husband is allergic. After a long while of me pestering him for a pet he finally turned to me and said "If god wants us to have a pet, he'll give us a pet." That night, we go to bed. Suddenly, Jerry goes downstairs after hearing a crash. He comes back upstairs and says "Hun, take out your earplugs. We've got kittens." I go downstairs and see a hole in the dining room ceiling and a little kitten on the floor. Apparently, a cat had tried to move her litter into the ceiling and it had collapsed under the weight.

The hole in the ceiling

Scared Mama Cat

We named him Geronimo

We grabbed the biggest box we could find and put kitten number one in it

Named this one Leo at first...

Then we checked the hole and found kitten number 2. It became very apparent that kitten number 1 belonged to the Mama Cat that fell through, but kitten number 2 seemed to have been abandoned in the hole by a different cat. Eventually, Mama Cat escaped the house and kitten number 1 was returned to her. But that left us to deal with kitten number 2. After bottle feeding her every 2 hours for a couple of weeks, she mewed and snuggled her way into our hearts and Cleo finally became a part of the family.