My crazy kitten/cat (Cats in General)

Member Name: davey_26

Product:	Cats in General
Date:	27/10/09 (99 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, loving, mischevious, cute,

Disadvantages: Not cheap, you have to love cats and have a lot of patience

I have a number of these cute but very annoying animals and one is sitting on the desk right now, her name is Molly and she is a little black and white cat who I found abandoned on the park as a kitten. Of course being the sucker that I am, I couldn't just hand over to the RSPCA because of the worry of her being put down.

I don't know why the name Molly became her name but I am going to blame that one squarely on my sister who insisted it was a nice name. When she was a kitten, it was obvious she was very wild as one of her favourite activities used to be to see your leg and black as a cliff face which she must climb until she had reached the summit!. Needless to say that while I found this funny when she did it to others, when i was the victim I can't begin to describe the pain I felt from her claws.

The other reason why she used to see you as a climbing course was when you had some food which she had taken a shining to. I thought this was especially funny purely because of her pure tenacity and she certainly was a feisty cat. The other times where she could be more than a little handful was when she had managed to get hold of some food she wasn't supposed to have, either jumping into the fridge when no one noticed to happily devour some meat, to snatching off a chicken bone.

The latter of which led to some epic struggles which needed at least 2 of us to prize the chicken out of her mouth for fear that she could choke. It was during these moments where she would growl with the ferocity of a tiger which some people saw as being quite scary whereas as I just viewed it as embodying her determination.

However as a kitten she was extremely playful to, whether this was endlessly chasing a ping pong ball around for hours or playfully teasing her by holding some shoelaces over her, she had energy for days. As well as being tenacious and energetic though and when she wasn't trying to scratch (which i think was a kitten thing) she was also very lovable and took a particular shine to my labrador retriever. In fact she saw him as her own kitten and they had this almost ritual where he would wash her face and then she would pin him down and make sure her adopted kitten had an equally thorough face cleaning.

When we had Molly she was an extremely small cat and this was due to her being taken away from her mother before the age of 8 weeks, we think it was closer to 6 weeks and therefore she did not get as much milk as she should have done.

Molly is grown up now but still almost fits in the palm of my hand and retains a very kitten like face. In fact when people see her they are convinced she is a kitten. I think she does it simply to ingratiate herself but as well as her kitten like appearance, she also this very innocent almost desperate sounding meow which she uses to it's full advantage!

She used to wriggle an awful lot when she was picked up and often out came her claws to say hello!. Now when I pick her up, she actually enjoys it and I swear is as close to ADD as a cat is likely to come. When she doesn't want to stay in your arms anymore, she rekindles her climbing days up until your shoulders, at which point it's best to kneel down so she can gently walk down my back and jump off.

Molly is also something of an extremely fussy animal when it comes to her food. She has taken a real shining to some foods, while with others she simply looks at you in disgust in a manner which seems to question whether you are fit to be in the same household as her. There are 2 brands she likes in particular and these are the classic and the Nano cat food, everything else seems to be an insult to her taste buds.

Echoing her determination as a kitten, she won't give up this battle of wills either and will quite happily starve herself for days on end until you finally cave in and bow to her demands. However molly is not your typical cat and although she might question the choices presented to her, she seems much more fond of other foods she can lay her paws on!.

I won't cover the full range of her eating habits but it at all started when I was eating a malted biscuit, she stood there watching me with her eyes fixated on the biscuit. My immediate response was to break a little of it off and offer it to her thinking of course that she would realise there was nothing to be interested in and would then leave me alone, or so I thought. Instead she slowly with her small teeth started munching her way through it!. This little experiment was then followed by the liking she took for pasta, fruit cake, flapjack, bread, yoghurt and any other tasty treats she could persuade you into giving her. Now like clock work, Molly will follow me out into the garage when I go and collect the dry dog food and sit by me in anticipation of some bits falling onto the floor she then can snack on. She did test the waters before this to see whether she could perhaps share a bowl with the dogs, but you won't be surprised to learn that after a warning growl from my labrador retriever (Sonny) she backed down from any confrontation and so instead identified me as an alternate outlet!

Now at this point i can definitely state that Molly is not normal. As a further reminder of this irregular behaviour, I have to cast a sharp eye out for Molly whenever I am going to walk the dogs. The reason I need to be on my guard is because for some unknown reason, Molly likes to follow and not simply follow until the end of the avenue either!. Instead she will follow me for an entire walk, now beyond the danger of roads and such, she also gets very annoying because Molly likes to explore when she is on these dog walks.

She begins her exploring under cars and in bushes, she will lose ground on and sometimes I will not know where the hell she is, at this point all I can hear is this annoying kitten meow as Molly begins to panic so it then becomes a game of hide and seek. The only way of losing Molly before she is able to begin following, is to feign to walk one way with the dog's and then suddenly turn sharply round as Molly as calmly trotting behind us and sprint the other way!

There are of course moments like right now where Molly will calmly sit down usually near the computer screen, or sitting on the newspaper when I am trying to read it and fall asleep. Molly does most of her sleeping during the day and although she likes to come in at night because a) she likes sitting by the fridge asking and begging for milk and b) she likes her creature comforts, she is often too much of a live wire to simply settle down for the rest of the night.

Instead she seems to view these moments as the perfect opportunity to grab your attention as you threaten to fall into a sleep and she does this by attacking my feet!. She waits for the perfect moment when i stretch my legs out until she can reach my feet before playfully scratching. In the middle of the night this is perfectly stressful as you are suddenly snapped out of a deep dream and at moments like this I respond less like a loving pet owner and more like someone who is on the verge of a homicidal rage attack!

At this critical point she will either settle by you, start scratching the carpet to tell you that she wants to be let out, or she will have what we can only describe as her mad moments. During these mad moments she will start scratching and right on cue at my shouting she will race out of the room and down the stairs!. Now you might think that she is simply asking to be let outside, but this is not so, since when I offer her the chance to go out, she races back upstairs again and she relives her kitten years all over again!

Now you might think in the account I have given that she must be a nightmare but it could not be further from the truth. Firstly she is how she is because she never got the chance to be a kitten and although she is very annoying at times I actually find her behaviour extremely funny although perhaps not at the very moment during the middle of the night!

Just to underline why she is so loved by me there was a period of months last year in which I was very ill and Molly sensed this. As I lay in bed she never seemed to want to leave my side. She is only a small cat but her lying on the covers was making me very hot she was not doing the fever I was suffering from any favours but of course being something of a sucker for animals I did not have the heart to push her off my bed. So instead I thought I would let her sleep on my bed and I would take myself off to another bed. Of course the very moment Molly felt me leave the bed her eyes sprang open and she followed me onto the other bed and lay down again.

At first I thought okay then, you have this one, I will have my bed, Molly once again ran after me and jumped back onto my bed. At this point I knew I wasn't going to shake her but it gave me great comfort to. She would do exactly the same when i had to go to the bathroom invariably to be sick buzzing around my legs before following me back to bed and sleep. This is an illness I should add which I am now thankfully fully over.

This does not stop Molly from following me around upstairs of course and insists that whenever I am sitting down, that she sits on my lap. This was something she never used to do as a kitten because she couldn't sit still for 2 seconds!. Now though she adores the attention and I love it to because I find it very therapeutic and love cuddling up to her.

She like any other cat is not cheap to keep, as well as worming, there is the recommended flea treatments and of course her fussy eating habits but knock on wood she is a very healthy cat and therefore we have not encountered any costly vet bills.. There was a moment recently where she was off he food for a few days but we decided that instead of going to the vets we would see how she got on with some homeopathic treatment. Thankfully the treatment worked extremely well and very quickly and she was back to her crazy self again very soon.

She is a very playful, loving animal with some very unusual and funny tendencies and with such a small kitten like face and figure, I can't help but be manipulated by her. I think that anyone that doesn't have a cat, if it's practical to have a cat, is truly missing out and I wouldn't swap any of them for all of the money in the world. For all of Molly's crazy antic's she is a very soft and cowardly cat who does not like real confrontation but does love being around people. Furthermore and in my opinion Molly only reinforces how ridiculous the notion is that cat's don't have individual personalities she is all the proof I need of this.



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Summary: A priceless animal