New! – Your ChicagoBoyz helpful tip of the day.

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If your neighbor who is moving away and owns a lot of cats offers you one of them because she can’t take them all to her new place, do not take her up on her offer.

UPDATE: Let me rephrase that. There may be a reason why your neighbor has decided to give up this particular cat.

You might call this a case of revealed purrferences.

26 thoughts on “New! – Your ChicagoBoyz helpful tip of the day.”

  1. Mmm. OK – my guess: scratched you bloody and then went and hid up on top of the kitchen cabinets, or pissed on your bedding – and then went and hid up on top of the kitchen cabinets.
    Yeah, my daughter fell to the same old-same old, rather than allow a ten-year old, neutered and declawed female snowshoe get sent to the pound.
    After a couple of months of intensive cat-attachment therapy, said female snowshoe is perfectly amiable and affectionate … but because she doesn’t get along with the other cats that my daughter has brought home, and has the s**t beaten out of her every time that feline sociability sessions are attempted … that cat now lives in the master bathroom suite. That’s my world, welcome to it. If you need any suggestions, vis-a-vis socializing cats, let me know. I’m an expert. With the scars and hospitalization record to show for it.
    Are your tetanus shots current? That will help.

  4. I didn’t believe it when someone told me all IT-connected people (programmers, analysts, code writers, etc) are cat-afflicted. 5 examples later, I started to reconsider. This one was the last drop.

    What is it in cats that attracts you, ppl? What’s the appeal of a cold calculating narcissist?

  5. Sgt. Mom:

    This happened to a friend of mine so I was not directly affected. The cat got along OK with people and other pets but was hell on bedding and carpets.

    Fortunately, my friend had negotiated a clawback provision with the original owner in case things didn’t work out.

  6. Tatyana – I have been in IT for 30 years and have never had a cat, nor do I desire to have one.

    I used to detest them but in recent years have mellowed to the point I admire them for what they are – they live on a take it or leave it plane.

    Conversely – someone said years ago that a dog is the only animal who will adapt to your world yet still give you a window to their (animal) world.

    And I do remember a fascinating special on National Geographic many years ago that profiled the feline family – from the smallest house cat to the mightiest lion – and the interesting thing – behaviorally – is that they have more in common with each other as a species than any other species.

    Left in the wild house cats will display 90% of the behavior of a lion or a leopard.

    I suppose my attitude towards cats changed with a visit to Kenya many years ago. You never forget the lions.

  10. Two tone cat for sale(white/tiger stripe):2010 model, very sweet male, house broken, well mannere
    well, he was until walking on the keyboard.
    Original price was $1500, now priced at $1.50. Favorable financing available. No down payment, your word is good here.
    Call Mockingbird for the very best in housecats!

  11. Well, my cat Blackie was incredibly loyal and affectionate. I have to give him credit for what sanity I escaped my childhood with intact, after the reign of terror my mother inflicted on me. And I’ve since had other cats that definitely appreciated my saving them from some fate or other, and showed their gratitude to me.

    So there’s that.

  13. From Heinlein’s The Door into Summer:

    “Cats have no sense of humor, they have terribly inflated egos, and they are very touchy. If somebody asked me why it was worth anyone’s time to cater to them, I would be forced to answer that there is no logical reason.”

    Nonetheless the narrator, a logical engineer named Daniel Boone Davis, does cater to his cat.

    (The novel isn’t one of Heinlein’s best, but it has an absolutely wonderful beginning, even if you don’t care much for cats.)

  14. Every Heinlein book has some gaps. He was always playing with ideas and possibilities and he often turned them out quickly. But I enjoyed Door into Summer. My favorite part was when the protagonist wakes up in the future and his attorney is trying to explain that ten dollars will no longer buy him the nice night on the town he was expecting. The fatal attraction of inflation to governments was a consistent theme with RAH. Looking around us, I can’t say he was off base in that.

  15. I’m definitely a dog-person, but I do not work in IT. I was born when a bulldog came into our family – or viceversa – and have been a Molossoid (FCI section 2.1) fan since then. Now a proud and affectionate owner of two 14 y.o. dogs: a male Amstaff and a female Pit Bull.
    I have to say that I’m considering, the day those two friends of mine will not be around anymore, to get a cat. I live in the countryside – rather the slope of a rocky mountain covered with oakes, don’t even think of those softy and bald Tuscan hills – and a cat would help with mice and such. But, well, I would really love if the cat could learn to do his/her things outside, just like the two doggies. Don’t know if it’s possible.
    Then taking another couple of dogs, perhaps a Corso and a Neapolitan Mastiff that are less aggressive towards cats than a Bull Terrier or, say, a Bull Mastiff. As later as possible, however.

    I suppose that living with a cat does not involve emotions like the ones that spring from the relationship with a dog. They are different, so different must be the relationship. I suppose that feeding an animal – a thing I do with birds, leaving some summer and winter fruits on the trees – is rewarding enough when you have chosen a feline guest in your household. I once read a line that said something like «dogs are domesticated, cats are domestics»: they live in our domus, but are not domesticated. If that’s acceptable from an emotional point of view, I can’t see any minus in having a cat.

  16. Personally, I think that cats appeal to the masochist in us. It amuses us somehow to bossed around by 4 pounds of fluff.

    I like a couple of Terry Prachett quotes on cats:

    “In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.”

    and

    “If cats looked like frogs we’d realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That’s what people remember.”

    Schrodinger’s Moggy explained — “In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the
    cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat
    could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.”

  18. One general point in favor of cats: Cats can still be useful on many farms, even farms that don’t raise grains.

    But you don’t need to cater to those cats.

  19. Update on a poll: on the base of 20 cat-lovers lead by 20%.
    Jim Miller, were you the lone voter who said “yes” to option “Domestic animals should live on a farm?”

  20. Tatyana – No. I haven’t voted in your poll. I spent much of yesterday working on my “Fannie Mae and Friends” post. (Which I think you would find interesting.)

    But to answer your general question: I love dogs, and find cats interesting. If I had a yard, I’d have a dog, but I think it unfair to have a dog in a small apartment, even if you are good about walking the dog.

    If I lived where mice or rats were a problem — 10 Downing Street, for instance — I’d probably keep a cat, even though I am allergic to them. (Incidentally, the Downing Street cats are part of the civil service, not family pets, I learned recently.)

  22. What is it in cats that attracts you, ppl? What’s the appeal of a cold calculating narcissist?

    In return for a modest amount of food and weekly litter-box changing, I have a rodent-killing machine.

    Also, I don’t anthropomorphize my animals. They are dogs, and cats, and are not little people with four legs and fur coats.

  25. Tatyana – everyone – I remember reading that next to a shark a cat is nature’ s perfect killing machine. Everything about them is adapted to the hunt.

    I no longer hate cats but see them as they are – many years ago I used to encourage my dogs to chase cats – thought it was hilarious – not to hurt them just chase them as nature intended.

    Every once in awhile a cat would turn to face his tormentor and as if to say ‘You want a piece of me?” My dogs would inevitably put on the brakes as if they were saying “no – everything’s cool!”

    Years ago when in Kenya I came to realize that even a lion is just a giant 400 lb house cat. You never forget those topaz eyes. That certainly didn’t mean I lost respect for them – like so many of these urbanites who think all animals are their friends – I’m thinking of Timothy Treadwell right now – after seeing Grizzley Man I felt he was so obnoxious I was rooting for the bears.

    Which eventually got him incidentally.

  26. ” 4 pounds of fluff. “? Try 18 lbs and 15 lbs for my moms “little kitties”! One, the 18lb one is to bloody LAZY to catch mice and the other is scared of its own shadow.

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