Diamond's tomato obsession.

Last night I came home with half of a mushroom-swiss burger, and forgot to put it in the fridge.

I found it this morning, opened.

Diamond had pulled the to-go box out of the basket it was in, opened the box, flipped open the burger, IGNORED the beef, IGNORED the cheese, and ate the two slices of tomato.

I ask you. Is THIS a normal creature!?

*Sigh.*

This has always been one of my favorite photos of Diamond. :)

*Yawn.*

Your daily dose of Cute.

Who DOES these kinds of things!?

I would have posted this after my photopost of last time, but I really didn't want to ruin such a lovely photopost with venting.

So Monday night at Safeway, I was at the end of an isle chatting with a friend I hadn't seen in a few months, and an older-teen-aged boy walks past us, and starts hissing, growling, and making clawing motions at Diamond.

Diamond reads lips surprisingly well, but of course THAT didn't translate. Diamond looked at him, then turned back to look at me like, "?No habla estupido."

I watched the kid in dumbfounded fascination until he walked out of site, commented, "Odd," and continued on with my conversation.

After I'd made my purchases, I chatted with a store manager, who informed me that Safeway has a 0 tolerance policy against harassment. It works like so:

If you're caught harassing someone in the store, they take your I.D. information and put it on file. If three such incidences are recorded against you, you are permanently trespassed from the store. By the police.

Niiiice.

It was an irritating thing to have happen, but I'm glad I learned so much from it.

To quote Hermione: "Honestly."

And finally, Here's a basic little reminder. (Of course I know I'm mostly just preaching to the choir, here.)

Diamond: "Yaaay! Another adventure! Where we going tonight mom?"


Diamond: "Oooh, what a pretty evening!"


Diamond: "Shopping!? Eww, you know I hate grocery shopping, mom!"
Me: "And just where do you think we get your treats?"
Diamond: "Shopko! Which I like better!"
Me: *Sigh.*


Diamond: "Okay, now this is much better."


Diamond: "What a pretty night. *Yawn*" :)


Diamond: "Hey! I know this door!" :)


Diamond: "My kingdom for thumbs! Sorry that I can't help you with the doorknob, mom."


Diamond: "Okay, now let me help you because you know you can't do it unless I direct."
Me: "Yes, my liege." *sigh.*

Eep!

I'm sorry. I forgot to acknowledge Diamond's sixth birthday this year (the 28th) because my father died wednesday before last and my mind has been on other things.

In other news, Diamond's been quite adorable lately. Photos to follow in the next update.

Finally, a Photopost!

I haven't posted any images of Diamond lately because I had forgotten my photobucket password and couldn't get into the account for months, and worst of all, they have some new policy where you only have so many tries, which was crushing my attempts.

So anyway, finally, the photos will come back.

This one needs a bit of explanation. There's a large fishtank at The Bookie, and the fish always come to you because they think you're going to feed them... even if you're a cat! So here's Diamond, surrounded by hungry fish. ;)


From what I understand, the Bookie is going to be housed inside the CUB eventually, so this tranquil scene will be no more. *sighest...*

I RULE.

July 26th, 2006. Oh, and I am TEH ROCK for socializing kittens. All of the kittens, and the mother, are now all safely ensconced at the Humane Society, awaiting their appointment with the Vet tomorrow, and the director says they're all ready to be adopted out, behaviorally speaking. I tell you, I have a magic touch. X-D

Kittens Doing Well.
July 20th, 2006.

Hi! I don't have homes for the kittens yet, but they're doing fairly well. One is actually with me, hidden in a cardboard box in the basket while Diamond rides on the floor of the scooter under my legs for shade. I had brought said kitten to Ric-O-Shay, but it turned out the person was only interested in female kittens. *sigh* We're taking the bus home in order to keep cool. I need to find a way to get them FIV tested. (I used to be able to edit the dates I wanted a given post to appear in, I don't know what's gone wrong.)

KITTENS!

July 17, 2006

There was a mother cat and four feral kittens on the side of one of our apartment units, so I dutifully called Animal Control, who came the next day, and we trapped them. Unfortunately it is kitten season, and the first kitten we caught that the AC Officer brought to the shelter was said to be too wild, and that we were to release them all. I talked her into releasing them into my custody, and they are all now safely ensconced in my bathroom while they learn to adjust to humans. It turns out the mother is actually completely people friendly and comes to me for cuddles every time I join them. Two of the kittens have begun to accept cuddles, and the other two are slowly losing their shyness. They've been with me one week as of yesterday, and they're all gray tabbies. Two kittens are long-haired, and two are short-haired like the mother. Eeek! I've gone from one cat to six! It's work but it's fun work!!

Diamond's Reaction to all this.

You know, I totally forgot to write about how Diamond was taking all of that. Diamond was totally loving it! I was really shocked and pleased that he wasn't showing any agression or jealousy towards the other cats, but all he wanted to do was smell and meet them and hopefully play with them. He even tolerated bieng locked in the bedroom for his safety on days when I'd leave the bathroom door open to encourage Mamma and the kittens to explore. (Only one kitten ever did, though.)

MammaKitten (as I called her) wasn't having it about meeting Diamond, though. She hissed the two times that she met Diamond. Once, she escaped from the bathroom and ran under a small table I've got, where Diamond was already sitting, and sat down. She turned when Diamond said hello, hissed angrilly, and ran back to the safety of the bathroom. (Everyone else had a good laugh.)

The second time a few days later, we had to take everything off of the floor of the bathroom and clean everything because although they're all quite good about using the litterbox, they kick sand everywhere. I loaded everyone into Diamond's adult-cat carrier and set them in the hall, and MammaKitten and at least one kitten hissed at Diamond when he came tearing over to investigate.

So introductions didn't go so well. And the kittens had some pretty severe ear mite infections as it turned out, so Diamond's going to have to be checked at his next Vet appointment, *sarcasm* which I'm sure he'll love. ;)

So all in all, I'm terribly proud of Diamond. One of the kittens was decidedly unafraid of him, and I'm sure that totally helped in that lil guy's socialization process.

I'm crossing my fingers now that they'll all pass their FIV/FIL tests... I'm so worried that they'll have to be euthanized even after all the hard work. If everything turns out okay, I'll be sure to link their PetFinder.com profiles up here!

Genius Cat!

I love my cat. He's getting so smart. :) Really, he's probably not any smarter than he's always been, but my ability to tap into it has improved and he's really rising to the challenge. Apparently he loves challenges! Early last month I started watching a show on Animal Planet which only plays very early in the morning, called Barking Mad. It's a British show that features a pet -- two pets per episode -- that has some kind of emotional or behavioral problem. They bring in experts, find the source of the problem, and then re-train both the human and the pet to modify the animal's frustrating behavior.

In one episode, they showcased a dalmation that was completely deaf. The owners weren't aware he was deaf, so he was sent in for vet tests that pinpointed the problem, and he was indeed deaf. Actually, I could tell from his bosy language that the dog was just as frustrated with the human owners as they were with him. and then they brought in a dog trainer to train the owners to teach the dog obedience lessons via sign language. The dog responded immediately, and he became much more relaxed, happy, and confident with the hand signals than without them, and of course the humans became the same because of his change in behavior.

I'm always on the lookout for new hand signals to train Diamond, so I was delighted to watch. I wish they'd provided more information to where I could learn more hand signals, because they only showed two or three, one of which (palm up for "sit,") I already knew.

In any event, they showed "thumbs up," as a way to say "Good job, now you get a treat!" and I began working on that one with Diamond that very morning.

Today, six weeks later, Diamond's showed me several times that he knows "Thumbs up!" perfectly. :)

I was sitting on the couch, and for some reason I got it into my head to show him numbers with my fingers. I went to show him "One," with my thumb, forgetting all about thumbs up which I hadn't done in a couple of weeks, and he immediately perked up, his ears pricked, and he looked at my empty hands, then looked around the room for his treat can, confused. I laughed my fool head off and snatched up the can, then gave him another thumbs up, by which time he had scampered up to me and had sat politely, waiting, and I gave him a treat.

Next we're going to work on "Come here!" Which is a large circular backwards waving of the hand towards myself. I think this one may be trickier.

I love my cat. :)

An upcoming visit to the Vet

Diamond's going to be a VERY unhappy fuzzy butt in the beginning of March. I've got two of his vaccinations scheduled, PLUS, I'm having a microchip installed in him. Luckily for him, most likely there will probably only be two injections, as the first two will probably be combined. (I hope.) Still, it's going to be a noisy day at the clinic. *Giggle* At my clinic, the microchip ONLY costs $30!! That's SO awesome!!!!

For those of you who own pets.. you know what the microchip is, right? (I still meet people who don't know about it.) They inject this very small microchip in your cat or dog's shoulder, and from then on, vet clinics and pet shelters can scan the animal, and if your beloved pet ever gets lost, the chip tells them the animal's owner's address!! SWEET!! In some cases, they also tattoo the inside of the animal's ear so pet rescuers will know to scan for the chip. I'm gonna tease the hell out of Diamond if he has to get a tat. Haaa! I just about did backflips (Yes, I can actually backflip...) when I found out it was so cheap at Diamond's clinic. {{{{{Hugs Diamond's Vet Clinic}}}}}

Also, I've bit the bullet and checked with a local nursing home about having Diamond make regular "pet therapy session" visits with their clients. I'm one of those people who gets kind of wierded out at nursing homes... but when I took Diamond to see a particular client last year at the request of my previous physician, Diamond LOVED it, and ever since has taken to flirting madly with elderly people who walk up to him. When they walk away, he turns around, looks at me with pouting eyes, and chuffs. *Headstearinghandles* Gee, THANKS! So I couldn't take the pouting anymore and talked to a particular home's activities director a couple of weeks ago.