My darling, sweet, precious little angel!!

As you know from my last post about Kizmet, I had carefully laid out plans about how I would slowly introduce him to the other cats in the house so that he would not be overwhelmed with the stress of seven large, adult cats who would in all probability chase him into a corner and bully him to defend their territory. To me, he is my sweet little baby – a helpless, tiny ball of fur that I rescued and I wanted to make sure he would feel safe and secure in his new forever home.

He had gone to the vet for his second checkup – his infection was cleared up and he was given the green light to safely meet everyone which was my main concern and I planned on slowly bringing him out of the office in the next day or two.  You know how I had wanted it to go – I would put the other cats in the bedroom so that he could explore the house on his own for a bit, then I would introduce him to one or two cats at a time so they could become familiar with one another, while being supervised by Dan and I. Not only did I want the process to run as smooth as possible for Kizmet, but I also wanted the other cats to ease into meeting him so that they were not overly upset either. Read more

By now, most of you know that we have a new feline family member, little Kizmet that I got from a Pet Supermarket adoption, and the pressing question of the day is “how is he getting along with the other cats?” Well, truth be told, I have no idea because he has not met them yet and that is the subject of today’s post – how to properly introduce a new cat or kitten into a household with one or more cats already settled in it.

Since I had not anticipated leaving Pet Supermarket with a kitten, I was unprepared for Kizmet's arrival. Here he is in my office where he is spending his time until he can meet the other cats. You will quickly note I did not have time to vacuum the rug.

When you make the very serious decision to adopt a new pet, in this case, a kitten, you envision all sorts of playful hi-jinks and shenanigans with your existing cat (in my case, seven) who will welcome the new feline mate with open paws and it is so tempting to want them to meet right away. What you normally get is a long and sometimes traumatic period of anger issues, territorial issues, jealousy issues – in a nutshell – a lot of hissing, fur flying, growling, territory marking, and a host of other behavioral issues from your residing felines who are typically NOT HAPPY at all that you have invaded their delicate social dynamic just because your eyes bonded and you fell head over heels in love with your newest furry bundle of joy. Read more

Typically when we think of holiday gift giving, we envision toys, furniture and whatnot for our indoor kitties. But, not all cats are indoor pets and with much of the country already affected by heavy snowstorms and frigid temperatures, I thought it would be fitting to highlight the innovative products from KatKabin as the next feature company in our holiday  review series since they carry a full range of stylish, functional, and comfortable housing shelters for the needs of any type of cat. Read more

This cartoon of me was created for my book, The Chronicles of Zee & Zoey, for Chapter 25, "The Whole Truth & Nothing But The Truth."

We’ve all been in circumstances where you walk into a room and you don’t have to be a detective to know something is wrong…. Yeah, anyhow, welcome to my edition of “True Horror Stories of the Cats Living in my House!”

Intrigued? The title of the post implies online data backup –what the heck does that have to do with my cats and is this going to be one of those weird, off-topic types of stories that has no relevance to my readers?  That’s initially what I thought when my  buddy Caroline Golon of Romeo the Cat contacted me and asked if I wanted to do a post about a company called SurDoc that offers automatic online data backup. Read more

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"The Cage"

“Eight is Enough” is the title of this post, but what I really wanted the title to be was “Damn-it, would someone please not allow me to go into Pet Supermarket any longer?” Here’s the thing, for most of us cat lovers, having to walk past “The Cage” – you know the one I’m talking about – the one that is in front of the store that is filled with cats/kittens that you have to unavoidably walk by to get to the cat food aisle is heart wrenching at the very least.

Normally I do my best to make a very polite visit to say hello, but I try to avoid any serious eye contact that would involve an overly dramatic emotional connection with the cat(s). It’s the only way I can get through it without turning into a pile of mush when I leave the store without all of them in my arms. Read more