Chewers' Pets - Page 8

Uh, yeah, no. Jolene there would mess that cat up. African Grays do not play around.

My parakeets, Marvin and Wilson, would like to arrange a play date with Jolene. They'll bring the shredded coconut.

I had one of those for a while. I don't think it had been properly raised and domesticated, because it was a complete asshole the entire time I had it. Hissed and ruffled its feathers at anybody who even approached its cage for two years. It somehow got out of the apartment one day, and I never saw it again. And no, I didn't "accidentally" leave a window open and turn my back.

But yes, Zooey is correct. That thing would have fucked up a cat.

Most definitely. In fact, she is even more curious about the cats than the cats of her. It's more of a challenge to keep her away from them. She spends most of the day with Ernie (in her cage of course) but the minute she's out of the cage she wants to head down to where Ernie is laying and play with his tail.


How easy is it to introduce new birds to each other?

In response to Greg (more of a comment than a response), African Gray's require plenty of attention. The less attention they get the more surly and agressive they become to others.

Complete side note: African Gray's really do pick up phrases quickly. My roommate Helen went to Yellowstone for a week and I was able to teach Jolene a not so nice phrase while Helen was gone. Shocked the hell out of Helen when Jolene used that phrase on her.

Here is Butch, the new office puppy.





He's grown quite a bit the last few months, i'll try to take some new pictures.

Depends entirely upon the bird. We've had three parakeets, total, and we've had really good experiences. We got Otis first and had him for a year before we realized that he probably really, really wanted a roommate (stupid humans). So then we brought Marvin home. We were worried about how they'd react to each other, but they were fast friends right away, though Otis, being a giant pacifist, did let Marvin push him around a lot.

We had to have Otis put to sleep this summer, so then we got Wilson. Again, it was love as soon as we put Wilson in the cage - all kisses and cooing. I think they're even more attached to one another than Marvin and Otis were, which really surprises me. Plus, the relationship is much more equal, which is nice, but it also means that we have to break up more tussles.

I have heard that there can be aggression problems, esp. with bigger birds, but I haven't seen it yet. As I'm sure you've already noticed, birds have surprisingly strong, highly individualized personalities,* so you kind of have to watch your bird and judge what'll work for her.


* - Took Otis to the vet once; had to fill out a form with basic information about him. I got to the question in which I was asked to describe his personality and it actually gave me pause. A parakeet weighs less than a roll of Lifesavers and I was considering using the word "witty." Jesus.

I don't have a lot of experience with birds but I will say I've been very surprised with how assertive Jolene can be in regards to everyone in the house. Among my pack (litter?) of cats there is definitely an alpha (Phil) but he never tries to exert himself over the entire house, just the cats. Jolene? Definitely does not like being considered below anyone (or anything). I get the impression she considers herself the Alpha in the entire house (humans and cats).

Also, she does have a rather distinctive personality. Sarcastic? Wiseass? Hmmm, probably why she likes me more than Helen. She also prefers certain music (rather partial to Modest Mouse right now) and even movies/TV. She'll let you know if she doesn't like what's on the TV.

Yeah, you do have to push back with birds a little. I mean, we don't really have a problem with ours - again, four inches long and they barely weigh anything - but they will assert themselves via sheer volume. It is incredible how loud they can be if they really want to. Unfortunately (for them), all it really takes is tossing a towel over their cage to put an end to that.

They do have strong opinions about music, too, and, you're right, they'll make their preferences clear. I think their built-in music snobbery makes DaveB happy. We've discovered that anything with horns, handclaps, or elaborate percussion is always a big hit. Also Motown, female singers, and John Zorn's klezmer stuff. They don't really seem to like live instruments - my violin seems to make them nervous and Dave's guitar does, too (though Otis used to hang out on the neck of it and bite the strings - he looked like the Woodstock logo).

They don't have opinions about the tv - if it's on, it's a good thing, but they do really like it when groups of people are talking (CNN, Sunday morning news shows, etc.).

The family that had Jolene before us, included a little girl. Jolene's favorite sound to imitate when no one is paying her any attention? A little girl screaming. Pitch perfect too. Mortifies me to no end. I'm still afraid my neighbors are going to say something to me.

I've been using Jolene to push my music tastes on my boyfriend. Hasn't worked yet, but I have been able to slowly get him away from NIN since she seems to dispise the group. I'll try some Motown. I've been trying a few different genres lately. Unfortunately she doesn't like any Sinatra. Almost a deal breaker for me.

She absolutely loves that penguin movie. I forget the name. Animated. Penguin can't sing, but can dance. You know the movie, right? LOVES.

My two hamsters, Bruno and Claudio. I have to keep them in separate cages because they try kill each other all the time.


(I named them after the Italian directors Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso)

Alright, so my sister just came home with this guy:





I never knew a rabbit could be so damn entertaining. He actually does shit, unlike our cat who finds a comfortable place to lay down and sleeps all day.

Oh, and his name is Calvin. Of course.

My girlfriend felt a need to dress up our cat for Halloween. He is predictably hilarious looking:

Henri el Gato.Hates people.



Phoebe The Great Dane.5 yrs old.Weighs more than 10st and her favourite game is running at me full pelt and then jumping in the air and giving me a right hook right in the chops.



Sully the Staffy. 7 yrs old,Soft as shit but attacks the odd small dog every so often.Likes smoking,drinking and poker.

Some more...

What is that bunny's problem? Being that fuckin' cute...

Seriously, I was never a big fan of rabbits, but this one is really cool. He's box trained so he doesn't shit on the floor, and the women love him. Not to mention the ridiculous cuteness. Very cool pet.

My college roommate bought a pet rabbit and let it run rampant through our dorm room. It shat everywhere (luckily they were only little pellets) and ate the buttons off the TV remote and the tips of my Addidas slippers. I of course couldn't get mad at the little bugger because he was so friggin' cute.f

This is Margaret.



I really love birds. I'm pretty big on kitties too. Having both at the same time could be conflicting, but I have seen it work.

PS. That bunny is adorable.

my Dog has yet to find a plactic bag he wont piss on. He is house traned and he knows he will get in touble if it pisses in the house, but it wont stop him. Needless to say no plastic bag are left were he can reach them

Oh man, is that a Rhinelander rabbit? My family used to have one. And it's eating an apple. How cute!

Just be careful it doesn't gnaw on dry wall. Rabbits have electrocuted themselves by gnawing on electrical work.

True, when I was a kid my parent had a Greater Sulphur-crested Cockatoo named Fred. I saw Fred beat the shit out of a 75 American Pit, who in turn beat the shit out of a 190 Saint Burnard, who in turn beat the shit out of four German shepherds at once. Birds are really bad ass creatures.

Yea, I have him blocked off on the other side of the basement at the moment. I quickly learned that they like to chew on wires, so I cleared all the electrical stuff from that side. There were also some old books and magazines that were pretty high up on a shelf, and he managed to get to those as well. Once I got rid of everything he could chew on, he's been pretty good. I usually just give him an old newspaper to ravage.

I guess technically he's a Dwarf Rhinelander Lop. The funny thing is I never intended to have this as a pet, my Sister bought him and planned to take him back to school with her, but her RA caught her and kicked the Rabbit out, so now I take care of him, and he's really grown on me over the past couple months. He'll actually play fetch with this stuffed ball he has.

Here's the newest member of the family:

Aaw....that is a tiny kitty. Don't lose it!

That's awesome and the fact the rabbit is box trained is even more impressive.

Oddly enough, the way you got the rabbit was similar to the way my family got theirs. It was a school rabbit my sisters took home for the summer. My dad didn't like the way it was bunched up in his cage so he fenced offed the back yard. It was great seeing the little guy have his routine.

Not to mention to see how stretchy rabbits are.

I know, I never thought about how a rabbit slept before I had this one. It's kind of funny because he'll usually find a spot under this chair we have over there and basically just collapse on his side or stomach with his hind legs all stretched out behind him. It looks kinda funny and really fucking cute at the same time.

He's box trained, but sometimes he gets lazy or whatever and poops on the ground. But that's not a big thing because they are like little pellets. As long as he pees in his cage we don't have problems, and so far, he's been good about it.

Yeah, the way a rabbit craps is like the way a slot machine pays out.

And it seems like your rabbit has one particular spot where it'll stretch. Ours did the same thing in the backyard.

That is just about the cutest little kitten that I've ever seen. How many days/weeks old is it?

He's about four weeks old. He's only got two speeds; meowing and sleeping.

Take lots of pictures, he'll grow FAST.

They grow fast. My cat is 9 now (she takes no interest in the rabbit, btw) and all she does is find the nearest bed to lay down on for the day and most of the night. If you're planning on de-clawing him eventually, look into scratching pads first. Our cat has never scratched any furniture, she just uses this scratching pad thing that has some catnip in it. Better, and they don't have to go through the pain/risk of infection from declawing.

Unfortunately in my apartment complex raccoons are a big problem, so he can't be an inside/outside cat like I would have wanted, but I think we're going to declaw his back legs only. That way we can get a scratching post and he can still feel like a badass cat, and his back claws won't scratch the furniture when he hops up on stuff.

Good luck with that. We had to get our cat declawed (front paws only) because he was too destructive of the furniture AND he was causing battle scars on my wife and myself.

I got that idea from a friend of mine and she says she never has any problems. You just have to get the scratching post when the cat is really little, so that way they grow up using that instead of the furniture.

That's basically the idea. This isn't my cat, I found the pic on Google, but this is similar to the scratching pad she uses, it's cheap and easy...



As for battle wounds, yea, I still get them. If you try to move her out of the way and she doesn't want to go anywhere, expect to get scratched. But she's been using the pad since she was a kitten and has never scratched the furniture, and we have leather couches in our living room that she even sleeps on. No problems.

I thought that declawing the rear paws was actually worse for the cat then declawing the front, but I don't know for sure. They use them to grip things, but they don't really rip furniture with them, even unintentionally. So basically, I don't know if it's necessary to declaw the cat at all if you're going to keep the front claws, since those are the ones that can do damage (particularly if they like to stretch by digging their claws into your couch or something).

Our cat is 10, and we haven't had any clawing issues at all with his back paws.

We really didn't want to get his front paws declawed, but he was just causing too much damage to our furniture and our skin. The clincher is when he jumped on the bed and landed on my foot. I moved it underneath him and he sank his front claws deeply into the bottom of my left foot. I limped for a week while the bottom of my foot healed.

If you can, you should definitely avoid getting your cat declawed. It really sucks for them. If you get them used to it when they're young they don't really care when you trim their claws so that's what we do with my cat (he's only 6 months old now). He doesn't really scratch anything but he will inadvertently claw things. He also uses them when he's about to fall off stuff (like the couch or bed or whatever).

Still, trimming his claws every couple of weeks is easy enough. I just wait until he's sleepy and get the clipper out and he doesn't even care. This way is a lot less painful for them at least.

Ouch.

The cat we had before this one was declawed in the front, but he was a 18 pound beast of a cat who could rip apart furniture in seconds. I've noticed that declawed cats tend to bite more, because I guess they lost their main line of defense if their declawed. I'd say just wait and see how the cat does, and if it causes problems then look into getting it declawed. Every cat seems to be different.

One thing my current cat does that's kind of annoying: If she's laying on your lap or chest while you're sitting or laying down, she gets so happy that she starts kneeding her claws into your skin. It's not intentional, I think it's just because she's happy and purring, but it feels like little needles puncturing your chest or legs over and over again.

Eric: Another thing, get used to brushing your cat. Get in the habit NOW so that it becomes automatic as he gets older. The more you brush him, the less likely it will be that he gets hairballs; trust me when I say that you don't want to deal with those if you can avoid it.

qft

I'd recommend doing the same thing for rabbits. Except rabbits can't vomit.

Besides, it's something nice to do.

He gets pet and brushed often, and he's still pretty young so he can keep himself pretty well groomed.

Here's the cat, laying around like always. I woke her up. She wasn't happy.

Fine, here's our cat...currently in the midst of a catnip-induced hallucinogenic trip. He was squirming and stretching all over the floor and this was the best that I could do for now. I'll get a posed shot (sleeping) later.

My cat is classy as shit:

Reesey, enjoying her Christmas treat.

Need to post some chrissy pics of my boys, Sams grown a lot since the last pics I posted.

Patrick and I have a kitten now. Her name is Zooey.





And then there's still Margaret.

That cat's goddamn cute.

I love all the pictures of the cat, ending with Margaret who looks like she's viewing all of these cat-related proceedings with shunned disdain.

cuteness overload!

Can't resist. The tailless power of Loki compels me.

Margaret always hated Patrick. She gets really flustered and always makes sure to make the most noise when he is in the room. Now that we have Zooey, she hates me too. I think it will pass. It's just big sister syndrome.

Zooey likes to jump up on the corner of my fouton and look at Margaret a lot, but she has not shown interest in doing anything else to her. But like hell if Margaret cares. There's still a fucking cat staring at her.