Category: Piper

As the snow fades to brown, the mice appear, shit’s exposed, and Piper starts shaking off her winter blues. There’s so much fat waddling mouse meat to harvest from the melting snow caves, I think she’s bored already.

It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon and I finally convinced Piper to venture outside. She’s having a fine time watching the birds still remaining around here…

That’s my baby, have I mentioned that I really love my cat?

We got snow hammered today and I opened the deck door to take some shots when Piper decided to venture outside. Checking her hole is a ritual for the old girl, it is her safe spot after all, but she can’t find it in winter. The last time she saw it was here.

Click the photo below to see her little adventure…

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In case you’re wondering why the title has no apostrophe, that damn little character is considered a quote in the code world, so I just skip them completely, to keep all of my other blog code happy :-)

Piper was sitting on my lap this morning watching Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood on my flat screen to the left of my desk. This is her favorite spot lately, she loves the connection with me while I work and the warmth of my robe heated nicely by the space heater.

It’s interesting how she makes a connection to a cartoon projected on a screen two feet from her eyes that obviously isn’t real, yet is visually intriguing to her. As the show ended this morning the Tiger character embraced the screen and did a loving faceplant to the audience. Piper rolled her head up, making eye contact with me, and I swear her expression said did you see that?

When I got home this evening Piper scampered toward the deck door wanting to go out. I obliged her, knowing she wouldn’t stay out long in this frigid cold. She walked to the edge of the deck, I turned my back for a few minutes, and suddenly she was gone.

My first thought was that something spooked her and she went in her hole which is the opening to the deck nearest the house and has always been her safe spot over the years. She didn’t come out so Steph launched a walk-around search of the yard, to no avail. Now we were getting worried as nightfall and subzero temps were closing in.

I went back to her hole and rattled a treat bag around and sure enough she stuck her nose out. The only problem was, she was trapped down there, she couldn’t squeeze out over the icy rocks. Steph suggested we try to remove the screws to one of the boards to remove it but I had no patience for that.

I ran to my truck and pulled out my emergency bag. I grabbed the large pry bar and the big hammer and made mincemeat of the board directly above the hole. A few minutes later she crawled out and is now safe and warm.

Sometimes you come across an image that really makes you want to have a dog. I’ve had some great dogs over my many years, and now I have a cat. She hates riding in my truck, much less on the back of a motorcycle!

You can take dogs to the store with you and have them hang out in front until you’re ready to go. You can take them for a walk without restraint and they come to you when you call. Cats do none of these things!

Piper hates dogs and until last night I thought she hated other cats. We had the deck light on waiting for her to stop catting around when I walked by the kitchen window and saw her hanging out with another cat! It was a pretty little thing and Piper was enjoying it’s company, rolling on her side in a cute little submissive manner.

Piper is a sweet cat and I guess when she meets another sweet cat, she’s cool. No hostility or cat fights involved. I learned something last night…

I was having dinner last Monday evening when Piper appeared on my left in her food sampling position. She likes to check out our dinner and most of the time just sniffs at the piece of food I’ve set on the floor on the corner of a paper towel, and walks away. That particular night she just walked away, which I thought was odd.

As I was doing the dishes later, I heard Steph shriek. There was a dead mouse under my chair that Piper had caught outside and brought to me during dinner. She wanted some acknowledgment, not food scraps. Me bad…

This morning she was stalking another mouse under our kitchen catchall thing so I banged on the side of it to chase the mouse out. Sure enough, it scampered out and ran down the kitchen floor, under the refrigerator. Piper didn’t try to catch it at all, she just gave me this look like I had spoiled her game, and walked off.

Trying to understand cats is like trying to understand women. Sheesh… I guess if you’re outside you kill the mouse, inside you just play with them!

Piper likes hanging out on the hot tub cover. It gives her an elevated view over her domain where she can flow between sleepy and laid back, to alert and watchful. These shots were taken within about thirty seconds… (click the photo to view them)

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We’re really pleased with the results of using Spurr’s Big Fix on Pipers cat bite wound. (read about it here).

I plan on showing these photos to Pipers veterinarian and maybe he’ll recommend this snake oil in the future. My sister says that medical professionals don’t want to hear about anything outside of their training, and I’ve run into many doctors over the years that have sadly proved that contention, but we’ll see…

I took Piper to the vet this summer for her vaccinations, and to have a large sore behind her left ear checked out. It started out as a bite from a cat fight and just wasn’t healing up. The vet was recommending both Cortisone and Neosporin during different visits, primarily to stop it from itching so she wouldn’t scratch it, but it wasn’t working.

During the last visit when she got her rabies shot he started talking about performing blood tests and biopsies and the dollar signs began bouncing around my head. I knew we needed to heal that now ugly red sore up soon.

The solution seemed to be one of those wrap around the neck collars to prevent her from scratching so we drove to the Driggs pet supply shop and picked one up. While we were there the shop owner suggested a bottle of Spurr’s Big Fix, a $20 bottle of miracle snake oil he found at a trade show. I bought some.

The collar was worthless, I wouldn’t submit my baby to that thing for five seconds. The Big Fix, on the other hand, is working! We don’t spray it on her, instead just spray it on sterilized pads and dab it on her sore every morning.

Hell, I’m using it on myself now. I scraped up my leg while I was at Lava Hot Springs and it’s all healed now. I’ve got a paper cut in a crease on my finger and I just sprayed some Big Fix on it tonight and the pain and irritation just stopped.

I know you’re waiting for the link, ok, here it is: Big Fix. (video)

Ah, she does love to pose. ? Click the photo for a painted version.

Piper’s favorite place in the house to sleep is on my bed. She even spends most of the night with me and I don’t mind at all, it’s a big bed and she shares it well. This morning though she may have gone over the line.

That’s my pillow she’s laying on. The place where my head hangs out for several hours every night. She’s been out hunting all morning and who knows what kind of mouse guts remain on her pretty fur.

Sheesh, have I mentioned I really love that cat?

I had a touching moment with Piper this morning. The normal routine is that I open the garage door, flip on the lights for a bit while I verify there are no predators hanging around, and then let her out.

This morning she waddled down the driveway and headed for the field across the road. As she started to enter the brush I told her to stop, which she did, and then I walked to the field and picked her up.

That field was sprayed for weeds a couple of days age, disregardless that it’s Pipers favorite hunting ground, and if I can keep her out, I will. I carried her back up the driveway and her 15 pounds lay contentedly in my arms. She really trusts me and figures I had her best interest at heart.

As we got to the top of the driveway she wasn’t sure if I was going to take her around to our field, or back inside, so she nudged me with her head to go left, away from the door. I did of course and set her gently on the ground out back at the edge of our lawn.

Have I mentioned I really love my kittie?

Piper tangled with something today. The weather’s great for hunting so I left her out this morning and let her back in when I came home for lunch. I knew something was wrong when she walked a few feet into the family room and plopped down on the floor. Oh-oh, I’ve seen this move before and sure enough, I found blood around her neck.

I put her in my truck and drove her straight to the vet. A nice old couple with a cat in a carrier in the waiting room let me bring my bleeding baby past their appointment, into the vet’s room. We’ve been here a couple of times, once for a similar cat attack.

My lunch time was running out and I had to get back to work so the Vet said he would fix her up and watch her until I got off of work. Turns out Steph got off earlier then me, and picked her up. She’s alright, in pain, and we have meds to give her…

Of course, if you have some time, you can view the entire Piper saga here.