Previous owner. Yes, she’d curl up on top while it was running.

(Unfortunately she passed away in 2020, for unrelated reasons. She was quite the heat seeker.)

He doesn’t have sole ownership.

Ehh…

I looked in one of those to check on our cat, Stitch. Got a scratch to the face for my trouble.

Nibbler had been heckling him, and Stitch was in a severe mood. I didn’t really blame him for lashing out at me, I should’ve known better than to look in like that. The box faces the wall so there was no warning it was me, not Nibbler.

Yeah, thanks. He’s so skittish that I bet the mechanism would scare him off. :( It really doesn’t take much. Plus we’d need three - he can’t have the food that the other two eat, it’s not approved for young cats.

I took this picture and sent it to my wife with the caption, “Uh, maybe I won’t go upstairs right now.”

Then, a few minutes later, I went back to the steps, and Inky was gone, but our dog was laying across a step. I told my wife that the guard’s shift must have ended.

Story time on this! Our other two cats are older and have medical issues, so Inky gets different dry food and is fed separately. This started in the May or June, I think. I feed the other two, then pour some of Inky’s food into a bowl, take it to the bedroom, and give it to him, then close the door for 20-25 minutes to let him eat uninterrupted.

At first, I had to get down on the floor to see if he was hiding under the bed. A few months back, my wife fed him while I was out of town for a few days, and she tried meowing at him, and if he responds, we know he’s in the room. This worked probably 90% of the time, and it was great, I didn’t have to get down on the floor and dig out the flashlight…

Then, a few weeks ago, there was a new wrinkle. Now, while I’m pouring Inky’s food, he’ll almost always be on the landing in the picture, meowing like crazy at me. Then I start heading for the bedroom and he stays ahead of me, but constantly looking back and meowing more, until I put the food down. I, of course, can’t resist meowing back at him the whole time.

I have no idea what triggered this new behavior - it just started out of the blue one day. We haven’t changed the amount, and he sometimes leaves a few kernels behind (and I’ve given him a bit extra to be sure), so I know he’s not starving. It’s like he just decided to be more vocal about his food one day.

Other than the morning where he almost knocked over the Christmas tree (see my comment history), that’s how it’s been. It’s good to see him being more interactive with us.

Correct!

We usually go with Simpsons and Disney characters for naming our pets (Snowball, Minnie, Nibbler, Stitch, and Sulley), but as we were driving to the shelter to pick him up, we were talking about names, and, somehow, my wife actually said the same name I had thought of: Inky.

In the game, Inky is also known as Bashful, and this cat really fits that description. We picked a perfect name for him - he likes to hide under the bed a LOT. He’ll wander out, but it doesn’t take much at all before he scampers off back under the bed. He’s a nervous kitty. Over the past five years since we adopted him, he’s slowly become more comfortable and we’ll see him out and about some during the day, but he’s still very nervous and it doesn’t take much to trigger his flight reflex. People visiting our house basically never see him; some probably think we’re lying about having a third cat.

We often call him Ghost. :)

We switched to a real tree about 10 years ago. We had both a real tree and an artifical tree set up one year, and the cats only ever climbed the artifical tree - never the real tree. So, since then, I’ve been telling people to get real trees instead, cats don’t climb them.

Well. A few days ago, I was in tree kitchen prepping food for the dog, when I heard a crash from the living room. I looked over, and one of our tuxedos, named Inky, was walking out of the living room. I went that way, and he scampered off. In the living room, I didn’t see anything amiss… At first. Later, from a different angle, I realized the tree was moved a foot or so and there was water on the floor.

I think Inky climbed the tree, it started to fall over, he fell or jumped out, and the tree rocked back down to the floor in a different position. It must have been pretty close to toppling, but fortunately we bought a pretty heavy stand that saved it.

He hasn’t tried it since, or if he did, he’s been more careful.

I still love him though. I have several amusing pictures of cats in trees from back then, I should post them. We wouldn’t even be done setting it up and there’d be a cat in it.

We used to have a tabby that would wake me up at night for cuddles and pets. Often I’d lift up the blankets and she would curl up against me, under the covers, and stay there for 15-20 minutes (occasionally a lot longer).

I miss her so much.

One of our tuxedo cats usually doesn’t wake me, but if he realizes I’m awake, he’ll sometimes demand pets and cuddles.

I remember seeing an SUV that had this in vinyl on their back window (paraphrased, I don’t remember the exact wording): “RIP so-and-so - God cured his suffering and took him to Heaven.”

So, God either gets credit for killing the guy, or he gets credit for saving the guy. No matter what, God comes out as the good guy!

I have no idea how people live in this mindset.

Our tabby played fetch when she was young, but grew out of it after a year or two. It was so much fun!

Now we have a dog that doesn’t play fetch either. He’s a keep-away dog.

We have one that loves water. He’s gotten into running showers several times.

Yeah, I remember commuting to work in the DC area the days after the attack - and it was so subdued (they did not close our office on the 12th). There was no, or very little aggressive driving - people just going through the motions in shock. That lasted a few days, then we were back to the usual Mad Max.

The night of the 11th I went to pick up a friend that had gone to a coworker’s place after the attacks. There was NO ONE out, other than an ambulance or two. It was completely dead out there, so much that I wondered if I was violating some kind of curfew. Just completely empty streets from Alexandria to Ballston. Surreal.

Your only hope for survival is to offer a lot of scratches and pets.

Ouch I’m so sorry. Lost a dog that way one time - he slipped his collar and trotted into traffic. :(

We have one now, actually the successor to the cat I mentioned above, who likes to relax on my arm. Right now he’s catloafing on one of my legs, not sure what’s up with that, but his usual position is to lay across my left arm.

We have another that cuddles with me at night. Occasionally I’ll wake up, and he’ll realize I’m awake and demand cuddles. He’s pretty good about not waking me up, usually.

I had to banish my first cat from the bedroom. He’d start chewing wires to get me to react - which worked, because I didn’t want him to be electrocuted - to get him breakfast.

I loved that cat, and I hated to do it, but I can’t have him chewing wires.

Later in his life he was allowed back into the bedroom. He’d come into the bedroom while we were prepping for bed, then curl up under the blankets with me for a while, then leave for the rest of the night.

The cat would be on top of it if it was a crt. That’s where mine was pretty frequently.

Things did not go well the day I got my first LCD. The cat tried to hop up top to check it out, and he fell down behind it. I saw him looking to jump up there, but I wasn’t able to react in time to stop him. Fortunately he wasn’t hurt.

I just locked mine in a room with the litter box with the non-absorbing crystals for a few hours.