Bad Cat

For the second time in the past few weeks, my cat has done something inconceivable. My husband calls my cat dumb, but I'm pretty sure this cat is smarter than both of us.

Huey has figured out a few things, things which make him super duper annoying. He has learned how to open the pocket door to the kitchen. So while we are gone, he enjoys getting into kitchen, and thus opens the sliding door (yes he has figured that out too) to get into the garbage.

In the past few months though, he has now also learned that tupperware containers have yummy human food in them. So even my scones are not safe from my cat. Yes, he has learned that if he knocks the container to the ground, he can then pull the tupperware lid off and get my yummy yummy scones all over the floor.

Stupid, stupid cat. THOSE ARE MY SCONES.  I was so looking forward to eating one when I came home from work.

Stupid cat.

Annnnd I Confirm My "Cat Person" Standing

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, cats may be less personable than dogs, but the last time I checked, they don't go out into the field and roll around in and proceed to eat other dog crap! GRRRRROOOOSSSSS! That is the only good thing about the 75 degree weather: I was able to take the hose to him.

Let's just say for the rest of the day, Jack will be on my Shit List.

Just for Rachel

My lovely friend Rachel has been begging me to put more pictures up on the blog, since she doesn't have a Facebook (super lame). So, since I'm putting off going to the commissary, and Blogger is actually being friendly to me and letting me upload pictures on this drizzly (YAY!) Sunday morning, here is a treat: pictures of the Darnell household!

What's up, Huey?

Poser.

Well hi! And no, I don't plan on helping you fix the Mustang :)

Matt hates the cat. But he lets him nap with him, so I think he secretly likes the cat.

Lenny is a special Bearded Dragon. He was just chillin' on his hind legs.

Always goofy. But look at that smile!

Hey... someone stole my chair when I went to refill my coffee cup! (Or that's what I assume I was doing. It's a pretty good guess)

And they sometimes ARE friends!

...And sometimes they're very weird.

A great picture, if I do say so myself

Huey: "MOM! I want out TOO! Because I think you're feeding him and I want some!"

This dog is SO spoiled...

Hueyisms

A Day in the Life at the Darnell's: Huey's POV

My day probably starts way earlier than theirs, since I have the run of the whole house- except the bedroom, where Mommy, Daddy, and The Dog are. They don't let me in. B*tches. They think I'll harrass The Dog or something like that. But it's never my fault. He just won't leave me alone. And I definitely don't provoke him. At all.

So at 6 am every morning, I nicely make my presence known outside the door. Because I'm hungry. But Mommy always lets The Dog outside first. I don't know why. It makes me mad because I'm hungry. So when she brings The Dog back inside and makes her way to my room to feed me, I make sure that she knows that I'm there by running in and out of her legs in front of her- and sometimes stopping- all the way to my bedroom. Sometimes she stumbles over me. Usually it's multiple times. I don't understand why she just can't walk gracefully. But at least she feeds me.

Then she proceeds to the kitchen to feed The Dog. Usually she ends up shutting me in the hallway when I come running out to the kitchen to help The Dog with his food. I don't know why. I'm still hungry.

So to punish her for not feeding me again, I make it very difficult for her to do her work. Mommy uses this thing called the laptop. It's very warm so I like to sleep on it. She doesn't like it when I do that. I don't know why. I'm just trying to tell her I need attention and I'm hungry. So usually I have to settle for her lap. Which is ok, because she makes sure The Dog leaves me alone. She also doesn't like it when I play with her yarn. I think it's called knitting???? She should be making that thing for me. But she keeps saying it's a Seahawk scarf. Whatever it is, I want it. But since I'm not going to get it, I'll just make sure it takes her a long time to do it. And every time Mommy goes to the kitchen, I make sure I go too. I try telling her nicely that I'm hungry, but she usually ends up saying something like "Shut the H*ll up already!" way louder than she needs too. So because she didn't feed me, I make sure to crawl into the refrigerator every time she opens it to keep her on her toes.

When I get bored or hungry, I like to play with The Dog. Funny thing is, he's kind of dumb. I like to provoke him, but when he starts playing with me, I start yelling REALLY loud and Mommy always comes and rescues me. Heehee! Stupid Dog. So somehow I need to work this to my advantage. I wonder if I start tearing apart the couch he'll get blamed for that too.

That's pretty much my life. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go let Mommy know that I'm hungry. She never feeds me enough.

Jack vs. Huey

Here is a list, in no particular order, of Jack's favorite foods:

-Sticks

-Pine cones

-Dirt

-Dog food

-Grass

-Plants

-Litter box contents

-Anything that should be in the garbage can

-Bugs

-Leaves

-Frogs (I did NOT let him finish killing that)

-Mushrooms (he's at least interested in them, not sure if he would actually eat it, I don't let him get close enough)

-Styrofoam

-Treats

-Anything else, really, that is within reach of his mouth

Huey's favorite foods:

-Cat food

-Bugs

-I'm sure he would eat human food but we keep a pretty close watch on him

-He would probably eat dog food, too

Lessons: Presented by Huey and Jack;8ui

So I know I've been kind of blogging a lot, but that's what happens when you have a husband who takes the car, it's too hot to play outside, you don't have too many friends in your present locale, and with the pets you have scrapbooking and knitting become way more difficult (especially when the cat's food and water dishes are on your scrapbooking table because the dog will eat kitty's food otherwise). Blogging provides me a way to get my creative juices flowing, since I have always loved writing creatively. I started writing books when I was in elementary school and it continued all the way through to college, even. I never finished any of them, but they weren't all that good or serious. I have since started this blog, where I find it much easier to write about my life experiences, which admittedly is rather boring, but hopefully my lovely rhetoric and caustic wit keeps everyone entertained (not likely, who am I kidding?!)

Anyways.

I know have a cat. You know this. But I have never had a cat and a dog at the same time. And since I'm still learning about all this dog stuff, these last few hours have been entertaining to say the least! I'm getting to know my animals pretty well, and I must say, even with as little time with these two as I've had, I'm beginning to understand that the cat vs. dog stereotypes are kind of true.

Let's begin. Little Huey is tiny. Extremely tiny. Right now, I'm guessing he weighs less than 2 pounds. He might not even weigh a pound. Needless to say, my twenty pound puppy is a little rough on him. But even though my kitty is only 8 weeks old, he's already your typical cat! I swear, this cat is egging the dog on, and when the dog gets too rough with him, he wants me to rescue him! Granted, the dog did start shaking the cat's head like he does with his stuffed toys so I did have to stop that immediately (poor kitty!), but I think it's mostly the cat's fault. But the dog gets in trouble. Poor Jack. Don't worry, we don't punish him for playing with the cat, we just have to say "NO!" when he gets to rough and then we put the cat away on his side of the house so Jack can calm down. And to give the little kitty a rest. I don't want them always stressed out so this works great.

Jack is a sneaky and smart little dog, but Huey is even smarter. We have a chair in our living room that Huey can get under completely, but Jack can now only get his head under. The cat will poke his head out and lure the dog over to the chair, then duck under. Well, Jack of course follows him, and moves around the chair whenever the cat moves positions. When Jack pulls is head out to move to the other side of the chair, the cat takes advantage of this and shoots out from under the chair and goes and hides on one of the dining room chairs. Jack, then, gets confused and tries to find the cat under the chair. Sometimes I don't think he realizes that the cat left!

I also think the cat likes to jump on everything right now because he already knows the dog can't get him! Granted we haven't corrected where he can and can't be yet, but with the puppy, I'm willing to look past the lounging on the dining room table since I know that's one of the places where the dog can't get him. And besides, he's a cat, so he might never learn that he's not allowed up there, at least when the humans are present.

Another lesson. Puppies get very, VERY distracted with a kitten in the house. I assumed this, but Jack will no longer play with any of his toys when the cat is present. Dude, his toys aren't nearly as exciting as a moving tiny speed monster! So we'll have several times a day where the cat will be on his side of the house so we can focus just on Jack and try and focus his energy into more training, since we still have a few things to learn. Training's probably going to get a little bit harder because of this, but thank goodness I am home all day and don't have anything else to do. Might as well train the dog, right?

I would also like to say that I've calmed down my worries with the puppy training. I'm one of those people that's such a perfectionist, I would rather quit while I'm ahead than continue on with something just to find out I'm no good and fail at it. I know this is crazy, but I'd rather be a quiter than a failure. I've always been this way. There were a few times these past weeks where I have gotten really upset with myself (and the puppy, I admit, although I never, EVER showed that to him) and wanted to give up training before I found out I suck at it. I just want my dog to be a good dog, I don't want a dog where all my friends and family refuse to come to my house because I have an insane dog. But I have finally figured it out. I AM a good dog trainer and my dog is SO smart. Let's face it. We have only had Jack for 3 weeks and he is already mostly potty trained (he does know to go to the door, but we still usually have at least one accident a day, that's usually our fault, but sometimes when he's super excited he gives no signal and just let's loose, lol), he sits and waits for food (we're working on the annoying barking he does prior to this when I'm filling his food dish), he can sit, lie down, high-five, shake, stand, and roll over, and he already walks really well on the leash! He knows "drop" when he has a leash in his hand, but nothing else, and he kind of knows leave it, and we're working on making his recall a lot better. So I can do it and I WILL continue to do because it's quite rewarding. Just keep the coffee coming in the mornings!

Pictures of the Little Kitty!

We are going to have to fix this behavior eventually, but here he was trying to run away from Jack so I didn't say anything ;)

He's a little shoulder kitty!

Hi puppy! You can't get me up here!

Well hi!

Huey the Kitten!

Well folks, it's happened, we have a kitten! Super yay! I'm SO excited! I love Little Jack so much (more than I thought I would, actually), but I just really love cats. I'm not sure why, but I have a soft spot in my heart for them. I've had three cats growing up and I live with two my last year of college. I really have missed having a cat. Matt and I talked it over and we decided that it was a good time to get one since we want Jack to grow up with a kitten and get used to one while he's still young.

We had to drive to Starkville (30 miles away) to get to a shelter that had kittens. I have nothing against adult cats, but a 10 week old puppy is extremely hyper, so we thought a fast, hyper kitten would adjust better. We both didn't really care what sex, but we both had our color picked out. I love gray tabby kitties, but Matt likes black and white kitties. I don't usually like orange, since the majority of orange cats I have ever known are kind of mean (including my first cat, Tigger). What color is our little kitty? Orange, lol. But he's so adorable. Whether I like the color not, I think it's more important to pick for personality, and while I loved one of the little black and white kittens, we just had to pick the little Huey (his name was Frenchie, but that was absolutely changed!) because he picked us. He came right up to the cage door and would get really upset when Matt would turn away and go somewhere else. Huey liked to follow us along his cage door, so we just had to take him home with us!

He is adjusting well to his new house, I think. He has his own dedicated room, where his food, bed, and litter box (which he already uses!) are, and we put him here when Jack is bothering him too much or we're busy at the moment and can't watch both of them. They're playing well now, but Jack can still get a little rough and they run EVERYWHERE! I'm confident in a few days they'll be playing well together (i.e. Huey egging Jack on and then running up out of the way). And I have noticed that since Jack spend the majority of this afternoon running around with the kitten, he's pretty tired! Hooray!

I'm going to be pretty busy in the next few days (ok, ok... weeks, probably) referring play times, but I'll make sure the dog gets outside a lot for a break from the cat and the cat goes to his room by himself when the dog gets too rough on him. I'm super excited, I will never be bored! I won't have as much down time, obviously, but who needs down time when there is a puppy to train and a kitten to play with!