In between chasing cats with breakfast bowls, I stopped to capture more images of the rising Sun. I can’t help myself.
And I’ve taken to capitalizing its name: Sun.
After all, we owe it our whole existence.
After a grey day, it was a particularly cheering sight.
Whereas chasing cats with their breakfast bowls could really start one’s day off wrong. If you allowed it to.
Take Willow, my dearly beloved, complicated “child”.
Grant “dishes up” and I distribute.
Attempt to distribute, more precisely.
Willow has to be served what she likes, where she likes.
So I follow her around with my extended hand until she decides where it will be today.
Then she may very well say “No thank you!”
Or more probably: “Yuk. What’s that?”
Blackie has to have space.
So I try to feed her last. Otherwise, one of the others may impede the chosen space causing her to abandon her bowl.
But if I feed her last and she doesn’t like what’s on offer…the nose goes up: “Is there anything else?”
There’s always something else because Dee Dee never takes more than two licks at anything before turning her head to see what everyone else is getting.
“That looks good. You don’t really want it, do you?”
She sits and stares at someone else’s bowl.
Swap Dee Dee’s bowl for Blackie’s reject…
Meanwhile, Willow’s bowl may have come back into the mix and one or two or more of the cats may have decided to take room service…
…but which room would that be?
Up or down? Front? End?
With all the swapping around of bowls, sometimes we can’t even figure out who is missing.
One day recently we couldn’t find Lily.
It was supper time which is variable and it was one of those rare days when the thought occurred to us before the queue began to form in the kitchen.
Grant allows supervised outings and Lily is very keen on these excursions. Grant also sometimes goes out leaving the door open….(grrr)
Usually I am nearby to shut it, but this day I was in another room. I didn’t really think Lily had escaped, but decided it wouldn’t hurt to let Grant believe she had…
While he was calling out into the increasing dark, I found Lily sound asleep in a basket on what is supposed to be the dining room table.
In this picture she was waiting for Grant’s lunch announcement:
“What’s in Mummy’s cupboard?”
Those words will even raise Toby from his nap.
We tried to eliminate kibble from the cat’s diet, as wet food is healthier, but juggling bowls three times a day became more than we could endure.
So lunch consists of a handful of kibble.
Easier, but not all that much…
You guessed it. Willow makes lunch a challenge too.
“Come Willow!” I call and she arrives…”where to, Willow?”
Under the table…”are you sure?”
…place a few bits of kibble on the floor…
…no…off she goes…here, there, all around her usual eating places and each time I offer her a bit of kibble, off she races again, leaving a trail of kibble in her wake.
See, what she really wants isn’t kibble at all.
No, what Willow wants is treats.
Apparently that is a whole different savor sensation.
But I still have to follow her around until she has selected today’s lunch location.
It’s only fair to point out that Willow does come for her medicine when called.
Considering what an ordeal medicating a cat can be, I regard this as a blessing.
Sikkim (Muffin) doesn’t make us run around but oh dear, oh dear, finding a food this girl will accept, now that is another kind of challenge.
Muffin gets the first bowl so that if she is not happy, at least she has three or four more choices.
But sometimes we get the look:
“That’s it?!“
Madame La Fluff, Lucy. She has certain dislikes but not as many. She demands to have her bowl on top of the cat tree by my bed.
At least one can rely on that!
Tinkerbelle, for all her other sins, is not really a fussy eater and wherever her bowl is placed is just fine.
Tinkebelle has a post-lunch sweet habit.
She locates her favourite toy (a sort of octopus made of chenille yarn) and carries it downstairs, all the while talking to it “Arrh, arhh’.
Penny and Sikkim do this too, but they do it at night.
When Willow makes the sound, it’s because she has a mouse. Alive or dead, but real.
Then there are Patches and Sophia. Shy half-sisters, they are no trouble at all.
Too many choices. Ollie gets fresh chicken and kibblle. If he chooses not to eat it, that’s up to him.
(But he usually does.)
Best wishes, Pete.
When they are “done” the bowls are collected and placed on a mat where they can pick and choose. By the next meal, bowls are usually empty.
Meal times sounds like a mission … I think watching the sun sound less complicated! But oh, I know this ritual all too well – we had two dogs and meal times with them also wasn’t quite that easy ☺️.