The MiaoMiao's manual, Chapter 7

What to do when Momo snatch your food?

Miaomiao:
" This is so simple,
I need not write a lot in this chapter.

I just have to look for Mama,
and she will settle the rest."


There was this morning
I poured food for Miaomiao,
and went on to do my stuff

Then just a while later,
she came over to look for me,
her head tilting over to see me through the doorway.

And the look on her face:
the tattletale expression she always has
when she tells on Pepper's naughty actions

I went over to the kitchen,
and true enough,
Momo was helping himself to Miaomiao's food

And Momo ran back to his own dish
when he saw me coming.

Problem settled. For now.

The Fussy Cat

Our recently stocked up food cupboard

"So many to choose from...but I only want FussyCats and nothing else!"

As I said,
the brand says a lot about the cat

Miaomiao's luck

We brought Miaomiao to the vet on Monday

This time it's better not to say anything else,
it just jinxs us

Anyway, on Sunday,
one day before Miaomiao went to the vet,
I suggested, why not buy 4D (3140 = MIAO),
since Miaomiao might just bring us some luck,
she'll be nice enough to help us recoup some money for the vet

It came out yesterday.
3140, in starter prize on WEDNESDAY

Why not Sunday?

Miaomiao thinks that we shouldn't be benefitting
when we haven't brought her to the vet you see

Mama, I don't care....No vet no money

Interesting Cat Facts

Clay cat litter came about by accident. In 1948 a neighbour
by the name of Kay Draper went into her local sawmill
to pick up some sawdust for her cat's litter tray.
She had been using ash, but was fed up with it being
 tracked all over her house. Ed Lowe, the son of the owner
offered her some clay, known as Fullers Earth which
was used to absorb grease. Ed realised he was onto something,
and started marketing the product in pet shops & at cat shows.
It took a while to take off, but eventually it became a multi million
dollar business.

Sir Isaac Newton invented the cat flap.

An ailurophile is a person who loves cats. The word ailuro is from the ancient Greek word for "cat".

More cats are left handed than right handed. Out of every 100 cats approximately 40 are left-pawed, 20 are right-pawed, and 40 are ambidextrous.

The ridged pattern on a cat's nosepad is as individual as a human fingerprint.

At their fastest, cats can run at 30mph.

A group of kittens is called a kindle.



A group of cats is called a clowder.

The cat is the only domesticated animal NOT mentioned in the bible.

Male cats used to be called "rams" or "boars", however in 1760, an anonymous author wrote a book entitled "The Life & Adventures of a Cat" in which the central character was a male called Tom the Cat. This book was hugely popular & the name tom cat quickly replaced "ram" or "boar".

A cat's pulse is between 110 - 140 beats per minute.


A cat's gestation is between 61 - 65 days.



Cats have 30 vertebrae. Humans have 25.



The normal body temperature is 102 degrees F.



Like humans, kittens have "baby" teeth, which are replaced with their adult teeth from around 6 months of age.



Cats perspire through their paws.



Cats breathe at a rate of 20 - 30 breaths per minute.



The cat's front paws have 5 toes & their back paws have 4. However, some cats have more than this number of toes. When a cat has more than 18 toes, it's called a "polydactyl". Poly comes from the Greek word "polys" which means many or more than one. Dactyl also comes from a Greek word "daktylos" or finger.


From Cat Facts Trivia and things to know about Cats
http://www.catsofaustralia.com/cat-facts.htm

Pepper's wake up call

On 23 April 2010, 7 or 8am:
Pepper comes up to my bed,
and starts nibbling on my hand.
I turn to the other side,
then he starts doing his "digging routine" on my bed
then grabs my hand and kick kick kick kick kick
then nibbles on my leg,
then kick kick kick my leg
and does his "digging routine" again

In short, he made sure I woke up
before he stopped his antics
Then I got up and went to another bed to sleep

Which doesn't feel so nice to sleep on
So I woke up

And did I mention,
Pepper being a big bully,
caused an incident that kept me up the previous night?

Maybe he knows that I forgot to set my alarm,
and decided to wake me up an hour earlier.

24 April 2010, around 7 or 8am
Pepper comes up to my bed,
and starts on his digging routine.
This time,
I made sure I slept on,
and covered my whole self with my blanket.
After a while,
he gave up and slept beside me,
past my alarm which rang an hour later.

Phew. Lucky I learn fast enough.

Pepper gets his way

Pepper can be quite petty sometimes,
that when he's on my bed,
and Momo is innocently on another bed,
enjoying the company of another mama,
he growls and shows his displease

I think sometimes we really have been
giving in too much to Pepper,
especially after he got sick

When Momo's not playing rough
he can be really sweet

Then Pepper just growls at him,
when Momo sits at the wrong place,
at the wrong time

Miaomiao struck. Too.

Pepper must be very happy now.
The e-collar is off him now,
and now on Miaomiao

It's really a headache,
to have them falling sick one after another

Even Miaomiao, so-called the "illness-proof" one,
is struck by conjunvitis too

Her right eye is drooping,
and she keeps scratching at it

I guess this time we just have to dig at our pockets,
and take her to the vet straight away,
instead of the "wait and see" approach

Let's hope she will stop scaring everyone

Cats, do you all have any numbers that we can buy?

"Pepper" and "MiaoMiao"

"Pepper" and "Miaomiao"

Saw this at Pets Safari at VivoCity last week

These 2 four-month kittens, both siblings,

are placed at Pets Safari for adoption

Then those interested can go to SPCA for the adoption procedures

It's just so cute!

To see one which looks so much like MiaoMiao,

and one which looks so much like Pepper

in the same cage,

and what's more, they are siblings!

Pepper and Miaomiao could have the same father for all we know.

But by observation,

it's still more likely that Momo and Pepper have the same father

Pepper's fish

Here is Pepper's first published photo with the e-collar on

From time to time,

Pepper will come look for his rubber fish

(which thankfully can't squeak anymore)

Yesterday I caught him trying to lug the fish up the table,

by the end of the string with his teeth

(His mouth is not that big

so don't expect him to hold the fish in his mouth like a dog)

Then he was trying to pull and pull the fish up the table,

and the fish was going higher and higher off the ground.

Then somehow he lost hold of the string,

and the fish went tumbling back to the floor.

Then Pepper went running after the end of the string,

which ran further and further away.

Quite a sight to see,

especially when doing work on the table

The cats, each with different aims

Pepper seriously thinks he is a TUXEDO

Momo: "Bob Dog, you can sleep now..."

MiaoMiao showing off her high-level aerobatics act

OUCH!

It's so sad to have your eye
punched by your darling cat on a beautiful morning.
TWICE

(NEOW!)

Now you can guess which cat.

Update on Pepper

Pepper has finally gotten used to his e-collar

For now he has to take his pills and multivitmain Nutrigel daily
(He finished his anti-imflammatory pills today!)
But because he just hates Nutrigel, (which is supposedly appealing to cats),
he struggles when we try to feed him
so the Nutrigel drops all over his body,
and makes his fur sticky all over

And now when we open the pets cupboard,
he scrams immediately, because he knows
that's where the eye drop bottle is placed!

Pepper also hates to drown his eyes.

Luckily for him the eye drops are now finished.
He just have to finish his antibiotics and take more nutrigel

Momo's new bathing schedule

Due to Momo's unexplainable body smell,
we have decided to bath him once a month,
instead of every 2 to 3 months as for Miaomiao and Pepper,
who have remained impeccably nice smelling

(P.S: I'm not sure if impeccably is the correct word to use.
I just thought of this word out of the blue)

What the words mean

Momo(noun):
When someone say that you look like a Momo,
it means that there is a food bit above your lips,
that you forgot to clean off after eating. Tsk.

You see the mole?

Miaomiao(adj):

When someone say you are very Miaomiao,

it means that you are a very fussy eater!

Pepper (adj):

When people tell you that you have the Pepper's body,

it means that you have a big and loose tummy flab.

It's time to exercise!

Pepper's BIG eyes go for a check

We lugged the approximately 9kg load out of our house today,
supposedly so that Pepper would stop wailing

But he still did.
Maybe he wailed a little lesser,
for shorter intervals this time.
I guess.

But it was less stressful for Pepper this time,
with Miaomiao's company

Anyway,
I already predicted some sort of reproach from the vet this time,
for not immediately taking him to the vet

But,
for a typical vet visit:
See doctor's face: pay $25 per cat
Doctor checks butt and squeeze something out: $15

And the list goes on...

I hope she will understand why we didn't bring him
to the vet immediately

Although I know that if we brought him earlier,
his condition wouldn't be so bad

The immflammation is now in both his eyes,
so he needs to be on anti-biotics and anti-immflammatory pills

and also to wear an e-collar for this 14 days
(E-collar: Elizabethan collar, a cone-shaped plastic thing
worn around the cat's head to prevent it from licking its injury,
scratching its face etc.)

He totally hates the e-collar,
but it should be better by tomorrow

Pepper is now 3.8kg,
meaning that he lost half a kilogram
So yup,
we will need to include more kitten kibble in his diet,
because he is actually supposed to still eat kitten kibble

And the vet loves him!
She asked to carry him in her arms,
which Pepper was a very sweet obliging cat
and just sat nicely in her lap

Then she very happily said that Pepper purred
Although after that,
we were wondering if he was purring or trembling,
because he was trembling so much while waiting for his turn

And all this while Miaomiao was hiding
in the inner most corner of the carrier,
lest the vet was going to give her another jab

Momo's Hyeractive Syndrome

Pepper might be quite stressed nowadays,
especially now that Momo is MORE...
crazy?

active?

disrespectful?

He just keep jumping on them,
and bite them so hard until they yelp

At one point of time
I think they were attempting to corner him from both sides

Not too wise to pray pray  with the big cats Momo!

Anyway Miaomiao will just teach him a lesson or two
by whacking his head
(Please do not have violent visionaries of Miaomiao
smashing Momo's head in your mind, because Miaomiao
merely hit him like .... not that violently?)

But Momo takes Miaomiao's mercy for granted,
and still continues to bite her
Ouch.
You know it from the way she cries out.

But Pepper can be quite angry sometimes.
When Momo starts to bite him,
he starts to growl in this very deep voice.

In short if Momo could respect the elders more,
they would enjoy having him around more

Two nights ago,
Pepper was being harrassed by Momo again,
then he jumped onto the table,
and touched the bedroom door,
looking at me with this soulful expression,
like "Help me please, Mama"

I then opened the door for him,
and he immediately ran to my bed to seek refuge
in the closed room

But come to think of it again,
Miaomiao was also acting like a crazy kitten when she just came
So was Pepper

Momo just got a little overdose of this craziness.

So someday his naughtiness will ease off a little
and I will have forgotten that
he was once a so naughty kitten
who bullied his big cats

Pepper's BIG eyes

We thought that Pepper's eye had gotten better,
now it seems that both his eyes are affected

Oh no...
Back to the doc tomorrow I guess

And not to mention we need to take Miaomiao along too,
because we either
1. have our hands suffer from lugging a 9kg load out of the house
2. have our ears and heart suffer from hearing Pepper wail
    on the whole journey to the vet

We can't really pinpoint what is Pepper's ailment too
Hope that after this vet visit he will recover completely,
and not fall sick again,
so that we do not have to go back to the vet clinic until..
... June/July

That's when Momo needs to be sterillised
and we have to go through the whole fasting thing again

I believe it will be very challenging
making him fast for a night

For one thing,
he doesn't mind eating s*** as an alternative,
and he eats up literally anything, including paper

Back to Pepper,
we now agree that the period of time spent suckling their mother
seem to be associated with their immunity system
Note that I said association and not causation.
It's some statistic thing anyway,
just trying to apply my learnt knowledge :)

The Round-Sided Miaomiao

All of a sudden
there is a fluxof posts on Miaomiao
but I just thought of so many funny things about her

Wells,
about her new nickname.

For this few days we have been calling her
"The Round-sided Miaomiao"

Just because of one innocent remark the vet made:
"MiaoMiao, you are also a little on the round side"

Miaomiao must hate going to the vet more than ever now...

MiaoMiao's 10 Commandants - #4

4. Thou shalt feed me when I'm hungry
Again,
it's Miaomiao's habbit of sitting in front of her food dish,
and LOOK, WAIT and LOOK

There was this night when
she must have been sitting for too long,
waiting for her never-coming food,
while her mamas were busy doing other things,
and of course not noticing her,
while she is silently LOOKING, WAITING and LOOKING

Then she ran out of patience.
So she got up,
walked over to the kitchen
and went NEOW-NEOW!,
quite disapprovingly,
before going back to her position and sitting down

Of course Mama had to put down all that she was doing,
and rush over to feed MiaoMiao

Who dared not to feed,
when MiaoMiao has shown such disapproval? :)

Update on BIG EYES

Anyway Pepper's eye is better now,
but when he sees us open the cupboard
he immediately scrams,
because he knows it's eye drop time!

But it's still not back to tip-top condition yet,
his eye is still a little red

Pepper shall have to bear with
his eyes drowning from time to time

(Momo also has to take the eye drops
because his eyes are a little pink.
He whines all the time when we put eye drops into his eye.
Ougwee says that Momo's scared his eyes might drown)

The Claws

Sometimes it's very disturbing
to look through MiaoMiao's fur,
and find pieces of claw shells embedded in her fur

When Pepper just came,
I was very surprised to see the claw shell
hanging in her fur

Now that Momo just arrived,
about a week or so ago
I found a claw in her fur again

It's like this:
Kittens are often guided by their mums
as to how to hunt and stuff
I guess since they did not have their mum around,
they decided to offer Miaomiao the chance to
be a hunt guide,
so they started pouncing on the innocent Miaomiao
who did not see what was coming from her back

And the next best thing for the trainee kittens is,
Miaomiao's tail is so long and swish around all the time
so they also start jumping up and grabbing her tail

That's when Miaomiao can't take it anymore
and hit them squarely on the head with her paw,
with a disapproving meow

"You are what you eat"

Momo really is a very adventurous eater,
that there's nothing he doesn't eat

While MiaoMiao and Pepper
swear by only FussyCats wet food
(The brand tells a lot about the cats!),
Momo loves any brand, even those supermarket types

Just a while ago,
he was caught eating up the guinea pigs' poo
(The guinea pigs were out for a walk.
They usually excrete while they walk around,
so there is this corner where they have quite a bit of poo)
Then we got him away,
though none of it was left in his mouth

Then after having checked his mouth,
we put him down on the floor.
He then quickly rushed back to the scene of s***,
looking for more to eat up.

No wonder he smells so...

As the quote says
"You are what you eat."

Pepper's down with eye infection :(

Pepper's down with an eye infection :(
So his right eye is kind of half open all the time

And most of the day he's seeking refuge
at one of the beds

My laptop's Bluetooth isn't getting along
with my handphone's Bluetooth,
and I don't really want to go into so much steps
(using memory card and the adaptor etc.)
just to get in one photo

So,
Pepper shall be spared the humiliation
of the publication of his not so nice photo.

Yesterday his eye white was red,
worse compared to the day before when it was pink

Just got Nova eye drop for him yesterday,
today I think it got better!

And today then I realised that some of the medications
we got from the veterinary surgery
are actually sold at this pet's shop in the neighbourhood!
And so much cheaper!

Imperfect market knowledge really makes you spend much more...

(inserted 9 April)

Random pics again!

                                          Momo gets whacked over the head with the toilet paper
                                                                   for being so naughty

Pepper looks at the tau suan and thinks:

"So Near, Yet So Far. Sigh..."

                                                          Momo, our laptop mechanic.

Cuddling with Mama during her afternoon nap :)

Guinea Pigs eat out with the cats!

                                                   MiaoMiao eating with the guinea pigs,
                                                    when Momo decides to join in

Momo gets close and personal with the guinea pigs,

and eats right from their plates!

TO MA TOES!

And then... Momo starts to smell Kopi's butt!

Momo: Your butt is smellier than mine, I'd better lick it clean.

Says the cat who has been nicknamed Smelly Butt by his Popo...