The other day, Ratzi thought it would be fun to climb my face to get to the top of the couch. It wasn’t your typical, slow climb, either. No, Ratzi ran full-tilt, probably from the back of the apartment, and did a flying leap into my lap then scurried right up my face, knocking off my glasses, and settled atop the couch… all before I even realized he had landed in my lap in the first place.
Ratzi has a strange fascination with the bathroom. Our door doesn’t shut quite right unless you actually put extra effort into it, so he can easily squeeze his little body through and open the door. He loves to play in the shower when people aren’t in it, and he also likes to climb the toilet. Even after his mishap as mentioned in the previous entry. He *still* will climb onto the rim of the toilet at inappropriate times. Doesn’t even phase him. I wonder if it has anything to do with his previous life on a horse farm.
There I was, at about 11 o’clock in the evening, preparing myself for the night’s slumber. I was standing by the toilet and the cat pushed open the bathroom door, eager to conquer the bathroom yet again. Earlier he had pulled the ever so cute trick of getting on top of the toilet tank, or more accurately above the toilet, just under the bottom shelf of the white shelf thingy we own that straddles the toilet tank. There were pictures taken. I believe there was a startled cat in them.
So anyway, the cat marches into the bathroom, all ready for his victory and runs past my legs and dives under the shower curtain and into the shower stall, running in circles (I imagine) behind it as if planning to surround the vicious unseen enemies and proclaim himself a new territory for his proud cat nation. He then scooted over to the side, peeked out from the curtain and prepared to strike. Bam! He charges to take Mount Toilet Seat as his own! And promptly discovers that the toilet seat is no longer there. Splash!
A very wet and started cat immediately leaps from the pot and storms out of the bathroom battleground, fleeing from certain victory due to a clever counterstrike by his bathroom adversary. Of course, he came back in to peer around the corner of the vanity, but promptly refused aid and ran away again.
And so, cat discovers that sometimes things change.
More pictures of Ratzi are up at his gallery!
Ratzi is our first “baby” so I have every intention of spoiling him rotten. I figure, it’s far safer to spoil a cat than a human, so I’m going to give it my best shot. He gets a treat just because I come home from work. He got TWO treats because he let us clip his claws. And he gets all the “lap naps” he wants. It seems that his favorite place to take a nap is on somebody’s lap.
The fun begins! In the morning we got to worm him, with involves rolling him into a paper tube and making him slither in the dirt. Or more accurately, sticking a little syringe into his mouth and pushing worming medicine into it. Ratzi does not at all like having stuff shoved into his mouth. He resisted with extreme body twisting and head thrashing. I was told to push the goop in slowly so he’d swallow it, but I was lucky to get a little in each time I had an opening, though he’d lap it right up once it was in.
Later this evening, while he was in total spaz/play mode and after the 50th time our legs and hands were scratched, we decided to trim his nails. Earlier I noted that they were needle sharp, and that he was hooking things even when his claws were retracted, so he wasn’t meaning to claw us, it just was unavoidable. He struggled a bit for his front paw claws, so it was a bit tricky, but he was mostly good. I did have to go back for the little side claws though. The back claw-trimming exercise went smoothly, as he only squirmed on the last claw a bit. The back claws were pretty dull, so I probably didn’t need to trim them (not much there to trim), but I figured I’d be consistent.
On Tuesday, June 28th I took Ratzi for his first ever vet visit! He cried the whole way there until he was taken out of the carrier (and cried as soon as he went back it). He hates confined spaces with a burning passion.
His ears were filthy inside, so they cleaned them out. He was very good for a cat who was getting 20+ cotton swabs wiping out his ears as well as goop that was put in them. He struggled a bit and meowed towards the end, but he never stopped purring. The gist of all that was that he has ear mites and now we have to medicate him again in 10 days and then 10 days after that.
When the full-fledged happy vet came in he tried to listen to Ratzi’s heart, but couldn’t get him to stop purring, so he held him close to running water, which stopped the purring for.. about as long as the water was running. He had a good heartbeat though. He also did not fuss at all when they gave him the distemper vaccine. No meow, no struggle, just constant purring.
That’s all he ever does. Purr. He’s 100% purr. He also had some roundworms in his stool, so we get to worm him too. once in the morning, once in two weeks, and then another stool sample for the next visit, when he’ll get his rabies vaccine.
Now Ratzi will type: bmw wwwwwwwwwwcggggggxkkkkkkkkkkk 9000000000000000000000000000000000000
I think it’s clear that he wants us to buy him a BMW.
Ratzi joined the Buchwald family on June 27, 2005. Before he joined the family, he lived on a lovely farm with lots of horses and other cats. In the picture above, he’s the kitten on the left. Ratzi was born at the very beginning of April and, because of that, we very nearly named him J.P. In the end, Ratzi seemed more fitting a name for our “first baby.” Ratzi was first introduced here, at Die Buchwalds.
This is his very first picture… he’s on the left:
