From: turner@reed.edu (I never wanted to be nobody,)
Newsgroups: rec.pets.cats
Subject: Re: Spooky things
Date: 9 Nov 92 22:38:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: reed.1992Nov9.223858.9742
Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon

In article <1992Nov9.144254.1@stsci.edu> lhuffman@stsci.edu writes:
>> I set him down on the floor and he immediately froze and tipped over,
>> writhing as if in great pain. (I checked, harnass was not too tight.)
>> I crossed my arms, sat back.  He continued to writhe. Checked the harnass
>> again.  Writhing continues.  Grab his favorite toy (foil ball on string)
>> and begin to fool around with it.  Writhing stops.  He gets to his feet
>> and proceeds to moonwalk -- crash! into the coffee table, crash! into
>> the couch!, crash! into the wall.  Freezes, tips over.  Writhes.
>Thanks for the muffing and chuckling I've been doing over this post this 
>afternoon. I especially liked the image you recalled for me by describing it
>as 'tipping' over and the 'crashing'. That's exactly what mine do when they're 
>in harness. All sense seems to fly right out of their heads, like where the 
>ground isaand where exactly they are on it. Maybe we can split the fee on the
>football field next time I want to pester, excuse me, harness my cats.

Hmmm.  My two did that at first.  (I just put the harness on, not the leash
too) For the first few days I just put it on for 15-20 minutes maybe
longer.  Then slowly I left it on a little more and now they live in them.
I decided this was imperative after one of them had escaped for the 3rd or
4th time from the house.  I wanted i.d. and instructions on him.  (He has,
as yet undetermined, food allergies and I really didn't want anyone feeding
him thinking he was a stray.)  They're entirely indoor cats, except for the
occasional walks.  We still haven't gotten this part worked out though.  One
of them I don't bother walking, he's not real adventurous.  The other...well
I haven't done it in a while but he's slowly getting more into it.  Mostly
he hasn't clued into the idea of walking the direction I'm walking, which
makes it particularly amusing when I take both him and the dog for a walk.
(A two person operation definitely.)

About names:  they are Licorice and Dandelion, both black and white (white
with big black patches), Lic is long haired, adventurous and clumsy,
Dandelion is an attention hound but other than that fairly timid.  These
were the names they were given by the folks who had the mother, and they
stuck.  

Dogs and cats:  I had a 2 year old large dog (65lbs) when I got the two
kittens.  Licorice immediately adopted her as mom (nursing her in the first
couple of weeks, she's spayed and thought he was very strange).  A couple
things I did since I was getting the kittens from some friends who had two
litters at once (they do cat foster care for cat rescue and generally have
at least one litter of kittens in their house all summer long) is brought
three candidate kitties over to my house to see how they interacted with the
dog.  Two of them did well, the third didn't.  The other thing is the
kittens had had a dog in the house since they were born so that helped.  
The animals all wrestle together but no one gets hurt.  I've never ever seen
the kittens take a swipe at the dog, maybe hiss at her once in 5 months.
But then they aren't allowed to hiss at me either, or claw or bite me for
any reason.  Not even when I put them upside down on my lap or in my arms.    

Cat wrestling:  mine do it some, just not on the bed while I'm in it.  This
either gets them thrown off the bed or evicted from the room.  So they
quietly sleep on the bed.  Except for the attention hound who bats my face
and purrs loudly.  He gives up eventually though too.

Just rambling on about my critters who I think are great.
	Johanna