Well if you have read my blog at all you know I have two cats which most of the time is wonderful.  This year though we were a little nervous.  Chunk our newest addition is having his first year with a Christmas tree.  We were hoping and praying that he was nothing like our other cat Sassy who absolutely loves to climb Christmas trees.  Can you imagine trying to fight off two cats from climbing and playing in a Christmas tree?  My worst nightmare.  For the past 2 years that we have had sassy we have had a fake Christmas tree.  Whenever we put this tree up she gets very excited because she knows what she will soon be doing.  Climbing!  We have tried spraying her with water, yelling, and locking her away but nothing has seemed to work.  So when I realized this year I was going to have to deal with two cats in the tree I was a little worried.  We put the tree up two weekends ago and luckily so far Chunk is not interested in climbing it just eating it.  The other night though Sassy decided to climb the tree all the way to the top while we were trying to sleep.  We heard her and as my husband went to get her out all I could hear was the whole tree shaking and ornaments falling to the ground.  I worry that one of these days she is going to tip the tree over…  So today I went to Petsmart and found a spray called "Boundary".  It says supposedly all I need to do is spray the tree and the floor around it to deter the cats from going in that area.  So far here is what I have found…. Sassy went over to the tree about an hour after I sprayed it and tried to go under to climb but she sniffed something and turned and ran the other way…. So so far this seems to work.  Tonight will be the true test.  One thing I have to say though is this stuff doesn’t smell the best but if you can get over a little time of not smelling good and putting it on every day it seems so far to work.  I will update tomorrow with the true test results from tonight!

I’ve decided some cats are born smart and some cats are just missing that key brain cell.  Take our cats for example, we have chunk who eats everything in site (from human food to cat food) and is a complete lover but dumb as a doornail and Sassy who is very picky in everything from when you pet her to what she eats but is a very quick learner.  We trained our cats the same way with a variety of tools; from saying no to using a water bottle.  Sassy got it within a few weeks…. Chunk on the other hand just doesn’t get it.  He tries to get at our food and no matter how many times we spray him, lock him up, or tap him on the nose and say no he just doesn’t get it.  I’m at a loss.  Maybe I just need to accept that he doesn’t have th brain capacity to learn but then how is he different then Sassy? Hmmm!

We recently got our second cat laser declawed.  Our first cat it went pretty smoothly with only a slight infection afterwards.  We had highly reccomended it because its supposed to be significantly less painful for cats and when they come home the only thing special you need to do for them is use a special kind of litter.  They are not supposed to have any pain and there is not supposed to be any blood or treatment after the surgery.  With our first cat that was pretty much the case but with our second cat after 3 days he was still favoring his paws and therefore we needed to take him back in.  He is now on morphine and has broken open 4 of his wounds since his surgery.  He doesn’t seem to care and I probably worry more then he notices it as it doesn’t slow him down.  If I had to look at reccomending laser declawing I would still reccomend it I just would warn you even if there isn’t supposed to be any problems after the surgery it all depends on each cat that has it done some will and some won’t but it definitely does not seem to slow the cats down at all. 

Over the past two weeks we have been trying different ideas on our cats of how to get their breath to smell better.  We have tried 2 different methods one called Greenies for Cats (which comes in four flavors: Salmon, Liver, Chicken, and Fish) and one called Pit’r Pat.  Pit’r Pat comes in a little tin like you would buy mints in at the grocery store and the "mints" are in the shape of fish.  It doesn’t say what flavor they are but Liver is the prevalent ingredient.  When I opened this one up they smelled terrible, but I thought I would give it a try anyways if it would do the job.  I gave one to each of our cats (one which eats everything from human food to dog food, and one who is very particular and will only eat certain brands of food).  Sassy who is so particular sniffed it but would not eat it and Chunk who eats everything gobbled it up and looked for more.  I did not notice an improvement in his breath though.  With Greenies when I gave these to each of our cats they both gobbled them up and come running any time I go near the drawer where I keep them.  I think it helped somewhat with their breath also. These also did not smell nearly as bad as the Pit’r Pat. So out of the two items I would recommend trying greenies for cats if you have a cat who has bad breath.