Feline Friends - To Aire is Divine

Feline Friends

December26th

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Sunny Seat As Seen on Kafka

Posted in: Airedale Fun, Feline Friends, PSA

Around Chez Bogart, you know that we test out a lot of doggie products – I always give my honest opinion, and I just LOVE to get packages – but despite sharing my home with 4 kitties I don’t often get them involved in the testing. Today that will change as we’ve received a Sunny Seat to try.

Now. We don’t normally do the “as seen on TV” stuff no matter how intriguing they may be. Firstly because Kafka (the short-haired orange tabby) won’t let us get the remote, but also because we don’t have cable, damnit. And our antenna is one step above rabbit ears, so basically we never really see the stuff. And at first look, we didn’t have much hope that this would be all that great.

Sure, mama thought, there is no way this can hold even one cat, much less 50 pounds worth. The pieces looked uninspiring.

But it was indeed really easy to assemble – taking the 5 minutes that the box said it would. Whew!

After assembly, we attached it to our window with the big suction cups. Hm. It’s staying. We were pretty sure this was the moment it would fail, that the suction cups wouldn’t do their job, and that it would fall off of the window sadly in a heap of plastic. But we were wrong.

How best to test? With our un-shy-est cat, Kafka.

Kafka is a sound 15-pounder. He’s not afraid of much, and once promised some chicken liver treats in exchange for posing for photos, was completely on board with our testing.

This holds! It does what it says it does! Thumbs up (is this the part where the chicken liver treats come out?)

Kafka – still waiting for those treats. But damn, this window seat HOLDS.

A little lovin’ for our fine, feline product tester. Your butt for science, Kafka!

After the initial testing phase, Kafka took over the seat as his own. We even caught him napping in it. No sign of it coming off of the window. As we said earlier, we thought that this wasn’t going to work but this window seat really performed! No tools needed, nothing that has to be screwed into walls, this just sticks on a window. For us, it’s big enough for one kitty, so we can’t speak as to the holds-50-pounds-of-kitty claim, but it really does hold and Kafka seems quite content in it. AWESOME!

Love,

Bogart

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August7th

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Hail Cesar!

Posted in: Airedale Fun, Feline Friends, PSA

Whoa, Nelly! Lookie what arrived for me!

Ok, stop looking at it – MAMA OPEN THE DAMN BAG OR I SHALL BE FORCED TO OPEN IT MYSELF

Goodies! Goodies! Goodies!

The kind folks at Cesar dog foods sent over a care package chock full ‘o goodness for me to sample. Dog food, dog treats, and yeah some silly t-shirt for the humans. GIMME THAT!

Yeah, yeah t-shirt, yada yada yada. These smell awfully darned good…

Anything with the word Treats on it is fine in my book. These are really cute, a sweet mixture of shapes and flavors. Semi-soft for those times when crunchy just won’t do.

Not just one bag was inside but two – making me believe that a dog was responsible for sending out this package. A human might put in one little bag of treats, but a fellow dog KNOWS that ONE IS NEVER ENOUGH.

But this is what I’ve set my sights – uh, paws – on. I could smell these through the box. And I generally don’t care for cans of dog food – mama makes my dinner in the crockpot each night (when she’s not breaking them, that is) – but this is INTOXICATING.

All different flavors – this one is filet mignon – yeah JUST OPEN THE DAMN THING MAMA!

Hm. I don’t think that even when I was a puppy I was a particularly small dog. Maybe compared to now. But it’s a cute t-shirt. Kinda looks Westie-ish to me (woo-hoo fellow terriers!).

I have to say that mama wasn’t expecting this – I generally turn up my substantial nose at store-bought dog food. I suppose I’m a bit of a foodie (i.e. snob) about what I eat – a boy does get spoiled when he has a home-cooked meal every night after all. But I went NUTSO for these and while one may be a satisfying meal for a little dog, 5 might be more like it for a mighty Dale of my impressive stature.

And a side benefit? Guess who cleaned out the containers for easy recycling? Thanks Behemoth!

This Cesar dog food gets a mighty 8 paws up (4 canine, 4 feline). Every single flavor was gobbled. I took the majority while my feline friend did the back-up work. HAIL CESAR!

The kind folks at Cesar sent us two of these lovely bags-of-goodness and I’d love to share one with one of my blog readers! The kit had a whole bunch ‘o Cesar wet foods, two – count ‘em, two! – bags of semi-soft treats, and a purple Small Dog, Big Love t-shirt. Mama also wants to pass along the hot pink Small Dog, Big Love t-shirt as well, I’m not a small dog. So rather than make this difficult, how about two folks who leave a comment on this blog including the words “ET TU, BRUTE?”, add something amusing of their own, and provide their email address get one? Before next Wednesday (August 10)?

Thanks again, Cesar! DEE-LISH!

Love,

Bogart

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June25th

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Who Wants Whipped Cream?

Posted in: Airedale Fun, Feline Friends, Philadelphia, Video

Bogart, Kafka, and Behemoth have their very first whipped-cream-from-the-can experience. Who likes it? Who hates it? And who hides from it?

Tune in for all the answers…

Love,

Bogart

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April15th

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RIP Sekhmet

Posted in: Feline Friends

It is with great sadness that I tell you about the loss of my best cat friend Sekhmet.

I’ve known her all of my life, she’s always been my greatest teacher and most patient head-lick-ee.

Sekhmet woke up this morning with something very, very wrong with her back legs. Mama and I tried our best to help her, I gave her a gazillion kisses, but it was for naught.

We often hear people say that you can only be a “cat person” or a “dog person”. I’m very lucky in that my mama truly is both – she was a “cat person” long before I came along, and has fully embraced my dog-ness. Perhaps it’s because the cats raised me that maybe I am more cat-like, that she’s been able to embrace her dog-person-ness as well.

I love all of my kitties, but Sekhmet and I had a special bond. She was the matriarch of the family, fair but tough, with a singing voice that was, well, distinct. She was an all-black cat with some Siamese in there somewhere, so she was quite the chatterbox in her croaky-throaty voice.

An aficionado of any kind of treats (and I mean ANY kind), Sekhmet was always small in stature, but larger than life.

She also had a little issue with being on the ‘nip… but that just added to her already sparkling personality.

We couldn’t bear to see you suffer, not for a moment, and so mama took you to the vet so that you wouldn’t be in any pain. It’s very, very hard for her – she knew you longer than she knew Klaus! – and you two have been through so much together, but the one thing that she’s always promised is that you would never suffer. And so you drifted off in her arms.

RIP beautiful girlie. We will all miss you, always.

Love,

Bogart & Lulu

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April5th

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Kafka’s Diet Challenge – The Results

Posted in: Airedale Fun, Feline Friends

Ok, I didn’t think this was actually possible. There, I said it. There was no way that my tubby tabby was going to lose significant weight in a month.

Kafka, my short-haired orange tabby pal, agreed to try Hill’s Science Diet Adult Cat Light food for a month. The box arrived with the goodies, and Kafka was thrilled. Almost ANYTHING can be considered food by Kafka, he is truly a cat of little finicky-ness. And thusly, his girth increased proportionally to his love of food (and stealing his housemates’ food) to about 17 pounds.

We were also going to try helping Willie, our long-haired orange tabby, lose a little. He came to us about 3 years ago when a very good friend of ours passed away, leaving him in our care. Willie is AWESOME but he looks huge. Upon closer inspection (in order to get a true feeling for exactly how much he should probably lose) there wasn’t nearly as much cat under all of that long hair as we’d thought. And he only weighed about 15 pounds with a big frame and giant paws, so we were definitely going to concentrate on Kafka.

Ta-da!

Today Kafka weighs 15 pounds – he lost 2 pounds in a little over a month! I know he looks a little, um, “intense” in this photo, but for once it’s not for want of more food. He was really satisfied with the Hill’s Science Diet food and maybe even puked a little less than usual (so hard to tell – with 5 cats, it’s not always easy to figure out just who puked, where, and when).

Never one to miss a meal, Kafka enjoyed the little beige pellets. I didn’t change his other, regular food during the test (he gets a spoonful of wet food each day along with all of the other kitties, along with being allowed to free-feed at the crunch trough). The only thing that changed was the crunchy food, and damn did it make a difference!

Kafka does kitty aerobics on his back. Arms swatting in the air is his main form of exercise. In fact he is named Kafka because of the story The Metamorphosis, where Gregor Samsa turns into a cockroach and cannot right himself. Just let that mental image sink in for a few minutes. There. Now you can picture Kafka my kitty on his back meowing for more chow. And yeah, he’s still not a big exercise buff.

Again, he may not look it in this photo (it’s hard to catch the wide array of emotions that Kafka is capable of on film), but he’s a happy boy. Still has some belly, still a mighty mouser, but carrying a bit less stash in the belly bag.

Thanks Hill’s for allowing us to participate! Kafka sends along his love…

Love,

Lulu & Bogart

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February1st

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Tubby Tabby Time!

Posted in: Feline Friends

At Chez Bogart, we love us some tubby tabbies. I have three – Kafka, the short-haired orange tiger, Willie, the long-haired ginger lion, and Aeon, the brown and white taberina.

While we may say they’re fat – or big boned, or fluffy, or whatever – they basically don’t care about what we think. That’s fine. But as they are my kitties I want them to be healthy for a very long time, so methinks it’s time for them to go on a secret diet. Feeding them less food (or food they don’t like) is out of the question. With hours and hours of time to plot their revenge, both mama and I agree that this could be dangerous to our apartment and everything in it. So we have partnered with Hill’s Science Diet to give their Science Diet Adult Cat Light food a shot. A few days ago a very large box arrived with oodles of dry kitty chow inside, kindly provided by Hill’s.

This should be interesting.

So for the next few weeks, there will be some feline action on my dog blog. I will keep you updated as to their progress in losing a pound or two each, and if they stage a feline revolt.

Love,

Bogart

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November20th

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Chicken Soup – Thanksgiving Style

Posted in: Airedale Fun, Feline Friends, Philadelphia

NOM NOM NOM

Mama makes my chicken soup a few days at a time now in my handy-dandy crockpot. With thanksgiving coming this week, she’s added a few new veggies for my fuzzy pleasure.

I don’t really care about the veggies, but don’t tell her that. She’s excited about it.

Instead of my regular sweet potato, carrot, and beans, I get sweet potato, carrot, okra, rutabaga, and celery – mmmmmmmm

It looks good now – I’d take it as is – but after a few hours of stewin’, it’s going to be PERFECT

Even the carnivores in the house agree.

Kafka did try to steal a chicken breast out of the pot while mama wasn’t looking, but I thwarted his attempt. He comforted himself by taking the chicken container out of the trash, running around with it, and then settling in for some carnivore fun of licking it clean. Go Kafka!

Love,

Bogart

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February14th

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Year of the Tiger… Cat

Posted in: Airedale Fun, Feline Friends

Kafka is particularly excited about today beginning the Year of the Tiger… you can just FEEL the excitement…

It is the Year of the Tiger Cat – Belly

Tiger Cats are the tubbiest sign on the zodiac, methodical in their purrsuit of food (especially from other cats’ plates), intelligent deep inside that they choose to hide with a somewhat goofy demeanor. They sleep more than any other astrological sign because they are deep thinkers and imaginative players. They rarely jump and miss, for their internal upward-motion calculator is top-notch. Catnip can be a problem if they overindulge. They can be possessive of items they deem to be their own (if someone else is sitting on or playing with it). But more of a lover than a fighter.

I too am celebrating the Year of the Tiger – Cat with my favorite tiger striped blanket. If I’m not sleeping on mama, I’m sleeping on this.

Happy New Year everyone!

Love,

Bogart

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December9th

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The Feline Purrsuasion

Posted in: Airedale Fun, Feline Friends, Portland

As you know, I share my abode with several felines. This is Sekhmet.

I think she enjoys my company the most – well, at least I don’t see her claws that often. Sekhmet is 13 years old, and is the only cat my mama has that came with her from NYC to the west coast. Our “elder stateswoman” as mama says, or “Queen of Sheba” as Sekhmet thinks.

I am really intrigued with her. She has a fantastic talking AND singing voice. Mama says it is because she is part Siamese. She’s quite the talker.

She’s also a drooler. When mama pets her and she’s purring really, really hard, she starts to drool. It’s pretty hilarious.

As you know, cats are pretty clean animals and Sekhmet is no exception. Plus she has me around to help out.

I think she’s pretty awesome. A mighty purr in a tiny body. Such a pretty girl. One of these days I’ll get her to snuggle with me…

Love,

Bogart

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February8th

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Pizza! Pizza!

Posted in: Airedale Fun, Feline Friends, Portland

Hey… what’s that smell?

Mmm… PIZZA. Mama isn’t much of a cook, so because dad is sick today she had to forage in the freezer for her own lunch. And what better – indeed, what more perfect – food is there than pizza? Frozen if we must, but at least “improved” with some fresh tomatoes, garlic and olive oil.

That smells awfully good mama… you gonna eat all of that yourself?

Because, I mean, I COULD HELP YOU…

I know you’re not a big fan of the crust…

Seriously, I just wanna do my part TO HELP YOU…

Anything I can do… REALLY…

SCORE!

Give me your poor, your tired, your slightly-burned crusts…

I hope you appreciate this mama. I’M DOIN’ IT FOR YOU…

After the pizza party, time to chill out with my pal Kafka. Kafka is the short-haired orange tabby, and he is literally a furry, vibrating hot water bottle. Purrfect on a cold day such as this.

But first I had to get Kafka’s attention.

He’s still busy showing Willie who is really king of the household. Willie looks bigger because he’s a long-haired orange tabby, but Kafka is definitely meaty-er, and it’s fun to watch an orange-colored ball of fur roll by whenever they tussle.

Ah, my favorite spot.

Carpe Sofa (Seize the Sofa)!!!

Love,

Bogart

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