Monty on the stairs again

Monty on the stairs

Monty really enjoys sitting on the stairs just ready to pounce on any interesting toys which might happen to be nearby – or even Rolo, if he dares to come near!

Monty is generally the dominant cat: I was watching this evening and Rolo was sitting on a chair which Monty likes to use. Monty went and sat by Rolo and gradually crowded him until Rolo got the message and jumped off.

Sometimes Rolo displaces Monty from a feed bowl, but I think it’s only when Monty has decided that it’s time to walk away anyway. If Monty really wants to eat, he can hold his own; and right from the time when he was quite a small kitten, he could make himself amazingly large at the dry food bowl! How a bowl whose diameter was much the same as Monty’s length could be totally dominated by one little black kitten I do not know, but Monty could manage it!

Monty and the yellow balls

Monty sitting on the stairs with his yellow ball in his mouth

Monty’s favourite toy is a very squishy yellow ball. There are a number of these scattered around the house, and I hope Monty knows where they are, because I don’t! They were the ammunition from a child’s toy which was donated to the charity shop where Stephen works. Alas, the toy was broken, so the shop couldn’t sell it, but Stephen brought the ammunition home and it’s been a huge hit with Monty in particular, although Rolo will have a play with it, too.

If I ever find out what the toy is that these balls came from, I think I’d better buy a half dozen of it, in order to keep Monty in a supply of these yellow balls. Some of the ones he plays with are getting very pock-marked indeed.

He carries a ball around in his mouth, and I believe that he actually sinks his canine teeth into it. He can carry a ball all the way up the stairs and then drop it so that it goes plop-plop-plop all the way back down again, followed by Monty – and sometimes Rolo as well!

Monty with his yellow ball between his paws

Monty also bats the ball around on the floor in the way that many cats do; and can be seen in the picture above with a ball between his paws.

He’s got it in his mouth again in the next picture. Sometimes he puts his head to the floor to pick the ball up; other times he picks it up with the claws of one paw and carries it up to his mouth! I’ve also seen him lie on the floor and pick a ball up between both paws and convey it to his mouth.

This is one clever cat we’ve got here! 😎

Monty with his yellow ball in his mouth

Staring down the stairs

Rolo looking wild on the stairs

The stairs feature heavily in playtime for Rolo and Monty. They chase up and down them; and they also settle on them ready to spring at each other.

The picture above shows Rolo sitting along a step with his tail hanging down over the riser below. I think he may be contemplating whether to turn into a wild pussycat for a while. The dark blue is a dressing gown belt which the cats have commandeered. They are quite good at moving things around!

Monty with his Monty-look

The first of these two Monty pictures captures Monty’s Monty-ness. He’s had this expression at times ever since he was a little kitten and it gets to you every time.

This was Monty at 2 months of age wearing exactly the same expression!

However, Monty can also wear a very playful expression, as he is doing below. This picture was also taken with Monty perched on a step, and if I were you, I wouldn’t put a hand too close to him while he’s wearing that expression, as he’s probably a very dangerous little pussycat!

Monty on the stairs - and probably not safe to touch

Monty is becoming a long pussycat

Monty against the background of a lilac valance sheet

Here are two pictures of Monty in the bedroom. Monty is usually alert or playful or both at once, and I think the picture above has captured that. The background is a lilac valance sheet.

Below, I’ve included Monty stretched out at the foot of the bed. As you can see, he’s becoming a long pussycat. He still looks smaller than Rolo, although the vet’s scales tend to give the lie to this: his black colour is probably what makes him appear smaller.

Monty is a solid little pussycat with a velvety coat. He doesn’t seem to have an ounce of flab on him anywhere, but is a little muscle machine, unlike his brother Rolo, who is a little softer, although I wouldn’t say he’s flabby.

I had to do some work in PhotoShop on the picture below, as it suffered from “green-eye”. This is the cat equivalent of human “red-eye”, as cats’ eyes reflect a different colour than ours do.

There probably won’t be many more bedroom pictures of the cats, as Rolo has blotted his copybook and is now excluded from the bedroom unless under strict supervision; and you can’t exclude Rolo without also excluding Monty, even though he appears to be trustworthy in there.

Monty on the bedroom floor

Monty is a neat little cat

Monty is a very neat little cat. He tends to hold his appendages in neatly rather than sprawling.

Monty sitting down neatly

He looked quite satisfied with himself in that first picture. In the second one, his tail isn’t neatly curled around himself, but is describing an arc behind him. He’s also got a bit of green-eye, which is the cat equivalent of the human red-eye. I must get out my super duper new flashgun instead of relying on the pop-up flash on my camera!

Monty sitting down neatly, but with his tail arced out behind him

Rolo and Monty are becoming long pussycats

Rolo and Monty continue to grow. When they stretch out, they are now a considerable length. Rolo tends to be an expansive cat, and can cover a lot of duvet when he puts his mind to it!

Rolo stretched out for a sleep

He did put his head up to take an interest in my photographic activities.

Rolo still stretched out for a sleep but with his head up

Monty also watched sleepily.

Monty stretched out for a sleep

He never seems to occupy quite as much space as Rolo, but he’s happily stretched out here.

Monty tries out a shopping bag

Monty emerging from a shopping bag

Monty likes to know exactly what is going on in our house and likes to inspect everything personally. He is frequently evicted from the dishwasher and the washing machine; and cartons and bags are just grist to his mill.

This is a sturdy plastic “bag for life” from one of the supermarkets. Monty climbed right inside, and when he emerged, the handle looked like a hat over his head!

What is that white stuff?

Sitting on the windowsill and the sink looking out at the snow

When Rolo and Monty joined our household, I wanted to keep them off the kitchen work surfaces, but I’ve made an exception for the sink, as it gives access to the windowsill, and I feel bad enough about denying them the outdoors (for their own good as we have busy roads nearby) without denying them even the opportunity to look at the outdoors!

I’m afraid that the contents of the sink indicate that the dishwasher should have been run – but we can’t all be perfect housekeepers… 😕

When we had snow in the middle of December, Rolo and Monty definitely wanted to take a look. They’re used to the outside being green, not white!

Playing with the light cord

Both the cats love playing with the bathroom light pull cord. Monty has been able to do it since he was quite small, but it took Rolo a little longer as he didn’t get the idea of hanging on to the tie-back with one front paw and using the other front paw to bat the pull cord around.

However, now he’s bigger and better balanced, he has no trouble with the game, and can be seen here getting ready to launch himself at the dangling pull cord.

Rolo eyeing the pull cord for the bathroom light switch

The next picture shows the game in full swing! 🙂

Rolo playing with the pull cord for the bathroom light switch

Considering how often Monty has played with this pull cord, it’s surprising that I don’t also have pictures of him doing this. I will have to lie in wait for him!

An important milestone for our pussycat boys

Monty and Rolo playing with a loose piece of pull cord

The last day of 2009 was a significant last for our pussycat boys, as it was the day when they went to the vet to be neutered and microchipped.

Their operations were originally scheduled for 7th January, 2010, but over Christmas, their playfighting started to get a bit serious, and it seemed wise to take action before they found out how to mark their territory as well as indulging in stalking one another and trying to assert their dominance.

So last Thursday, they got put into separate cat carriers (a first for them, as they were small enough to fit in one carrier last time they needed to go in one) and they went to see Laura the vet. She performed their pre-op checks at our local clinic, and said that she could still hear Monty’s hear murmur, but only very faintly. She also looked in Monty’s mouth and confirmed that he no longer had any retained deciduous teeth, which made things simpler. The one surprise was when they went on the scales: Rolo was 3.2kg and Monty was 3.3kg! This is the first time Monty has ever been bigger than Rolo! He doesn’t look bigger, partly due to his dark colour, and partly because he is a neat cat rather than a sprawling cat like Rolo, but I’ve noticed when I pick him up that he’s solid.

Rolo miaowed piteously about being confined to the cat carrier, but when Laura wanted him out for his pre-op checks, he didn’t want to come out. Monty, who is very inquisitive, came straight out of his carrier!

They were transported over to the ParkVets Footscray Animal Hospital so that Laura could use the facilities over there for their operations. She phoned us up once their operations were complete and they were waking up and told us that all had gone well.

They were transported back to our local clinic and we went around to pick them up at 5:15pm – where we found them wearing perspex collars! They had both decided to lick their operation sites, and so they had to be collared. Monty, in particular, had gone a bit mad, and was looking a little inflamed, but Laura said that she was happy with him and he could go home.

We took the collars off to feed them, and Monty flatly refused to wear his again! 😯 He purred while I put it on, but as soon as I let him go, he did a Houdini act on it. The first time, I thought I couldn’t have tied it tight enough, so the second time I tied it as tight as I dared. He still managed to get the perspex part over his ears and was then in danger of choking himself. I didn’t try a third round with him. Rolo accepted his collar back on and lay down and went to sleep.

However, they woke up later and got into a playfight and I think Rolo may have scratched Monty – or maybe Monty’s inflamed nether regions were already sore. Anyway, I noticed that he was bleeding – not badly but just leaving blood where he sat down. I was a bit concerned, so phoned the vet and spoke to the evening duty vet, who turned out to have been present during their operations. She said not to worry, and just to keep an eye on him.

In the morning, Monty was much better, and neither of them seemed to want to lick themselves obsessively in the wrong place, so the collars did not last the recommended 48 hours. Monty, of course, had refused to stay in his, and I’d actually taken Rolo’s off before we went to bed, as he was running into things with it on and I thought he was more likely to get trapped by the collar than lick too much. As they were fine in the morning, I think I made the right decision.

Each cat has a patch of shaved fur on his right leg where a catheter was inserted during their operations. The catheter sites looked somewhat angry when we got them home, but now they just look like bare patches of skin. It will take about 6 weeks for their fur to grow back.

They were a bit subdued the day after their operations. They had a game of “scamper scamper”, but tired themselves out and went to sleep on our bed. They did the same thing again today, but seem almost back to normal now.

The picture was taken today and showed them playing with an old length of pull-cord. They have carted it all over the house. I thought it was in the kitchen, but it turned up on our bed.