I like the tongue prints part. You haven't really experienced a cat until you have tongue prints left somewhere on your food or in your refrigator. It's a good thing that I don't suffer from mysophobia -- a pathological fear of contamination and germs because I would never eat at home. With my cats hanging all over me as I try to eat, or trying to sneak some licks or bits of butter, yogart, or basically any form of "human" food, I don't even want to think about how many cat germs I've been exposed to. I did get a little creeped out when several of my cats were infected with tapeworms that they got from fleas bites. The vet tried to reassure me that I was in no real danger of "picking up" a tapeworm or two from my cats. After the first cat was diagnosed, I kept imagining I could feel slithering things in my gut. It took a while to get that imagine out of my mine.

I don't have as much problem with tongue prints as cat hair in everything. I took an ice tray out out the freezer and even though I rinsed it out several times and used bottled water to make the cubes, I still manage to find a few cat hairs in them. My mom got me a coffee cup that says "Cat hairs make everything taste better." They better because I'm sure I ingested pounds of cat hair over the years.

The one mark my cats leave that is especially noticable is all the little nose prints they leave on the windows as they either look out side or look into the house. They are lined up across the windows ranging from 6 inches high to almost a foot. Thank doG my cats make me laugh a lot becaue it's hard to stay mad at them -- well for more than a hour or two, worst case.

Tongue prints on the butter? No wonder Listeme was frying the butter water.

At dinner earlier tonight, while I was rinsing dishes, Trouble came out of nowhere, jumped on the table and made a grab at the butter dish. Luckily, my brother saw her coming and snatched it out of her grasp. She's usually much more subtle in her attempts at food thievery. Unless I'm eating sushi.

Miz Vi is not really into the people food, though she does like a few bites of bread from time to time. And the good stuff, too. Whole wheat sourdough, rustic batard...

Kitteh's got taste.

We have a rule in this house that cats don't eat people food, and people don't eat cat food.

Works pretty well, actually. We just have disagreements about the categories for butter and ice cream.

We got the lab results back on my Sheltie, Ranger. He has pancreatitis.

This on top of the thyroid problem and the possible cushing's disease.

He is on a strict diet starting this weekiend.

no more treats for you Mr. Barky McSheltie

My Tao Shen has both of those, with kidney ailments added. He's on a somewhat strict diet, but we've fed him organically since he was 10 weeks old. (He'll be 17 in June.) We have him on Chinese herbs and some homeopathics. When he was diagnosed with Cushing's in 2008, a vet said if we didn't start him on one steroid or another (I forget their names), he'd be dead in 6 months. We took him to our holistic vet, and she developed his regimen. All this to tell you there is hope.

When I was a kid, our miniature schnauzer had this. While he did eventually die from it, I believe, and had multiple acute attacks, he was mostly in good health for over five years after the diagnosis. He had to eat a lot fewer treats.

I found this last week when we were not sure about pancreatitis here:

http://www.whole-dog-journal.com/issues ... 088-1.html

It gives some ways to calculate whether the treats are low fat enough, etc.

to you and Ranger!

Our weimie, Cocoa, had pancreatitis. She was a "treataholic" but we found some substitutions that worked for her: non-fat cottage cheese, non-fat turkey breast and, best of all, non-fat canned whipped cream (Redi-Whip real stuff!).

Ah, you have to work that out with a pencil, like a mathematician....

If you turn the pencil, you will find you get the same noise whether it is real or just a kitteh.

On a somewhat off topic note, my wife went to make an appointment for Ranger with the groomer and found out that his visa expired and he is about to get deported.

I don't know all the details other than the fact that his wife and children are citizens and that he is a great groomer with a loyal customer base.

It sucks that a tax paying, productive member of our community has to be treated like this.

For a second there, I couldn't figure out how the dog had a visa expire, and where they would deport him to.

We can send the dog back to the Shetlands.

OMG, I just caught my grandkitty, Gritty, PEEING IN THE TOILET!!! I've seen other cats on youtube doing that but I always assumed they had been taught how. She just up and did it on her own. It took me a minute to realize what she was doing because it was so unexpected, and I don't think my husband believes me at all. The most amazing thing about it is that she's usually so uncoordinated I would have expected her to fall in.

Ewwwwwwwww... I wouldn't be comfortable using the same seat. Can you be sure that you put the lid down when you visit my place?

I once had a kitty that I saw using the toilet a few times. More often, I saw her coming out of the bathtub where she had discreetly used the drain. They do it just to amaze us with their powers of observation. Just don't expect them to make a habit of it.

Not impressive unless she flushed afterward.

Man, the bar is high in this joint ...

AND put the toilet seat down afterwards, AND washed her paws with soap and water AND dried them with the towel AND hung the towel back up afterwards.

(AND turned the light out on the way out.)

Many of the humans I know can't manage all that.

FIFY.

Sexist!