The Bag of Shame

This is a Supre bag which has since filled to the brim with Conan's little presents that he brings home. Pairs of socks, individual socks, kids toys, builders' gloves, need I go on?

I am yet to do the walk of shame, perhaps the Conanator is just trying to be kind to humans and encouraging me to Peter Pan it to those needier than us??

I give up.

Dream Big!

Now I really will have to do the Walk of Shame. On our driveway we found a baby girl's home knitted cardigan/hoody which (thank goddness!!) has no chew holes. Perhaps it was the wind that brought it by? Otherwise the resident burglar developed a conscience and dropped it before he could drag it through the cat door.

However the little rapscallion has started up again for spring to our dismay: this week's loot includes a black knee-high stocking which has been well chewed, a pair of green and white baby socks, still rolled up, and a little pink sock, very chewed. Plus he's chewed his way through three more cat toys and part of a towel we keep on top of our bed for him to sleep on. (Although judging by the way he slithered down between us at 5:30 this morning after the earthquake I'm not sure there's much point!)

The crazy thing is that he doesn't seem to understand why we have to fish him out from under beds and desks and shut him out of rooms during the day. The part of him that hails back to his part Siamese heritage comes out and we get very angry miaows indeed!! at least we can shut him up with catnip treats. I love masterpet!!

It's been a while!

It's also been a very cold snap in the past few weeks...
Conan has now mastered the art of running back inside just when one of us has fallen asleep and creeping under the covers. For us 2 unsuspecting bedmates of the master of the house, we don't usually find out until we roll over first thing in the morning and get a claw in the thigh, back of the knee or worse still, the face!

Our final order of curtains arrived today and the poor little man was very scared of the long rails being dragged in. He crouched low, crawled backwards and darted out as soon as he could!! I'm sure he'll learn to love the new drapes soon enough, but if he tries to use them as a climbing rack then he'll have another thing coming!

We can now add another two birds (bodies yet to be seen, or more likely have been digested) and a little stripey kid's sock to the tally. Shame too, it was pretty little and cute!

New Tally, updates in green
Mice: 8
Birds: 7
Lost collars: 6
Items of clothing and underwear now in the Kitty Couture Range - 14
Socks from our washing: 9
Socks stolen from neighbours' washing: 18
Pegs which came in attached to socks: 3
Beanies and gloves nicked from the neighbourhood builders and painters: 4
Foreign cat-toys: 4
Tennis-ball sized kids cuddly toys he stole: 2
Curious George toys: 1

Bully

Conan has long been territorial of our property. Both ourselves and our neighbours across the road have observed Conan getting very firm with the other cats in the neighbourhood when they start to tread on our territory. It kinda hurts when he sees another cat coming past the back door and he digs his claws in and leaps off your lap to chase the other moggy away.

Well not only is Conan a bully on our property, I heard rather an amusing story from our neighbour about how much of a toad he is! The neighbours have a Jack Russell (I think) called Jaz and she mostly stays indoors or within a fenced boundary of their property. You let those babies off the leash when they're out for a daily walk and you'll never see them again!! It turns out that when Jaz is enjoying some outside time within the confines of her fenced home, Conan occasionally struts across the road, sits on the other side of the fence and cocks his head to the side so he can see Jaz through the gap - all this just to taunt the poor dog! She goes nuts barking and huffing away because she wants to play, but all the time Conan's just sitting and watching, amused for the dog that can't come out the other side of the fence. What a bully!! We had quite a hysterical laugh over that.

Needless to say, it's a different story when Jaz is taken out for a walk on her leash every day. You'll never see a cat move so fast to get in the cat door!

I had a dream last night...

Last night I had a dream that I was on a trip somewhere and my suitcase had really squeaky hinges. Argh!! Matt woke me up and said "Clare Bear, Conan's brought in another mouse, can you deal with it..." which made me realise that the squeaky hinges were actually a squeaky mouse trying to escape from Conan. MIght I add, it was the second of three mice he brought in last night. We thought three birds in a week was bad!!!

Plus I hear there was a very large spider that he brought in last night as well, one that would be about the same circumference as an espresso cup with its legs spread. Ewwwww.

But the GOOD NEWS - I always aspire to see something positive about everything, including this killing spree - is that one of the birds was saved by some quick wit and team work. PLUS he's stopped stealing socks!! For the time being anyway.

Here's the update to date:
Socks from our washing: 9
Socks stolen from neighbours' washing: 18
Pegs which came in attached to socks: 3
Beanies and gloves nicked from the neighbourhood builders and painters: 4
Foreign cat-toys: 3
Tennis-ball sized kids cuddly toys he stole: 2
Curious George toys: 1
Mice: 5
Birds: 5
Lost collars: 5
Items of clothing and underwear now in the Kitty Couture Range - 12

Backdate: 11 July 07: Thank God for Ellenco!!

... is all I can say. Matt and I thought Conan was up to something, or something was a little off when we got home yesterday because Conan was winking lots with his left eye. Upon closer inspection he had a lot of gooby stuff in his eye, so I did my usual mum routine and wiped that shiz away.

A couple of hours later he joined me on the bed while I was chatting to a dear friend in Melbourne, and I noticed it was still a bit goupie so I checked out his freaky second eyelids and the left one was verrrry red. Poor little poppet!! So my day of annual leave which was intended for doing 'me' stuff (aqua jogging, getting wedding photos, sorting out the garage, starting on two new sewing projects and finishing the cushion covers I desperately want to get out of my house) ended up being for Conan. I got the aqua jogging and wedding photos done, but ended up running around getting him into the vet and then that was about it! GRRR!!! Every time I get a day or a half-day, if I don't get in the car and drive to Auckland then I end up running round after one of my boys. But that's beside the point, I'm just whingeing!!

Sooo anyway $119.00 later and a booking for next week for a checkup (which will be a $46 consultation plus whatever else they charge) and Conan's got to put up with having me wrestle him and put a tiny bit of cream in his eye so he gets better. Three years ago a friend got her cat insured and I thought that it was a)precious, b)ridiculous and c)a waste of money!! However upon finding out what she'd claimed back I thought hey, surely $18 a month can't hurt. Quite the opposite actually!! Ellenco Pet Insurance for cats and dogs is a total Godsend. We can now claim up to 80% of vet costs, excluding the usual stuff you can't claim for, up to a certain limit each year which we get nowhere near. However it's just fabulous!!

So check it out if you're tempted, but we're certainly looking forward to getting ... um... whatever 80% of $119 works out to. Nice!!!

http://www.petsonthenet.co.nz/petinsurance.htm