Charlotte's First Hummer

Today Charlotte encountered her first hummingbird.  As she sat on the stack of moving boxes under "her" window a hummingbird hovered just inches from her, almost at her face.  It was so unexpected she just sat there.  She didn't even make a sound.  I wonder what her next hummer experience will be like?

Learning . . .

Charlotte is getting better at being able to restrain herself.

It used to be there was no chance of stopping her from going out into the garage unless we actually were able to grab her as we opened the door.  Now, sometimes we can tell her no and she'll stop in her tracks.  She still will zip out there if she really is set on going, but ... it's better than it was.

She's also gotten good about not biting.  It started with her backing off from biting me, then she got better with Tom.  Now, at worst, she leaves a minor red dot with her teeth.  More often than not she opens her mouth but doesn't touch us.

She knows the word "jingle" - it means she needs to ring the bell on the pantry door to ask for her kibble.  Sometimes she jingles at times of day we don't want to give it to her.

She's learning the term "chin up" - it means she needs to put her paws on the handle to the freezer (bottom drawer-type freezer).

Her favorite word - "crunchies".  Temptations treats.  That word will bring her running from the garage when nothing else works.  The first thing she learned to do to "earn" her crunchies was to sit.  She'll even do it for other people.

Over the summer we'll see what else we can teach her.  I plan to build her a climbing post and some tunnels from the moving boxes.  It will give her a place to burn some of her energy, and when we get the puppy, she'll have some escape areas.

Our Little Fatty

Yesterday we dropped off a few items at the local animal shelter.  While we were therre we saw abeautiful mama kitty that put Charlotte's size in perspective.  The mama has 5-week-old kittens.  Charlotte is as long as the mama kitty.  But, Charlotte is very round where mama kitty is very lean. 

After holding steady at about 8.8 pounds since early February, she now weighs a little over 10 pounds.  She still has ribs, but it takes a bit of probing to find them.  We walk a fine line between keeping her hungry and keeping her happy.  And that line wavers a lot.

She's a chewer!

Her baby teeth went long ago (I assume; we never saw them go or be replaces) but she still chews.  Now, we're fining out it's more than just cardboard.

First she chewed out the holes of her busy box.  The busy box is a cardboard box (we received something in it) with a jingly ball inside and a number of holes that are smaller than the ball, but a bit larger than her paws.  When she's interested in it she can amuse herself for a half hour or more at a time.  The first busy box lasted a few weeks, then she chewed out the hole and took out the ball.  I made her another.  It has additional holes - tooth holes - but the ball is still inside ... so far.

Now that we're preparing to move, she's working on box flaps on our packing boxes.  Some just have punctures, some are getting a bit raggedy.  It's annoying, but not a big deal, at least not so far.

Last night we found out she's moved on to the shower curtain.  She loves to lick the wet shower walls and pounce on the bottom part of the shower curtain to make the water drops roll down.  She really works hard at it when it's dry, trying to make the non-existant water roll down.  Sometimes she  launches herself from the tub "through" the curtain with all four feet forward  ... I worry that she'll pull the whole curtain down doing that.

But, last night we found one of the magnets (the shower curtain has little pockets with magnets) on the tub wall.  When Tom looked closer it wasn't that the magnet pocket had been "bashed" enough for the pocket to break, but that she had chewed it out ... oh, boy.

We're going to need to find some kind of  "chew toy" that she'll accept as a chew toy . . .  maybe mount a couple of box flaps in places she'll use them?

My Chair!

There's a chair we were going to sell.  It's an Ikea "Poang" chair.  When we got our double recliners we set it across the room in a corner for those times when we need another seat.  More recently we were  figuring it would "go away" during our yard sale and move. 

Then we noticed Charlotte was spending more and more time in it.  Then we got out the laser pointer and she charged the top of the back of the chair.  As she leaps up to the back the chair moves and rocks a bit (it's supposed to "rock" a bit) and goes sort of crazy.

Between the hours napping in it and the play sessions in it, she has really claimed it.  We'll have room for it in the other house and might even let people sit in it sometimes.

Every now & then we'll vacuum the hair off the seat, but she's shedding just enough that's we'd have to do it every few days to keep it suitable for people to use.  Just look at it.  We cleaned it a week or two back . . .

The Mighty Hunter

Charlotte has become a hunter.  At least to some degree.  She's been going out in the garage at least once a day for many weeks.  It's one of the first things she wants to do in the mornings. 

Then, yesterday, we heard her diving into a pile of stuff out there.  I opened the door to see what was up.  I saw her actively hunting in & out of the pile.  I closed the door.

Later, I went out to get something from the car and she was actively tracking something near the front corner of the garage.  As I got my item from the car and was backing out of it, I saw a big fat vole zip across the from the wall side to under the car.  I went back in the house.

Later that night I heard her meow at the door.  She didn't have the vole or any other critter in her mouth or in sight.  We don't know if she chased it away, killed it and left it somewhere, or killed it and ate it.

Since then she's not been as focused out there and she's wanted back in the house quicker.  So whether she scared it away or killed it, it would see there's nothing out there to hunt, at least for now.

Tunnels!

We've got some flat (not yet set up to fill) packing boxes leaning up against my big computer backpack in the living room.  Charlotte loves the "tunnel" at the bottom - that triangular gap on the floor.  She was playing in it and hiding in it, but we didn't realize how much she liked it until we straightened up the boxes.  That looked a bit neater, but it removed that "tunnel".  She let us know about it.  So, we slid the bottoms out again so she'd have her tunnel.

That tells me we're going to want to get some big PVC pipe (irrigation pipe?) when we get to Trout Creek.  We'd planned to make her a climbing post from either PVC or 2x4s covered with carpet and mounted to a wall.  Now, I think we'll need a tunnel or two, also.  I'm hoping to design something that won't jar too much with the house & furniture.  The color & texture or the carpet we use to cover the PVC pipes should take care of that.  Now, to think of the places to put tunnels for her.