Free Cat

Free to a good home*

*Also willing to trade for another cat

Of course this is a joke and I would never abandon or palm off my sweet little kitty just because she has picked up some annoying behaviours (probably from me) lately.

The last couple of weeks she has been seriously bullying us.  She has been waging biting wars against our unsuspecting feet and Jumping up on chairs and our bed to bite our arms. We have been trying several things suggested by cat behaviourists to stop this behaviour, spray bottle, yelling "ow", putting our palm in front of her face and forcing her to back off... It just has her coming back for more.

It has crossed my mind that she is suffering a little from separation anxiety because I am no longer here with her all day. Before leaving for work she sits between me and the door and meows very sadly. My aim this weekend is to invest in a lot of kitty toys to keep her entertained during the hours i'm at work, hopefully it helps and I have my happy kitty back before too long!

Pogo is settling in!

On Saturday when Pogo arrived into her new home it was so hard to take a picture of her because she would not stop walking around exploring her surroundings. As it turned out we forgot to turn off the sound blaster that's supposed to scare away the mice. Poor pogo must have been walking up and down trying to figure out where that damn mouse was all day (the sound blaster mimics mice sounds to make it appear as though there is a dominant male mouse already living in the house). So now with that sorted out she is behaving like a normal cat, that is she sleeps and plays all day.

Pogo the Cat AKA Mouse Hunter

Amsterdam is probably the most cat friendly place I have ever been. Cats are everywhere, in home and shop windows, sleeping under the tables in cafe's and restaurant's, jumping on your lap in bars and pubs. Up until 2 weeks ago I thought it was probably all part of the gezellig (cozy) Dutch charm.

Then it happened... Mats was woken up by something darting across the room on our second night in our new apartment, he bolted up and said "I think there's a rat in flat!" I got up in a panic and in the garbage we could hear what seemed to be a massive animal but only turned out to be a small mouse. For about an hour as we decided what to do, Mats heroically picked up the garbage and put it outside the apartment to deal with it in the morning.

The next morning after sleeping with my head under the blankets to make sure nothing crawled on me during the night. I decided we'd been duped into a mouse infested apartment. Mats mentioned this to his work colleagues who assured him mice are so common in Amsterdam that people basically live amongst them in fact they barely notice them (well some people). Of course why wouldn't they be common? Amsterdam has water, canals and old homes, it is the perfect place for them to take up residence. It was then that it struck me "THIS IS WHY THERE ARE CATS EVERYWHERE, mouse control!" (especially in shops that stock food) Mats agreed.

After a week with a high frequency sound blaster and keeping a meticulously clean apartment, our little friendly household mouse was still causing us sleepless nights. We decided that the Dutch had the most effective mouse control in action and this cat idea that had been in the air for the past few weeks was our best plan of action.

Everyone meet Pogo. She is our Mouse Hunter. We are in love with her already.

More pictures soon! (When she's more comfortable in her new surroundings, It has been almost impossible to get a decent shot of her, she is so quick and curious in her new home that she is a black blur in almost every shot).