Sparkle the Designer Cat's Blog, page 473

Sunday Catinee: Bad Cats

One of the reasons you humans love us kitties is because we’re so cute when we misbehave! So here are two solid minutes of misbehavior for you. Enjoy!

If you can’t see the above video, click here to watch it on YouTube!

I especially liked the little door stopper trick. Which act of misbehavior was your favorite?
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Vote for Me for Next Top Cat… and Vote for My Friends Too!

It’s voting time! The nominees for AmazeCats Next Top Cat have been announced, and the 32 cats with the most votes by Friday, March 29 will get in the bracket and become part of the tournament! Vote for me here! You can vote every day until March 29!

But I am not going to stop there! The cool thing about this part of the competition is that you can vote every day for more than one cat! And some other familiar Cat Blogosphere faces are in the running, so I am going to ask you to vote for them too between now and next Friday! I want to see us all make the bracket… and I would really like to see one of us make it to the top! Although, I have to say, the competition at the upper echelons is pretty stiff! But we all deserve a chance, so in addition to myself, I invite you to vote for my friends (listed in alphabetical order):

Allie, Maxwell and Faraday

Cody of Cat Chat with Caren and Cody

Daisy the Curly Cat

Katie from Glogirly

Odin from Cat Wisdom 101

Here is the page where you can see all the nominees for AmazeCats Next Top Cat.

Let’s show ‘em what us blogging kitties are made of!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

DIY Friday… and a Little Giveaway!

I have a fun project for you humans this week — one that your cats will definitely want to supervise! It’s time to get creative and put together some simple, homemade cat toys. But just because something is simple, it does not have to be small.

You can make a cardboard box playground for your cats! There are some handy tips for putting one together on page 9 of the current PetCo PurinaPurr! As you can see, my human is just getting started. I will give her — and you some additional tips.

Accessorize your boxes with crinkly packing paper and colorful tissue paper!

Make sure you have the right size boxes! I don’t think this white one will work.

Also make sure you have enough materials on hand. In addition to boxes, and hopefully some crinkly paper, you will need strong scissors or even better, a good box cutter, and some duct tape to hold everything together securely. As you can see, my human does not have anywhere near enough duct tape. I am going to send her over to the hardware store right now!

If you don’t have enough boxes right now, there are other things you can make too! Friskies has a “DIY Homemade Cat Toys” Pinterest board with lots of crafty ideas that you can put together without spending any money — you just use items you already have around the house! I bet a lot of kitties’ favorite will be “The Partymaker” — it uses an empty Temptations bag which, of course, means that you ate all the Temptations! This toy will give you good exercise so you can work off the treats.

Now here is some incentive for you kitties to get your human working on this: send me a photo of you playing with the toy your human made and I will randomly pick one of you to receive 5 PetCo coupons, each one good for a free can of Friskies (US residents only)! Plus I will paw-pick one other photo to submit to Purina for possible inclusion in the Summer issue of PurinaPurr!

It does not matter how you get the photo to me. You can post it on my Facebook page, upload it onto Twitter or Pinterest and leave me the link in the comments below, or you can email it to me at sparkle AT sparklecat DOT com! You have until Friday, March 29 to enter — I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Note: coupons are supplied by the Purina/ Friskies humans. I’m not being compensated for this post by them… although offers of fried chicken would be gladly accepted.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

I Am a Next Top Cat Nominee!

I just wanted to give you a quick head’s up — I am one of AmazeCats’ Next Top Cat nominees! They have posted videos of all of us on their YouTube page. You will recognize several of the other kitties: Katie, Daisy the Curly Cat, Cody and Anakin are also there! Here is my video:

If you can’t see the above video, click here to watch it on YouTube!

The next week will determine which 32 cats will get into the Next Top Cat bracket! Voting starts this Friday, and I will give you the link as soon as I have it. I want to see myself and all my friends make it into the tournament!

UPDATE: The link to vote for me is here — http://www.amazecats.com/pages/sparkle-the-designer-cat
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Dear Sparkle: Silly Human Questions

I had a couple of human questions I have decided to address this month. Not that I really have any answers. But it’s the humans’ fault for asking silly things.

Question #1

I have two awesome cats. Floppy has been with me since he rescued me nine years ago and about a year ago my wife and I adopted a kitten, Lady Grey from a local rescue. She loves to play, as we would expect from a kitten, but she does have one strange habit; she loves to lick our fingers and noses. If your hand gets near her head for any length of time she will start licking and won’t stop until you take it away. I can find nothing on the internet to let me know if this is normal or a problem of some sort, and Floppy has never done this. Our vet says Lady Grey is in great health, so it wouldn’t appear to be a problem but any advice on this would be most appreciated.

Honestly, I would pass this question along to Binga because she does the same thing but she does not see anything unusual about it. And while there are a lot of human-created theories, there is no real answer. Some so-called “experts” believe that cats develop this habit if they were weaned too early as kittens, which does not explain the cats who do this who after many years, still live with their feline moms (I ran across this scenario when I was searching for an answer for your question). Binga does it because she gets positive reinforcement from the humans for doing so. She used to accompany her incessant licking with a good, solid bite now and again, but since she did not get positive reinforcement for that, she does not bite as often… although I notice that the humans tend to keep her away from their noses. The licking thing, I would say (at least in Binga’s case, and in the case of many other cats who lick) is 50% affection, 40% compulsion and 10% because you just finished eating something tasty. As long as Lady Grey seems happy with her routine and has not gravitated towards any bad habits such as sucking on fabric or eating strange things (which could indicate a medical problem), I don’t see a problem here.

For the record, I do not lick my human. She tastes icky.

Question #2

Do you know why after my cats poop, they run around the house like insane cats — flattening themselves out, crazy eyes, circle jumps… they don’t do that when they pee. Thank you for any insight into this funny but strange mystery.

You mean humans don’t do this? I think that is a more curious habit — not dashing around exuberantly after using the facilities. A little uptight, are you? No sense of fun? I don’t get human bathroom habits at all — the whole shutting the bathroom door thing, not using litter, the flushing in lieu of proper covering up… it’s all so quirky and does not seem at all natural. I think you humans should look into your own bathroom habits before judging ours!

Seriously, there is no answer for your question. At least none that would be understandable to humans. It is perfectly natural behavior for a lot of kitties and something we never thought of questioning ourselves. As long as your cat has normal bowel movements (not too soft or too hard), does not seem in pain, does not stop to lick himself frequently in between mad dashes (which indicates either pain or perhaps one of those annoying cling-ons), and uses his litter box and not some random spot, then he is just being himself. If you ever do suspect anything is amiss, ask a vet.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Wordless Wednesday: Is There a Reason You Woke Me Up?

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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Ten Tortie Life Lessons From Binga

Binga thinks she knows how kitties can have a life of success and happiness — just like her! Personally, I do not buy this, but for your edification, here are her 10 Tortie Life Lessons. Make of them what you will.

(Ed. note: The opinions expressed by Binga do not necessarily reflect those of Sparkle. In fact, they mostly do not. Plus her language had to be cleaned up and heavily edited to fit the criteria of a family-friendly blog.)

1. Never ask for something — demand what is rightfully yours.

2. Denial is not an option!

3. If you are not immediately granted access to that which is rightfully yours, then steal it.

4. Never apologize for your actions.

5. For every restriction a human creates, there is always a workaround.

6. Know that all will be forgiven as long as you purr really, really loudly.

7. As a tortie, you are expected to be crazy, so behave accordingly; do not disappoint.

8. Always complain. Never explain.

9. If other cats get in your face, they are just jealous. So whap ’em.

10. Persistence is a virtue. When all else fails, a swift bite on the human’s nose will make your point.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Katnip Lounge Outtakes… and a Pop Quiz Winner!

The Katnip Lounge kitties and humans were nice enough to send my human home with some new pipe cleaners for me… and a much-needed Da Bird replacement feather! I have been having lots of fun with them while waiting for somebody to come up with the right answers to my pop quiz! I was leaving the competition open until today in case it took that long for somebody to come up with all the right answers… but somebody already has, so I figure I might as well announce it now.

May Ling was amazed by all the different answers everyone had! Let’s get to the first question, which was the one that seemed to have everyone stumped.

Grayce assured me that there were just FOUR cats in the photo in the original post and even when the number was right, everybody kept getting one cat wrong! That was not Maui in the background.

Nope, Maui was in the male human’s office, keeping tabs on him.

Can you see her a little better in this overexposed photo of Sweet Pea? It is Konakitty! Eric and Flynn had it almost right, except they kept seeing kitties who weren’t there. It was Ms. Stella O’Houligan who finally got all the answers completely right!

I think just about everybody who guessed got number 2 right — my human did not get photos of Scouty, CC, Sylvester or Tiny Johnson. In fact, she did not see sneaky Scouty at all, and only a flash of CC. Sylvester came over and said hello towards the end of my human’s visit and Tiny Johnson was hanging out in the male human’s office, along with Maui. And it was pretty obvious that my human had the most photos of Salem — she is a very social girl! Most of you got the photobombing kitties right: Rupert, Sweet Pea and Salem.

Who was it that my human got to touch? It certainly wasn’t Scouty, and it was not CC either. My human does not remember for sure if she got to pet Sylvester, but she knows for sure she got to touch Tiny Johnson because the male human wanted her to feel just how solid he is! He is a giant kitty, and he is all muscle! I don’t blame The Baby for being a little dubious about him.

I knew I was going to get a raspberry for saying that! But anyhow, Ms. Stella, I will be in touch for your mailing address, and I will put together a little fun pack for getting all the answers right!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Sunday Catinee: Kitten Wrassling

I thought we could all use a kitten break today. Even better, I found a video of wrassling kittens! I hope it makes you smile (although my human had to turn down the music after about 30 seconds) and just for a couple of minutes, forget your troubles. If you don’t have any troubles, this will make your day just that much better!

If you can’t see the video above, click here to watch it on YouTube!

By the way, how do you like my new Sunday Catinee header? It is still a work in progress.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Photo Hunt: Footprints

I hope my paw print is a suitable replacement for this week’s Photo Hunt theme, Footprints! ‘Cause I have lots of paw prints! I frequently pawtograph my books for my readers. I know lots of you have my book, and if you don’t have my pawtograph, scroll down to the bottom of any page on my blog and click on “Contact Sparkle.” I will tell you where to send a self-addressed stamped envelope so I can get you one. I can also pawtograph your digital book! Just send me a request on my Authorgraph page!

Now, why do I have the creepy feeling that I am being watched?
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!