The Cats Story

By Jian Shuo Wang on 2004-11-16 22:41 · Cats

Now the two cats in my garden finally settled down. They have their own place to sleep at day time and play at night. Cats are cats. They always wandering around in the garden at night when I fall asleep and sleep most of the time in early morning. Besides the fresh meats, I went to the nearby Hymall and bought 1.5kg of Whiskas cat food for them. It cost me 23 RMB. I hesitated a little bit when I put it into my shopping cart. Later, I convinced myself that the poor little things deserved something really nice after experiencing the miserable lives.

According to the introduction of the cat food, cat owners should mix the cat food at certain percentage for the cats to get used to the new delicous food and the increase the percentage everyday until 100% of the meal is cat food. Otherwise, the cats may not be interested in the new food at very begining. Forget about these instructions. It is for the well treated lucky cats. They never know what hungry is. For my two little angles fallen in my garden, the cat food is good enough. They rushed to the dish and completed the first dish of Whiskas in 10 minutes. I don’t know whether it is as delicious as the instruction and ads show. At least, it does not smell good for me. The cats SEEMED to like it because they eat it as fast as fresh meat.

BTW, we have named the mother cat Liangliang (or Shining in English) and the baby cat Huahua (or Colorful). They didn’t get used to their new names yet. They didn’t response when I call them with their names…

Some funny story happens the other day. A third cat, a big white male cat entered the garden and drove the two cats away. He attempted to stay in the garden. I was very unhappy about it. Luckily, the next day, Huahua and Liangliang returned and the white cat find a box on the other side of my apartment and settled down. I am fine with this cat as long as he does not bother my two little guests. Sometimes I will also feed him something. Hopefully there is no war between them in the future.

What the magzine in the U.S. Consulate wrote is true:

Pets can help people to keep health because when people worry about pet’s problems, they forget their own

9 Comments

I'm glad you've named them, Jian Shuo, and I think that means they are part of your family now, not guests any longer. The big white cat may be spreading the word among all the other homeless cats in the neighborhood though, and soon you will find yourself with a whole herd of "visitors".

— Carroll · 2004-11-17 01:43

Also, if there are bags of dry catfood available...that usually costs less per meal and you can mix it with the moist meat-like stuff, or just serve them a bowl of it plain with a bowl of water (which they should always have available anyway) nearby. It's just as nourishing, and, as you said, your scavenger cats will be very likely to appreciate and enjoy anything that you give them. Be careful not to leave it sitting there when they have eaten all they want at one time though, or you really *will* have every cat in the neighborhood calling on your for free meals :)

— Carroll · 2004-11-17 01:48

http://www.hemingwayhome.com/HTML/our_cats.htm

Your cat story reminds me of those cats I saw in Hemingway's house in Key West.

— JoyMocha · 2004-11-17 04:12

"Hopefully there is no war between them in the future."

There might be love between them in the future.

— bigbro · 2004-11-17 11:00

lucky cats! It's nice of you taking care of those wildcats. when I move back to Shanghai if you don't mind i would like to adopt one of them.

— Rachel · 2004-11-17 16:18

Excerllent link! I'm in cat heaven :).

I heard that once kittens reach a certain age, their mom will chase them away so they can go on to estabilish their own territory, so there may come a tiem for Jian Shuo to decide if he's like to keep the mom or the baby.

— YingZ · 2004-11-17 20:14

Jianshuo, a few more advices here :

If you go to a veterinarian and get Liangliang sterilized, you will have only two cats of your own for the future (unless Huahua is a "she", of course, then the same will apply...).

All cats I know just LOVE Whiskas. But mix it with some cheaper food too.

Regarding the white male, they actually can eat Huahua, if he finds it annoying.

I simply throw one or two firecrackers (small of course) at the unwanted cat to scare it away. It was VERY efficient, and not "cruel" at all, only scaring enough !

— carsten · 2004-11-18 22:24

rachel, there is an "adopting wild cats" program in shanghai, you could find various cats there to adopt

— bingfeng · 2004-11-24 19:22

Hi, Jianshuo, it's great to read the cats story. End September one of our friends found also a homeless kitten middle on the street when he was driving, he was sick, one eye was seriously swollen and he was shivering all the time, it's cold in late autumn and just rained. Because he has a big sheperd dog at home so he called us if we could take care of this kitten, we asked him to bring him over. We thought we should bring him to the veterinary at first since I fear he will be blind, the vet told us he was only 6 weeks old and got a cat's cold which can be fatal for cats, that's why one eye is swollen. The kitten got the medical treatment incl. injection for all his problems e.g. cold, fleas. We then bought the canned food for him and he devourred all 190g.

Now 2 and half months passed by, Garfield (his name, he looks quite like Garfield, the only difference is he is still a teenager and not so fat like Garfield) is doing great, healthy and plays much as kitten usually does. I consulted the vet. and also got some advices from my mother-in-law who used to have 2 siamcats (暹逻猫, one died at 21 which equals about 120 years old of human being). Here I'd like to share something important with you. The cats should get the immunization against both cat's cold and distemper at 6, 9, 12 weeks and afterwards once a year since these are very serious illness and fatal for cats. If you are not going to have more cats in future a sterilization for Huahua is needed. Always give them finished cat food because it has the nutrition all a cat needs, of cause you needn't always buy Whiskas or Sheba, but Whiskas has the sortiment of kitten food, only for cat babies and teenager, which should be good for Huahua's grow-up. When he's one year old you can give him the normal adult food. Don't mix the dry food and the pouch together, (actually they prefer the pouch, like my Garfield :-))

Huahua, Liangliang and the white male cat are lucky to have you and Wendy to give them a sweet home, I believe they will enjoy their life there. Cats are so instinctive creatures and certainly they will also bring you a lot of joy!

— snowwhite · 2004-12-21 08:57