Dear Not a Toy,
Oh no, it sounds like the human kitten has reached the most annoying age, at least for kitties: the toddler stage. This is where they are mobile and curious, but they just don’t understand very much. This means they get into a lot of trouble and they don’t know yet how to treat kitties and other living things. There really is not much you can do about the one you live with, except to avoid him unless the grown-up humans are very carefully supervising the both of you. That way, if he is too rough on you, you can scream for help and somebody will be right there to come to your aid. If the grown-up humans are distracted and not paying too much attention to the human kitten, you will have to rely on the fact that, as you mentioned, you are faster and more agile than he is. Jump on the highest surfaces you have available — hopefully your human has a cat tree for you. If not, you will have to make do with counters, mantles and the tops of entertainment centers. Or you can hide behind furniture, in places too small for the human kitten to reach. If he can’t get to you, chances are this will cause him to start crying in frustration, and if this happens, feel free to add your voice to the noise. It will get the grown-up humans’ attention even quicker and hopefully they will fetch the kid and you can have some peace.

Unfortunately, human kittens grow a lot more slowly than young cats, so this problem is bound to go on for much longer than you would like. But with any luck, the grown-up humans will train him to be nice to you, and eventually he will find other things to occupy his time besides bothering you. I imagine that at this point, you are probably a little annoyed that your humans brought this guy home to begin with, but don’t worry — if you live long enough, you will have the last laugh. When the kid becomes what is known as a “teenager,” he will make the adult humans’ lives as miserable as yours is right now.

First off, here is the answer: 29 pounds, 13 ounces.

My friends at Katnip Lounge guessed 29 pounds, 12 ounces! But a longtime reader of my blog, Charlotte, also known as BrucesMom, guessed 29.75 pounds, which works out to… 29 pounds, 12 ounces! Good job, you guys! But now you will have to do one more thing, and hopefully this will decide the winner.

Here is Boodie, waiting to be weighed:

I have already sent emails to both the Katnip Lounge crew and BrucesMom asking them to guess what Boodie weighs. The one that comes closest to Boodie’s actual weight will win my new book and the cool Play-n-Squeak Bounce-n-Pounce cat toy! Hopefully they will send in their answers sometime today and I will be able to announce the winner tomorrow!

Today is the last day to enter this month’s contest! As you probably recall, you are supposed to guess the collective weight of me, Binga and Boodie, and the entrant who comes closest wins a PAWtographed copy of my new book, Dear Sparkle: Cat-to-Cat Advice from the world’s foremost feline columnist and a Play-n-Squeak Bounce-n-Pounce cat toy! A lot of readers have entered, but no one has guessed exactly. What’s more — if I don’t get any closer entries today, I will have a tie! Don’t worry, I have a tie breaker planned if that happens.

The contest closes at midnight, Pacific Time, so if you haven’t entered yet, make sure you do it today! Click here to go to the contest — only comments on that post will count!

I also want to remind you to vote for me for a Petties Award for Best Cat Blog! Voting closes on August 20, and I need every last one of you to vote for me! Purrs and thank you!

“As you can see, I found it quite enthralling,” she said.

“Beauford-Cat and I have been read the stories in your book,” she continued, “and we’ve found quite a few tips in there that we’ll be trying out in our own home.” (Yes, I enclosed a post card for my new book too!)

I asked her if I could put these photos in my blog and she replied, “Sure, it would be great fun to see them there!  I will have to give my tail an extra swish under Beauford-Cat’s nose… ha!”

I really think Pixie Pie needs her own blog.

The winner will get a PAW-tographed copy of my book, of course, but they will also get a second prize that I will announce at a later date. It is a very cool bonus prize! But to get a chance to win, you will have to guess something. I will give you a hint about what it is:

In case you couldn’t figure it out, or you are wondering why there is a photo of a broken baby scale here, well, this is what my human uses to weigh us cats at home. Yes, it is missing a part but it still works. The winner of the contest will have guessed how much we three cats weigh, or at least they will have come closer than anyone else. It will take a little bit of math skill, because you have to guess the sum total of our weights: my weight + Binga’s + Boodie’s = your guess. Don’t worry, I will give you some hints. Here is the first one:

That’s right — I weigh more than 0 pounds! I will also remind you — because I have said it more than once — that Binga and Boodie weigh considerably more than I do. You can get a good look at them here:

This is a closer photo of Binga. She is hoping this picture does not make her look fat.

Boodie wants to remind you that she has a lot of fluff so she may not weigh as much as you think. (You fluffy cats know how that goes.)

To be honest, we cats don’t really like being weighed — it is annoying having to stand on the dumb scale and hold still. So — and this is one of the surprises — my human does not have the correct answer yet! She will weigh us sometime within the next couple of weeks. So you will be guessing a number that is not yet known!

Here are the rules, in a nutshell:

1. To enter, you must guess how much all three of us cats weigh and add it together.

2. The guess must be in pounds and ounces, since we live in the U.S. and my human has problems doing kilo conversions.

3. Your guess must be in a comment to this specific blog post. Guesses anywhere else will not count!

4. The winner also gets a bonus prize. You do not have to register here on my blog or anything.

5. The contest runs until August 16. At midnight that night, Pacific Time, the comments to this post will be closed. The winner will be announced in my August 17 post.

Good luck everyone! Have fun guessing!

Dear Kit’s End,
Such a joy, breaking in a new kitten, isn’t it? Especially for a nice cat like you, who doesn’t want to dampen her high spirits — and you are suffering all sorts of petty annoyances as a result. Add a human to the mix, who is clueless about the right way to deal with a kitten and you have a perpetual source of frustration. Actually, in this case, I think your human may be easier to manipulate than the kitten. In fact, I’m sure this is true. The kitten is easy enough, really. Just let her continue to do what she’s doing. She’ll eventually get bored of your sun patches and your special spot on the bed and find her own places. And if she doesn’t, you can always, shall we say, encourage her to find them once she’s a little bigger and closer to you in size. So really, she is only inconveniencing you for a little while. Your human, on the other hand, is not helping things because she’s wasting time fretting over the kitten’s behavior, trying to get her to move (which is useless), and generally attempting to control a situation over which she has no control whatsoever. Since she seems to be stressed out over inconveniencing you, I suggest that you milk that for all it is worth. Instead of trying to grab your place on the bed, go into another room and sleep there. Your human will think you are sulking, or depressed and she will do all sorts of things to make you feel better — pay extra attention to you, bring home new treats, maybe buy some toys or even a new cat tree. You don’t even have to work it. Just let the kitten have her way and go off and curl up in a ball. Your human will imagine the rest and act accordingly. By the time the kitten’s a year old, you should have all sorts of great perks that you earned by doing… nothing! Meanwhile, the kitten will have matured and stopped being so annoying. Of course your human will think that she helped things along. She didn’t, but if I were you, I would let her take credit. You may get more new stuff if she thinks it is making a difference.

Advance copies of my brand new book to send to reviewers! My human says we have to be really particular about who we send them to because even though it looks like a lot, it really isn’t all that many.

I am amazed by the great job my publishers, Adams Media, did with my book. It’s over 200 pages, and the paper is very thick — my human may not be able to send out copies First Class like normal because it weighs almost 13 oz. already, without adding the packaging and press kit! Plus it is full-color all the way through — check it out! (You can also “Look inside” if you go to the Amazon page.)

I can’t wait for everybody to read it! It’s full of my cat-only advice columns, much of it never before seen (and all totally different from my first book), and lots and lots of action photos of me to illustrate the problems cats write to me about! The publishers needed so many photos that I had to work overtime! Even though the official release date is August 18, Amazon says it is in stock now! I am ready to start pawtographing!

Well? I’m waiting for the announcement.

Okay, before I tell you who it is, I do want to mention that all of you who submitted stories are winners! In fact, all you adopted shelter cats are winners whether you entered or not because you beat the odds and found a home. There are a lot of kitties who aren’t that lucky. But I only have one copy of my book to give away, and it goes to the cat who got the most votes — and that cat is:

Pixie Pie!

So now that we know who the winner is, I need to get busy and personalize this pawtographed book plate.

I will send the winner an email so they can tell me how they would like it to read!

Thanks so much for participating, whether you entered or voted!

Dear Silence,
There really is no excuse for your human to be using the phone when you are hanging out and trying to doze. Acceptable activities are: petting you, giving you skritches (both of which you’ve mentioned), watching television, reading a book, needlework or maybe texting if she can do it without disturbing you too much. If she were doing any of these activities, she would be too preoccupied to talk on the phone. It sounds to me like she has no clue when it comes to lap etiquette, so clearly some training is in order. First you need to discourage her phone habit. When she starts talking while you are on her lap, jump off, but sit close by and begin to drown out her chatter with your own vocalizing. If she gets up and leaves the room, you can either follow her and continue to meow, or you can just stay where you are and find something fragile to knock over. Either tactic will draw your human’s attention away from the phone. Of course, you want to do more than just get your human off the phone — you also want her to sit so you can curl up on her lap. So while you are showing disapproval for one activity — her talking — you must show approval when she is behaving. Whenever she is sitting quietly, jump up onto her lap and make yourself comfortable. But do more than that — purr loudly, softly knead your paws on her lap (make sure to be gentle here, so you don’t scratch her) and rub your face against her. Gaze up at her and give her the contented, half-open eyes. Make it obvious that you love it when she is making her lap a nice place to be. But if she gets on the phone, start your disruptive tactics again. After you repeat these steps for a few days (or, for really dense humans, a few weeks), your human should get the idea and modify her behavior accordingly.

Dear CKO,
Humans are not very bright, not even the ones who are smart enough to stay home to do work. For one thing, if they were really, truly smart, they would figure out how not to do the work thing at all, and just cater to us all the time. And your human is definitely in need of some behavior modification, since he seems to think that his so-called work is more important than his duties to you. In fact, if he took a break now and again to pay attention to you, he would probably be more relaxed and get more done. That is one of the benefits of being a kitty’s employee.

On the other paw, have you considered that maybe you aren’t being clear enough about what you want out of your human? It sounds like he just thinks you want in and out of the office, when in reality, you want something a bit more complicated than that. Usually a kitty wants one of three things: playtime, food, or some affection, so you need to tailor your request to whichever you are looking for. If you are hungry, tell him so by jumping on his desk and chewing on some papers or licking the glue on an envelope (personally, I find envelope glue pretty tasty!). Do you want to play? Then when you ask to come in, bring a toy along with you. If you don’t have any toys handy, carry in a reasonable facsimile, such as a twist-tie, a pen, or perhaps a dead bug. Just walk in with whatever you’ve got and place it in his lap. With any luck, he will toss it so you can chase after it. If you just want some company, you need to get his attention away from his work. Do this by jumping on his lap and poking him with your paw, or leaping on the desk and walking in front of the computer screen. Do not take no for an answer – you know better than your human when he needs to take a kitty break.

The thing you have to remember about humans is that subtleties are lost on them, so when you want something, you can’t just meow around the bush. Be bold, be obvious, and be persistent. If your human knows exactly what you want, chances are he will give it to you.