I love the CATalyst Council. Really, I do. It is a nonprofit group that is working hard to give us kitties better lives. It aims to raise the level of care and welfare we cats receive, and promote a positive image of felines in society and the media. These are wonderful goals, and I am glad to have these experts working in our favor. But every September they announce it is Happy Cat Month with a list of ways to keep us happy — and it is sorely lacking! It’s a list written by humans, for humans. You can see my response to this list from a couple of years ago — it hasn’t changed much since then. In fact, this year, when I saw the CATalyst Council trot out virtually the same “happy cat” list once again, I decided that maybe I should make my own list of things that make cats really happy. Do these for your kitty during the rest of September if you want a happy cat! In fact, please do them all year round. I think every month should be Happy Cat Month.
1. Two Words: Drunken Toys. Many cats love catnip toys, but there is a problem — eventually the potency wears thin. Smart humans will have a large container full of the strongest dried nip they can find, and let old cat toys marinate in there. After a couple of weeks, voilà — they’re like new again! Toys should be cycled anyway so they don’t wear out their welcome with us kitties, and while they’re on break, what better place for them to be than in a container of nip?
2. Make sure we have lots of sun puddles! There are few things more frustrating to a cat than a dark house when we know the sun is out. Open those blinds, pull back those curtains, and let the sun fall where we kitties can bask in it. Sunbeams are a kitty’s happy place.
3. Give us treats based on what we love, not on whether they are healthy. I do understand that you humans want our joints pain-free and our attitudes calm, but face it: there is a big difference between treats and meds. It is great that companies are making these supplements palatable and feline-friendly, but they aren’t really treats. It would be like a human eating one of those gummy vitamins instead of a piece of dark chocolate. Would any of you people seriously consider doing that? Speaking of dark chocolate, I hear it actually has health benefits for humans — and if you give us cats half a chance, you might discover that our preferred treats aren’t those that are loaded with additives and junk, but rather healthier choices like freeze-dried turkey or a freshly cooked chicken liver. So yeah, the supplements are okay, but give us real treats too.
4. Do stuff we like — and don’t do stuff we don’t like! You would think this was a no-brainer, but so many humans fail at this, I am beginning to think they have no brains. Around here, I have a saying, “Skritches, not kisses,” but do you think my human pays attention? Of course not! I get kissed daily, in spite of my body language — ears back, frowny face, etc. — showing my utter disdain for the practice. And I don’t get skritched anywhere near enough. Does your cat like to play with Da Bird? Does he enjoy getting brushed? Butt pats? Do those! If your cat hates getting kissed or regularly attacks your hand when you try to touch his belly, then why are you still doing it? Have some common sense! Do things your cat likes and it will make him happy.
5. Stop telling us kitties to get off the counter. Being on the counter makes us happy. Don’t deny this to us… at least not during Happy Cat Month.
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Those are great tips Sparkle, we shall see that they’re implemented as soon as possible.
Sparkle, talking like a pirate seems like a smelly boy thing to do – Lola x
Great ideas Sparkle!
We need to be sure Mom reads this,
especially marinating our toys 😉 heehee
Those are great tips, especially #5. In our house, only Newton gets on the counter, but he really doesn’t appreciate being told that he doesn’t belong there. That’s where the interesting things are.
Those sound great!
Great suggestions and we have written them all down for our Person. Thanks for the list. Take care.
Sparkle, this is among your BEST of the BEST and I wish it was on a ad spot on TV across the Nation!!!
Great tips Sparkle – we especially like the counter one – sometimes we think our Mum is programmed to know we are on the counter – Hannah goes to great lengths to get up there as her legs are a little too short and she has to jump on the radiator and balance along it to get on the counter. Then all she hears is Hannah get down NOW and she does! Of course I can leap up from the floor but instead of praising me she just taps me to make me jump down. Of course when she’s out …………. well just imagine what we do!
Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx
Excellent tips. We need to get Mom to marinate some of our toys.
Thanks for your kind words on Tamir’s anniversary. We sure miss him.
The Florida Furkids
RE: #4 – I have to agree with you there – if you know the kitty doesn’t like it don’t do it! And if you get bitten or scratched – Don’t blame the cat! What are you stupid?
Those are some excellent tips, Sparkle. We wish we knew how to operate the printer so we could print this out for the mom and put it right in front of her face. We can only hope that she reads this.
SPARKLE I, MADI, GIVE YOU AN A++++++++ FOR THIS WONDERFUL LIST. I AM A HAPPY CAT BECAUSE AFTER MUCH TRAINING MY PEEPS KNOW HOW IMPORTANT ALL 5 POINTS ARE TO MY WELL BEING.
HUGS MADI YOUR BFFF
Great tips, Sparkle!
Glogirly has forgotten to marinate the toys that Waffles has sucked the catnip life out of. This is an excellent reminder for her. ; )
~Katie
Sparkle that is some PAWSOME advice! Especially the treats and the counter! You ROCK!!
I didn’t know about this organization but it seems really interesting! Although I agree that your tips are a better way to make a kitty happy!
Purrs
Some great tips Sparkle.
Jake LOVES his UT treats, and Angel loves her Lysine treats. Jake would rather eat UT treats than Greenies, but he’s only supposed to have 2 per day. Not all health treats are bad…
And those gummy vitamins for humans aren’t bad, either…
Sparkle, these are great tips and should be used year round. Even Mom agrees. It is hard with eight of us to get #4 right, but she tries really hard. Misty May and Lily Olivia love head kisses, Lisbeth not so much but she loves butt scritches. Calista Jo goes gaga for belly rubs. Mauricio wants all the attention he can get and right now. Astrid’s tricky ’cause she’s skittish, but she likes head rubs and scritches. Fiona and Giulietta both like to be petted down the full-length of their bodies. It takes a long time for a human to get these things right and we are happy our mom is willing to do it. Countertop occupation is the rule in our house except when we are trying to steal human noms. Sparkle, you are one of the very smartest kitties we know. Have a great weekend. Same to Boodie and Binga. Purrs and hugs, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo
One of your best lists ever Sparkle! Our toys get cycled but they don’t marinate in nip in between. That has to change!
Great tips, Sparkle. I, of course, am very mellow and can easily tolerate my mom’s silly behavior, but really I think she should pay attention to No. 4. She insists on massaging Caroline’s toes until Caroline turns into Snapoline!
we gotta get mom on the marinating thing….that is a great idea.
as for the counter, mom isn’t such a fan. 🙂
that is a great list Sparkle.you tell ’em.xx Speedy
Of course we all need many many treats and the Woman needs to go get more for the pet sitter to give us!
You are so gorgeous and wise, sweet girl=we always LOVE it when you set the humans straight!…We are lucky that our Mommy keeps the extra nip around for our toys and she gave up a long time ago trying to get us to stay off of the kitchen island (we almost never get on the counters though….yeah, right!!hehe)…Happy weekend, dear friends…xoxo…Calle, Halle, Sukki, Mommy Cat, Daddy Cat
Teh Mommy here: Message received!!
::runs off to make kitties happy::
There! DONE! Made copies of your most recent article. Made multiple copies of your most recent article. Now to go post ’em on a wall in EVERY room of the house. I find that the peeps – at least MY peeps – need constant reminding of important stuff like this.
Be right back.
Purrs,
Nissy
I love those Sparkle and I’m off to practice my counter surfing!
You are a wise cat Sparkle
Sparkle
Mom found out a long time ago if we wanted on the counter then we’d get on the counter. So she gave up on that one a long long time ago. But we all agree with these 5 things!
Very sound!! These are going straight on my list for the Staff!! She don’t take no notice though!!
We need to check out the internets more often when the peeps are out. We posted this on the refrigerator. thank you! Sparkle – Alice and Scooter
Mum rotates my toys being marinated in nip and that makes me very happy!
Sparkle, i LOVE getting kisses! I kiss right back. Actually, the peeps have to kiss me cos I bite them if they put their hands on me. TW cycles my toys and all my furrends said she was mean. She keeps them in closed baggies but I’ll tell her to add nip or vine to them. Thanks for the fun list.
We agree, but we do have some diffrent likes than you. We do get the marinated toys, and TBT does change ours (he has 4 boxes and uses a new one each weeks or so. And of course we have sunpuddles. TBT even put down mats at the best spots for our comfort. We get treats we like, but thats where it starts to shade away little. We have learned to love the ones that are fairly healthy (regular Eukanuba chicken kibbles). An he does stuff to us that we like. We almost never whip our tails around or try to move away from what he does. We like the 99% of stuff he does enough ta accept the 1% we dont.
But we gotta disagree about the counters. As much as we would like ta get up there on them, we unnerstand why he doesnt want us to. We COULD go from outside ta the litterboxes and then up on the counters. But his body (immune to much bad stuff) probly cant handle SOME of the things on our paws. We try to keep our paws clean of course, but there is allus some stuff we cant remove. So iffen we walked around on his raw food preparation areas, we could make him sick and then WHO would feed us when he was sick? So we agree to avoid the counters.
If thats all it takes to keep him happy an healthy, we’ll DO it!
😆 2 pawz up fer yer list sparkle; me concurrz wif it!! Mum alwayz doez let me up on da counter n she givez sum kissez n LOTZ of strokez, brushez n butt rubz……me haz nip whenever me wantz n toyz are dipped too!!! Me iz so picky wif treetz so Mum givez me tuna-tuna which iz like dark choccie to me!!
Say do ya fink me haz me Mum trained guud???
😉
Nylablue
Grrreat tip´s Sparkle !
Well, we only have four days, including today, left of this Happy Cat Month to get our lazy-butt servant (she’s pretty nice, actually, and everyone knows good help is hard to find) to straighten up and fly right (okay, she’s pretty good on #s 1-3 and #5, but hopeless on #4 — she’s always grabbing us and kissing us and blowing razzleberries on our bellies! *sigh*) so we’d better get to movin’, hadn’t we? 😀