Treat time!

Treat time, in the G house, is interesting.

There are 2 treat-times per day--first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

They are always interesting moments because each pet in the house would rather have the treats belonging to the OTHER pets than his or her own treats.

The morning treats started when someone (no idea who) needed medication in the morning--'spoonful of sugar' (or in our house, a bit of dog biscuit or a piece of pounce [yes, pounce is nasty stuff.  Reading the ingredients make me gag.  But we've yet to find a treat that they will eat that isn't nasty]) and all that.  And apparently we are quite guilty of over-anthropomorphising our animals, so we can't give one a treat without giving treats to the other two.  Morning treats are a pretty easy; put Dawg outside, give cats treats (to be expanded upon re: nighttime), give Dawg a treat when she comes back in.

Evening treats started as a way to convince Dawg into her crate at bedtime (she has since graduated but knows the command "bedtime!" means she should find her bed and be behind the baby gate) and is a bit more challenging.  I say "bedtime" and the cats head toward the kitchen for their treats and Dawg heads toward the bedroom.  I throw Dawg a biscuit and 90% of the time, that's where it ends.  The other 10% of the time, La Doof Kitton decides that he would much rather have Dawg's biscuit than wait for his treat and throws himself between Dawg and her biscuit--a rather dangerous place to be when the rightful owner of the biscuit weighs 5 times more than the kitton.  

On those nights, La Doof Kitton gets bowled over and there is much chasing and havoc before Dawg finishes her biscut--the nights following, Dawg is MUCH more alert and proactive.  (and you would think I could stop this by giving La Doof Kitton his treat before Dawg gets hers but that simply results in Dawg eating all the kitteh treats AND her cookie--that pesky 'weighs 5 x' bit comes in handy for her on occasion)

La Doof Kitton wolfs down his treat every night and then tries to eat El Gato's treat.  You wouldn't know it to look at El Gato and her *ahem* Rubenesque figure, but El Gato is a picky eater--she must sniff fully and ensure that something passes her inspection before she can eat it (her weight problems are likely caused by the fact that, in spite of inspecting carefully, I've almost never seen a particle of food fail her inspection.  After 10 minutes of sniffing, she eats it,  regardless of what it is).  The obvious solution to this would seem to be to give El Gato her treat first so she can finish inspecting and have it eaten before La Doof Kitton gets to it...but that fails--La Doof Kitton is to speedy.  

The solution is to stand in the kitchen and get out two cat treats every night--then to take one treat and hurl it somewhere as far away and as inconveniently accessed as possible.  This thrown treat is La Doof Kitton's treat.  It never occurs to him to wait for the 'easy access' treat to be put down in front of him, he can't resist the chance to stalk the treat into an out-of-the-way location.

So while La Doof Kitton retrieves his treat from behind the couch/on top of the TV stand/tumbling down the basement stairs/under the door to the hall closet, El Gato watches him run off, and sits, with her tail patiently wrapped around her feet.  And I set the second treat in front of El Gato.  She inspects (her inspections *have* gotten shorter since we added the kitton) it and eats it; usually finishing it before La Doof Kitton returns victorious from his hunt.

Enter last night...

when we opened the kitteh treat container to see ONE lonely kitteh treat.

We considered our options and, watching La Doof Kitton do his darnedest to steal Dawg's biscuit, decided that was the easiest.  We gave Dawg her biscuit.  We gave El Gato that last kitteh treat.  And we handed another Dawg biscuit to La Doof Kitton.

He sniffed it carefully.  He looked at us.  He sniffed the biscuit again.  He looked a bit offended.  He sniffed the biscuit again.  He looked at us  with the look of "is this a trick?  I'm not allowed these, they're Dawg's" showing through...which is when it occurred to him that he wasn't allowed to have these.  Suddenly, the value of this 'forbidden' treat dawned on him.  He snatched it away and disappeared into the basement and I could almost hear the evil cackle as he gloated over Dawg's biscuit being his.

I hope he ate it but I have a sneaking suspicion he hid it to tease Dawg with it tomorrow.

I'm not sure when he developed opposable thumbs...

but apparently he did.
How ELSE can one explain how he (repeatedly) got the lid off the container of Dawg's treats?

He would, however, like to attest to his innocence. He says he is much to mellow to bother with things like doggie cookies.

We've just gotten home from Christmas...

I've been negligent in posting because I've been out-of-town for the holidays--without internet access. And without pet access.

La Doof Kitton, El Gato the Splendiferious and Dawg stayed at home with a pet sitter while we traipsed about with family on the other side of the country (we had fun but it was an exhausting few weeks and we're glad to be home). I think we've all been forgiven for leaving them...El Gato may hold a grudge for a few more days.
(Dawg let us know how happy she was to have us home by throwing up at 3 am so we could have the joy of cleaning up after her)

The pet sitter claims (and I've no reason to doubt the claims) that La Doof Kitton has developed the ability to climb the Christmas tree. This would explain why, in spite of everyone replacing ornaments, the bottom 1/3 of the tree has gone from 'sparsely decorated w/ unbreakable ornaments' to 'naked'.

But we did learn that he made it onto Sandy Paws' list of "naughty kittehs" by trying, once again, to steal Dawg's biscuits.
We left an unopened bag of treats and made sure to tell the pet sitter that once they were opened, they had to be left out of kitteh reach--but we assumed (I know, I know. I always assume incorrectly) they'd be fine until the bag was opened.
When we got home, this is what I found locked outside of kitteh reach in the laundry room:

And more like Christmas...now the tree is decorated

I *was* able to recover some of the file; this was what was to be posted at 8 AM today and I'm finally finishing now...

Being as it's Saturday morning, the only reason I'm out of bed right now is that I have a work meeting to leave for in 15 minutes. Actually, that's a fib, I'd still be in bed groaning about having to get up on a weekend (after working more than 40 hours this week) if the pets weren't being collectively obnoxious.

Dawg, as I've said, is trapped with us at night by a baby gate. If she, for some reason, wants to go out, she "knocks" loudly on the baby-gate. This fine early Saturday, as I was snoozing the alarm clock, this knocking pulled me out of bed to investigate. (I do usually ignore this but she was *very* insistent in a way that usually means she needs to go outside.)

I take down the baby gate and rub the sleep from my eyes and...then move to grab Dawg as she heads past a pile of cat-puke-stained plastic fake pine needles (these are a gift from La Doof Kitton; I know this because El Gato only throws up on a designated puke rug. Yes, there are reasons she's the "good kid"--she makes cleanup easy. Of course she also has bad personal hygiene, it's a trade of).

Dawg moves past the pile of ickyness without stopping to eat it.
I start to stretch and conclude my wake up routine again...and I dive for Dawg as she heads past a slew of Christmas tree ornaments that are littering the floor (these are also a gift from La Doof Kitton; Dawg didn't have access to the tree and El Gato doesn't have enough ambition to remove ornaments. Our decorations are, very gradually, being moved higher and higher up the tree; I'm guessing that, eventually it's going to not be decorated at all).

Dawg moves past the ornaments without signs of eating them and hurries to the side of the refrigerator.
There, on the floor, is a pile of Dawg biscuits--next to my blender, some more ornaments, and a slightly chewed bag.
Apparently La Doof Kitton was only very temporarily foiled by moving the biscuits to the top of the fridge and making sure th bag was sealed. I can only guess how this process happened...La Doof Kitton would have had to move from the kitchen chairs to the kitchen table, from the kitchen table to the top of the microwave (which is covered w/ mixers, blender, a toaster, etc--in part to make it a bad landing place for kittehs)--in the process knocking the blender to the floor (which I apparently slept through), and from the top of the microwave to the top of the fridge.

From there, it was easy--shove bag over the edge, chew hole in bag, remove biscuits, tease Dawg all night.

I shoved biscuits into the bag as quickly as I could; Dawg shoved biscuits into her mouth as quickly as SHE could. I won (she got 4 or 5 biscuits--quite enough for 8 am, TYVM) and I'm now looking for a cat-proof Dawg biscuit container--right now they're in tupperware.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

which is why the adventures of the pets revolve around Christmas trees and dog biscuits (I have no idea why the dog biscuits have recently become fascinating. I have stories that occurred several days apart but La Doof Kitton turned off the computer (really) and lost them so I'm finally getting around to re-typing them.

To start with, the weekend after Thanksgiving, we put up the Christmas tree but did NOT decorate it. Last year, the tree (artificial) was up before we brought La Doof Kitton home and, since he lived for the first week in a separate room (PSA: slow introductions are key in cats co-existing), he had limited access to the tree (although he did have some access...see the included picture in which one can barely see La Doof Kitton)
La Doof Kitton had especially limited access since under the Christmas Tree is El Gato's favorite place to be...

We wanted to see if a tree would remain standing before we tested it farther to see if a tree covered with brekable shiny bits that operated as a giant toy dispenser would remain standing.) El Gato and La Doof Kitton fought over who got to lay on the tree skirt before we even finished putting the tree together and it nearly tumbled over, but it was up and we all survived. (Although Dawg needed to be reminded that she can't still fit under the tree...she could when she was 4 months old and sometimes fails to realize that 50 lb doesn't fit in the same space.)

The next morning, I looked and was thrilled the tree was still standing. I let Dawg out past the baby gate (Dawg, as you may know, is trapped with us at night by a baby gate. This is because if she can see out the back door-wall at night, she barks at imaginary creatures of the darkness that are invading her yard--they have glowing eyes and dripping fangs and are all around bad. A baby gate gives her the run of the bedroom and hallways and office, a view of the living room and no view of the kitchen/door-wall--and if she cant' see the creatures of darkness, she doesn't feel the need to shoot a magic missle into the darknes. *ahem* I mean bark at them). Dawg had been asking to be allowed out past the gate for quite some time--I usually ignore these requests because they are usually for frivolous reasons like "I can see a stuffed squirrel that I need to eat" or "La Doof Kitton gets to go there, why don't I?" or "Because it's a barrier, therefore, I need to be on the other side of it."

That morning, Dawg had, for the first time in ages, a good reason to beg to get out...I moved the gate and she made a bee-line for the tree. Upon reaching the tree, (please listen to the music in your head, it should be playing the "Mission Impossible" theme song by now) she shoved her head under as far as it would go and whimpered. I assumed for a moment that she was trying to tease La Doof Kitton or El Gato until I saw that the kittehs were sitting on cushions (yes, they have their own cushions) waiting for their morning treats. I looked under the tree and saw a dog biscuit shoved under the *exact* center of the tree stand. Where Dawg's nose/tongue couldn't quite reach it and a paw wouldn't fit.

I got it out, gave it to Dawg and assumed that, when giving bedtime treats, we had thrown one poorly and it had gone there and Dawg had been pining for her treat all night.
I, of course, ASSumed wrong. Over the next several hours, no fewer than FIVE times that I witnessed, Dawg went to the tree, stuck her head underneath, and made the distinctive crunching sound of a Dawg who has found a biscuit/kibble--always preceded by a La Doof Kitton going under the tree.
I know those weren't treats misplaced by the humans of the house and I was forced to concede that, once again, La Doof Kitton was smarter than me--and using his powers for evil as he teased Dawg with nearly-inaccessible biscuits. Somewhere, in the house, he has access to treats/kibble. I thought it was possibly a super secret stash until, several days later, I witnessed him manage to get into the 'not quite sealed' bag of treats on top of the microwave, get out a biscuit, and take it out of Dawggie reach to play with it.

Poor Dawg. I have no idea how long this has been going on (and, yes, I gave her the biscuit/toy that La Doof Kitton had). We've made a concerted effort to ensure the treat container is sealed and we've moved it to the top of the fridge...time will tell; as soon as we make something La Doof Kitton proof, someone makes a better La Doof Kitton brain synapse.

If I have to get at 2 am to deal w/ a sick Dawg, I'll know why

Mr. G and I went grocery shopping today. As we were carrying in groceries, he asked, "Why is there a small pile of dog biscuits on the stairs?" This is a good question...why WERE there dog biscuits on the stairs? Especially when Dawg doesn't go near the stairs (During puppyhood, we told her there was a monster in the basement that ate puppies. She still believes it kinda. Regardless, she doesn't do stairs.). La Doof Kitton was playing with the biscuits though.

Well...La Doof Kitton really really really wants more treats on a daily basis. Apparently he isn't getting enough partially-digested sprayed-on meat byproduct meal in his life.
He watched very VERY carefully today as he got his morning treats then the treat jar was sealed and placed on top of the fridge. I'm quite certain he tucked this away for later. And then made Pinky and the Brain-esque blueprint plans for how to re-access the jar.

Apparently he acted out such plans while we were grocery shopping.
Here, he was thwarted. he had clearly been on top of the cabinet where the treats are kept--we know this because 2 *sealed* containers of cat treats, 1 container of Dawg's pills, 1 squirt bottle of pet medicine and one container of dog biscuts lay in the middle of the floor when we got home.

The problem was that the bag of dog bisciuts wasn't sealed.
No one ate what was in the bag but...I'm pretty sure the bag was MUCH more full when I left the house than when I came back. So apparently, Dawg and La Doof Kitton took care of the biscuits that landed on the floor--with Dawg eating hers and La Doof Kitton (in a fit of mean-ness, after beint thwarted in getting *his* treats) putting his in a pile at the top of the stairs--where Dawg could see them but couldn't/wouldn't be able to steal them back.

I will say, I'm not sure how many biscuits a Dawg must eat before she gets ill...here's hoping it's less than what she ate!
(and I did steal the rest of the biscuits back from La Doof Kitton and put them back in the bag. Which is now sealed. And out of reach. Maybe.)