Month: May 2019

Posted in adoption, cats, kittens, pet parents, pets

One Day, I’m Going to Bring a Cat Home

Posted on by peanut& donut

Hi, this is Cat Mom and according to Cat Dad, this is an interesting story to tell. Apparently, his interest in knowing about Dodo and Pea Pea (and cats in general) sparked after I told him about the story of how I adopted Dodo. It was enough to convert him from someone who couldn’t care less about pets, to a crazy cat dad, and the rest is history.

A little background about me. I have always liked animals that are furry but I especially liked cats. Ask anyone around me and they would tell you that. Anytime I see a cat, I would rush over to pet them (despite my mum’s fears of me coming in contact with fleas). The neighborhood I lived in when I was young had a lot of strays and I would always stop to pet them on my way home from school. As a result, cats follow me. I am no cat whisperer but I often had different cats following me home. Sometimes, in the morning, we’d find cat poop directly outside our door and my horrified mum would have to clean up the mess. I thought it was funny.

There was another incident where a cat came into our house early in the morning as we had left the door slightly ajar. I was taking a shower and it was meowing outside the bathroom door. While my mum was fretting over how she can keep cats away from our house, I was just amused by the whole thing.

Despite my fascination and obsession with anything cat, I thought my interactions with them would only be limited to playing with strays and I never would have thought that one day, I could have a cat. Until many many years later.

Circa 2015, a friend and I were talking and, out of spite, I casually made the remark that “one day, I would bring home a cat”. It didn’t mean much at that time. I meant it as a joke but over the next few months I would find myself saying the same thing again and again, to friends, to my sister, to my mum. Initially they told me not to be crazy, but me being me, the more I am told not to do something, the more I wanted to do it. I began to seriously consider the idea of bringing home a cat, and by serious, I meant SERIOUS. Lots of research were done about how to care for cats, the preparation work involved, the kinds of food for them, et cetera, and visits to the local SPCA were made (Read about it here). I also thought about the possibility of me being chased out of my house by my mum (with a cat in tow – which honestly, doesn’t sound too bad!). At this point, I was pretty sure that the worst thing that can happen is to have my mum be extremely mad at me and probably not talk to me for a few days. But I was also about 98.99% positive that she would not make me return the cat because I know my mum. She is an animal lover. And so, a crazy plan was devised- I was going to adopt a cat and bring it home. SECRETLY. 😈😈😈

I continued to tell my family on a weekly (might have been daily) basis that I was going to bring a cat home one day and overtime, they see no cats, they start to not take me seriously. They were getting desensitized to the idea. But it was all part of the plan. Meanwhile, I was doing all the prep work, ordering cat supplies, window meshes, cat bed, toys, litter boxes, food, all the fun stuff.

When all the supplies arrived and are in place, my partner in crime (hi Janice!) and I decided that today was the day. Prior to that, I had looked through the cats for adoption on the SPCA site and had my eyes set on one. And so we head down to SPCA to get me a cat. We spoke to the person in charge at SPCA and she told us in order to apply for adoption, everyone living in the household have to be present during the application process.

But the adoption was supposed to be a secret.

That was not the day I brought a cat home. We went home disappointed.

That evening, Janice and I started scouring the internet looking for people putting cats up for adoption. In one of the postings she had showed me, there was this 2 month old little kitten with hair sticking out in all directions. I could tell she was going to be a longhaired cat, and I told Janice “nah, I kind of want an older cat, preferably with short hair”. Despite that, Janice managed to convince me into a house visit. And so, we compiled a list of potential candidates.

The next morning, we set off for a day of house visits. One particular candidate we visited was extremely shady in our opinion. When we reached out to the owner the previous day, she said that she is putting her 2 year old female ragdoll up for adoption because her parents in-law had recently moved in with her family and that they were allergic to cats so they had no choice but to let her go.

When we arrived, the owner said that her husband and daughter would meet us at the void deck shortly. The meeting place was pretty close in proximity to a construction site. Janice and I were low-key worried that the cat would feel stressed with the loud noises but the father and daughter duo seemed fine with it. We saw that they had brought along two cats in separate carriers and so we casually said “oh we didn’t know you have two cats for adoption”. They just looked at us awkwardly and didn’t say anything. They then opened the carriers and told us that one of them was the female that was in the ad and the other was her son. So Janice and I started asking questions about the cats and between each reply they gave us, the father and daughter would converse between themselves in Malay as though they were discussing what to say. Throughout our entire meeting, the cats stayed curled up and cautious at the back of their carriers. We did not feel any affection between the owners and the cats, which was strange to us considering the fact that they were about to send away the pets and possibly never see them again. Perhaps the cats have never been outdoors and they were frozen with fear with the loud noises coming from the construction site, or maybe they did not feel attached enough to their owners to go to them for security in a situation where they felt unsafe. Either way, it was an extremely weird experience for both Janice and I. The cherry on top of the cake was, when we specifically asked about the male ragdoll, they owners abruptly said that they were keeping him. We were confused but we thanked them for their time, and left.

It probably doesn’t help that the pair were a little shifty during our interaction and avoided eye contact for the most part. It also didn’t make sense to us that they were keeping the male cat while letting go of the female, when they had relatives with cat allergies living in their home. Nonetheless, we didn’t want to jump to conclusions and we left it at that.

At the end of the day, we had an answer. I have had this one particular cat in my mind since meeting her earlier in the day. I had originally wanted a slightly mellow, not as crazy, adult cat with short fur, a cat that would match my personality (aka I’m boring). But that all went out the window when I saw her teeter tottering after her siblings and we knew we had to go back for her.

The little 2 month old with fur sticking out in all directions.

After bidding goodbye to her siblings and parents, we brought baby Dodo home in a little carrier. The plan was not yet over. We rushed home before anyone else came back, and settled her down.

And then we waited.

My mum was the first to come back that day. Upon seeing Janice nervously and awkwardly pacing around the house looking like a kid on her first day of school, my mum immediately sensed that something was up. She went straight to my bedroom and flung the door open. All I heard was her exclaiming in Mandarin, “Eh, how come you’re here??” in the room before she turned and smack me on the arm. She was not mad though. She had a look of disbelief mixed with amusement on her face that she was failing at masking.

My dad was really chill about Dodo. He was so chill that he seemed almost nonchalant, while my sister, vacationing in Korea at that time, was convinced that I was pranking her until I sent her a video of my mum playing with Dodo.

We named her Cookiez Ann Creame de Donutez, Donut in short. She got on very well with the rest of the family. Who wouldn’t get along well with her? I mean, just look at that face!

And so Operation “Bring a Cat Home” was a success and I have a cat! Dodo became the center of our family for many many months to come before she had to share that attention with Pea Pea. But that’s a story for another day.

A word of advice for anyone who is thinking of following in my footsteps – PLEASE DON’T. 🤣

Posted in cats, experience, harness, kittens, leash, pet parents, pets, shoes, training, walking

Look! The Cat is Walking on a Leash!

Posted on by peanut& donut

That is one of the things we’ll hear when we bring the cats out, alongside “Oh! It’s a cat! I thought it was a dog!” because I guess it’s not every day you see people bringing their cats out for walks.

Ever since Pea Pea was physically old enough to engage in altercations with Dodo, we would often return home for the day to find bunches of fur everywhere. It is not uncommon to see them suddenly burst into Energizer bunnies, chasing one another around the house. Most often than not, it would end up with Dodo hissing and growling at Pea Pea, with bunches of fur fluttering in the air and scattered romantically like rose petals around them on the floor.

Initially we thought maybe Pea Pea was at that age where he wants to assert dominance on Dodo, and hence, the chasing and mounting. For Dodo’s sanity, we brought Pea Pea to the vet’s for a little procedure but what we didn’t expect was for the fighting and chasing (and growling and hissing) to continue as before. After a bit of reading on the internet, we learned that indoor cats have a lot of pent up energy which they will have problems releasing unless stimulated properly.

We live in a high rise apartment building and both Pea Pea and Dodo are complete indoor cats and are not exposed to the outside world. We could see why they would have pent up energy. We had a plethora of toys available for them which worked to drain their energy for awhile, but their attention for them grew shorter and shorter.

We started bringing them out for short trips to the grocery stores or when we go out to get food. What we noticed from those trips was that, not only were they super curious about what was around them, they would almost always come home completely drained and would sleep very soundly through the night.

We took their curiosity as a positive sign and began preparing and training them for walks. We had them wear harnesses attached to leashes and shoes for a few minutes daily for a couple of weeks before deciding that they were ready for their first walks.

Pea Pea and Dodo have very different personalities. Dodo, being the alpha, is treated like a princess most of the time. She is also less social and would prefer to nap in a quiet room by herself while Pea pea is more attached to the humans. He is also a lot more vocal than Dodo. As such, we expected Pea Pea to be more adventurous and more eager to explore the outdoors. Little did we know, that was NOT what happened.

Needless to say, they were both very nervous on their first walks where we brought them around the neighborhood. Their bodies were crouched close to the ground as they made their way around cautiously. Pea Pea would continuously look for sheltered areas or secluded corners where he could hide. What came as a surprise to us, was that Dodo, while being cautious about her surroundings, was exploring every inch of the lift lobby.

We eventually removed her leash to let her walk freely, but we also made sure to be within reach of her at all times, just in case she decides to make a run for whatever it is she decides to make a run for. That seemed to reduce the weight she felt on her body as she began walking more normally, sans the crouching. She even said hi to the neighbors!

P.S. Pea Pea was a scaredy cat that’s why he’s not in the video (because he was too scared to walk).

After a few more walks around the neighborhood, Pea Pea and Dodo graduated to bigger spaces. Cat Dad was careful in shortlisting a few parks in Singapore. We visited most of them several times to find one that the fur babies are comfortable in. There were also a few tips and tricks we learned along the way to make their outdoor excursion more enjoyable for them, but we’ll talk about them in another post.

As of now, we have one park that we frequent weekly. Pea Pea and Dodo seem to like the environment there. They amuse fellow park goers by walking around, sometimes even casually strolling up to strangers to take a closer look at them. Some people come up to us to ask questions about our cats, others secretly take pictures of them to send to their friends. Sometimes kids come close enough to give them pets before squealing and running away in excitement, but for the most part, the people seem pretty chill about sharing the space with two fluffy cats.

As for their behaviors, we do notice that there are lesser episodes of Energizer bunnies dashing around the house. We also observe quite a bit of improvement in Dodo. She has been more active and playful nowadays (although she still grumbles occasionally). Pea Pea is also better at being outdoors now compared to when we first started off. He still tries to hide when we first reach the park, but as time passes, he gets more comfortable.

We might move on to other parks, we might keep going back to the current one. We’re still on a look out for other places but till then, we’re setting up base here.

Posted in cats, experience, kittens, pet parents, pets

Our Experience As First Time Cat Parents in Singapore

Posted on by peanut& donut

A little fact about us – we live in a too sunny and too warm tropical island of Singapore. Cat Mom and Cat Dad were born and raised here, so were Dodo and Pea Pea. We thought it would be interesting to share some of our experiences as first time cat parents.

Before we start off, we would like to throw in a disclaimer. Having pets (in any shape or size) is a huge responsibility. From the day you decide to bring home your pet, they are dependent on you for the rest of their lives, which is why you have to be financially, mentally, and physically prepared for the commitment before jumping in.

Also, the content of these post is solely based only on our experiences so far, we’re not generalizing or making any assumptions about anybody. These are what we found to have worked with our cats and they may not work for everybody. We are no Jackson Galaxy. We are constantly learning and trying to be the best parents we can be to Dodo and Pea pea.

Researching

Dodo was our first cat. The original plan was to adopt one from the local SPCA but we eventually found Dodo on an adoption ad posting on the internet (more on that in a later post).

Our experience and knowledge about these ads are that the animals put up for adoption on these sites are usually from existing pet owners whose pets have just given birth and they are not able to care for all the babies, so they put them up for adoption with a fee, which could include the cost of their first vaccinations/vet visits, as well as basic supplies up to the point of adoption. However, you do have to be careful of shady pet owners, which we will talk about in a later post, but do try to be more observant about the animal you are adopting, how they interact with their current owner, as well as the body language and nonverbal cues of the owners when you interact with them.

We also feel that it’s better to have visits in the owner’s home before adopting because,

  1. A picture tells a thousand words but a moving, breathing (purring, running around, and probably scratching) cat can tell a million;
  2. The cat would be more at ease in the familiar environment and you can see them interacting with other cats and humans, which helps to determine whether their personalities are in line with what you are looking for and;
  3. You will be able to observe their current living space and kinda tell if the owners are genuine animal lovers or are breeding for financial gains.

So far, the owners whom we met with were very kind and helpful. They even gave us recommendations on what supplies to get and where to get them. We were very fortunate as our experiences with adopting Dodo and Pea pea were mostly pleasant.

Preparation Work

As first time cat parents, we needed to get the necessary supplies and so… *cue the cat supplies shopping spree*

Where we live, pet necessities and supplies from mainstream stores can get quite costly. We got most of our supplies from online pet stores both locally and abroad. Consumables are mainly from local stores which we managed to find pretty good deals thanks to Cat Dad’s exceptional researching abilities and patience.

Over the years, the amount of cat stuff we have snowballed, but here is a list that we think are the basics:

1. Food, treats, as well as food and water bowls- we give a mixed diet of dried and wet food daily. Dodo was not a water drinker, so we added a bit of water into her food and we eventually managed to get her to drink. Treats are not mandatory but they are good for training and bonding.

2. Litter box and cat litter

undefined

Although whether or not your cat might actually make use of it is a different story. Someone was CLEARLY trying to make a statement here. 🙄

3. Carrier- for transportation purposes

4. Toys and scratching post/small cat condo

undefined

undefined

undefined

CAUTIONARY WARNING: your cat MAY or MAY NOT use the cat condo as a place to poo poo and wee wee. DON’T ask how we know.

5. Bed

undefined

6. Grooming necessities- claw clippers and brushing tools are the essentials. We subsequently went on to include cat shampoos, toothbrushes, and toothpastes for hygiene purposes.

Coming Home

After all the preparation work, it’s time to bring the fur babies home!

Dodo and Pea Pea are now completely free roaming in our home but as most cat owners would suggest, we limited their space to within a room the first few days of bringing them home. Allowing them to roam freely right off the bat might be too overwhelming for them. We also had food, water, and their litter box in the room so they basically lived in confinement for awhile. Both Dodo and Pea Pea acclimated quite quickly and they, thankfully, got along well with our family members as well. Throughout the initial few days, we also made sure to be at home for the most part, periodically checking in on them to ensure that they are settling in well.

As pet parents (or human parents for that matter), there’s only so much you can do for your children. Ultimately, they decide for themselves the path they want to choose, the place they want to poo, or the bed the want to snooze. They might sleep in the bed you specially ordered for them, or they might sleep on their siblings, they might also end up in your bed. But most definitely, they will end up in your heart. ♥️

undefined

undefined

undefined

Posted in Uncategorized

Hi…

Posted on by peanut& donut

Welcome to Scratching Posts! Thank you for finding us and we hope you enjoy your stay.

A brief introduction of ourselves – our VERY professional production team consists of a grand number of FOUR members:

  1. Dodo (aka Donut)
  • persian ragdoll, female
  • the alpha
  • has the potential to be cute but chooses to be grumpy
  • highly judgmental of her younger brother… or anyone for that matter
  • extremely good at getting her message across

2. Pea Pea (aka Peanut)

  • persian ragdoll, male
  • baby of the family
  • vocal
  • food vacuum
  • very affectionate
  • severe fomo

3. Cat Mom

  • Cat Dad’s willing accomplice
  • a softie and definitely overprotective when it comes to the cats
  • spoils them too much
  • amused by everything the cats do

4. Cat Dad

  • firm believer in the philosophy of bribery with treats
  • tough love dad
  • loves showering the cats with good food
  • generator of crazy ideas

With our high budgets and Hollywood quality equipments, we hope to preserve our memories, as well as share little snippets of our adventures with the world!

Feel free to follow us on our Instagram page @peapeaanddodo with #peanutanddonut to keep up with us!