Category Archives for Cat of The Week

Cat Of the Week – Duke – March 8th, 2021

Welcome to the first Cat of the Week post in quite some time!  We are going to start taking a slightly different format to this to try and keep getting them posted!  As opposed to writing up detailed stories we’re going to g with an interview style instead. So let’s get to our first interview, Duke!

What is your name? How did your parents come up with/decide on your name?Duke. I am from Orange County where the airport is named after John Wayne aka “The Duke”Do you have any nicknames?Dukeroni, Pepperoni, Peanut Butter, ButterscotchHow old are you?SixWhat breed are you?RESCUE!What is your favorite treat?Chicken, I will murder you and eat your face off for some chicken.

How do you sit back and relax? / How do you like to spend your spare time? What is your favorite thing to do?I love sleeping on my peoples, especially when they are trying to work. I have a squirrel friend, Stan, who I like to hang out with in the back yard.

What is your bad habit you just can’t kick?Howling to be let outside to spend time with my friend Stan. And stealing food.

What is your most redeeming quality?I have a very sweet nature and have never bitten or scratched my people.What is the naughtiest thing you have done?One time I was let out back and I jumped on the fence and then on the roof of the house and hung out there until someone came and got me down. And I wasn’t the least bit sorry.

What is your funniest memory?When we were packing to move to Denver, I would hide in the boxes being packed and attack anyone who tried to pack the box. Over and over again.Any last words of wisdom to share?Things are crazy right now, stay home with your family and try to enjoy it. And steal chicken whenever you get the chance!

We at StuffCatsWant also thank Kristy for submitting Duke as Cat Of the Week!! Please submit your cat as cat of the week by emailing StuffCatsWant@gmail.com with 5 pictures of your cat(s) and a short description of him or her or them!

StuffCatsWant.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Cat Of the Week – Pickles – November 9th, 2020

Pickles was born at her home in 2007. Her mother was feral, not in the best health, and living on a rural property. Mama had a six-week old litter following her and was pregnant again, so the family caught them and brought them indoors before the next litter was born.

When the new litter arrived, it was obvious that something wasn’t quite normal with one kitten. Four kittens snuggled up and began nursing, but the 5th one just wiggled about. She never was able to stop moving long enough to latch on and nurse unless her family held her.

She was quickly given the loving nick name “Mr Dale Earnhardt Jr Pickle” (called Pickle or Pickles) because she spent a lot of time turning in circles. Of course she was too dear to her family to give away; so they kept her and a sister 4 months older from the previous litter. 

Her vet wasn’t sure what was “wrong” with her, but assured her family she was healthy, movement issues or not. She’s seen several vets since, and the diagnosis is either Cerebellar Hypoplasia (CH) or Cerebellar Abiotrophy (CA), which are neurological disorders with similar symptoms.

To be certain of CH, her family would have to sedate Pickles for brain scans, which they’ve declined as it won’t make any difference in her treatment. Both disorders require care, not medication, and she has plenty of that at home!

As she grew, Pickles exhibited many strange, sometimes repetitive behaviors: freezing in one position for 30-40 seconds, getting “stuck” in corners, walking in circles, standing/walking on her back feet, bobbing her head, waving her front paws, all of which are pretty harmless. 

Other behaviors were more harmful, like licking all the fur off a front leg overnight, or bumping her head over and over until she had a knot on her head. The head-bumping was so frequent when Pickles was young that her family made a little helmet for her to keep her safe! Look at that beautiful craftsmanship, I wish I had half the talent.

Some of her quirks are just odd, like, she can walk in a straight line, but if her front paws get crossed, she’s stuck like that until someone gives her a nudge. She cannot uncross them by herself. 

Occasionally, she’ll make a wild leap, crazy-high in the air, for no reason her family can see. Cats, right? Pickles has amazing balance and she’s spent long hours practicing her ability to balance on things like the wooden crossbar of a barstool–on only two feet–until she masters it. 

Pickles LOVES to play, and will chase just about anything her family offers. She also loves to *be* chased, and has a little game where she runs back and forth across a room, in front of the other family cats, hoping one of them will chase her.

At 13, Pickles has not so much outgrown the damaging repetitive behavior, but has less energy and spends most of her time sitting in laps or napping in her bed.  She still loves to play, but doesn’t get as wound up and over-stimulated as she used to.

She’s gained more control over the years and can wash her paws and face more easily, but that’s about as much grooming as she can do, her family helps with the rest (like brushing). She was unable to groom herself as a kitten, so this is a huge change for the better!

Her family has learned more about what works for her over time. For example she’s much better at picking her food up when she can see each piece on the kitchen floor instead of in a dish. Together, the family has made a lot of progress, but there are some things Pickles will never be able to do.

That’s alright with her family though because Pickles has a home full of people standing by, ready to help her with anything she needs. They feel she’s been a great gift, and has helped all of them grow and become better people.

Raising Pickles as their sons were growing up was invaluable, and helped them teach their sons about the importance of love, compassion, and perseverance. They simply can’t imagine their lives without her!

We at StuffCatsWant also thank Xa for submitting Pickles as Cat Of the Week and including such a heart warming story of such a wonderful cat!!

Please submit your cat as cat of the week by emailing StuffCatsWant@gmail.com with 5 pictures of your cat(s) and a short description of him or her or them!

StuffCatsWant.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Cat Of the Week – Guus – November 2nd, 2020

Everyone meet Guus, he is 14 years old this year!  Guus is half Maine Coon (which if I admit is a commonly known cat breed). The other half of Guus is Nebelung and even though I run a cat website I’d never heard of that breed. Apparently I haven’t been doing my homework!

Guus absolutely loves to sleep. His “slave” Oscar notes that he likes to zonk out for about 18 hours a day on average. In my experience, my younger cats sleep about the same amount of time! If you’re ever jealous of your cat sleeping so much check out this article on cat sleeping patterns to explain why. 

Even at 14 years old Guus is still quite a busy guy though.  Guus lost one of his legs due to a tumor so now he’s a tripod. And while it stops him from hopping up onto high places, it doesn’t stop him from living the good life. He’s been with Oscar now for two full years and loves it!

Guus is definitely a one cat household kinda man. He wants his humans all to himself so he can chill out and relax with them. He keeps an eye out near the windows to make sure no new cats are invading his space. Next on his wish list is a cat bed so he can  sleep in the window.

He doesn’t want anything to do with other cats, but he certainly wants as many treats as possible. When meal time rolls around Guus meows up a storm and makes it clear he wants snacks! 

We at StuffCatsWant also thank Oscar for submitting Guus as Cat Of the Week!! Please submit your cat as cat of the week by emailing StuffCatsWant@gmail.com with 5 pictures of your cat(s) and a short description of him or her or them!

StuffCatsWant.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Cat Of the Week – Billbert – October 26th, 2020

This is Billbert, she’s 3 years old. She loves absolutely loves playing hide and seek outside. She has 3 bushes which are her go to when playing and she loves sneaking up on her humans when they hide behind trees. Given the season maybe she’ll learn to say Boo instead of giving a meow!

You can see she manages to hide quite easily despite wearing a tuxedo all the time! Cats certainly are impressive when it comes to camouflage aren’t they?!?! With a bright orange kitty convict collar she might be easier to spot, but that’d certainly take all the fun out of it!

Billbert is also quite partial to a game of fetch she often brings sticks up to us to throw for her.

Bill also loves to get out on the roof and have a nice morning or evening stretch as you can see! She’s got quite the downward dog pose going there doesn’t she?

When she’s not outside playing she likes nothing more than sleeping on her chair in the living room and if someone happens to be on the chair she makes a point of pushing them off. I’d say she needs a cat tree, but she seems to have plenty outdoors!

She’s not really a lap cat but at night she snuggles right up to you and that’s her pretty much for the night. It doesn’t sound like Billbert needs any tips on how to sleep at night like some kitties do!

She makes her owner Katie laugh every day with her wide eyed stare that she’s had since she was a kitten and it makes every day a little bit better. I had to recommend to Katie that she submit Billbert to Reddit’s CatStandingUp subreddit after this picture as well. What a cutie!

We at StuffCatsWant also thank Katie for submitting Billbert as Cat Of the Week!! Please submit your cat as cat of the week by emailing StuffCatsWant@gmail.com with 5 pictures of your cat(s) and a short description of him or her or them!

StuffCatsWant.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Cats Of the Week – Colleen and Colette – April 14th, 2019

This week’s Cats of the Week are my foster cats from PAWS Chicago, Colleen and Colette. They’ve just finished their stint as fosters in my house after about two months and they are ready to find their forever home!

Colleen and Colette are of course sisters if you couldn’t tell. They are about 10 months old and they are absolutely adorable!

We brought them into foster because they are shy.  The first two weeks in the house they mostly stayed this way, they hid in their kitty furniture and their safe spot carrier and didn’t interact much at all and hardly made a peep beyond eating!

But as soon as we started cracking the door open to the rest of the house they changed extensively. They started to explore very quickly and had no issue running all over the house in ‘army crawl’ mode.

They were on the hunt to find out the best nooks and crannies to hide in and to observe from.  They quickly wandered the whole house without issue.

Colette is definitely the more adventurous of the two and always leads the way. The second doors pop open she is the one to charge in and then potentially charge out.  Colleen will then quickly follow after if she’s in the mood.

These are by far two of the nicest most gentle cats we have ever encountered. No matter what we did it never once caused a negative response. Not that we tried for one.

But as any cat owner knows, loud noises take place from outside, things fall, you can startle a cat easily. Not once did it ever result in a scratch, a swat, a nip, anything. Instead they were more likely to run off and hide in a catbox or behind one of the many other boxes in the house

The worst thing we encountered with either of them was that they are very food motivated. That’s a pretty good ‘bad’ thing for a cat!

Though you do need to be careful when you feed them treats or snacks as in the attempt to get a treat out of your hand they may accidentally catch you with their teeth.

But only because they are so darn excited to get the treats! We found placing treats on the ground was by far the most effective way to give them snacks.

A few other key items worth noting:

• They absolutely loved our resident cats and our resident cat Lexi loved playing with them. The three of them chased each other, wrestled and played all the time.
• They are excellent at chasing flies. We had a few drain flies in the house and they went absolutely bonkers for them until they batted them out of the air.
• They love Cat TV. They will sit at an open front door (screened in of course) and watch the birds and squirrels for hours on end.  They never pounced on the door.

A few other things they absolutely love!!!

• The laser pointer. They’d chase it all over and never stop!
• Wand toys. In particular the Rainbow Cat Charmer was a huge hit for them.
• Small little fluff balls about half an inch to an inch in diameter. They would bet them everywhere, chase them and even carry them around.

• Sniffing at the outdoor air. We got a few really nice days where I could open up the front door and let them sniff at the screen. The immediately joined our two resident cats and all four of them hung out sniffing the fresh spring air!
• No surprise, they love boxes. I have several boxes around the house and they loved going in and out of them all.
• Crinkly paper is a huge hit. We got a few boxes from Amazon that used large lengths of brown paper to help keep things secure inside the box. They loved this paper. They would run all over the house then jump right into it to make noise then rinse and repeat.

And a last few notes from my side:

• I think they’d do really well with a cat tree or cat castle of some sort available to them.
• They already learned to use both sisal scratching posts and cardboard lounges, they loved the cardboard!

If you’re interested in adopting them please reach out to Chicago PAWS through the website. Their individual profiles can be found here: Colleen and Colette.

We at StuffCatsWant also thank Chicago PAWS and every other shelter organization for helping save so many animals on a daily basis!! Please submit your cat as cat of the week by emailing StuffCatsWant@gmail.com with 5 pictures of your cat(s) and a short description of him or her or them!

StuffCatsWant.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Cat Of the Week – Athena – April 8th, 2019

This week’s cat of the week is Athena and comes submitted to us by her human Jekka! We thank her for submitting Athena to us.

Athena is a dignified four year old lady who came to Jekka about a year ago, when the shelter she volunteers for (The Animal Welfare Society) asked if Jekka would take Athena as a foster.  

Athena had just come in as a stray and was a pretty sorry sight — she’d had to be shaved to get rid of all of her matted fur, she was hard to approach, even harder to touch.  

Athena was lucky they asked the volunteer that had already developed a bit of a reputation for taking in the ‘trainwreck’ cats!

Jekka had also seen her in the shelter before and found her utterly darling, so she couldn’t say no to such an adorable fur ball. And as with many of us fosters, she hadn’t hadn’t planned on keeping Athena permanently, but since she had already fostered failed three times it wasn’t completely impossible.

Unfortunately Athena didn’t seem to get along with the resident cat of the household, Mako, and Mako makes the rules in the house! You can see Athena cuddled up way in the background on the other couch!

A few weeks into staying with Mako Athena’s disposition changed completely! She got mouth surgery to treat her for severe stomatitis, an inflammation at the stoma of the teeth.  

Stomatitis can be very painful and dangerous if left alone and Jekka suspects that Athena’s mouth hurt so much she was afraid to be touched.  Once that was taken care of, Athena became a whole new cat, with one ridiculous remaining fang.  

Then one day Athena was spotted grooming Mako and Mako was just soaking it up, Jekka knew she was done for.  She might not have to brush Athena as much anymore if she can convince Mako to return the favor.

While writing the submission for Athena she and Mako were chasing each other around the house trilling at each other and being their ridiculous selves.  

Now that Athena’s fur’s grown back she’s a poofy, lovely goofball, and she is all Jekka’s!

We at StuffCatsWant also thank Jekka for submitting Athena as Cat Of the Week!! Please submit your cat as cat of the week by emailing StuffCatsWant@gmail.com with 5 pictures of your cat(s) and a short description of him or her or them!

StuffCatsWant.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Cat Of the Week – Tutu – March 25th 2019

Everyone meet the beautiful Tutu! Tutu was submitted to us by her human Alice all the way from Brazil and we thank her for the submission! She looks quite dapper in her red collar doesn’t she?

​Alice found Tutu during work hours. She was visiting a fair where she was interested in displaying ​her pictures as she’s an artist and university student.

She fell in love ​with Tutu minute ​she saw ​the cute, but frail 8 months old spotted cat right next to the fair’s entrance! She was looking lost so Alice sat down to caress and talk with her, and she just seemed weak as can be.

Alice told ​Tutu she had to get some things done and if she was still there when Alice ​got back she would bring her home. ​No surprise, Tutu must have understood the opportunity, she was right there when Alice ​left the event! 

Alice picked her up and brought her to the vet and ​found out she was FIV-positive, but ​FELV-negative. For anyone unfamiliar with FIV you can read more about FIV here on PetMD.

FIV is far more common among street cats as they can get in fights over territory and the most common method of passage is through deep bite wounds.

​It has been about 6 weeks since Tutu has become part of the family. She’s a living example of how much a FIV positive cat can be strong and such a warrior! She also knows exactly how to sleep on a comfy bed!

​Tutu is an extremely cuddly and talkative, making very soft meows at ​her humans when she’s hungry or needs attention.

She follows ​Alice absolutely everywhere, and loves to sleep on top of the dining chairs, or on top of ​Alice’s red blanket, her favorite object to knead on. 

​Tutu has doubled her weight and regained interest in playing​ with toys which she probably didn’t do much as a ​kitten ​living in the streets. She adores feet, and will rub her head on any she sees. 

Taking care of her has been ​a very rewarding experience! And she rewards her humans for the care ​with good morning headbutts every day.

Alice says she has never seen a cat love kisses and cuddles so much, and, even though ​Alice’s dad wasn’t a big fan of cats the tides are ​even beginning to turn on him! ​​Nobody can resist such a talkative and adorable little feline!

​​We at StuffCatsWant also thank ​Alice for submitting ​Tutu as Cat Of the Week!! Please submit your cat as cat of the week by emailing StuffCatsWant@gmail.com with 5 pictures of your cat(s) and a short description of him or her or them!

​StuffCatsWant.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Cat Of the Week – Tidbit – March 17th 2019

​Meet Tidbit! Tidbit comes submitted to us from her human Alex and we thank Alex for the submission.

Tidbit if a beautiful 17 year old Calico ​and was inherited from ​Alex’s sister who ​had gotten a few ​ dogs. Alex’s sister got Tidbit when she was only 10 weeks, but they soon found that Tidbit wasn’t a big fan of her canine counterparts. 

​They decided that when ​Tidbit would move in with ​Alex about ​3 years ago to ensure they had a more comfortable and happy life with no dogs around.

Tidbit is loving and talkative, she’s gentle and kind. As soon as she sees a friend sit down, she makes her way over to cuddle up on their lap. She gives all her love away and only expects a few pets as payment.

Tidbit refuses to drink from her water bowl, so instead her humans have to keep a glass full of water on ​the coffee table for her to drink from. If the water is low in the glass, she will go to the bathroom and drink water from the toilet.

I had a similar situation with my cat Beastling and a cat water fountain changed her mind!

Tidbit also likes going outside on the balcony, watching birds and feeling the breeze. Many cats that enjoy this also love cat window beds! 

Tidbit is very sweet and loves attention but spends most of her day sleeping. This is common for all cats, but even more so for older cats like Tidbit!

Tidbit’s favorite human food is cantaloupe and always waits at ​Alex’s feet for ​her to drop some for her when ​she’s cutting one up.  

Now that’s she’s old, she’s slowed down, but still has some spunk and will chase after a loose shoe lace or a laser pointer. Just like any cat her hunting instincts are still around and cat toys are a must have!

​Alex’s goal is to have Tidbit for as long as possible, but ​Tidbit does have health issues and is in the early stages of Kidney disease.

​Alex loves Tidbit and she’s ​been there for ​her through thick and thin. She’s been an amazing pet and Alex plans to spend as much time with her as possible!

​We at StuffCatsWant also thank ​Alex for submitting ​Tidbit as Cat Of the Week!! Please submit your cat as cat of the week by emailing StuffCatsWant@gmail.com with 5 pictures of your cat(s) and a short description of him or her or them!

​StuffCatsWant.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Cat Of the Week – Mowzer – February 11th 2019

Cat Of the Week – Audrey – February 4th 2019