Happy Monday Pawsies
And welcome to our furst
Meowing on Mondays ~ In The Sandbox with The B Team
What does that mean we hear mew ask? well fabulous furriends it means we're in the sandbox fur our weekly chat session, which could be about anything.
By the way, no hissing, no spitting, no smacky paws or swiping, no flicking sand and definitely no widdling or pooping in the sandbox either! MOL
Today we're going to talk about living in a multi-cat household and what that involves.
Living In A Multi-Cat Household
Now we know that some hoomans may have only one kitty. Some have two or maybe even three. But how does having even more kitties wurk in today's fast paced wurld?
At BBHQ we usually run at six cats constantly, that seems to be the magic number fur us, our Goldilocks number - not too many and not too little, the 'just right' ratio. Though we have had times where we've been down to only three, and we've also been as high as eight indoor plus feeding several strays too that visited our garden daily.
So how does this wurk fur us?
Having six cats is quite a bit of wurk and here's why:
Everyone needs to have one to one time with the P.A. and/or dad. It's very impawtant that all B Team memfurs have this time daily. So if we each get only 10 minutes, that's an hour minimum.
Plus we like to have playtime and outside time too. We're only allowed outside if the P.A. or dad is on paw to snoopervise us. Usually the P.A. will do some gardening while she keeps an eye on us and as she and dad wurk Mon - Fri this means we only get outdoor time when they get back from wurk.
So kitty entertaining takes up a lot of free time.
Next there's the grooming/brushing.
Now some of us like being brushed and pampered, while others not so much. Fur instance, Parsley will let mew brush him 24/7, there is neffur enough brush fur him; he will sit, stand or lay down and take as much as mew can give! MOL
While Pandora our hairy little Ewok/Sasquatch cat, hates being brushed and the P.A. has to literally walk around the house while trying to brush her; she gets mats in her fur because she's such a hairy beast and we have every type of grooming implement going to try and combat this issue. Though the one she likes the best - well tolerates better than anything - is actually the P.A.'s Tangle Teaser brush - which is now Pandora's! MOL
Pandora's Tangle Teezer
At BBHQ we usually run at six cats constantly, that seems to be the magic number fur us, our Goldilocks number - not too many and not too little, the 'just right' ratio. Though we have had times where we've been down to only three, and we've also been as high as eight indoor plus feeding several strays too that visited our garden daily.
So how does this wurk fur us?
Having six cats is quite a bit of wurk and here's why:
Everyone needs to have one to one time with the P.A. and/or dad. It's very impawtant that all B Team memfurs have this time daily. So if we each get only 10 minutes, that's an hour minimum.
Plus we like to have playtime and outside time too. We're only allowed outside if the P.A. or dad is on paw to snoopervise us. Usually the P.A. will do some gardening while she keeps an eye on us and as she and dad wurk Mon - Fri this means we only get outdoor time when they get back from wurk.
So kitty entertaining takes up a lot of free time.
Next there's the grooming/brushing.
Now some of us like being brushed and pampered, while others not so much. Fur instance, Parsley will let mew brush him 24/7, there is neffur enough brush fur him; he will sit, stand or lay down and take as much as mew can give! MOL
While Pandora our hairy little Ewok/Sasquatch cat, hates being brushed and the P.A. has to literally walk around the house while trying to brush her; she gets mats in her fur because she's such a hairy beast and we have every type of grooming implement going to try and combat this issue. Though the one she likes the best - well tolerates better than anything - is actually the P.A.'s Tangle Teaser brush - which is now Pandora's! MOL
Pandora's Tangle Teezer
If you would like to purrchase one of these brushes, a google search will bring up a selection fur mew.
Smooch likes a bit of brush as does Melyvn, Amber also doesn't mind, although Fudge is not keen, though he is getting used to the pet mitt, more about that in an upcoming post.
None of us like ear cleaning, eye cleaning or nail clipping and will do anything to avoid these activities.
Feeding Time At BBHQ and Watering Holes
We're furry lucky to have our own kitty kitchen [aka the laundry] and we all know which station aka bowl is ours. This is our regular line up.
Pandora
Smooch
Fudge
[a bowl of dry food stationed between Parsley and Fudge]
Parsley
Amber
And young Melvyn who is more like his Great Uncle Basil than we could have ever imagined, eats his on the counter top to the right out of shot. We all eat together and we have a couple of snacks a day. Plus if we get hungry we go and put in a request fur an extra meal; this entails [pardon the pun] finding the P.A. meowing a lot and then leading her towards the kitty kitchen, this method wurks 90% of the time.
We also have dry food available 24/7, which is topped up as needed and stationed around the house in various locations along with clean water.
We use stainless steel bowls as they are more hygienic, plastic dishes are a no go here and can cause chin acne in some kitties, so be careful. We have clean bowls fur morning and evening meals, so that means lots of washing up. Also all our bowls are on place-mats and we use kitchen roll too, so clean up is easy if there's any spills, or someone starts throwing their food about.
Our water bowls are many and stationed around the house, plus upstairs too. These all need changing/cleaning daily as food debris and dust can collect. We have Brita filtered water too, as our tap water is hard and doesn't taste that nice, plus we had used a couple of water fountains until recently; we had a pump failure on our Catit fountain, and sadly when the P.A. had her accident the Miaustore fountain was broken in the fall out of ceiling debris and we've not replaced either yet, but we do like water fountains, especially Fudge.
The P.A. also grows us fresh cat grass weekly, and she grows us catnip too, so we've got an endless supply of fresh greens.
We'll be showing mew how to make our Happy Grass Pots in our next Crafting with Cats post.
Kitty Bathroom
The B Teams Bathroom Habits... we have at the moment several trays that all get changed daily fur a completely clean one, this is the system that wurks fur us due to Smooch's inappropriate widdling issues. Some days a tray may last a little longer but generally it's all change once a day.
Until recently we used Bob Martins Cat Litter - non clumping, it was like the Catsan white litter, but the dust was getting quite intense and the ever escalating price made the P.A. look fur an alternative. She decided to revert back to the recycled newspaper litter, which she buys on Amazon and has delivered to the house. There's no dust and minimum odour when soiled.
We have our trays in various locations downstairs so that everyone can use a tray somewhere without being bothered by another kitty or feeling vulnerable.
Amber our elderly matriarch suffers from arthritis and finds it difficult to squat fully, so she inadvertently widdles over the side. So to try and combat multiple widdle rivers the P.A. has employed an extra tactic to keep the widdle rivers to a minimum. She places our regular tray on a grow-bag tray, although if Amber gets on an angle, a widdle river is inevitable but it does stop a lot.
To eliminate widdle rivers altogether we need a tray like the one above, but a square one! MOL
Beds and Scratch Posts/Cat Trees
We have multiple sleeping places around the house and several tall scratch post/cat trees.
We love a windowsill and each one upstairs has a little blanket on as they're our favourite. The P.A. has spent a fortune on funky cat beds over the years only to discover that we don't like them, what we do like is sleeping on is:- the bed, the cat beds that she has made, and sofa's.
So at no time is there any need to squabble fur space.
We are also exceptionally lucky to have a catservatory with some really high cat shelves, accessible from our tallest cat tree.
So there's somewhere fur effurypurrdy, and nopurrdy gets in anyone's space unless they're invited! MOL
Parsley and Fudge sharing the Snuggle Mat
In summary, The B Team live a most harmonious life. There are very few spats, as everyone seems to get along, so we are extremely fortunate in that respect.
Looking after 6 kitties does take a lot of work, and planning is vital to running a smooth oppurration, but as the P.A. says, she wouldn't have it any other way!
*Top Tip* get a really good cordless vacuum for your daily clean, as there's a lot of cat hair which mew won't want building up, and a regular brush is useless as it just makes everything airborne. We use a Dyson and find it wurks great, before that we tried other brands but they didn't have the power.
If there's any questions mew have about how we organise things, cleaning, routines, etc... feel free to ask.
A lot of our blogging furriends have as many if not a lot more kitties than us, so fur all those that exceed our number of kitties per household, purrhaps mew could tell us about your experiences and top tips?
Join us again on Wednesday when we're here with The Pet Parade... in the meantime
Keep calm, and purr on
Join us again on Wednesday when we're here with The Pet Parade... in the meantime
Keep calm, and purr on
Bestest purrs
The B Team xox
Graphics created with paid licence www.canva.com and www.pizap.com