#ishka kitty

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

the fire inspector has clocked in

[grison-in-space]

It's because cats are all quite far sighted and have a lot of difficulty seeing things close up, especially stationary things (they're better at seeing motion). Most cats use their whiskers to find things like treats, which is why blind-since-birth Arthur is actually faster at finding a stray kibble I toss under his nose than my two sighted cats. He's not distracted by the motion and he pre-emptively searches with whiskers based on scent cues. (Scent is good for confirming presence or absence of a kibble or treat, but its spatial resolution is quite low and especially if the kibble moves at all it can be hard to track that way.)

Whiskers are far more sensitive for resolving touch in cats than something like a paw. You know as a human that not all parts of our body are equally sensitive to touch and pressure: consider how much easier it is to understand something by touching it with your fingertips versus touching it with your biceps, for example. Cat whiskers are like fingertips, but their toes are a little more like your toes--less sensitive and with worse resolution. So if he's not actively paying attention to whether he's touching a kibble with his toes, he might not notice--especially if it's just touching his fur and not his beans.

Pointing is probably less useful to a cat than tapping the space where the cookie is, but if you point quickly it's better than nothing! I usually tap because cats are quite good at localizing sound and will immediately start checking with whiskers.

Anyway, have some sighted (Ishka, brown tabby) / blind (Arthur, dilute orange tabby) kitty solidarity!

Sometimes Lovey is really bad at finding things close to him. When I give him treats, sometimes they go missing, even when he's literally standing on it! I'll help him out, usually, by pointing at it, and that'll do the trick. Does anyone else's cat do this?

[cunthq]

you have 5 kitties 🥺🥺

i did a few years ago but we only have 2 now!!

the rest isn’t long but i’ll put a read more just bc

so i got ishka (black) as an early birthday/christmas present in 2009, her mum was a feral that lived on a friends farm and they saved the kittens. about a year later she got out of the house while she was on heat and then a month or whatever later had four kittens. we kept two, gave one to a family friend and then my dad took one

we kept these two ⬇️⬇️ (pippin and phoebe, pip has the big ears lol)

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

disgruntled

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

she thinks if she stares at me long enough i will give her a chicken bones. this has never worked before, but she persists

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

taking ishka to the vet makes me feel like a celebrity. all the vet techs ooo and ahhh, and ask if it's ok if their coworker comes in to see her. she really is a beautiful cat, but she's also really sweet and well-behaved. she hops out of her carrier on her own and climbs on the scale when beckoned. one of the ladies here told me that dilute gene cats are always super sweet, no idea if that's actually true or just her anecdotal experience, but i'll take it.

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

oh. ok. i see how it is

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

Bothering Her

directly after this she came over and sat on my chest and pressed her forehead into my chin.

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

nap time. she loves me.

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

the new (to us) couch smells very, very faintly of the prior owner's puppy, so ishka is hard at work

puppy stink: handled

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

mad at me because i won't let her go on the porch and eat hummingbirds

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

bothering me.

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

gregg had pork chops tonight and ishka didn't get any, so this is her next best thing

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

it's a hard job, but someone's gotta do it

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

what. could she want.

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

gave her dumb ass a middle part