What?!? You are going away again!?!

Garlic : Mummy, you have been going away too much nowadays. I shall not allow it!

Garlic : I don't care. You are not having your luggage back!

Yippie! New Bed!

The new bed has arrived and guess who loves it best? Yes, the Spice Cats!

Ginger : ZzzzzZzzz.... The new bed is so soft.....

Garlic : Soft! Soft! I just wanna bury myself in it!

Ginger : This is heaven.....

Garlic : Ahhhh..... bliss....

MOHAWK!!!!

Cathy asked me whether I would like to try Mohawk on Ginger. I said why not, as long as the fur is short, just like Ginger likes it. So here is the result. I think its pretty cool!

Ginger enjoying her short fur. She is now the purr machine!

This is how it looks like. She hardly notice the fur on her back and it doesn't bother her.

The only time Ginger is not princess-like

Need I say more?

It is coooldddd.......

When Garlic first came back from his grooming session at Cathy's, he was feeling cold whenever he is in my room with the aircon. He seems to prefer the lion cut, when his chest is full of fur. Cathy said its a man thing, men and their chest hair (in this case, fur).

But generally the cats seems to like their fur short, especially when they do not get to stay in the aircon room all day. For me, its less furball lying all over the floor! So the next grooming session, Garlic will have a Lion cut again.

Garlic : I feel cold and naked....

Garlic : Plus, its really comfortable under here....

We're Back!

I know we have been quiet for awhile now. The Spice Cats is just not complete without Sesame. Thank you everyone for your condolences and also everyone who has been asking when my next post will be. We have been mourning for about 2 months now, and although we still miss Sesame terribly, we are back :-)

The photos are taken about 2 months ago, a few days after Sesame left us. It reminded me so much of him, as he is normally the one who loves flowers.

Ginger is obviously more interested in the grass than the flowers or teddy bear.

Ginger : Hmmmm..... yummy! Munch.... Munch....

Goodbye Sesame

I have been thinking for a while on how to bid Sesame goodbye. My dad’s comment on facebook inspired me to finally write this post. Quoted from Facebook….

“How not to miss him ?! I still remembered the day Pepper brought him out to this world,and how we enjoyed seeing him growing up and learning how to walk. It was so amazing to see him grown up to be bigger size than his mother, Pepper, and later bigger than Garlic.

Being the youngest in the family, he had left us so unexpectedly! May be his sudden departure is to remind us that our life in this world is so uncertain and we must value all those who are close to us as one day they will depart from us too.

He had brought so much joy to all those who had come into contact with him. It would be so unfair to him if there is no life after death!

So there is life after death, and Sesame's soul had gone to a peaceful place and will reincarnate to a higher form of being in his next life; may be a human.

So let us keep the sweet memory when he was with us, but no with sorrow as always remember he had gone to a better place and better life.”

Sesame, thank you for 5 years of wonderful memories and happy moment you brought into the Spice Cats House. You came into my life totally unexpected, and you left without any warning. I have loved and cherished you with all my heart, and you have become part of my life in every single way. Every part of the house brings back memory of you. Even now, I sometimes half expect to see you waiting for me at the door whenever I come home from work.

I still remember clearly………………

……. When Pepper was at the vet after struggling to give birth to you after more than 16 hours and the vet has to give Pepper 2 injection to induce birth

…….. When I first laid eyes on you at the vet, you fat tiny thing that is happily suckling away

…….. How happy I am that you are suckling day and night when you elder sibling wont even eat

…….. How I weigh you every single day and how proud I am that you gain about 10gram per day.

…….. How excited we all are when you started crawling all over the place before you can even walk

…….. How blue were your eyes when you finally see the world for the first time

…….. How you used to fall asleep on my lap when you were a little kitten

…….. How happy I am when you started eating kitten canned food

…….. How proud I am when you first used the litter box all by yourself!

…….. How hyper active you are, always running up and down

…….. How you love to pounce on people’s feet when you were little!

…….. How you slowly grow, and eventually become bigger than Pepper, then even bigger than Garlic!

…….. How short your furs were when you were a kitten but then how long they became when you got older!

…….. How much time I have to spend to comb you and remove all the matted fur!

…….. How much you love to be brushed

…….. How you always follow me into the bathroom

…….. How you always look down the toilet when I flush

…….. How your god-mom would always carry you into the bathroom with her

…….. How you love to bully Ginger and would never stop even when she hissed at you

…….. How you used to stick your paw into the water bowl and play with the water

…….. How much noise you make when I bath you!

…….. How high you jump when you are playing with the mouse

…….. How you love to sit in front of the small standing fan and enjoy the breeze

…….. How you love flowers and is always the first to smell it

…….. How you love to sleep on my bed and enjoy the aircon and hide under the blanket when it gets too cold

…….. How you would complain even when I just accidently step on your fur

…….. How you would run and hide whenever the vacuum is on

…….. How you love when I mop the house because you can chase after the mop

…….. How you love to be carried and cuddled

…….. How you would greet me at the door whenever I come home from work

…….. How you would respond to my voice and nobody else’s

…….. How you would come running whenever I shake the Brewer’s Yeast bottle, your favourite treat

…….. How you would come and sit by me when I am having dinner alone at home

…….. How I used to show you off to my friends and everyone would be amazed by how big and furry you are

…….. How I would always bring you over to my parents’ place for Chinese New Year

There are just so many things that will continue to stay in my mind for many years to come. May you be happy at the Rainbow Bridge….. you will be remembered always.

I wanted to upload some photos that were taken 1 week before you left us, but somehow seems to have lost the memory card..... so i posted this photo instead.

We love you, Sesame....

Hanging Out in Mummy's Room

Garlic : I love hanging out in Mummy's room. Not only her bed is nice, her floor is very comfy as well!

Garlic : Oooppsss.... Mummy's taking photo now. I better give her my cutest look.

New Haircut

Last Saturday, Sesame and Ginger went to Cathy's for their new haircut.

Sesame : It feels weird. I feel.....so much lighter that I am not really used to it yet.

Sesame : Cathy and Mummy said I got beautiful spots.

Ginger, on the other hand, absolutely LOVES her new haircut.


Ginger : Am I the cutest little princess?

Ginger : I am pretty sideways too.

The Noisy Lady is here again!

Every Saturday, Kak Ro comes to clean the house. Sesame will disappear upstairs whenever she comes, especially when she starts using the vacuum cleaner.

Sesame : Its safer up here.

Sesame : What? I am not going down until the noisy lady goes away!

Abel's Day Out

It was Abel's day out to the park again, after about 3 month's absence. He had loads of fun and we are going again this Sunday!

Eva : Can I swim too? Please? Please?

Abel : I am gonna get EVERYONE wet!
Cathy : Run for your life!

Whiskey : Mummy is just trying to keep me dry and clean.

And I wonder why Whiskey stayed away from Abel the whole time......

Thats not the head. Whiskey is the cleanest dog you have ever met.

Squeek! Squeek!! Sqqeeeeuuukkkkk!!!

Whiskey : I dont get it. What's so fun about getting wet and dirty?

What does Garlic do when he is not licking my fingers, or toes

He finds his sibling to lick!

Garlic doesn't lick other kitties toes though, only the head.

But he is very thorough with it, making sure he covers the ears too.

Garlic : What? Its international knowledge that I have a licking addiction problem (yes, the whole world knows, thanks to Mummy). But who cares, everyone seems to love it!

Brotherly Love

The Spice Cats took turn to accompany me on my bed as I rested due to my badminton injury.

Garlic and Sesame took the best spot on the bed, where they can feel the aircon directly. And they stayed close to each other in case it gets too cold.

You can see the difference in their size. The Spice Cat baby is so much bigger than the other 3 Spice Cats.

Zzzzz.....zzzzz.....

Toe Cleaning Services

We provide toe cleaning services at the Spice Cats house......

We start with the big toe....


The we work it down to the small toe....

And of course, we NEVER forget to clean in between toes!

Neglect

Mommy has been neglecting our blog and we are all not happy about it. In fact, she has been neglecting her camera as well. After taking up Salsa, she seems to have no more time for anything else.

I had a long talk with mommy over the weekend and mommy promised to start taking pretty photos of us and updating our blog frequently.

Katz Tales: Living Under The Velvet Paw

Few months back, I was given a book by Ellen, Katz Tales: Living Under The Velvet Paw. It consist of a lot of short stories of Au, Target, Scoop and Bones on their wonderful adventure through everyday life.



If you are a cat owner and lover like me, you will be able to relate to the stories. We are afterall living in the company of equals. But I personally think that Au and Target are more spoilt than the Spice Cats! And I am glad the Spice Cats are indoor cats, so they never got a chance to bring rodents (especially live ones) into the house!

If you are thinking of getting a cat, the Cat FAQs is especially useful! It teaches you how to toilet train your cat, how to keep them off the furniture, what to do when your cat’s upset, and how to have an intelligent conversation with your cats! Ellen also shares her experiences when Scoop, Au and Targets moved in and took over her life.

If you are a non-cat-lover, you will find the short stories amusing and it will give you a totally different perspective of the species! Ellen has somehow managed to let her readers relive the life of her cats! You simply gotta love her cats.

Katz Tales is selling for RM28 on our local bookstores. Go get a copy now!

Find out more about Katz Tales at http://www.lepak.com/katztalesbook.html

On the road to recovery

Abel's wound healing really fast, it is now just a small hole. I think by next week, he will be able to go back outdoors and the cats will be much happier!

Maggots!

On Thursday night, as usual, I was playing ball with Abel in my backyard after my badminton game. Then I noticed that occasionally Abel would sit down and lick his hind leg. As I checked closer, I notice a small wound, about the size of a 5cents coin. Abel was not limping, in fact he was jumping around trying to catch the ball. So I decided to leave it till Saturday morning to bring him to the vet to check it out.

So first thing Saturday morning, I brought Abel to the vet. We waited for 45mins before the vet was free to see us. To my horror, the vet shone some light into the wound and I saw maggots moving inside! The vet gave me a few options. As I did not want to take the risk to have Abel sedated (because of his age), I decided to take a slower approach of clearing the maggots.

The vet then took a long tweezer (dont know what you call it), and removed the live maggots from Abel's hind leg. She took out more than 20 maggots! It makes all my hair stand seeing the maggots squirming around. Abel was such an angel and never protested to the process, he only flinched once during the whole process. After that the vet recommended that I leave Abel there for a few hours for her to clean up more maggots (Apparently some maggots buried deep into the flesh but need to come out to breath).

How did Abel gets maggots on his leg? Well, the vet said that Abel must have a wound (could be just a scratch) and as the wound was healing, the skin around the wound was dead. So that attract flies to come lay eggs. And because Abel LOVES soggy and muddy areas, the eggs hatched and thus the maggots!

This is how the wound looks like after bringing Abel home from the vet. The wound is so much bigger! The vet gotta removed the dead cells around the area and cleaned it. And because the wound is at the hind leg, the bandage wont stay intact.

A closer look at the wound, its very deep and painful! Its pretty amazing that Abel was not even limping and did not flinch everytime I clean or apply medication to his wound!

As the bandage wont stay intact, Cathy went to the vet for me and got a collar for Abel, to prevent him from licking the wound. Thanks Cathy! Don't know what I'll do without you :)

This is Abel with his collar. He did not complain about his collar. He was happily moving around the house, drinking water and wagging his tail.

Sunday morning, I brought Abel to another vet for a 2nd opinion and for a check up. The vet took out 2 dead maggots and 1 LIVE one! Another round of medication to flood the wound and kill the maggots. Abel didnt even flinch once. The vet praised him for being so cooperative.

At 1130am, I checked on Abel's wound, saw a dead maggot, used my eyebrow tweezer and took it out from Abel's wound. I then went out and left Abel alone at home for 3 hours. He did not destroy my house :)

Abel is house-bound until his wound recovers, should be about 10-14days. His wound looks a lot better this morning, its no longer swollen. He is behaving like normal, running after his balls, chasing after the cats occasionally (the cats have decided to stay upstairs), his appetite is also normal.

I think all the maggots have been removed. My parents have agreed to babysit him whenever I am at work. He is on antibiotics, cream are to be applied on the wound twice a day. I will also bring him to the vet again for another check-up tomorrow morning.

King of........ Spice Cats House!

Garlic has been feeling good about himself ever since the lion cut. He walks around the house proudly, showing off his perfect lion body (He is the only Spice Cat with no tummy).


ROAR!

I am the King of the Jungle!
OK OK, mummy said I wont survive in the jungle....so I will settle with.....
I am the King of the Spice Cats House!

2 more lions

Last Sunday, Garlic and Pepper went for their fur-cut! Thanks Cathy! Now I officially have 4 little lions in the house and 70% less fur flying around the house, though Sesame's and Ginger's fur is growing back fast.

To my pleasant surprise, Garlic look very regal, as always.

A close-up, his fur is actually quite white on the inside.

Pepper looks like a mini-Sesame!

Ginger checking out the new Garlic.

Sesame, on the other hand, stayed away from Garlic and Pepper. He also hissed and growled whenever they come near him!

Sesame, keeping an eye on Pepper, and keeping a safe distance.