Lucas

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Gwenoakes
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Re: Lucas

Post by Gwenoakes »

He is a stunning boy, LL...…...beautiful.
I feel I have to reprimand you though, fancy not sussing out that he did not like prawns, shame on you. {rofwl} {rofwl}
More piccies and updates will always be welcome too.
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Mo
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Re: Lucas

Post by Mo »

The pair of you seem to be getting on really well.
I never get any black cherries, the blackbirds and crow strip them before they ripen, and usually get all or most of the Stella white cherries too. Do you think he will be an effective guard-cat? Pat isn't and never was even when he went out more.
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sandy
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Re: Lucas

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Lovely photos )like(
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lancashire lass
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Re: Lucas

Post by lancashire lass »

Just an update. Lucas spent most of his time outdoors over the summer, only coming to see me to feed him before going out again. Even the mini visits while I worked on the computer stopped and after his supper, I wouldn't see him until he came to wake me up (I wasn't particularly happy at the 3.30 am alarm call which I think he realised was perhaps too early as I grumpily told him to go away) As the daylight hours shorten, I have to admit that I'm thankful that Lucas's alarm is getting later these days.

One day when I had to pop down into the garden, I found him asleep on the shelf above the "White House" chicken run (the deep shelf as wide as the chicken run which was going to be a quail house before I gave up on the idea) The shelf had become a bit of a dumping ground so there was a lot of clutter and I would have missed Lucas if he hadn't sleepily lifted his head up to see what was going on. Thereafter I found him hiding in the corner most times particularly during the hot weather. Where he went at night I have no idea.

When it rained, Lucas discovered a new treat - I would give him a rub down with a towel which at first made him very wary and now he absolutely loves it. So much so, I think he deliberately got wet so I would give him another. And with the cooler weather, he has rediscovered the warmth of the house and has parked himself on the floor next to the computer table where I work. Sometime I'll feel a gentle touch of his paw on my foot and look down to see him asleep with one leg stretched out.

Food-wise, he went through a fussy phase. I finally ran out of biscuits that I had stocked up on days before the lock down so had to get some more. I'm keen for Lucas to still have biscuits as a way of keeping his teeth clean and also if he got peckish between meal times (particularly if my work pattern changes and I have to go back in to work later) Unfortunately I have tried different cheaper and supermarket brands and he won't eat them but he does like IAMS and another similar priced brand (Purfect) The local supermarkets where I have been shopping do not stock them so I had to do a special trip out to the supermarket I used to shop at (I stopped going after the ridiculously long queues outside because of the new social distancing rules at the time, and I also noticed my shopping bill was cheaper by a third while shopping at Aldi) so while there, I stocked up on a lot of other stuff I hadn't been able to get hold of. I made the mistake of buying some other brand cat food (pouches) Throughout the lock down, he was quite happy with the Aldi brand cat food (both the fish and the meat selections) and then I gave him a Felix. Suddenly he only wanted Felix and he has gone completely off the Aldi fish flavours. I offered him Whiskas and then he went off Felix and got fussy with the Aldi meat flavours. However, I must be a cruel mum because what he didn't eat, he wasn't given an alternate so he ended up eating a lot more biscuits .... not surprisingly he has started eating whatever pouches offered although he has definitely gone off tuna flavour whatever brand. Despite the fussiness, Lucas has put weight on ... not quite a fat cat and if I was honest, would say it is a healthy weight compared to the skin and bones I got from the animal shelter, but I'd imagine the vet might say otherwise next time we visit.

Another trick which he sometimes does, really amuses me. As the weather got cooler, I started closing the back door during the day. He is quite happy using the cat flap although when he can see me closing the door, will deliberately park himself on the doorstep. Sometimes he taps the flap before slowly pushing it open and stepping indoors but sometimes he charges in at speed and runs full belt into the house with a "I'm here" expression on his face as he suddenly stops just in front of me in the living room. And not always at expected meal times so all the more funny when he does it. The days when I used to compare Lucas with my old cat Blackie are gone as he develops his own character.

Soon I will have to go back to work. For now I have just been going twice a week for a couple of hours in a morning so that I avoid people but now that the universities are gearing up for the start of semester, we are all being encouraged to go in. I have had a "Covid medical risk assessment" so my early morning starts are still current but as the campus gets busy, this may change. There's talk of issuing out face shields and masks as well as being offered a personal container of hand sanitiser for those with underlying health issues. This may mean having to stay at work all day and this will be a big shock to Lucas who has seen me at home for 6 months out of the 8 months since the adoption and I will no longer be around at his beck and call. For now I'm holding out for part time home working as the norm (which also saves on filling the car with fuel so is a greener option) so we'll have to wait and see what happens in the coming weeks.
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lancashire lass
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Re: Lucas

Post by lancashire lass »

Mo wrote:
I never get any black cherries, the blackbirds and crow strip them before they ripen, and usually get all or most of the Stella white cherries too. Do you think he will be an effective guard-cat?


If I was honest, the number of blackbirds and pigeons visiting the cherry tree and shed roof dropped - Lucas once managed to surprise a pigeon and for a moment I thought Lucas was going to kill it but the pigeon did a lot of flapping and managed to escape. So I did end up with a lot more red cherries than in the past but the fruit was not nice (with the very dry spring and early summer, most of the cherries had split or were out of reach)
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Mo
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Re: Lucas

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Yes Pat is fussy about brands of biscuits too.
Absolutely refused Co-op, so a quick local stock-up is out as they only sell own brands + tiny boxes of whiskers that cost a lot for very little. And he won't eat Sainsbury. I think he prefers Tesco to Whiskers, but will eat either.
As for pouches, which I give him part of to put his Loxicom on, he licks the jelly off and if I put too much down it goes over the edge of the saucer onto the floor. My daughters kittens did the same with whisker pouches so she bought them expensive brand and passed several boxes on to me. I'm not sure about pouches at all, such a lot of packaging. Maybe I'll go on to tins when these are finished. Have you done a green audit on cat feeding?
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Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire
Freeranger
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Re: Lucas

Post by Freeranger »

I've loved hearing about Lucas - he really seems to have settled in well. I think you've both got the measure of each other. :-D
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lancashire lass
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Re: Lucas

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Mo wrote:I'm not sure about pouches at all, such a lot of packaging. Maybe I'll go on to tins when these are finished. Have you done a green audit on cat feeding?


Funny enough I watched the new series on the BBC War on Plastic (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall) where a family tried to reduce their plastic usage by looking at alternates. I wouldn't mind seeing an update in say a year's time because some of the swaps didn't look appealing in my opinion. But yes, I agree about the packaging - the cardboard is not a problem (either recycle or compost) but the pouches quickly build up. The problem I found with tin food when I had Blackie is that he would eat the first portion but thereafter he went off the rest (I also remember the remaining food used to take on a metallic smell after storing in the fridge) and I didn't feed him biscuits because he would always throw them back up so essentially he starved himself between opening new tins. At the time I also had a dog who was quite happy to clean the bowl out when I wasn't watching. The only brands that do single meals in tins are over-priced but the foil packs may be a better alternative but are more expensive than the pouches.

I did consider packing the used pouches into ecobricks rather than put into the black bin but then I seem to spend way too much time (and water) having to wash them out first and then make sure they were well dry.
Last edited by lancashire lass on 02 Sep 2020, 07:30, edited 1 time in total.
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lancashire lass
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Re: Lucas

Post by lancashire lass »

Freeranger wrote:I've loved hearing about Lucas - he really seems to have settled in well. I think you've both got the measure of each other. :-D


)t'
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Mo
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Re: Lucas

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Yes the tins would last too long here too, unless I froze half, which would cost electricity.
Dance caller. http://mo-dance-caller.blogspot.co.uk/p/what-i-do.html
Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire
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sandy
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Re: Lucas

Post by sandy »

Nice to hear how Lucas is getting on and indeed Mo's Pat )like(
The Pink Ladies..Audrey,Ingrid-Bergman,Madeleline,Norma-Jean,Dora,Janice,Jo,Robyn,Chrissy and Joyce
The Peds…Mork,Mindy,Bell,Saphire &
Vorky ,Blueped,Ginger,Ninger &Linky

Sunny Clucker was ere July 12-21 2012
Sunny Clucker was ere July 6 2016 to Sept 9th 2017
Sunny Clucker is here , rehomed Aug 18th 2018/
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lancashire lass
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Re: Lucas

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Lucas is well and at the moment he is happily purring by my feet while I'm on the computer but I think he is just letting me know that he would rather I feed him. For the past week, his "appetite" has gone off the charts - but I don't think it is so much giving him more food when he has a bowl of biscuits available at any time, but he would rather I feed him a wet food.

Recently I have started adding a little hot water to the wet food and stirring it in so that it is "warm" - I remember being told many years ago that cats prefer warm food to cold food. And there's no doubt it works as Lucas seems to finish the entire bowl instead of leaving a customary polite token gesture behind. Evenings are worse - I've always fed him about 5.00 pm (though this seems to be shifting to nearer 4.00 pm these days) and then a final supper at 9.00 pm (and again, this seems to be getting earlier and earlier) Last night he was bordering on being a nuisance to the point he was testing my patience and my immediate response was "no, it's still not time".

At 7.45 pm, he went out and to avoid having the rest of my evening spoiled, I decided to get up and make up his supper but can you believe it, there was no sign of him thereafter until about 8.50 pm. When he finally came in and strolled into the living room, I was still watching the tv when I asked him where had he been but when I turned to look at him, he was sat down and seemed more interested in the carpet. I could see something that looked like a small fur ball about the size of a 2p piece as he tapped it with his paw. Just as I was about to get up for some paper towel to pick it up, it started to rapidly run across the floor yike* much to Lucas's delight as I stood up very quickly to stop it running under the settee and I think he must have thought I was getting up to play. In a panic I had a carton at hand which I put over the top wondering how to get it outside. Lucas was still in hunt mode but seemed perplexed that his prey had magically disappeared.

I got some paper and slid it underneath then tipped the carton over so it fell inside and then went out in the pouring rain and released it in the garden. I don't know what it was but it seemed far too small to be a baby rat or even a house mouse (maybe it was a baby mouse but I suspect it was a field mouse - I didn't look too closely and I wasn't up to killing it either) After the evening of pestering me to feed him, I began to wonder about the gift Lucas had brought me. Was it his way of saying "sorry for pestering you so here's a present" or "you are ignoring me so here's something we can do to play together" or maybe "okay then, I will bring something for YOU to eat then" {rofwl}

This morning I checked the garden where I had left it and it was nowhere to be seen so maybe it had managed to get away or some other predator had got it. Lucas had decided to stay indoors after feeding until I went to bed although he was not in the house by the time I got up this morning. The hazards of having a cat I suppose, but I would rather he killed them first - so far I've had a bird and now a mouse. I dread the day he brings a rat home!
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Mo
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Re: Lucas

Post by Mo »

My daughter has the family trained to the call of 'mouse' to get it outside rather than leaving it to die under the sofa.

Pat asks for his wet food first thing. If I sleep late he walks all over me till I get up. He gets his Loxitram in it so maybe he feels the need of it, or maybe he wants me to let him out of the front door after his breakfast rather than use the catflap.
Dance caller. http://mo-dance-caller.blogspot.co.uk/p/what-i-do.html
Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire
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lancashire lass
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Re: Lucas

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With the cold weather throughout winter, Lucas preferred to leave the middle door to the living room wide open - no sooner had I got up to close it, out he went again }hairout{ I had tied a piece of elastic to the door handle so that it didn't swing wide open but it had to be slack enough for when he did open it from the dining room side that it didn't close and trap him (after he had moved forward with his head) We have had some bitterly cold weeks and even the slightest opening seemed like a freezer blast, so I had tied a piece of string (actually, one of the guy lines from the old tent) so that I could pull the door shut without having to get up.

Last night he went out for the evening and finally showed up just before bedtime - for a moment I saw him pull the door open but as he tried to squeeze through the gap, the door closed and appeared to trap him by the neck. I quickly got up to open the door which easily swung open which confused me - he'd never had problems before opening the door. Next minute there was an almighty racket as he started chasing something and then I heard a small high-pitched squeak ... you guessed it, he had brought me another live mouse (definitely recognisable this time) Only this time I had nothing at hand to trap it yike*

Eventually I grabbed hold of a bag that I had some bits in and popped it on top of the animal (it was lightweight so no risk of crushing it but enough to stop it running under the settee) while I rushed into the kitchen to find something, anything (!) to carry it outside. Eventually I found a mushroom tray that I had been saving for seed sowing and captured the animal. Like before, Lucas was confused by the magically disappearing toy and was busy looking for it while I went outside and tipped the mouse out into the garden. I was tired and ready for bed before Lucas had decided to leave me a present but afterwards, I was definitely in the wide awake club.

One thing for sure, if I ever decide to get chickens again, at least I know I have a capable hunter around ... but I don't think I like the idea of presenting me with a live rat!
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Mo
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Re: Lucas

Post by Mo »

Never a dull moment.
My daughter used to wake up to rescue live frogs from her cat.
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Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire
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