Today we got home from a short evening out and I went in the bedroom to let the dogs out of their crates. I observed two distinctly different behaviors:

Zeeke didn’t even get to his feet until I’d opened his crate door. Then he stretched and yawned as he came out, headbutted me, and trotted out to the living room to find Denis. He than sat with his ears back and yawned again. He looked sleepy.

Zoe started moaning and barking as soon as I walked in the bedroom. I walked over to her crate and told her to be quiet before letting her out. She shot out of her crate like a bullet, sliding around the corner into the hallway, careening into Zeeke. She spent the next few minutes bouncing around the living room waiting impatiently for me to put her leash on and take her outside… or put some water in the bowl… or pay attention to her… or anything.

I turned to Den and asked him if he’s ever seen her sleepy or tired. We both thought for a minute and realized that no… we never have (at least not since we first got her as a puppy). Zoe is either asleep, or she’s bouncing around having a great time. There is no “in-between” for her. There’s no waking-up period. The first thing she does in the morning when she spies movement from one of us is to launch herself across the bed like a frog and land on hubby. (This can cause him some pain, depending on where exactly she lands! She knows better than to land on me.) It doesn’t matter if she just woke up. She immediately launches herself in great frenetic movement, bouncing and yipping and licking and happy happy to SEE you get up get up the day is here! If she pauses for a moment to, say, wait for me to drag my butt out of bed, she may stretch her legs.

I am just very very thankful that she has an excellent on/off switch, as I’ve mentioned before. Before bed she likes to wrestle with Merlin feriociously. I let her, even if it means they’re wrestling on top of me (that’s always fun) because it lets her get some energy out. She also has a fabulous ability to occupy herself by chewing on her toys and “beating them up” (which is a very amusing thing to watch, I must say). When I get in bed in the evening with my laptop, this is how she spends her time. And as soon as I turn off the laptop and lay down she jumps up on the bed, curls up, gives a sigh, and falls asleep. It really is that immediate, too. She might not fall asleep for a while, but she stops whatever she’s doing and closes her eyes at least.

I just found it odd, though, how she has two modes and bounces between them so easily. I’d love to be able to do that! Me, unfortunately… I’m a cranky beast when I wake up and take a long time to finally surface from that hazy fog of sleep.

It’s been too long since I posted.

First of all, two weeks ago Zoe and I drove into upperstate New York to visit with friends from the BC Rescue. Zoe crammed herself into the very small wedge-like area underneath one of the folded-down backseats and refused to move. I left her there for a while when we went out to eat.

When we got back from brunch I brought her into my friend’s house while we worked on a fundraising project. Zoe did pretty well, honestly. We were there for hours, and she spent the first half of that underneath the kitchen table by my feet. My friend’s dog was a little perplexed by this, as he kept walking up to her with a toy in his mouth, squeaking it provocatively. Zoe wanted nothing to do with him or his toy. He was positively crushed. (I played tug with him to make up for it!) It’s not really that Zoe’s afraid of other dogs - she honestly couldn’t really care less if he was there or not.

My friend also has two cats who hate dogs. She asked me first how Zoe is with cats. I told her - Zoe loves cats. But if they dont’ want to play with her then she leaves them alone. The first time she saw one of the cats she stood about 5 feet back and whined a bit. I think she knew right off the bad that this was not a friendly cat, but she still wanted to go up and say hi. A few hours into our visit the other cat poked his head around the corner down the hallway. I guess it started Zoe and she had no idea what it was - all you could see was a shadowy blob with glowing eyes - because she suddenly got to her feet and started growling in a very threatening way. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard her make a sound like that! I asked her what the heck was the matter and she seemed to make sense of it all. Soon as she realized it was a cat she started whining again. (The cat wasn’t very amused by it all.)

So we ended up being there all day, and Zoe did really really well. By the end of the day her tail was up. My friend had a bunch of stinky dog treats and Zoe decided she wasn’t all that scary if she gave out free treats. By the end of the day she was actually running over to her! Her tail was up in a relaxed manner even, just walking around sniffing things.

There was a very unfortunate pee accident on the floor though. :sigh: And that was totally my fault, as I didn’t realize how long we’d been there for.

All in all I think it was a positive experience. I’m not so certain Zoe would agree - she survived, but I’m pretty sure if asked to repeat it she would still vote for “No.” (Not like she has a choice in that!)

I have never seen a cat without a temper. In my experience, even the loviest cat gets pissed off if you do certain things. For some cats it’s touch their tail, for others it’s picking them up. For some it’s looking at them. Whatever it is, almost all cats have times where they put their ears back and take a swipe at you… or maybe they just lay there pissed off, swishing their tail.

But Merlin doesn’t get mad. I have never seen him get angry in any way. He has many moods, including psycho-crazy-kitten - a mood which is coming out far more frequently now that spring is approaching… He gets spazzy and attacks random objects (like shoes). He’s also a cuddle-bug and will spend hours on your chest purring and nuzzling you. But he never gets mad. I’ve seen a couple times where Zeeke has him pinned down and is practically chewing on him, and Merlin’s just laying there like a dead fish. Granted that’s a very smart thing to do with Zeeke - if you don’t react to him he does tend to give up most of the time. But still, what cat just lays there getting chewed on?

There are times when Jo and Merlin are playing, and Jo gets too rough. I don’t know why he does it, but it’s like he gets ramped up into attack-mode and he just starts pulling fur out. Pulling him off doesn’t help, he goes right back at Merlin. And what does Merlin do? “Meeep!” and runs away. And soon as Jo stops (which usually takes a brief time-out), Merlin’s back to his old self again.

Zeeke just started chewing on him again. Merlin actually gave a half-assed swipe at him. (It was more of a “Gee, stooooop!” ) I got Zeeke to stop. And Merlin? Is still purring.

He’s a lot like Zoe, except for the freak-out thing. Zoe only gets mad at Zeeke infrequently, when he gets too rough. That’s the only time I’ve seen her put on her bitch-face. Otherwise she still only has two modes: happy happy lovey-whee! and omg-it’s-going-to-eat-me!! That’s it. It does make training her rather difficult, though. Half the time she’s so ramped up she’s bouncing around practically unable to sit still like a child overdosing on sugar - and therefore not all that receptive to direction. But if you correct her even slightly too “harsh” she shuts off completely. It’s very frustrating.

Two nights ago I dosed the dogs with K9 Advantix - spring is coming and I want to keep all nasty ticks and fleas away. Now Advantix is dangerous to cats, but my vet told me when we got it that we just need to seperate the dogs from the cats overnight after dosing the dogs. Me being the paranoid person that I am I’m keeping them seperated for two full days. We’re letting them in the same room together, but absolutely NO wrestling.

And Merlin I think is about to burst because of it. He’s had no good wrestle with Zoe in two days. He’s going psycho this morning, viciously attacking Den’s boot as he’s trying to put it on. Now both cats are running like elephants up and down the hallway… I can hear their little paws thundering on the hard wood.

I really never worried about the Advantix when it was just Zeeke and Jo. Even when Zoe was added. But now with Merlin and Zoe… ech. Makes me think I should switch to something else. But only Advantix repells fleas, and we KNOW it works so VERY well (not a tick in the 2-3 years since we started using it - and we live in the woods where there are most definitely ticks). I think I might talk to the vet again and check again how long advantix is dangerous to cats after applying. If it’s for sure only like one day then it’s not a huge issue.