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Wednesday, March 09, 2005

quick update before running mass experiments

I have had a couple questions on the vanilla trick. As in, "why on earth would you put vanilla on your kitties?"

When I was reading up on the internet on how to introduce kitties, I heard some talk of "the vanilla trick." As I mentioned before, you take real vanilla extract and dab some on the chin, back of the neck, and base of the tail (spine side) of each cat. The general theory behind this is that the kitties will think they smell more alike, and thus may perceive each other as being from the same family. So the other cat may be more likely perceived as friend rather than foe.

I have no idea if this is really true or not, but I've definitely heard of this type of trick being used with other animals as well (like chinchillas). Either way, I thought it couldn't hurt trying it to make the introductions smoother.

Asha is really funny about having Nikko out and about. She follows him everywhere he walks, I think she's just minding her space, and wants to make sure Nikko doesn't think the territory is really his (her quest for dominance). Nikko still gets batted at and hissed at (like when he sprawls out on her scratching post), but he really seems like he could care less. When we put him away for the night, Asha sat outside his door crying for a little while before coming to bed. It made me happy to see that she missed him. She ran into his room as soon as I went in to feed him this morning too. I let them play together for 30 minutes while I got ready to go, but Nikko is relagated to his room alone for the day since no one will be there to supervise.

Stacey mentioned that she can't wait to see how Nikko likes yarn! Well I haven't caught a pic yet, but I know I'm going to have trouble knitting around this furry baby. Nikko thinks EVERYTHING dangly is a plaything. He LOVES the yarn I attached to his scratching post. He also loves batting at and eating my hair, my computer cord (eeks!), etc!

Vintage knitting pattern of the day:



Kitty Contest at Cara's Blog!

Cara's holding a Purrfect Kitty Contest where people send in pics of their kitty and people vote on their favorites!!! Cute kitties + contest! What could be more fun?!
I sent in a pic of asha already (I'm supposed to send in one kitty pic at a time). I'll let you know when you all can go vote!

1 comments:

Agnes said...

I don't know why, but your vanilla trick actually reminds me of a trick used by Chinese parents to stop their small kids' habit of thumb-sucking. They use an ointment called "White Flower Ointment". Yick!

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