My trash!!!
I love my trash so much I have to warn Noodles to stay away from it!!
Be warned… mess with the top off my food at your peril!!
Celebrating 1 Year of Snowshoe Cats
First allow me to apologise for how long it has been since a new blog has appeared on Nevada and Noodles’s blog site. I have been enjoying their company so much that I have not managed to find time to help them put their paws to the keyboard. They have kindly given me permission to add a blog from my view-point that will bring you up to date and allow me to describe how wonderful they are.
Let’s start with me introducing myself. I’m Hooma, Noodles and Nevada’s human mother like figure. I work from home at least three days a week, which means that the boys spend, at the most only two days (about 10 hours at a time) on their own. I’m married to their Hoopa who has also fallen well and truly under the spell of these blue-eyed wonders.
Where to start… we’ll do this alphabetically and begin with Nevada.
Nevada is a male blue colour-point snowshoe cat. He is solidly built and we need to watch his weight carefully as he would quite happily spend his whole day troughing food if he was allowed to.
Nevada has a mixed personality and to a casual visitor he probably appears to be a nervous shy cat. When strangers are around, that certainly is what he is… but once he gets to know new hoomans he soon settles down.
From that first moment we let him out of his travel box on 16 July 2010, we knew we would have to work with him to build up his trust. Nevada came out of his box, looked around and then went straight back in. Once he felt confident enough, he promptly ran into the Utility room and managed to get himself behind the tumble dryer! We spent ages kitten proofing the house, yet Nevada managed to jump over the board by the side of the tumble dryer and wedge himself behind it! Hoopa pulled the dryer out and sat on the floor behind it with Nevada and fussed him until he realised we meant him no harm.
Within 24 hours Nevada was happily settled in and he was the first of the two of them to bring a toy to me to throw for them (that was on their second day with us!) Nevada was the first to jump up on the kitchen work-surfaces, first to jump into the fridge and often leads the way for Noodles to go onto naughtier things.
Nevada has a loud voice, which he loves to use! He likes to announce that he is coming over to you for a fuss, that you’re not fussing him enough, that he wants to eat, that he wants to share your food, that he heard a noise, that he has seen a fly, that he wants to come into the bathroom… I think you get the message… Nevada likes to talk!
I have come to the conclusion that you can’t fuss Nevada too much. He never gets tired of having his belly rubbed and will meow at you if your dare to stop before he rolls around for an ear tickle. Nevada has a routine where he walks around the back of you along the sofa, meows loudly in your ear (to let you know he’s on his way), he walks down the sofa arm and then dives and flips onto you lap and finally meowing loudly again (his instruction to rub his belly).
Nevada loves to play with rubbish (trash). He is a bin diver, so much so we have had to shut all bins away from him! He has lots of toys, which he does play with too, but he much prefers a crinkly wrapper and once stolen he will play with it for hours.
To sum Nevada up… he is a loving, friendly, eating machine!
Now to Noodles… Noodles is so different from Nevada you wouldn’t think they were brothers! When Noodles was let out of his travel box he strolled around confidently and climbed up to the top of the big cat tower and announced his arrival.
Noodles loves to be the centre of our attention and when they first became my work companions I thought I would never get any work done again! Noodles’s name soon became ‘Noodles No’ as he chewed through cables, walked on power switches and knocked things over. All to get my attention. He would do something bad and look at me to see if I had noticed… and if I didn’t give him enough recognition for it he would go back to being naughty again!
These days Noodles has settled down more and spends most of the day sleeping in the window while I work. However, this is only after he has gone through his routine of hiding under the mat in the hallway. Noodles will dive under it and call to me. Once I have called to him saying ‘where’s Noodles’ he will run to me, have a fuss and then curl up for a sleep.
Noodles loves to play games one to one, he will play fetch, but only if Nevada is occupied elsewhere. His two favourite games are playing under our legs and jumping for his feathered string toy. He can jump really high, flip over and land on his feet.
Noodles loves his Hoopa and will spend as much time as he can on Hoopa’s 
shoulders. He will jump from the floor up Hoopa’s back and settle nicely across his shoulders, greeting him with a head rub and an ear nibble. If Hoopa is not in the room that Noodles want to be in, he will bite Hoopa’s ear to direct him to where he wants to go! Hoopa is Noodles’s personal transport!
Noodles also loves to talk, but he has a quieter more gentle voice. He does get a bit noisier at meal times but never as loud as Nevada.
As a pair, they love to play together. They will have mad moments when they will dash around, bouncing off the soft furniture (including us). They will make up their own games throwing toys or trash up in the air and seeing which one of them can catch it. They love to play football with each other and will flick their ping-pong balls across the floor.
Once they have exhausted themselves they will cuddle up together and sleep. They get on with one another really well and we have yet to see them fight (other than when they are playing!) They are the best of friends with each other and with us.
Nevada and Noodles… your Hooma and Hoopa are very proud of you and love every moment with you… even the naughty ones!
Hear me now!
We try to communicate with our Hooparents, but obviously as they are not amazingly super intelligent cats they don’t always understand us.
I love to talk… I like to ask where Hoopa has gone, why I can’t go with him, why is he standing the other side of the door, why have you stopped fussing me, play with me, feed me, feed me more, I want to go outside for a walk, I want to walk on the snow, I don’t want to be outside in the snow, I want Noodles to play with me, ouch Noodles that hurts, I’m happy, I’m scared, cuddle me!
Noodles talks too, but he has a quieter voice, that is unless he is asking for treats then he shouts too!
Here is a video of us trying to get through to our Hooparents…
Splish Splash Snowshoe Cats…
I love water… there is no other way to express the joy I find in sticking my paw into the washing-up water!
When any tap is switch on, anywhere in the house, I will try to find a way to get up by it and stick my head under it. It’s not just about having a drink, I love to ‘chase’ the water and the feel of it as I swat it with my paw.
I like to sit in the window and watch Hoopa washing up, and if he is in a really good mood, he lets me sit by the side of the sink. I, of course, take full advantage of this and try to scope up the bubbles with my paw.
Noodles likes water too, but not in the same way as me. I get all excited and slightly silly about trying to get my paw to it (that’s Hooma’s words not mine!)… why don’t you see for yourself in this video….
Christmas Snowshoe Cats…
Our cat furriends out there may find this hard to believe, but we had so much fun when our Hooparents took our photos for this year’s Christmas card.
We purred from the very moment we were placed amongst the Christmas boxes and paper!!
Here are a few of the photos… (we will share the finished card nearer to Christmas)
Hooma bought us this new lovely giant Christmas hat sleeper. We both enjoyed playing with it… but after the photos it was taken away again 😦 Don’t worry Hooma says we can have it back when the Christmas tree goes up (what’s a Christmas tree?) Is it another activity tree for us to climb on?
We enjoyed playing with the boxes and tried to carry them off to see if we could get inside them….
Noodles didn’t get too far with this one though, Hooma soon placed it back with the other boxes… so we started the game all over again!
Do you like our Christmas capes? Hoopa told Hooma not to buy them as he said we wouldn’t like them. Like them… we love them!! We are super cats with our capes on!!!
Peek-a-boo!!
Walkies Stage 4
Well hello! It has been a long time since I have put my paws to the keyboard… many reasons, mostly because Hooma has not had the time to switch on our laptop! She says it’s because she has been busy having fun with us… poor excuse I know.
Since we last blogged we have been for our first spell of ‘cat prison’… our Hooparents went to Africa to see ‘big’ cats. We didn’t mind being locked away, as the nice hoowarden gave us a continuous supply of food. Nevada took full advantage of this and put on several pounds! We got parole after only 9 days, but with how naughty we have been I’m sure it won’t be too long before we end up back on cat row.
Our super activity centre tried to murder us… we were both cuddled up in our favourite hoop bed when the world started to fall inwards! We plummeted 6 foot to the floor!!! Shhh, don’t tell Nevada, but I think it was the extra few pounds he gained in cat prison that lead to the sudden failure of the bed!
We have continued our harness training and our hooparents finally decided we were ready to go outside here is a video of our trip outside yesterday…
Snowshoe Anipal Photo Hunt #6
BlogPaws‘ Be The Change For Pets is asking everyone to post a ‘less-adoptable’ pet on their blog during the week of Sept 19-25, so that’s what we’re doing…
Our special cat that we would like to find a home for is Max…
Max is a five year old FIV boy, so he will need to be homed as an indoor cat or have an enclosed garden. He is with Cats Protection following the death of his owner. He must be an only cat or could live with another FIV cat but he doesn‘t like dogs. He has a lovely miaow which he calls out when he is left after fussing him. He sometimes hisses when you first enter his run, but once you have fussed him, he stands on tiptoes on his back legs to reach up for more.
Adoption info: Cats Protection Birmingham (England)
Telephone Number: 01564 822020
Email: birmingham@cats.org.uk
No more tablets (for now)…
You will know, if you are a regular reader of our blog, that we have had some trouble with snotty noses and runny eyes. Last week we finished our third course of antibiotics and our hooparents got really good at giving us tablets (with all that experience they could hardly have gotten worse).
They had gotten so good that we needed to find new techniques to try to stop them from getting those tablets down our throats. These involved us having jelly legs so they couldn’t keep our heads up and sticking our tongues up in the air to make our throat hole as small as possible! Our best one was our super pill-popper plan…
The story starts with us having learnt to jump up onto the kitchen units. Our hooparents had five months of happiness at us not being confident enough to jump up onto the kitchen work surfaces, when Nevada realised he could easily jump up there, I quickly followed his example and we now get up on the surfaces whenever we want and especially when our hooparents don’t want! Once we had learnt this our hooparents had to move all our treats, medications etc into cupboards so we couldn’t get to them.
That first night, after hooma had moved the stuff, our hooparents got all the torture gear ready for us to receive our tablets… but hooma couldn’t find our pill-popper (apparently this device is essential in ensuring the tablets shoot to the back of our throats)… hoopa accused hooma of putting it away somewhere and forgetting where. They looked in all the cupboards and drawers but could not find it. Then hooma looked at us and said ‘have you hidden the pill-popper?’ Hoopa laughed, as if we could… they both laughed and continued looking. Finally, the only possible solution was that we had stolen it, so they started looking in our beds until hoopa shouted ‘You’ll never believe this, it’s pushed under and to the back of the fridge!’
So OK, we did take it from the side and yes, we did play with it… but do you really think that we could be cunning enough to hide it? … you decide!
Blog Snowshoe Paws…
Anipal Photo Hunt Blog Hop #5
This week’s Anipal Photo Hunt Blog Hop is about Blog Paws an Anipal event in Denver in the good ole US of A… as that is much further away than the end of our garden we are doing a blog about our blog!
We are pretty new to blogging (this is not surprising as we are only 5 and half months old!) We are always up to something and we have a long list of funny stories, that once we stop running around (as us young-uns are prone to do), we will get them added to our blog.
So how is it that cats can blog? …such a silly question… with a computer of course! We have a notebook which our hooparents bought for us to do our blogging with…
The Anipal Photo Hunt… our bed(s)
We are joining the Anipal Photo Hunt… here is our pictures of our favourite sleeping place…
This is our cat tower… it is a super great place for a play, a scratch and most importantly a sleep!
Please note our ‘mobile’… we have enjoyed pulling this apart when we have had a mega stretch!
We love to chase each other around the tower and ‘fight’ for the best spot, which is the bed looking out the window. We like to watch the birds in the garden from this spot!
The cave is our favourite spot when we are hiding from the evil Hoover…
You just don’t know when it might try to suck one of us up into its tummy!
We like to hide our toys in here too… they often end up being eaten by the Hoover so we know they are safer here.
Noodles likes to think he is king of the ‘castle’… but really that’s not the best spot… unless you are in the mood for playing with the mobile that is!
It is a good vantage point for watching our hooparents prepare their meals from and we race each other down the tower to get to any bits that may make their way onto the floor…
Nevada likes to play in the tube but it’s not a great place to sleep… it’s way too draughty!
So that brings us back to the window spot… we like to sleep in here together… but we are getting bigger which means it won’t be long before one of us has to sleep elsewhere!!!
Snowshoe Cats Blog 