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Old 27-01-2010, 17:19
howley20
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It may very well be that the nursing has given you a particular closeness with Maya, that can certainly happen however have you ever have Siamese before for comparision?
They are a typically a particularly human-orientated, affectionate, (and thus often vocal and demanding) breed

There are individual differences within all breeds but Siamese (and their rather glamourous semi-long-haired Balinese version) are renouned for being very "dog-like" cats: playing fetch, running and calling to their owners in greeting, following them about, demanding lots of attention and contact.
Maya loves playing fetch, she can be a bit of a pest at times! you cant have a cup of tea without her trying to get warm off the mug!

Ive learnt a little trick though to make her settle, when she was a kitten obviously i would get up in the middle of the night to give her the lactol and medication and i used to wait with her until she settled again, but i noticed she would settle alot quicker if she cuddled into me whilst wearing my fluffy dressing gown, so now i literally walk in the house and put on my dressing gown, (any excuse) and she immediately gets on my knee and snuggles down, she wont do it unless im wearing it and she just causes chaos until i do, she has actually on a couple of occassions been upstairs and dragged my dressing gown down into the living room sat on it and just meowed until i put it on! She is not stupid!

Talking of dog like features she has been brought up with my two dogs, Penny (jack Russell) and Lucy (plummer Terrier) now i thought she just copied what they do because maya sees herself as a dog, but then i read that cats used to in the olden days hunt with dogs, as they new that the dog could take down far bigger prey than they could, so would happily hunt along side each other.
But now you have said that they like to fetch and run after you etc im thinking she wouldve done that without penny or lucy.

Its always a treat when she comes and greets you when you come home from work, her meow is a very very very long one and as she is running towards you the meow jiggles if that makes sense, very cute, plus she has the amazing ability to make her ears go forward when she stretches!

Ive managed to master the not jumping onto a worktop problem, it sounds harsh but a water spray bottle did the trick, only took a few sprays and she stopped doing it. I got a real fright when i used the halogen hob in the kitchen and i forgot to shut the kitchen door, went looking for where she was and she was curled up in a tiny ball on the hob that had been on all lovely and snug, luckily it wasnt hot hot when she went onto it, but i wanted that nipping in the bud straight away!

If only i could stop her trying to eat our food, she is persistent and becoming very clever in her stealth like manner, you could be sat watching the weakest link having your tea and then you will see this paw curling round the side of your plate, you tap her paw and say no, she then looks at you with slighty arched back as though she cant believe you have just told her off, a few minutes later this paw appears at the side of your head trying to reach for the fork as it gets closer to your mouth, she is so foody its unreal, the problem being i know you cant give cats human food as they could react badly to it.

I think though we made the problem slightly worse, as when she was a kitten she would pester us for food as we ate, so i used to get her and the dogs a little squirty cream and put it on a plate for them, but now i think she has realised that if she pesters us for food we will then give her a treat. I dont know if maybe i should do the water spraying thing again for whilst we eat, make her associate us eating with being sprayed. (by the way i dont give her squirty cream now, i didnt realise how much sugar it contained)

She somehow managed to distract me the other day, by jumping on one of the dogs, then bouncing off the fish tank then nabbing a sausage of my partners plate, sometimes i think that penny, lucy and maya are all working together when it comes to getting our food!

Again i have rambled on! im so sorry, ill go and start cooking tea, lets hope we get to eat most of it and not maya, penny and lucy!
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Old 27-01-2010, 17:54
Lippincote
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You've got your hands full there howly I have two Burmese, they are very like Siamese re the fetch/follow games and constant need for attention.

All my cats, as kittens, would try to beg/steal food from our plates, so I just shut them out of the room while we were eating. I did that for several days, then let them in with us again, and only shut them out if they 'relapsed'. They all learned very quickly not to do it (including several Burmese, they are artful beggars but, like Siamese, they learn quickly). My mum's cats used to steal from your plate because she never taught them not to, you'd sit there fighting them off with your elbows, not funny when they are hefty six year olds!
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Old 27-01-2010, 17:56
Tass
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A lovely word picture of her, shes sounds like a typical Siamese
Mine curl up in the dogs' fur if the dogs keep still and lie down for a minute. or at least when the younger cat isn't practising her ariel arcobatics and worrying them that any moment she will unexpectedly land on their heads
Being 17 now the older one is a bit more settled now, but still has that distinctive Siamese voice.

*puts hands over ears*

The cats just think the dogs are mobile hot water bottles

PS It sounds as if you rescued Maya, even if you didn't realise that at the time
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Old 27-01-2010, 20:03
howley20
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well i put maya out of the room whilst we where eating, it was bliss! Will have to do that each time she trys to take one of us down for a oven chip! Hopefully she will catch on quickly, although she had a major sulk when we put her in the back room, meowing her head off, right now she is laying on her radiator bed giving me baby evils!
But maybe i can get her to a stage where she will stay on her bed when we have food, that would be lovely.

Its ever so funny watching maya with penny and lucy, they could be trotting through the house to the kitchen say, and maya always takes the higher ground whilst stalking them, then when she gets to a point where there is no more higher ground she launches at them like a flying squirrel, the dogs havent got a clue whats coming and by that point its too late! sometimes i feel a little sorry for them

Fingers crossed im going to try and have some chocolate raisins, hopefully it wont resemble a scene out of Alien where those creatures attach themselves to your face
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Old 28-01-2010, 11:26
Lippincote
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You'll have to get used to the baby evils, she's Siamese

My female is 8 years old and we still get regular doses of the evils if we don't fill the food bowl fast enough/put her fleecy cover over her as soon as she requests it.

I am sure Maya will catch on quickly, mine all stay in the room even when we are eating stuff they love (like chicken) without pestering us - they know they will get some when we've finished.

Are you going to let her go outside? My male Burmese does his flying squirrel impression in 60 foot trees - I can't watch.
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Old 08-02-2010, 12:36
howley20
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sorry for not replying sooner but i have an update on maya and the ability to steal the spoon out of your mouth without even noticing!

After just 3 sessions of putting her out of the room whilst we are eating, she no longer pesters us! She just sits on her bed and stares a really evil, sulky, stare!

Every now and again she does a silent meow just to give us a flash of her pearly whites which is her way of saying dont forget about these little beautys they can hurt you!

I wont be letting maya out, she goes out on her little leader but she isnt quite keen, bucking bronco springs to mind. She would just be stolen round where i live, plus her eyesight isnt top notch, the vet had no problem with the idea of keeping her as a house cat, she actually promoted it as she is sick of seeing so many injured or dead cats, she felt that cats cant cope with the levels of traffic on our roads, and because i live near quite a main road i just wouldnt chance it!

So all is well in mayas kingdom, she hasnt quite liked being put in her place, but it has definately worked, although the other night she decided she liked the shinyness of my fork, thats what im saying anyway it had nothing to do with the fact that the fork was loaded with chicken and gravy. i told her off and she screwed up her eyes in anger! What she didnt realise is that i had just oven baked a cod fillet for her as a treat, so all was forgiven when she saw that!
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Old 08-02-2010, 13:55
lozza73
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Ooh, the delights of Siamese. My two have a Siamese mother and both have the Siamese traits. One is very chatty - non stop - and demands full on attention, wanting to play the whole time. He has a thing for rubber bands and cable ties and regularly brings them and plonks them on my feet for me to throw. He's even pulled the band out of my hair to go and fetch. They both know the word fetch and bring. The little girl is less vocal but an agile hunter and climber. She is also incredbily clingy and does the padding/kneading bread thing.

They are both adorable but 100% full time. I have found that placing a bird feeder on the other side of the window helps me to have the morning free. They get to watch Cat TV. A laser pen has been a god send as well and ensures that I don't have to chase around all day.

As I'm typing this, Tim is having a tantrum as he's been wailing at me and I've ignored him. He's laying on the floor now, wailing and kicking his back feet in the air showing off!...Now he's tapping me on the head!

I put pics of them on the AWESOME pet thread last night so you should be able to still see them.

They are lovely though and if I'm ill or down in the dumps I've got both of them climbing over me trying to give me a wash and a cuddle!

They're pretty good at not stealing stuff from my plate but they have been known to stick their head in a pint glass and drink the water from there as opposed to their bowl. Also when they were kittens, Tim tried to pick up a mug by threading his paw through the handle after watching me. Didn't work and a bit of a mess as you can expect.
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