Again? But we just partied...
18 Aug 2018 12:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneIt is with regret that I report after 2 months (a little more) of letting me sleep through the night every night (after making as much as an hour-long song and dance after I go to bed, however, but whatever), Snookums has returned to his Party Cat persona and woke me up 4 times the night before last and twice last night.
Let's not make a habit of it, okay?
Possibly on the plus side, even though standing on Wax's face and licking her hair is one of the primary weapons in his arsenal (because it makes her whimper or squeak in her sleep), she has now grown so accustomed that she doesn't wake up at all. I mean. That's good for her, anyway.
I don't go lock myself in the library with him anymore, because we keep the kitty litter box in there now. Instead I tend to follow him into the kitchen and check the food bowl levels and then, if we have it, give him a treat. He frequently repeats the process, especially if it was a small treat, but generally after the second time, instead I pick him up and wash one of his feet under running water.
Now, his stinky feet always need it, because he's terrible at washing his own toenails, but tbh it doesn't really help all that much if I don't have the time to scrub and scrape each claw with soap, and I definitely don't in the middle of the night with the lights off. (And the last time I took the time to sit him down with a basin of water and scrub each toenail with soap - in the daytime! obvs - , he got so offended that he didn't come back and cuddle me for 8 hours. I cried.)
Anyway, he hates having his toes washed or his butt wiped, so those are the quickest ways to get him to leave me alone for a short while, and Washing a Foot in running water is now, I think, a shorthand between us. Although some nights he is so full of devilry that he comes back later and I ultimately have to wash two feet.
* Thanks to some show Sphynx owners, I've ultimately arrived at the best method of actually cleaning Snookums's toes being coconut oil. It's possible to just scrape the black gunk off each toe with a cotton pad dipped in coconut oil, but the cuticles are fragile and Snookums doesn't have optimal claw strength - they flake and splinter frequently - so ideally one rubs coconut oil all over each toe and toenail, including in the webbing and all the folds - using a q-tip, yes, because nothing else works - and then leaves him for about 10 minutes, which he spends pacing around, angrily licking his feet and yowling about the injustice of it all. (He's very eloquent when he sings the blues.) Then one recaptures him and scrapes each toenail and massages every fold of toe skin and webbing and then sort of wipes all the feet, which still leaves them pretty oily, and he runs away to repeat the singing the blues process, smelling like a very strange dessert.
Let's not make a habit of it, okay?
Possibly on the plus side, even though standing on Wax's face and licking her hair is one of the primary weapons in his arsenal (because it makes her whimper or squeak in her sleep), she has now grown so accustomed that she doesn't wake up at all. I mean. That's good for her, anyway.
I don't go lock myself in the library with him anymore, because we keep the kitty litter box in there now. Instead I tend to follow him into the kitchen and check the food bowl levels and then, if we have it, give him a treat. He frequently repeats the process, especially if it was a small treat, but generally after the second time, instead I pick him up and wash one of his feet under running water.
Now, his stinky feet always need it, because he's terrible at washing his own toenails, but tbh it doesn't really help all that much if I don't have the time to scrub and scrape each claw with soap, and I definitely don't in the middle of the night with the lights off. (And the last time I took the time to sit him down with a basin of water and scrub each toenail with soap - in the daytime! obvs - , he got so offended that he didn't come back and cuddle me for 8 hours. I cried.)
Anyway, he hates having his toes washed or his butt wiped, so those are the quickest ways to get him to leave me alone for a short while, and Washing a Foot in running water is now, I think, a shorthand between us. Although some nights he is so full of devilry that he comes back later and I ultimately have to wash two feet.
* Thanks to some show Sphynx owners, I've ultimately arrived at the best method of actually cleaning Snookums's toes being coconut oil. It's possible to just scrape the black gunk off each toe with a cotton pad dipped in coconut oil, but the cuticles are fragile and Snookums doesn't have optimal claw strength - they flake and splinter frequently - so ideally one rubs coconut oil all over each toe and toenail, including in the webbing and all the folds - using a q-tip, yes, because nothing else works - and then leaves him for about 10 minutes, which he spends pacing around, angrily licking his feet and yowling about the injustice of it all. (He's very eloquent when he sings the blues.) Then one recaptures him and scrapes each toenail and massages every fold of toe skin and webbing and then sort of wipes all the feet, which still leaves them pretty oily, and he runs away to repeat the singing the blues process, smelling like a very strange dessert.
(no subject)
Date: 20 Aug 2018 12:48 am (UTC)I had no idea you had to do that. Are Sphynx cat's claws particularly fragile? And why do you have to wash his feet vs just letting him do it? I've had cats for years, but never a Sphynx.
(no subject)
Date: 20 Aug 2018 12:13 pm (UTC)I don't know anything about Sphynxes beyond what I've seen in posts from their owners; the reason the owner in question cleans them carefully is simply to get the smelly gunk out, but cuticles are relatively fragile skin on anybody. This blog post is the one that I got the idea from, but it's written from the cat's point of view and includes baby talk.