The Cat, Mat 01/14/07

Hmm - back in July 2003, Mat was skinny!	and I wasn't going to get "attached" to any more animals and/or people! But, I'm such a sucker!

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	Mat doesn't get any meat, until he eats the pill of the day --
He says - "Yuck!"	"I licked it - doesn't that count?"	Finally he ate it, so he got some meat.
I'm trying to train Mat to play with this "marvelous" toy mouse to get dry food. When the mouse is touched; it zips around, eyes flash (roll mouse over picture), makes an annoying noise and stops. Mat knows it isn't alive and never will. He isn't too thrilled with it - yet. (Nette found this for Mat - she's a shopper)... see Chrissy's reaction	Don't worry about "poor" Mat - he knows what he's doing, he has the upper hand!	The best investment I made recently, was this heated water bowl. When I was gone to Maryland for 2 weeks, I knew he had water. I placed on the concrete table and place a chair over it to keep all the snow off of it. I placed a sand bag on top of chair to keep the chair in place, because of the possibility of strong winds. I was looking for a solar power one, but the cost and time was prohibitive.

addendum: Mat knows he gets to go outside with dry food when he makes the mouse make a sound:

• Thursday night, Feb. 22 while I was busy separating an egg, he hit the "mouse" causing me to break the yolk! (had company over the week-end - he's a scaredy cat with others)
• Monday morning, while I was in the bathroom, I left him eating his meat treat, he hits the mouse a couple of times (not patiently waiting for me)
• Monday night and Tuesday am, he again hit the mouse on his own!
• I, now have to remove the mouse when I bring him in the morning because he'll hit the mouse before eating the vitamin! I have to try to outwit him.

Now, if I could train him to use the toilet, not to claw the furniture, shed, and, and, and, and... he could be an inside cat most of the time (he does like it outside)! I did have a cat that used to use the toilet that we gave to Jack & Margaret.

April 11, 2007 he brought me a live bunny rabbit... the bunny made it through the night and I released him the garden - maybe he will stay away from Mat, but Mat is good...