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On this page, I'm going to put those pictures that involve our cats, which, at the beginning of the year, were Lucky, Tyger and Zack. I won't include on this page pictures of the cats that were taken on some trip or at some event that has its own album page.

January 26: Zack Recovers from Florida

Zack's thirteenth trip to Florida just concluded a week ago, but he is still recovering from all the excitement of his travels.

Fred was here last weekend, and since he'd already had Zack's company for a couple of weeks in Florida, he decided to take Tyger up to his house with him for the week. I am sure that Tyger appreciates the vacation away from the youngster, who is always wanting to play, whether Tyger is in the mood or not.

Since his play buddy is gone, Zack is catching up on some well-earned snooze time while I am doing some scanning of old photos for my online album.

February 14: Sleepy Time at the Cat Ranch

er Most days, I can usually be found in the study working on my photo album, and whichever cats are in the house are usually in the room with me (although Zack actually prefers the basket in the master bath. Today it's Zack and Lucky, each occupying his own chair:

Zack

Lucky

March 5: Box Wars

It's Saturday morning, and we're in the study where Fred is going through some mail and tossing what he doesn't need to keep in a box on the floor beside him. Tyger and Lucky seemed particularly attracted to the box, taking turns snuggling up in it- even when waste paper was tossed on top of them. I could see a conflict developing, and I made a movie of the two cats vying for the coveted box position. Below are the three pictures and a player you use to watch the movie:

Lucky in the Box

Tyger in the Box

"Can I Take Another Turn in the Box?

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls) The Fight For The Box

March 30: The Box on Steroids

The cats were having such a great time with a small empty box just a couple of weeks ago that when Fred's new guitar came in a much larger box, we thought the cats might enjoy it.

Actually, Lucky was intrigued by the big box even before Fred got the guitar out of it. When it had arrived, I put it in the living room, where I would find Lucky gazing longingly at it.

No sooner had Fred got the guitar out of the big box and set it back down on the floor than Lucky went right inside to take up residence.

This gave Fred an idea. He cut two cat-sized holes in the box one near each end of the box so that when the box was set narrow side down on the floor, a cat could enter on one side of the box at one end and emerge on the other side of the box at the other end. Fred closed up both ends of the box so that the two doors were the only ways in or out. The cats, especially Lucky and Tyger, took quickly to chasing each other through the box or just taking up residence inside and repelling all comers.

Later that day I made two movies- one of Lucky inside and coming out of the box, and the other an interesting one of Zack grooming Lucky, something we don't see often:

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls) Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are!

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls) "You Can Train that Cowlick, You Know"

April 23-24: One Fast Cat

For a while now, Fred's been investigating an exercise wheel for the cats. Not that they need it, exactly, but the videos we watched online seemed to show cats enjoying running on it. Think of a hamster wheel about four feet in diameter and you will kind of get the idea. Anyway, we ordered it and it came two days ago, but I waited until today for Fred to be here to help with the assembly.

I want to show you the assembly process, and to do that I have put a little slide show below, left. I've selected 13 representative pictures from the many we took to illustrate the assembly process. To go from one picture to another, just click the "NEXT" and "PREV" legends. My narrative below will be keyed to the number in the upper left corner of each picture ("1/13", "2/13", etc.). You can also click on any of the 13 dots below the pictures to go directly to a particular one.

Although the cats were intrigued with the box as it came off the FedEx truck (1/13), I waited until Fred was here to actually open it up. When we did, we found the actual product box from One Fast Cat (2/13).The I waited until Fred was here to even open the shipping box and take out the actual box containing the One Fast Cat wheel. As you can see, the kitties were just as intrigued with that box.

1 / 13 The Box Arrives 2 / 13 One Fast Cat 3 / 13 One Fast Cat Unpacked 4 / 13 Beginning a Rim 5 / 13 Completing a Rim 6 / 13 Both Rims Complete 7 / 13 Inserting Treads 8 / 13 Completing Treads 9 / 13 Treads Completed 10 / 13 Securing Second Rim 11 / 13 Assembled Base 12 / 13 Affixing Tread Pads 13 / 13 One Fast Cat is Complete PREV NEXT

The next step was to unpack the box and make sure that we had all the parts we were supposed to have (3/13). We didn't lay out all the individual parts; many of them were for the base assembly on which the wheel sits and rotates. The biggest job is the wheel itself, but it was fairly simple in its construction. It is composed of two circular rims (each composed of 12 arc-shaped pieces) that hold the 16 tread sections securely in place. So the first job is to put together one of the rims, and I am beginning that process (4/13). Included was a little rubber mallet to pound the pieces together securely, and I wasn't long before my first rim was almost complete (5/13). I repeated this process twice until both rims were complete (6/13).

Next come the tread pieces. They are fitted into one of the rims, and they both lock into the rim and into each other, and after a bit of trial and error I got the hang of it and was on my way (7/13). Once I got started, it was pretty easy, but the tough part came with the last tread piece (8/13). It had to lock into the rim and into TWO adjoining tread pieces simutaneously. This took a bit of doing, but we got them all locked together (9/13).

It is the second circular rim that really holds the treads in place, and they lock into it the same was as the opposite rim. This is where the mallet came in handy as I worked my way around the wheel twice hammering the second rim securely in place (10/13). Meanwhile, Fred had been assembling the base, which consisted of two dual roller assemblies, a support pillar at each end and a support rod connecting them together to the correct width (11/13). By the time I had secured the second rim, he had the support base finished.

With the wheel set onto its base, the last step was to cover the hard plastic treads with a rubberized cushion (12/13). The cushion came in the form of peel-and-stick pieces, and it was necessary to carefully abut them to each other leaving no gaps that a cat's claws could get caught in. This was probably the slowest part of the assembly, made even slower when we discovered that one of the cushion sheets was marred with a severe gash. Luckily, One Fast Cat provides about a foot more sheeting than you need, so I was able to cut out the blemish from the last sheet with a razor blade and still have enough cushion to complete the task (albeit with two small pieces instead of one larger piece at the end). With that, our One Fast Cat Exercise Wheel was complete, and ready for its inaugural run (13/13).

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Putting together the cat wheel was easy- just like signing up for a gym membership. Using it is the tough part, but we were drawn in by the many online videos showing cats having a whale of a good time running at top speed on the wheel. Reality, of course, is very little like what you see in the movies.

First we had to get the cats onto the wheel and get them to walk on it as well. We did this with treats, and while Fred was working with the cats, I made a movie, which is at right. We spent a good deal of time in this first session with the cats, with results that sadly did not duplicate those we'd seen online. But it's a work in progress. Here are a few still pictures of us enticing the cats with treats:

(Click Thumbnails to View)

The first training session was so strenuous, that Tyger and I had to go relax upstairs:

April 29: Cats on a Wheel

Well, we set up the cat exercise wheel a few days ago, and today we've made more of a concerted effort to get each of the cats on it. We have set it up near the living room window, and the cats are quite used to it. Today, between Fred and I, we have our first movies of each of the cats being lured with treats or cat food to walk on the wheel. No running flat-out yet, though. Here are movies of all three of them:

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls) Tyger

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls) Lucky

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls) Zack

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