Where’s the peanut butter?!

Four years ago Tanya was out of town in London and I had a boy over. Well, at the time, I thought he was a girl, but that’s another story. Anyway, his name is Jupiter and I let him sleep in my bed while she was away and today, he is the first cat I’ve come to really appreciate and love. If you’re ever lucky enough to take care of him - here’s how it goes…

Food - this is straightforward with his automatic feeder. As long as food is in the feeder, it will dispense the right amount at intervals throughout the day until it runs out of food. It’s somewhat important that he not be allowed to overeat, since he tends to eat grass from the neighborhood and will very frequently vomit due to the combination of too much food and the grass. But he means well. As a special treat, Jupiter also likes the dog’s canned food. He looks forward to a small scoop of this plopped on a saucer and flattened out a little with his dinner.

Water - Jupiter tends to drink from various places around the house. Favorite locations include the dog’s water bowl, the dog’s water holder inside his crate, or glasses of water on bedroom nightstands.

Asthma - (it’s not just for Sufjan Stevens’ record label) Jupiter suffers from asthma. Around the time we officially adopted him, I remember taking him to the vet because he had developed a bad scar on his back (probably from rubbing up against a hot pipe or something - this is where the bald spot on his back came from) and was also having great difficulty breathing. I was terrified and decided we needed to take him to the vet and so called the Cat Clinic of Seattle. The vet investigated him and wasn’t sure what to diagnose but prepared us for the worst indicating that he could have some sort of terminal problem. It was then that I realized how I could love a cat and how devastating it could be to bring a newly adopted pet in for a checkup and be told “he might die.” But he lived and was diagnosed with asthma, so now we give him one puff with an inhaler every morning and night. The procedure is outlined in a photo slideshow on my flickr.

Affection - is the one thing Jupiter needs most. He came from the neighborhood and is well loved by all our neighbors and passers by frequently tell us how he has worked into their hearts. At home, he especially likes to play with various toys which we have dangling over the doorways in our home and he is also very fond of laser pointers. He is very fond of playing with any of these toys on carpet, especially the stairs leading to the second floor. He is also very happy to have a lap, preferably adorned with denim/jeans, to sit on. Jupiter enjoys having his head, cheeks, and rear end scratched and also enjoys having his ears gently rubbed between an index and middle finger knuckle.

Commands - Jupiter understands more than he lets on, but he definitely knows his name and responds to a three toned - “high-low-high” - whistle.

Personal matters - Jupiter only uses nature’s toilets - there is no indoor litter to change.

Io, the fourth largest moon of Jupiter and my first dog. If you’re ever lucky enough to take care of him - here’s how it goes…

Food - Io is very skinny but he loooves to eat! For breakfast he gets one scoop (cup) of dry food (Wellness Super 5). At dinner he eats one scoop of dry food with about a third of a can of wet food (Wysong beef). He basically inhales whatever he’s fed, so don’t expect it to last. Usually after his morning walk he likes to get a frozen kong treat. These are usually packed with a coating of peanut butter and a combination of dry food and chunks from Natural Balance’s rolls. During the day, he sometimes gets more of his dry food inside treats, commensurate with how fussy he seems.

Water - Io’s usually goes through his waterbowl daily and he likes having a good supply of fresh water.

Affection - like Jupiter, Io is incredibly affectionate and craves human interaction almost as much as he craves bones with raw animal flesh. He loves to go for walks, short runs (under 4 miles and preferably not on pavement), and to chase sticks or wrestle. He lets you know when he needs affection and can sometimes be persuaded to leave you alone but usually it’s easier on one’s conscience to just give him the small token of your affection that he’s asking for.

Commands - Io knows many commands, including:

• sit - to sit down (note, the command is not “sit down” since that confuses “sit” and “down”)
• down - to lie down
• on your side / roll over - actually he doesn’t know either of these but sometimes he does something that looks like he might understand them
• stay (commanded when showing him an open palm) - to stay where he is
• find it - a game. You can play either by putting both hands behind your back, putting food in one hand, and extending both arms out with closed fists telling him to “find it!” and giving him the treat when he pokes at the correct hand. Or you can play by commanding him to “sit”, “stay” and then putting food somewhere in another room and when you get back, point to approximately where the snack is and telling him to “find it!”
• hug - a new command not that well understood, but this gets Io to hop up in a loving embrace
• go to your bed / go to your crate - to get him to go to his bed or crate (these only really work when he has an incentive like if you’re about to give him a Kong).

Personal matters - Io “takes care of business” a couple times a day. Usually once in the morning and again later after dinner before bed. This schedule is highly volatile, though, oftentimes with longer periods with business not being attended to after extended sessions eating sticks. Accidents in the house may be cleaned up with the Bissel Spot Bot, which should be standard issue with any puppy.

Note: This is all way obsolete

welcome, dear reader! you are reading the weblog of patrick niemeyer. i should not be confused with various other patrick niemeyers the world has known or who google knows more intimately (like the peace
corps volunteer or the guy who wrote the java book). i’m the patrick niemeyer you’ll find if you traverse to google links 81-90 and then look for the page listing upcoming.org
users. UPDATE: Since signing up for adwords I got to about #65 in Google (which I’m assured should have nothing to do with adwords) and about I’m about #32 in Windows Live Search. therefore I have no choice but to replace the Google search box with Live Search. i’ve found live search equal to or better than google in a bunch of ways lately, anyway.

this blog is based on rael dornfest’s excellent blosxom platform and with a few of its plugins for comments, syndication, the calendar view, and a few other things. i use the webservice provided by  captchas.net to do verification on comment posts and prevent comment
spam.

my blog is hosted by dominet, who have combined able hosting, support, and reasonable prices. if you are in the market for a linux based host, i definitely recommend them
(and thanks to nick for referring me to them!)

occasionally i post entries to my blog from my phone using a modified flavor and the wikieditish plugin for blosxom. those entries (including this one!) are usually recognizable by their lack of formatting and hyperlinks (special characters are a relative pain with my phone’s keyboard) as well as higher density of typos (partially the keyboard, partially me being a modern spell check cripple). please forgive me. for this post i have done some post-processing to fix typos and add links, though.

when i do post from my phone, that is with an hp h6315 pocketpc phone. i recommend the windowsce line of pdas and think they have gotten to the point of integration where it is definitely worth considering a pocketpc phone or smartphone, but the h6315 (which is about a year old by now) has a few obvious annoyances and while i would not advise someone against getting one, i can’t really advocate
it. when i’m on the go, i use the mobile flavor of this site to see if anything has broken.

I also have a cat named Jupiter and dog named Io - sometimes good friends help take care of them.

here are some qr codes that used to be on my navigation bar:

width=”135″ src=”/files/qrw.png”>

width=”135″ src=”/files/qrc.png”>

this entry will be updated directly as seems necessary. thanks for visiting!