I got to visit one of my favorite indie pet shops! It has been a while since I’ve been to this one.

Of course, after not being there for a few weeks, they had a lot of new inventory to explore.

They had a whole bunch of new toys.

And all those wand toys too!

And they had some new cat food in, but we stuck with what I usually eat.

The best part, though, was how happy the staff was to see me! They really enjoy having me there. You can see it all in the video below.
 

My human and I had no doubt that my calendar for 2027 should be all photos of me and the peach kitty. But there was one problem.

For all the time we spent together, there are actually very few good, high-quality photos of the two of us!

My human had to work to get good candids of us together, and she rarely used her real camera.

Most of the time she only used her older iPhone. Even the better photos, like this one, weren’t the best quality. Sure she could use AI to fix them, but they would also lose something in spirit. So she had to dig deep into Photoshop tips and tricks to make those photos work.

I don’t know if you can see the real difference here, but the original photo would have looked really bad as a calendar print. The changes on this version fix the muddiness and lack of contrast.

Even worse, some of our favorite photos weren’t photos at all, but just video frame captures! But even some of those could be fixed although just barely.

Although the quality isn’t the best, it can still be used, and the moment captured outweighs its flaws. This calendar may not quite be up to par as far as photo quality, but I think you’ll love it anyhow! I’ll let you know as soon as it is live.

I was worried about my weekly outtakes. This photo was the only one I could find at first, so I was beginning to think there’d be no funny photos for this week.

But then I looked through the photos my human takes after my therapy cat visits. And I hit the jackpot!

It started off with the classic tongue out photo. You see these pretty often.

Then there was the nearly-as-classic human hand ruining the photo shot.

Then there was a photo where I’m either grimacing or about to sneeze.

I look like I’m telling my human to stop goofing off with the terrible photos! But I’m kind of glad she was having an off day now because it saved my outtake day. Which photo did you think was funniest? Let me know in the comments.

Did you catch my country cat modeling session the other day? Even if you did, it doesn’t matter, because the video is so much more fun! And that’s saying something.

I had lots of fun with this shoot, and so did my human.

And spoiler alert: I may have liked wearing the wig better than the cowboy hat! Check out the video below.
 

I have a very unusual lifestyle for a house cat: I enjoy wearing dresses, I get excited when my human sets up lights and a camera for a video shoot. Cat shows are like a second home to me, and I’m friendly with just about any human who wants to pet me.

The one thing I’m not very good at is…relating to other cats. Or behaving like most other cats in general. I love boxes now, but at first I didn’t know what to do with them. I love to play with my human, but I don’t really know how to play with other cats.

I’ve spent so much time with humans that sometimes my own human wonders if I have forgotten how to Cat. So she looked into it, and here’s the truth about cats and cat behavior.

Most Basic Cat Behavior Is Instinctual and Not Learned

Many of the things cats do — the actions people identify as cat-like — come from instinct. Purring and kneading appear very early in kittenhood. We adapt to litter box use because of our natural behavior around elimination and digging. Scratching surfaces, our habit of perching on high surfaces, and our attraction to moving water also come from instinct.

Feline body language is species typical and not taught: the raised tail indicating familiarity, ears back signifying fear or irritation. Rubbing against items or other cats or people to leave scent markers. Yes, even airplane ears, that classic sign of discomfort, come from instinct!

The hunting instinct is another thing cats have from birth. But there’s more to hunting than just instinct.

When Instinct and Learned Behavior Combine

While cats instinctively stalk and hunt small prey, or in the case of most house cats, toys, hunting is also a skill, and not every cat is good at it.

Mother Cats Teach Their Kittens How to Hunt

In the wild, hunting means survival. So if a kitten is raised outside by a mother who has relied on her own wits, and not humans, to survive, they will learn first class hunting skills. A mother cat that has not had to hunt to survive still knows how to do it, but her skillset may not be as sharp, and it could affect her kittens’ hunting abilities. Maybe that’s why I’m such a lousy hunter — I never really learned from my pedigreed mother.

Social Skills: The Area Where Cats Really Can Forget How to Cat…Or Never Learn

While all cats are born with basic body language — tail postures, nose touching, mutual grooming (allogrooming), and cheek rubbing — other social skills are learned. It starts in kitten hood, and yes, skills can be forgotten over time.

I’m a prime example. Although I grew up with a mom and siblings, once I came home to my human, my focus was on her. I did live with two other cats, but they were much older than me. They had settled into a routine, and I wasn’t really a big part of their lives. Since I related more to humans than them, I really didn’t have a reason to practice my social skills.

Then, since they were much older, they passed away while I was still fairly young — 5 or 6 years old. So later on, when I met the peach kitty, a lot of times I didn’t know how to react to him. When he wanted to play, I didn’t understand. I had no idea how to respond to his signs of affection, so I did something that is actually the typically cat version of polite: I just sat there. I didn’t get upset or angry or smack him — because I liked him! It’s just that I didn’t know what to do.

When a Kitten Never Learns Social Skills

Many people who have worked in cat rescue for a while have encountered this situation. They wind up with a very, very young solo kitten that they have to raise without a mom. While the kitten has all the instincts of any cat, they don’t learn the social boundaries that would help them live with other cats.

Kittens come equipped with predatory behaviors such as stalking, pouncing and biting, but solo kittens don’t learn to organize those behaviors into actual hunting skill. This bleeds into playing and socializing. Learning how hard to bite during play is partly social. The reaction of littermates helps teach kittens when they’ve gone too far, and solo kittens don’t get that training.

A solo kitten may not know when they are playing too rough or when another cat wants to end a play session. Plus they could become overly dependent on the person raising them, unless the person knows to properly socialize a solo kitten.

A solo kitten, raised by a human from birth, may come the closest to not knowing how to cat. But they still have cat instincts, cat reflexes and body language. They will still have their catness, if you will.

All this comes down to one thing: no matter what a cat’s life is like, or who they are living with, or if they never interact with other cats, they will never really forget how to cat. Not even a cat like me, who dresses up, performs for the camera, and loves people more than other cats. I’m still very much a cat, and I know it. I’m just a little bit quirkier than your average cat.

Maybe you remember last month, I went to the big pet store. I came home with some Halloween costumes, but you didn’t see much. That’s because my human was going to put together a video and include more there. It took her a while…actually she kind of forgot about it! But it’s up now, and it’s pretty fun.

I actually was all over the store for this shopping trip, including the clothing section behind the Halloween costumes.

And I did find a couple of non-Halloween outfits.

And we left in some of the parts where I explored the other sections of the store.

You can watch the video below, and stick around til the end for a surprise!
 

I saw quite a few of my regulars during my therapy cat visit at the memory care assisted living this week. In fact, the very first people I visited with were the lady who likes my high fives and the lady who’s my other biggest fan. So I spent some quality time with them before the staff started leading me around to the other residents in the big room.

While I like my regulars a lot, sometimes I give some extra special attention to residents even if they are only paying a little attention to me. I will move up close to them, headbutt their hands and show them I’m there for them. The regulars are already happy and present for me so they don’t always need this type of special attention.

As they’ve been doing lately, the staff took me around to all the wheelchair bound residents. They’re all really different. Some sleep through it all, slumped over in their wheelchairs. A couple, who used to be really active, sit there, depressed, and that’s sad. There’s one guy who I used to visit with when he wasn’t in a wheelchair, and he used to pretend to be indifferent to me (but he really liked me). Now that he’s in a wheelchair, however, he’s always happy to see me.

One woman sat there with her hands in her mouth, mumbling incoherently. The staff had to work to get her attention so she would look at me. But once she did, she was so excited to see me! She kept repeating over and over again, almost robotically, about how pretty I was. Then as I was visiting other wheelchair bound residents, she kept urging them to pet me.

One lady in a wheelchair looked up at me and my human…and started crying. Just looking at us and crying. Finally my human looked directly at her and mouthed “I’m sorry,” with intention. She has learned from cats that the intention you put behind words is more important than the words themselves. And the woman heard. The staff member urged her to pet me, and my human reached out my paw for her to hold. Then when she wrapped her finger around my paw, my human reached around her finger and squeezed it. Sometimes, not always, the residents just need a physical connection of some sort. This lady did.

That’s the thing about these memory care patients. It’s really easy to stop thinking about them as people as they fade. But it’s important to continue to acknowledge their humanity. Otherwise they give up and disappear that much quicker.

The last person we visited at the residence was the nonverbal woman who pets me with heavy hands. She came in while we were visiting other patients, and tapped my human to let us know she was there. The moment we were able, my human brought me over to see her. She had one of her drawings that she often carries around. But she put it aside for a photo with me, and I sat with her for a very long time.

So my human found this blonde pigtail wig and decided to do a whole photo shoot around it! We already had all the elements — dresses, backdrop and props (from a UGC video we did), so it was easier to set up than it may look.

The red and white gingham dress was a natural!

And this woven cotton dress with the big skirt. My human says I look like I’m ready for a barn dance.

No wig, but we decided to pull out my cowboy hat and neckerchief too.

I will say, the hardest part of wearing this wig was keeping my ears tucked in! They are a little big to fit under it.

We had a rainy day, so did that mean no photos in the turret? Of course not! We waited until after dark, and my human set up a couple of lights.

And of course I had an outfit to wear, but my human couldn’t resist snapping a quick portrait.

First we pulled out my goth dress.

It took some adjusting to get the hat right.

So we finally got it right…

And my human snapped a close up before getting a completely different idea.

She put another black dress on me…only backwards, so it framed me.

Then she changed the angle slightly. Frankly, I think I look like a goth turkey! Tell me if you agree.

My August video compilation is up, and it was a very busy month! I had a lot of dressing up to do.

I had enough Paris Hilton pet dresses to have a whole fashion show at Club Meow.

I had two cat shows in August! One in Victorville and one in Glendale.

I really enjoyed all the social time. And I even had some playtime. You’ll get to see all this, and more, in the video compilation below. Let me know your favorite videos of mine!