Dog Whiskers

From top: a tag, the whisker in question, a human hair.



Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens......

So I thought I knew what whiskers were. They're the little hairs on the sides of animal's faces that help them gauge width when navigating small spaces. For example a cat's whiskers are as wide as the widest part of their body. If they're going through a tunnel and they're whiskers brush, the space is too small and they'll get stuck.

That's what I thought.

Upon looking it up online, Vibrissa are sensitive and in some animals help them detect air movement. And similar to how eyelashes protect eyes, they help keep foreign particles from being inhaled.

Mojo has several sets of whiskers: on his snout, his eyebrows and on the side of his face. For the most part his whiskers are as expected, kind of like eyelashes. But then there's the set on his cheeks. He has three on each side. They're black, hard and especially thick.

Matt was sitting on the couch Monday when he got stabbed. The offending object? One of Mojo's whiskers that, for whatever reason, is no longer attached to his face. (Popular theories: it just fell out, Gunnar yanked it out or it got stuck in the couch and was then yanked free.) We didn't realize what it was at first. It was so thick I thought it was part of a black plastic tag. Except that if you look closely it has a base and tapers down to a thinner end. Really, it feels more like super hard plastic than a soft eyelash. And when we inspected Mojo, he now has two whiskers on one side and three on the other.

Water bowls

The pets like to surprise me by putting funny things in their water bowls.

It started out with hair elastics. Katie liked to steal my hair elastics. She thought they were the best thing ever. I read up on this online and apparently cats do this to their treasured possessions, things they want to keep safe.

Next up was shoelace—both of the cat's favorite thing to play with. Shoelace gets dunked a lot.

This morning what I found in the water bowl was downright funny: A frog! Ok, so it's a green ball shaped like a frog. Technically it's Mojo's but I'm sure it was one of the cat's that did it. It's just funny because frogs belong in water.

Favorite things

My pets are spoiled. They have all sorts of toys. But nothing I ever bring home from the pet store is apparently as fun as household junk.

Katie's all-time favorite toy is shoelace. I had a pair of boots that came with an extra set of shoelaces. She loves to swat at it when we swing it around. We used to play this game every night before bed. This was back when she was an only pet. Now I try to play it with her every day. She sits near shoelace all the time. She brings it to me and meows up a storm, asking to play. She carries it upstairs, downstairs, in the bed. There was even an unfortunate incident where Mojo ate one of the shoelaces. (I saw some very gross proof). Gunnar loves shoelace too. It's to the point where, they'll even steal small ropes and cloth belts that are attached to my clothes. I had a black sweater that had a belted waist. The belt was a thick black string (or thin rope) and the cats pulled it off the sweater and brought it to me. If I ever have laundry on the floor with any sort of strings, they'll play with it.

This looks like a fun string.

Katie used to steal my hair elastics all the time. But after Mojo ate a few, I've stopped leaving them around. They stay in the bathroom—not the nightstand where the cat can get them.

Gunnar's favorite toys are Q-tips, cheap plastic drinking straws and dog food. He loves Q-tips. He knows they're in the bathroom. He's even knocked over a trashcan to get to them before. He loves to bat drinking straws around. He's broken into my lower kitchen cabinets to find straws I didn't know I had before. But he can't really play with either of these these because he wants to bring them to Mojo so Mojo will play with him. And Mojo will just eat them. Game over. (And Mojo doesn't really need to digest either.) And then there's dog food. Every day he'll find a single piece of kibble and bat it around the house. Every day without fail. He thinks it's the best thing ever how it slides across the wood floor. This game always ends when Mojo eats the kibble. I'm not sure if this is an intentional part of the game, but Gunnar does bring it to Mojo and dogfood is for Mojo to eat.

Guarding the much sought-after shoelace.

Helping mom work.

Mojo's favorite is socks. He LOVES socks. Every night he finds a pair of socks to play with and does a lap around the bedroom with socks. He'll carry the socks around with him—upstairs, downstairs, even outside if we let him. He likes to play keepaway with the socks. He'd like to play tugs too, but I don't really want to destroy our socks.

Delicious, mom.

Pet Salon

Katie is fascinated by foam toe separators. Every time I paint my toe nails she tries to run off with one.

Gunnar is obsessed with Q-tips. He thinks they're the best toy ever.

If Mojo did hair, we could have a pet salon ;)

Weekends with the Kids

 I was hanging out with my furry trio this weekend. Notice how they surround me?

Apparently I bore Mojo. Yawn!

This trio fits so nicely in the bed. There's almost room for me.

Park Outing

Mojo went to the park today. I took him to the playground next to our house. He really loves to climb on the playground equipment. He climbs up the stairs and runs over the bridge. He's never been down the slide, but he likes to jump off the platform.