OneAndOneIs2

The kittens reached an important milestone recently: They were allowed to go outside. Something Tina's Base has been eager to do for weeks, and my Aidy has been.. well.. indifferent to, really.

The difference in their reactions is partly down to their basic natures, and partly to how they've been brought up. It appears that I've been a bit of an influence on kitten behaviour.

The thing is, you see, that Tina has had cats before. She grew up around cats, she knows how cats act and react, and she treats her cat as.. well.. a cat.

But I've only ever had dogs before. So it appears I tend to treat kittens rather like puppies. And the thing about puppies is, unless what you're doing is causing actual pain or distress, you can basically do anything you want with them. And if they trust you, very little is likely to cause them distress, because they know you wouldn't hurt them. So you can do pretty much anything that isn't painful.

Cats, I was told, aren't like that. Cats have dignity, and independence, and will only do things THEY want to do. And they have sharp claws to enforce this.

So.. you know how little kids like being thrown in the air and caught? And how most puppies think this is fun too? This is apparently something cats don't like - they don't like being held in a restrictive grip, and as for being chucked around like a frisbee.. No. Just no.

But hey, I didn't know that. So I didn't think twice about picking Aidy up and lofting her to the ceiling. Tina saw this happening and warned me "She'll take your hand off". But it was too late: Aidy was already dropping towards the ground at an alarming rate.

And then I caught her again, and she came to rest. Tina was braced to leap out of her chair and run for the bandages. But she didn't, because Aidy was just sitting in my hands with a mildly puzzled "What's happening to me?" look on her face.

Apparently, Aidy never got the memo about proper cat behaviour. I'm told most cats are very unhappy about the idea of being picked up and/or held on their backs so you can rub their tummy.

And don't come out of a room because you've told them to. And don't lay purring when you pin them to the ground and let go repeatedly in a mock-battle.

(Don't know whose kitten that is)

And her habit of walking around squeaking incessantly when I go out is not, apparently, in the scope of normal cat behaviour.

Base, however, is Tina's cat, so I've had less to do with her and she acts far more like a proper cat.

Well, most of the time.

The thing is.. being a proper cat, she has claws. Which she's very fond of. And she does have an impressive set. Unlike Aidy, who usually appears not to have any.

Trouble is, they're so impressive that even when velveted, they still stick out a bit. And after you've been trodden on by a little pincushion a few dozen times, you start to feel a bit hard done by. So I started threatening to file her claws down. Which Tina said I was welcome to do, so long as I was prepared to lose a hand.

So one day, when Tina was out and I was sitting on the sofa filing my nails, Base jumped up to say hello. And after I'd dug her claws back out of my leg, I decided enough was enough, and I was going to see how she'd react to the nailfile.

So I took hold of one paw, pushed on it to pop the claws out, and then started lightly rubbing my diamond nailfile across her claws.

Guess what she did?

If you guessed "Absolutely nothing" then you got it right. Well done. She just sat there, giving me a mildly puzzled look that I've become accustomed to getting from kittens, and watched me file the points off her claws. And then do the same for her other paw.

I don't think Tina really believed that I had done this until a while later, when SHE was sitting filing her nails, and Base jumped onto her lap and swiped at her hands.

"She's telling you she wants a manicure," I said. Tina didn't believe me, but played along. And was kind of lost for words when, as soon as she started, Base laid down and started purring happily as her claws got filed again.

I think it was around then that I started to be considered a bad, or at least strange, influence on the kittens.

Then there was the time when Base was playing with a plastic carrier bag that had been left laying around. At one point she climbed right inside, and I slowly took hold of the handles and started lifting.

"She'll shred your hand," I was warned again.

"No, she won't," I said with rather more confidence than I actually felt, "she likes me."

Tina shook her head and waited to see if Base would shred her way out of the bag or go for my vulnerable fingers first.

Guess which she did?

Yup, you got it: Yet again, she did absolutely nothing. Both of us were waiting for her to make it clear that she didn't want to be picked up in a bag, and we went on waiting as I lifted her clear of the floor, carried her around the room, and even hung her off the doorhandle. She was utterly unconcerned.

This morning, I was up first, and she was again playing in a bag. I was able to pick her up, carry her up to Tina, let her run around Tina's room for a while, and then she climbed back into the bag and let herself be carried back downstairs again.

I'm told that's not normal kitten behaviour either.

Tina's co-workers, most of whom seem to own cats themselves, seemed a bit skeptical about the stories Tina was telling about how our kittens were behaving. The skepticism took a bit of a hit as a result of the last Base-related anecdote, which happened Thursday. Tina came home with a little plastic filing cabinet she'd rescued from work. She thought she could find a use for it, so she rebuilt it and went to get the things she wanted to file.

In the meantime, Base came over to investigate, and I couldn't help notice how the drawers were almost the perfect size to hold a kitten...

Tina has pretty much given up on warning me that I'm about to get savaged by a kitten, so when she saw me gently lowering an unresisting Base into the drawer and slowly sliding it shut, I got a "Cats shouldn't let you do things like that" instead.

But Base just let herself be filed away, without a sound. I should mention that the drawers are transparent and I was watching very closely for any signs of distress - if she had shown any, I'd have opened it straight away again.

But she just sat there. I opened it a little way and got the usual bemused stare, closed it again, and then Tina decided that Base must be unhappy about this and insisted I let her out before she became traumatised.

I duly removed the drawer so Base was completely free, and what did Base do?

Yup. Walked straight back into the filing cabinet.

So I put the drawer back in, and Base duly got back inside, except for her tail. I pushed the drawer as far closed as I could, left it a few seconds, then opened it again. And what does she do then? She uses a paw to pull her tail in and gives me a "Well?" look until I close the drawer properly.

Whether by nailfile or filing cabinet, apparently Base likes to be filed :o) And this time we got the photographs to prove it!

And I get the blame for all this un-cat-like behaviour. Which I would argue is unfair if I didn't have a kitten who literally follows me around like a puppy...

Anyway, the point is: We opened the back door so the kittens could go out in the garden. Which Base has been wanting to do for weeks.

Of course, suddenly being able to took both of them by surprise, and after weeks of us being very careful to not let them out by accident, we discovered that they wouldn't actually go out even when given a wide-open door.

So I went and sat in the garden and waited to see if either of them would pluck up the nerve.

We had always assumed Base would be the first out, as she's the one who spent weeks looking longingly through the glass.

In the end, though, Aidy won first prize. She didn't actually have the slightest desire to go outside - she likes being indoors. The problem was, I was outside and she doesn't really approve of being separated from me. So she eventually came out to join me. And eventually, Base followed.

We've been letting them out most days ever since, and (aside from one brief exploratory trip by Base) neither of them has yet shown much interest in leaving the garden - they're still a bit unsure of the whole "outside" concept. Base is usually the one to go out first, unless we go outside in which case Aidy is more likely to come out and be sociable. They're both entranced by the pond with all its bright orange fish - we're waiting for the day one of them goes in.

The garden is entirely fenced in, so they'd need to be very confident in their ability to climb back in before they'd go that far. But mostly, it's still pretty cold, and they've been indoors all winter, so they have summer coats. And a big bald patch from where they got shaved when they got spayed.

They like indoors: It has warmth. Even though they stay very active and rarely look cold, they do get chilly. This was made very clear yesterday, when we'd been out gardening for a while. Aidy was looking a bit forlorn, so I picked her up and cradled her on her back in one arm so I could rub her tummy with my other hand. She likes this, so it's not unheard of for her to wrap her paws around my hand when I do it.

This time, however, was slightly different: I said she normally keeps her claws hidden. Well, for the first time ever, she popped them out and dug them deliberately into my hand.

Not in a violent way, you understand - she applied only the lightest of pressures. But she wanted to make it absolutely clear that I wasn't allowed to take my hand away.

I sometimes forget that I don't get cold as easily as other people do. Or, as it turns out, as kittens do. Aidy was cold. So we took pity on her and brought her inside.

Today, for the first time ever, she climbed to the top of the fence and walked along it. At one tricky bit, she appeared to be stuck, but when I went to lift her clear, she squawked indignantly and insisted she be left to do it herself. First sign of independence I've ever seen it that cat :o)

The plus side of letting them go out into the garden is that they're much less prone to running madly around the house in bouts of manic energy. The downside is, they still refuse to 'go' anywhere but in a litter tray.

They'll learn...

So, for the tl;dr brigade, the basic summary is: The kittens are doing fine in all ways other than basic cat-ness. Which Tina has given up on expecting: Where I used to get warned of imminent bloodshed, I now get a resigned "Your kitten is hopeless"

Oh, and if you want to make a kitten think all its Christmases have come at once? Tie some brightly-coloured ribbons to some helium balloons...