Cats Hate Water, Right?

[debilorrah]

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Those are illegal to have here in CA.

 

[andbab]

My sister has to keep her bathroom doors closed. Her cat will go and run himself a bath. He also showers with her.

 

[Reyvaughn]

Thekid - these guys are kittens and have never had a bath by me, lol!

I know there are exceptions to the rule, but I couldn't help but get a few pics of these two. Their sister isn't so into the water, but she does get in the tub after the water is out. I can't leave my toilet seat up or these guys are in it making a mess all over my bathroom.

 

[rebel-rousing-at-night]

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They sure are cute!

 

[gaited horse]

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What kind of wild cats are they? What kind of laws do you have on keeping them?

 

[kari_dawn]

He is a bobcat. I (and the rest of my very small non-profit group) am a permitted wildlife rehabber, and therefore, we can legally house them (unlike the general public...and I wish they would stop trying...we end up with a lot of these at around 8 months old, when their "owner" no longer knows how to handle them). Lenny ended up at our center as a law enforcement confiscation. He is non-releasable because the citizen that "rescued him from the wild" had him neutered, and he is very imprinted on people. He is one of several non-releasable animals we have due to the stupidity of people. Some of them are showing amazing potential as education animals, and will be used in programs to teach people about them in the future.

Lenny in particular is my baby. He was a HUGE project, and has a very unsettling story...long story short, I worked with him for MONTHS to get him to trust people again. Now, he is attached to me, and only me (though on occasion, he will talk to someone else). He is HUGE for a southern bobcat, over 30lbs, but a big baby with me...I can pick him up by the feet, and carry him.

Because of a dumb impulse decission to keep a wild baby bobcat, instead of living life in his wild world, he must now live out his very long life (bobcats live 36+ years in captivity) as a prisoner in ours.

 

[gaited horse]

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Oh. I thought you were one of those private owners.

 

[kari_dawn]

I don't have a problem with private ownership when people do their homework, and I mean REALLY do their homework...but most don't. They find a baby, keep it and raise it, and then don't know what to do when it is no longer an eight pound baby, but a 15lb one with razor blades on it's feet and in it's mouth. Couple that with extreme intellegence (think outsmart the ranch dog just for fun intellegence), and a 30 year lifespan, and it turns into yet another disposable novelty that costs a non-profit like ours $2,000 a year, just in food.

 

[gaited horse]

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I have alwasy wanted a big cat but I don't know if I would ever be able to keep one. Can most big cat's live off a diet of rabbit meat alone or do they need it supplemented with other meats?

 

[kari_dawn]

absolutely not. Rabbit is not nutrient rich enough to be the sole diet of a big cat...it isn't even about suplementing with other kinds of meats...it is more complex than that. I started another tread in random ramblings called lenny the bobcat...I didn't mean to hyjack this thread. I will be happy to answer questions over there.

P.S.-sorry for hyjacking...did not mean to!