Ah the Kong! I hope the guy that invented them has good things shower down on him for the rest of his life. I get quite misty-eyed and poetic over Jack’s Kong.

The Kong, in case you’ve haven’t been anywhere near a dog in recent years, is an amazing rubber dog toy that you stuff chock-full of yummy dog treats. Allegedly, they work with your animals’ natural need to perform food-searching behaviour – to work for their food. And work indeed they must. Jack licks, gnaws, chomps, drops and delicately nibbles at his. A puppy’s life is a busy one.

According to the Kong Marketing Machine, the Kong was invented by a guy who, while working on his car, started chucking random engine parts at his German Shepherd, in an effort to distract him from munching unhealthily on rocks. Hmmm. Healthy, delicious engine parts.

The dog went ballistic with joy when a suspension part landed near his nose and the rest, as they say, is history.

Jack’s odd-looking toy is a Pink Puppy Kong, made of a softer rubber that’s intended to help him with teething and soothe his sore gums. You can get really tough ones for stronger dogs but Jack’s doing just fine with his so far.

I followed the advice on the packaging, which was to smear the Kong with peanut butter. That was a Big Fat Failure. Our little fella definitely does not have a sweet tooth. When I gave him a carrot, which some Groodles apparently loved, he gave me that look that only a dog can give you. Like – you’re kidding, right? And the Kong, at first, elicited the same reaction.

Okay. Take two. This time I filled it with a layer of dry puppy food, then a little rice mixed with just a smidgeon of tinned puppy food.

That worked a treat. Jack now has a whole new interest in life, which stops him from wreaking the kind of havoc that only Vikings and Little Puppies can wreak.

I’m finding the Kong has so many benefits – I can hide it in Jack’s crate when he’s not looking so he can continue to see the crate, where he sleeps, as a Good Thing. I can give it to him to help him settle at night. And I can give it to him as a stimulant if he’s clearly bored and I don’t have time just yet to walk him.

All up – hooray for the Kong. As you’ll see, the internet is chockas with Kong recipes – I can see already that it can be strangely addictive to come up with new Kong combinations to entertain your four-legged pal.

RATING:
BUY IT: The Kong Company
COST: AUD$11.95 (US$4.99 and upwards)

I’d been spending some delicious autumn evenings, curled up on the couch browsing cat books in an attempt to better understand the subtleties and mysterious inner depths of our feline friends. However, while I was enjoying the heater and cocoa, I was beginning to lose faith that I’d ever find a cat book that was both well written and enlightening; that was until I stumbled upon Dr Hugh Wirth’s “Living with Cats”.

What “Living with Cats” lacks in coffee table photography and cutesy cartoons, is more than made up for in rootsy, down to earth, experienced information.

Wirth’s book is packed with intriguing chapters on cat health and psychology, case studies that include a broken hearted Persian and a cat with a knicker fetish, and fascinating research carried out by internationally respected animal behaviorists.

“Living with Cats” has no wasted space. It’s a refreshing, entertaining read and one in which each sentence serves a purpose – to create a better understanding of cats and better treatment of them as the outcome.

Dr Hugh Wirth has been a practicing veterinarian since 1964 and became the Victorian President of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in 1972. Wirth has hosted his own radio show, discussing all topics related to animals for the last 20 years and has also published “Living with Dogs”.

His style is confident and passionate without being mawkishly sentimental. You get the sense after reading “Living with Cats” that Wirth is a bloody good vet as well as being a compassionate and intelligent human being.

This book proves itself to be a solid building block for any cat reference library worth its salt.

RATING:
BUY IT: Amazon
COST: US$14.95

Like puppies, kittens need lots of toys to play with or else they become destructive – ask Miss T about her laptop power cord! Mei Mei skitters her many expensive toys under cupboards etc on a regular basis and then moans (loudly) that she’s got nothing to play with. So I’ve gotten into the twice weekly routine of slithering around on the floor on my belly in search of furry bloody mice, balls with bells in them, etc.

As Mei Mei has the attention span of a gnat, scrambling around after cat toys can get boring when I need to quickly distract her from her favourite hobby – chasing the cursor around on my screen when I’m working.

Miss T had mentioned running into a woman in a pet store who practically begged her to try out toy balls made of aluminium foil. Unfortunately, Jacque and Louie were completely disinterested.

But as I watched Mei Mei schizophrenically batting around a dust-bunny in the kitchen this morning and generally getting underfoot, I thought I’d give it a whirl. The results, as you can see, were impressive. This kept her attention for an hour.

Miss T proclaims this to be an “oriental thing” but maybe it’s just a kitten thing. Either way – you gotta try this on your cat.RATING:
BUY IT: DIY!
COST: Erm… a few cents a ball?

In the final daylight hours of my weekend I found myself wading through some pretty hefty consumer deliberations.

“But what are we going to do with it?” I demanded.

“I don’t know for sure,” Dave said in the far-away voice he saves for Spider Man movies, sneakers and Beck albums, “but I think this is a quality product.”

The object under scrutiny? An oversized plastic dog bone.

If there’s one place I know I can take Dave and sidestep his “research every product prior to purchase” requirements, its Ikea.

I don’t pretend to understand his rationale, but if I need a “Storage Space Solution” bad, all I have to do is mention the “I” word and we’re speeding down Hoddle St to our closest Super Swede store.

I shook my head. “If you want it, you get it, but I have NO IDEA what we’ll do with it.”

“Maybe when we have kids?” his voice trailed off.

Strangely enough, we didn’t end up getting the bone. However, we had inadvertently stumbled onto the Ikea pet line and, while it wasn’t a range that jump-started my imagination (unlike Dave’s), it seemed like a damn good place to go for those wanting to line their pet nest at a reasonable price.

The “Bastis” range includes lint rollers, dog bowls, dog bowl stands, cat blankets, food storage bags, cat houses, baskets and a range of dog toys (plastic bones included). Most are branded in the quirky Ikea style and following a predominantly acid yellow, blue, green and orange colour scheme.

To be completely honest, I would loved to walk out of there with the black cat basket that comes complete with bewitching yellow eyes and tail (reminding me of Jacque pre operation – sigh), but Dave had sadly replaced the bone and so I put the basket back too.

Fair’s fair.

RATING:
BUY IT: Ikea
COST: Prices start at just 75 Aussie cents for a plastic food bowl to AUD$69 for furry dog and cat baskets.

Life with Mei Mei the Cornish Rex is a tonne of fun. I’ve heard the Cornie described best as “something other than a cat” and I get it now. She’s more like a squirrel, or a mogwai, or a little spider monkey. She picks things up in her hand-like paws, springs off the walls like a rubber ball, and curls up in my lap like a purry hot-water-bottle.

But the downside of life with Mei Mei for the first ten days was a very bad smell. Imagine the worst possible thing a kitten could smell of and – you got it. The breeder wasn’t able to shed any light on it (to be honest, she got kinda defensive) so I could only put it down to stress – the kitten wasn’t cleaning herself properly because the flight, and separation from Mum, had thrown her too hard.

Then my own Mum came to visit, and noticed that Mei Mei had weeping eyes and a snuffle. Over the week Mum and and her “Grandcat” fell in love, and Mei Mei’s occasional fairy-like sneeze progressed into a full-blown version of Cat Flu.

Poor little pusskins. The vet said that if we’re unlucky, she’ll be lifelong carrier, and it’ll resurface from time to time like Malaria in humans.

So the mystery of the Smelly Kitten was cleared up – Mei Mei was too congested to notice the smell, and fell out of the habit of washing after toileting.

The way to deal, according to the Vet, is to use a rough washcloth dipped in warm water to clean her hindquarters in short, mother cat-like strokes. She seems to be catching on, because she’s much more interested in grooming now, and yesterday when I marched her into the bathroom for our daily ritual, she was dutifully grooming herself on the tiles before I turned away from the sink.

Man. Potty Training is really the price you pay for raising babies of all species. But as Mum and Mei Mei demonstrate in these photos, it’s well worth it.