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Pepper wants a turkey dog. She smells them cooking and she's begging. She's rubbing her head all over my knee right now. I picked her up and she was purring pretty loudly.

Sometimes, Hermes makes himself look small and I don't really understand how he does it. He's lying on the bed right now and he's so flattened down that he looks only a little bit bigger than Pepper. Mel, on the other hand, is on the office chair all sprawled out and she looks huge.

I gave her some turkey dog pieces cut up really small. She really enjoyed it. Mel just tried to bury it, so she ate Mel's portion, too.

Later, Hermes came downstairs and I gave him a part of the turkey dog (he was begging for it earlier, too, but got impatient while it was still cooking and ran upstairs). However, Pepper woke up and brazenly tried to walk over and steal his turkey dog. He barked and she rolled over and hissed. I gave Pepper a little more to satisfy her so Hermes could eat his in peace.

Hermes does a weird thing now where after he eats downstairs, he runs upstairs and starts howling. And it sounds like he's saying, "Oh NO!" He'll yell, "Oh NO!" several times in a row, each one louder than the preceding.

Pepper's been very active lately. She's been running around a lot. She likes to bolt all the way to the front door and scratch the welcome mat after she uses the litterbox. She plays with the turbo scratcher (both the scratcher part and the ball) a few times a day. And she also played a little bit with the chirping bird today.

Mel and Hermes got into another scuffle this morning. I think he started it this time and I chased him upstairs with the rattle can. He was rampaging before 6 am. I got up to use the bathroom and he jumped on the bed, and hit me in the collarbone with his claws and bit at my shoulder. (Neither his claws nor his teeth got far enough through my shirt to break the skin, though.) But I slapped him for it and he ran off. Moments after I returned to bed, I heard the fight between him and Mel and Mel had another cut on her face.

I have no idea what got into him. He's been fine this afternoon, though. I wonder if something spooked him while it was still dark, like the noisy neighbors, and it was misplaced aggression. Just glad he didn't take it out on Pepper.

All three cats were upstairs a little while ago and I didn't notice them go up there. I heard somebody hiss and all three came running down. I assume it was Pepper hissing at Mel and Hermes chased after Mel as Mel chased after Pepper.

But that's the first time Pepper's been upstairs in a long while, at least as far as I know. Mel and Pepper don't seem to care about the upstairs as much since I shut the shades, but I haven't been encouraging Pepper to go up there anyway because she still has nighttime howling issues.

I'm glad that when we move, they'll be able to howl, rampage, and look out the windows all they want, whenever they want.

Uh. Didn't Codie's cats remember her after she'd been away for months at college?

I seriously doubt they've forgotten you, and somehow I think cats have a way of knowing that you're not gone for good. I think they'd have a way of sensing that I'd be upset if you were. That's why some cats, like Lady and Emma, become tough to handle when their owners die.

I visited the shelter again. You know, I don't think it's going to be necessary to keep Lady on diet food. For one thing, she's not really fat. Most of it is hair. And once I get her high on catnip, she goes bonkers. She rolls and inches along the floor, and then she'll run up to various objects, stand up on her hind legs and paw rapidly at them (like Pepper does on the welcome mat, except Lady likes to stand up and paw at vertical objects.) Then she walks around exploring and rubbing her head on various things (usually cardboard boxes). So, it seems like the only thing it takes to make her more active is just to give her a catnip toy. When I left, she was exploring the back area of the shelter, behind the cages, which is something I'd never seen her do before.

Baby was still being temperamental as always.

On a related note, I think Mel has lost some weight since I started limiting their food and making her exercise more. I hope we can get the bed up the stairs at the new place, because I really like the idea of her plastic balls not getting lost under it anymore (though I wish she'd just learn to crawl under it and get them herself.)

The rest of this post is somewhat-gross, so don't read if you're easily grossed out. Anyway, those tender cuts wet food that come in the packets - I'm probably not going to buy those unless I have coupons for them because I think they're what's making Pepper's poops weird. I ran out of the prescription Iam's food, so I had to start her back on her normal food, and I had two packets of that stuff left that I wanted to use up. I gave her one this morning, and her bowel movements (which had been normal lately) went back to being a mushy amorphous pile. She likes them and they don't seem to make her feel sick, but those poops are messy...