"Pounce de Leon (AKA Swiss) is absolutely wonderful! These pictures were taken shortly after Christmas. I’m still trying to get some action shots of Pounce leaping, jumping and charging around the house like a freight train but he is so fast that I get mostly a blur. Pounce is content to be held and cuddled, preferably soon after he wakes up. He has stopped consenting to being held upside down though.
John and I have acknowledged that “Cat Ownership” means that we are Pounce’s people, and we do notown Pounce. It is true that cats have staff, and only dogs are owned.
Pounce sleeps on my bed if he is ready to go to sleep when I am. Otherwise he sleeps on his tower – at least until I get up in the middle of the night and go get the sleepy cat to bring to my bed. One of his most active periods is from about 10:30pm to 1:30am and fortunately he is good at playing by himself with his toys either in the living room or upstairs in the computer room ( third bedroom). John gets up at 5:00am to go to work and Pounce will leave my bed to greet John for a belly rub and then come back to bed with me after John leaves. When Pounce decides it is time for us to get up he will literally pounce on the bed right beside my head. If that does not work, he pounces on me or on and off the bed. Most mornings he will mercifully let me sleep until 7:00am.
Pounce’s favorite toy is a green snake with a bulbous head, stretchy red “antlers” and a crimped tail. If you pull the tail out straight it vibrates as it contracts. Pounce’s favorite game is to have us nudge snake off the top step so it bounces all the way down the stairs. He runs to try to get it before it gets to the bottom. When he catches up with it he pushes it through the stairs to the underside of the staircase, usually at the bottom though sometimes a few steps higher. Then he dives under the stairs to get it and carries snake back up to us in his mouth.
Other times Pounce bats Snake around and them picks him up in his mouth. Then he throws his head back and tosses Snake high in the air. Pounce plays with a few other toys, the crunchy shiny foil-like balls are another favorite. He’ll play with the jingle ball and curly springs.
Pounce has been generally well behaved, clawing only his scratching devices. A squirt of water has discouraged him from pawing the window screen or pulling the computer mouse off the keyboard try by pulling the cord from the back. No question – he is a smart little devil.
I’m feeding him Premium Edge – Kitten. He eats well. Occasionally he gets flatulence – phew! It doesn’t seem to bother him at all – only us. He drinks water and his eliminations seem normal.
We have not taken him to the vet as he seems to be doing fine. Pounce does sometimes have a little coordination problem, usually when he is bursting with energy and racing around. Then he may jump up on a chair and not get his hind legs up and under him. Or he takes a corner too fast and runs into something. In these instances he just shakes it off and keeps going. The one thing that did cause us some concern: a few evenings ago he fell off the top of his tower. We did not see it happen but were in the room, heard the thud and he was lying on his side. We think he was stretching, maybe sleepy, and rolled off sideways over the lip of the platform. He showed no sign of discomfort as we ran hands over his ribs and hips afterward. He seemed a little dazed and that night he went straight to bed with me and did not do his nightly running around. He has seems to be very normal since. Had shown any signs of hurting or if I had felt anything wrong I would have gotten him to the vet immediately.
We have put a cushion on the floor beneath is tower in case he falls again. He has no trouble getting down from the tower when that is what he intends to do and the route he takes down is predictable. The mid-height platform would catch him if he rolls off the other side. (See the photo of him complaining about the noisy birds.)
I almost forgot – Pounce really enjoys the laser pointer. He keeps trying to find out where it is hiding when we turn it off. We are very careful to keep it away from his eyes."
- Stephanie and John
