Bedtime Rituals

When I do a last tidy and check in the kitchen I'm keenly aware of being stared at by Baz ( the Maine Coon). He's very polite and never demanding however, if Dreamies are not forthcoming at that point it's the end of his world! Needless to say Dreamies are more important on my shopping list than bread and milk.
After that he escorts me to the bathroom to supervise ablutions and sees me to the bedroom to check the bin for crinkly paper which he helpfully removes. I then shut him out (as I'm slightly allergic to him if he sleeps on my pillow). He faithfully slumps against the door and waits for us to get up in the night (more escort duty.)
He's a very reliable cat.

I have 2 elderly cats and when I get up from my armchair in readiness to mount the stairs I'm encouraged to follow them to the kitchen where I top up their bowls. In the evenings I give them dried food which doesn't go down too well but I think they should have something other than soft food to keep their teeth in fine fettle which I think is working. I have tried to give them a mixture of soft and hard food in the evening but then, of course, they leave the hard stuff. Once fed they do whatever cats do at night. They have a cat flap and can come and go as they please. If DH is away one will always come to bed with me and keep me company which is lovely and reassuring but I have to ensure the windows aren't open too far - even on a hot night - as he does appear to consider suicide from time to time! I'd love to put a tracker on them to see what they get up to. They certainly sleep during the day so perhaps party all night somewhere!!!

I'd also love to put a tracker on my boy as he has been known to disappear from time to time for 24 hours - this is usually on a Friday or Saturday night so I'm beginning to suspect he attends the local cat rave - he's always exhausted when he finally reappears I can't have my bedroom window open at all - it's a patio door onto a balcony and apart from the worry of burglers coming in I know she'd be out there planning a nose dive off it!

Jane Dreamies (sweeties) are the first thing on our shopping list too - especially the cheese ones which my husband is convinced is their favourite! They are also very good bribes to let me brush my girlie as she no longer can groom herself properly having only 4 teeth - once they're gone though I have to withdraw quickly otherwise my hand suffers. I'd love a Maine Coon cat - is Baz very big?

He's a whopper! Hard to give an idea of size but here's a pic of him with DD

My cat is a Dreamies fan too, she has them at bedtime. I have tried them during the day but she is not interested.

Wow Jane he looks gorgeous!!

How strange our felines are with their eating fads and fancies we've always said Alfie would sell his soul for biscuits - he'd far rather have a bowl of Science Plan than a bowl of food and 'second breakfast' has to be a mixture of both!

If I stay up too late, an indignant cat comes downstairs into the sitting room and stares reproachfully at me! Bedtime is cuddle time - he cuddles, I read, soon as the light is put out he leaves and doesn't come back until he thinks I should get up. He lies half on me and half off me, whereas his predecessor lay along me, and being large stretched from just below my bosom to the top of my legs.

The other cat sleeps upstairs in the winter, downstairs most of the rest of the year, and both are out at night in this hot weather.

My two dogs have a bedtime ritual, I swear they can tell the time. On the dot of 10 o’clock they both come over to where I am sitting and sit in front of me and stare, if they have to wait a few minutes they start gently stomping their front feet with impatience. I get up and let them out in the garden, they come straight back in and run upstairs to the bedroom adopting the expectantly waiting position in their beds. Once DH and I have readied ourselves for bed DH gives them each a dog biscuit, once consumed they jump onto the bed for a cuddle and settle down while we read. As soon as we are ready to sleep we just say goodnight and they both get up and go to their beds. We don’t hear from them again until the morning when they wake us up; we don’t need an alarm clock! The other night one of them had a dream and howled like a wolf in his sleep, that is quite a shock, but I found it funny! Wouldn’t be without them, part of the family.

Our dogs are exactly the same Redtop1 11pm or thereabouts they come over to us, one barks, one pats with his paw and the other just looks appealingly. Time to go out for a last walk and a biscuit. Then upstairs to their beds, not always a quiet night as one of them snores. As you say a big part of our family.

Sam is a dog of habit !

When Grampy makes me a 9pm coffee, Sam accompanies him and is always rewarded with a biscuit. He brings it into the lounge, drops it on the rug and waits for Grampy's return. Once he is sure his best mate isn't going anywhere else , he delicately eats his biscuit.

Then he jumps up next to me on the sofa and looks pointedly at me and his choc drop jar. This can go on for several minutes if I am not paying attention. Once I have noticed, he gets his drops in his eye and as a reward for sitting still and looking up a choc drop.

When Grampy finally gets up and switches off the TV , Sam immediately gets up and goes and jumps up on the grandchildren's bottom bunk where he sits and waits for Grampy to turn off the hall light before settling down for the night.

This routine never changes and its as if he waits for it every night. Clever old dog.

Oh how i miss the ritual of bedtime with my little dog. She always slept on the end of my bed in the summer stretched full length and tucked up behind my knees when i laid on my side in the winter and i loved it. When i was first without her i would not sleep with the big window open at night for fear of something or someone trying to climb in.I knew if that had happend when she was there she would have raised the roof to warn me.

No cat at the moment, but always had two cats throughout marriage.They weren’t allowed upstairs though, so no beds for them ( they had their own in the kitchen.)When we called ‘bedtime’ they would slink reluctantly off the sofa and into their own little beds.However, we had one very naughty cat that on us calling ‘bedtime’ used to vanish behind the sofa, and had to be winkled out.

How funny they are. Many years ago when we first moved here we had 3 tabbies of three generations and a cat flap that was fastened by a piece of board with a bolt on it. Bedtime consisted of the board being in place and all three cats being shut in the kitchen. They all had a bed each on top of the wall units and would jump up there and settle down after having their biscuits. Along came a tabby stray (the one who in later life slept with his head on my hand) who obviously wasn't used to this regime and although he had his bed and appeared to be happy to be in it we would come down in the morning and find the board prised off and laid on the floor - they were always in but obviously H had decided night time was play time for them all

My little dog Dewi loves his 9 o'clock 'hunt'. If I'm watching tv, he'll sit at my feet and I'll get the hard stare. If I ignore that, he jumps up onto the seat and gently paws my arm till I get up and let him out. I then have to break a strip of 'schmackos' into bits and hide them all over the room. I usually find him already waiting at the back door and he comes charging in and begins the hunt. I've hidden pieces in every place I can think he wouldn't get to but he never fails to sniff them out. My DH says he'd make a great sniffer dog at an airport
Later, while I'm switching off the lights, he goes ahead and lies at the top of the stairs waiting for me then he'll jump on the bed and lies between us all night.
Aren't pets wonderful?

What a lovely clever dog, Sassenach .
What breed is he?

He's a Lhasa Apso/Bichon Frise cross Fennel a delightful mix of cheeky, funny Bichon and faithful, friendly Lhasa

He's gorgeous ! Lovely black eyes.

At 10pm every night Mia sits and waits for her nightly treats. If I don`t respond immediately she`ll wait a few minutes, then curl up and "go to sleep", a complete act, because as soon as I say "right, I`ll make a drink", her eyes snap open and she`s at my feet again, waiting for me to go into the kitchen. As soon as she`s eaten her treats, off she goes upstairs to bed, bed being the padded top of the ottoman. If I get up in the night to go to the toilet, she waits at the top of the stairs for me to come back up, not seeming to care that the stairlift is heading straight for her!

It's uncanny how they know what time it is, what's that all about?

At 11pm each evening one of my two cats jumps onto my lap and settles down for a quick snooze before bedtime. His brother then climbs onto the back on the same sofa right behind me and sleeps there, until his considerable weight means he slips off onto the sofa in an ignominious heap.

After that, they often run round the house howling and chasing each other for a while. Fur has been known to fly! Then they fuss and agitate and won't settle until they've been put to bed in the utility room with a handful of Dreamies each.

They're also funny in the mornings if we get up earlier than usual. They refuse to get up! They lie asleep in a box on top of the boiler until they deem it a suitable hour for cats to rise and have breakfast.