This is.....

My photo
Probably insane, sometimes cynical, mostly absurd and occasionally feisty, buddhist, sapiosexual witch with a passion for love, food and life. Convinced that most people either need a hug, or a damn good slap :)

Sunday 5 July 2009

The Joys of Cat Owning

When you first buy, or acquire a pet and you look at that little bundle of fur and eyes and fall in love, very rarely is your first thought "I bet you're going to be really smelly when you're old"

But it should be!

I love my cats, enough to put a picture of them here. The big one is Bruce, so named because, as a kitten, he reminded me of an Australian surfer dude, all wide eyed and no-brained. He's lived up to his name wonderfully. The smaller one in the picture is Psyche. She is the mother of Bruce and about a quarter of his size.

Both of them were so cute as kittens, and once able to go outside, were completely clean indoors. Of course I had no idea what the future would bring. I had owned cats in the past... as much as any human can ever own something so convinced of their own omnipotence, but they had all neatly disappeared when they'd reached ten or so and I had been spared sharing my living space with the most hideous and pungent of things, known as the Geriatric Cats.

The picture above is recent and shows the Geriatric Cats as they are at the moment. Psyche is now 16, with Bruce only 6 months or so younger.

They have always both been very much house cats, never roaming far from home. Over the last few years they have hardly ventured out of the garden and in the last year it has been harder and harder for them to get up on top of the shed, which is their favourite vantage point and basking area. Last winter for the first time, we realised that the time had come to buy a litter tray for them. We came largely to this conclusion due to the fact that we became very tired, very quickly of cleaning poo from between our toes and off the floor of the passage in the middle of the night. Bruce had obviously thought long and hard about the best strategic place to deposit this message, which was usually anywhere in a direct line between the bathroom and our bedroom, guaranteeing that one of us would wail in despair at stupid o'clock, hopping desperately for the bathroom while he sat smugly by the back door waiting to be let out.. as if he had anything left to do out there!

Litter tray, and litter bought, we thought our problems would be over and to be fair, the leaping around in the middle of the night problem has disappeared, the Geriatric Cats taking to the litter tray like they'd been waiting for it all their lives.

However...

How can one cat pee it's own body weight and still live?? Why do they wait until five minutes after I have cleaned it out and put fresh litter in it, to prove that not only can they do that, but that ten minutes later, they can do it again! I buy expensive litter, not the mashed up concrete that Asda sell as their 'value' range, which, while brilliant at stopping most of the odour, sounds worryingly like rice krispies when the cats pee on it. I'm convinced that this amuses them no end, however I won't be eating rice krispies anytime soon.

And...

Every morning I wake up and my first task is sweeping up all the stray litter from the passage, so that we can get into the lounge without crunching it underfoot. I'm sure Bruce has decided that litter throwing is a cat olympic sport, as I've found it as much as twelve foot away from the tray. This is the cat that staggers about, his back legs getting increasingly wobblier, depending on how much sympathy he wants, has trouble jumping up anywhere and yet can back-kick cat litter the whole length of the passage!

Also...

I have to spend ridiculous amounts of time de-furring the place now. I'm sure they've got worse as they get older. Shedding fur has now become the second cat olympic sport. I'm amazed they aren't bald! Every time I comb Bruce I get the equivalent of another cat off him! Psyche doesn't get combed, as she has OCD and is rarely seen without her tongue working methodically from one end of herself to the other. The best way to annoy the hell out of her is wait until she stops, and stroke her in an awkward spot. You can almost hear her shriek in anger as she twists herself round to lick where you've contaminated her! (Yes this is one of my favourite pastimes and I'm not ashamed of myself at all). However this also brings up (s'cuse the pun) the subject of furballs. Why can't she learn to sick them up in the litter tray too!

By the way....

When your cats get to be Geriatric Cats too... DON'T go near their mouths! Good grief their breath!! If they come up to you and meow in your face.. don't be surprised if you look in the mirror to find your eyebrows have disolved! Take this as a warning.. its toxic!

I love my Geriatric Cats, one is asleep beside me, where he usually can be found snoring like the old man that he is. I've had to turn the sound up on the television twice. I know they only have a limited time left and I also know that they will probably smell a hell of a lot worse as the years take their toll.. but please, remember when you look into that kittens big beautiful eyes.. you are doomed to eventually experience Geriatric Cat in all their malodourous glory!

Purrrrr



No comments:

Post a Comment