Let me begin by explaining my love for animals. There is a commercial on TV that shows abused and starving animals with some seriously sad music playing in the background. I’ve seen this ad all of 537 times and I cry every single time. “SOB! Where’s my checkbook?” I’ve been rescuing animals since I was a child. I’ve even raised birds that had fallen from their nest or were abandoned. At the tender age of nine, I experienced what it might be like to have a baby as a tiny mockingbird squealed from a box in my room at 2am.
So, yes I am an animal lover. There are many times when I like them more than people for obvious reasons. They aren’t judgmental, they don’t argue, talk back, and they’re loads of fun.
I’ve dealt with Cat Nazis in the past and it is never pleasant. This all began with the disappearance of our outdoor cat and the appearance of mice. Shawn had found a two week old kitten left at his place of work, one cold February so of course he brought it home. I told him I wanted a mouser, not something that could be eaten by a mouse.
We blocked off our laundry room to keep her separated from our two Chihuahuas and hand bottle fed her until she could walk and eat on her own. We bathed her in the sink, we played with her. We treated this tiny kitten with love and great care.
Then she grew up. I’d already made up my mind once this cat was big enough to take care of herself, she would go outside. We couldn’t have this many animals in the house! It already smelled like dog and bird. And how would this cat react to Shawn’s cockatiel, LuLu? I hate cleaning up after that bird and HATE the idea of keeping any creature in a cage or on a rope, but this was Shawn’s bird. We argued for months over this thing, primarily because I always thought it cruel to keep a bird in a cage.
But he won. And now I get to clean up after an animal that poops, literally, ever ten to fifteen minuets.
So the cat got kicked out. She was becoming mean as hell anyway. I’m not sure what happened. If we simply tried to pick her up, she would growl and spit and claw at you. Protect your face! She would stalk us like a cheetah trying to take down a gazelle. As we turned the corner in the hallway, the cat would grab at your feet, claws fully extended.
For this reason, Shawn began to call her a dirty word, which I cannot repeat here. Every time we’d reach out to pet this little psycho, she’d grab our hands and dig her talons into our skin. At this point we’d yell, “Ah! #$%!!” And the name stuck against my wishes. We both had scrapes and cuts up to our elbows dealing with the little monster. I’m not saying there are never moments of sweetness with this animal--there are. But they are few and far between! This is just to give you a teeny tiny example of how ferocious this cat is.
The day we kicked the cat out, one of the dogs used the doggie door. And the cat watched. The dog did her business and pushed the door open to get back inside. And the cat watched. The cat then pushed the door open with her paw and promptly came inside. WHAT THE….????
We had to train this dog to use the door and the cat, this horrible creature….ARRRGGGHHH!!! Because of this, we had to block off the doggie door while we slept and worked. I set up peepee pads in the laundry room and began mopping every single day and picking up poop. Sigh. The dogs began to look at me with a disappointed expression as if to say, “We haven’t been outside all day! Let us OUT!”
Soon as I open the back door, the dogs tear out to the yard, the cat comes tearing inside. I’d figured she might settle down after I’d had her fixed and she’d become fully grown, but no. No, no. I was in another room and heard LuLu shrieking like I’ve never heard before. It wasn’t the sound she makes when a stranger comes up the walk, nor the sound that is made when a UPS truck hauls down the street. This sounded bad.
I ran into the living room. The sunlight come down through the window as if to pinpoint the culprit. I yelled loudly at The Monster as I saw her furry little body hanging off the bird’s cage. The cat had all four feet pinned to the cage rungs, eyes wild and full of mischief. My yelling startled her and she leaped down and took off running.
I dunno. That bird is pretty fierce. I’m not sure who would have won if I hadn’t come running in there.
It’s natural for cats to sharpen their claws on anything and everything. It took us two months to get her to stop clawing at the wall-to-wall carpet. She would literally lift it from the floor she would dig in so hard. So yes, the cat was inside on and off. I had to let the dogs out for every second I was home. The second the doggie door was open, all three animals were in and out like little anxious children. Their ability to go in and out left less poop in the laundry room--which I had grown very tired of cleaning very early on. I like things a certain way. All things. And I’m very particular about clean. I wanted the cat out for two main reasons: I didn’t want everything in the house shredded and I didn’t want to deal with a litter box….
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