Let's change the topic of the blog today, shall we, from all the sadness in my body to something more interesting, say, like Simba with all her piss and fur.
Yes, darling Simba. The kitty who sleeps on our heads and wakes us up in the middle of the night with a paw gently placed on our foreheads or eyes or even in our mouths. (The latter, not so much endearing in the human world, if you know what I mean) Simba has taken over our bed at night and turned into a veritable 6 pound purring kitten of love. Very sweet.
Peeing on Patches bed every night? Not so much. Although we haven't caught her flagrante delicto, she is our prime suspect because the other free pee-er of the house (besides Conor) is Duncan and Duncan is so wracked with arthritis right now, he can't jump on the bed to sleep with us. Thus, he has given up visiting the bedroom altogether. So, Simba is the lead suspect. She pees. We wash, dry, febreeze and petzyme. She pees. Repeat indefinitely.
I have decided to take action. My thought is to get one of those bedwetting alarms and put it on Patches bed. Thus when a kitty (most likely Simba) does her thing, 1) it will scare the beegeesus out of her and 2) we'll see who is actually doing it. It will likely scare the beegeesus out of us, too, but if we can prevent the pee-wash-dry-spray-pee cycle again, it will be worth it. Now where can one buy one of those things? Do they sell them at Target?
We know that Simba is just doing that to show her love and possession of us. But it's irritating. Sort of like the 12-inch diameter of black fur she leaves on my side of the bed whenever we don't make the bed (sadly, this is a frequent problem). Simba is the smallest cat, but she is by far the biggest shedder. We finally brushed her yesterday and we were left with an additional kitten's worth of fur to put in the trash can. What's weirder is that when we brush her, she sheds black AND white fur, big clumps of white!!! She's a solid black cat!! Where is that white fur coming from!? When I look under her fur, I don't see white! It's very odd.
Oh, and speaking of fur. Did I mention that Scarlett is a long haired gray tabby? She sheds a lot less than either Simba or Duncan. But she tends to leave "gifts" of her undigested fur around the house. If we're lucky, Patches gets to it first, and we have, as my sister-in-law calls it, a self-correcting problem.
If not, we have a toddler. And my newest lesson as a mother is this: when one's child says "What's that, mommy? What's that, mommy? What's that, mommy?" for the seven zillionith time in an hour, it really is worth it to go over and look at what that is before said child steps on it. Gray furry cat yak in between a child's toes is the definition of gross.
4 comments:
I have 4 cats and unfortunately the one with the shortest hair is the one with the most hairballs. Whenever Jed (almost 3) finds one of these lovely "gifts" he comes running to tell me there is cat poop on the stairs or in the living room. At least by thinking it is poop he knows to avoid it.
We also dealt with the cat pee problem however it was our bed one of our cats was hitting. After 4 consecutive nights, it gets a quite frustrating. We took the suspected cat to the vet who found a mild urninary infection. It also suggested that Earl go on a diet. So we put him on antibiotics and a diet. The peeing stopped for awhile but then started again after the infection was gone. We finally figured it was his way of expressing his disapproval of his new diet. I finally broke down and decided I would prefer to have a fat happy cat, than a pissy skinny cat that pees on MY bed.
I finally made myself work brushing the cat into my daily routine, because she always seems to be working on a hairball. She still gets the hairballs, but I feel good about doing it. Plus, she sheds a lot too, and sleeps on our bed, so I think it helps with that. As for the peeing, when she started peeing in odd places once, it turned out to be a urinary problem too. Interstitial cystitis, I think he called it, brought on by stress and resistant to treatment. So we made a few changes (switched to canned food for more moisture=more pee, took the top off and the liner out of the litter box, and cultivated serious litter box cleaning habits, on our part, not hers), and she's done well. Of course, we don't have the whole social kitty/doggie/toddler dynamic going on at our house, so the kitty stress level is easier to control.
Dude, can I borrow Patches? We have intense hairball issues in this household. I could use some corrective measures that don't involve paper towels and disinfectant.
ugh, the hairballs. my short haired harriet getws more balls than any other cat i've known. this time of year, once a day. i have the hairball food and the hairball medicine and i brush her all the time... she still barfs.
want to know gross? i had to change the flavor of her wet food to one that is a similar color to my sisal rug. so when she barfs it won't leave lots of marks.
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