Does your Cat (or any pet) misbehave since caregiving your loved one?
Have you been required to take care of your loved one's pet after they have passed? Does your pet have cute antics that entertain your loved one?
And finally, has the cat or dog transferred their loyalty to your Mother?
Dog:
My little Corgi hated the vacuum - we're talking major HATE here. I had to keep her in another room if I vacuumed, or she'd attack it. (Lesson learned after she ripped the rubber bumper off one vacuum while it was in motion.) She got loose one day while I was vacuuming (and I didn't hear her because the vacuum was running) - until she barked and then lunged between my legs from behind me to bite the vacuum. She missed. I still have a canine-tooth-shaped scar from the hole she put in my leg by sinking her tooth into my calf.
Larger dog that I have now was a terrible chewer as a puppy. Dog - 1. Rocking chair - 0. (He chewed the wooden rockers right off one night as we slept. He was crated at night after that until he got older.)
Cat:
Ohh...almost too many to tell here. This cat is nuts, I tell you. Former stray, so I think he was on his own for most of his 18 months before we took him in. In that 18 months, he developed some very bad habits.
Things he has run off with:
-The plug from the bathroom sink.
-Small pieces of the Christmas tree branches
-Various Christmas ornaments
-The baby Jesus from my nativity scene
-Charger cords (several) for my cell phone
-He has toy mice hidden all over the house - every time I do a deep cleaning I find about 5 of them, and he plays with them all day until he loses them again.
Things he has chewed and/or tried to eat:
-Legos (despite my repeated attempts to get DD to keep them picked up - pretty sure there will be a vet visit sometime in the future if they don't move out soon.)
-Charger cords again - my current phone charger cord has teeth marks in it, because he finds it at night when I'm sleeping, no matter where I put it, and chews it. Finally had to put it in a closed cabinet to charge.
-Hair dryer cord. He climbed up on the sink during the night to reach the hair dryer in its holder on the wall. (not plugged in at the time, of course)
-Mom's oxygen hose. I can't tell you how many times she'd get up in the morning and say she felt like she wasn't getting enough air - yeah, you're not, Mom, because there are holes in the dang hose. Finally had to lock the cat in a spare room at night, which caused him to yowl and claw at the door all night. I don't miss those nights.
-Shoelaces. He thinks they're noodles, I think. (not that I feed him noodles.)
-Shoes. Slippers. Socks.
-BRAS. He loves bras. The straps fascinate him. I've woken up at night to hear him rifling through the dirty clothes hamper to find a bra and chewing on the clips.
-Various body parts. This guy is a biter - worse than any puppy I've ever seen. When we first got him, he was up on the back of a chair at my chest level, and I was petting him. Apparently he'd had enough, so he reached out and bit me right on the boob! As I was reacting with shock, he promptly bit the other one!
Seems the cat bites and scratches, or cat scratch fever was very serious.
Oops, just bit my own tongue! Will I now get lockjaw? Not be able to talk, or type? (Possible, if I was typing hunt and peck by using a pencil!) Maybe if I get a cat, it could walk across the keys for me (kindle with touchscreen here).
A sort of assistive cat. Nice.
Not sure why, though. All the animal programmes are quick to point out that cats are essentially purpose-built killing machines, razors at each corner and daggers in the middle. It's just there's something really feeble about having been beaten in a fight by something that weighs approximately one-sixteenth of you.
Mind you, speaking of unfair fights. My former neighbour shot a mouse with an air rifle, after his semi-feral cat had brought it in for him one night as a treat, to play with. And he stood on a chair to do it. The man's about six foot tall, for heaven's sake, and apparently with a big yellow stripe down his back.
(quarantined )
The GP wanted our cat put to sleep, too. Though he said "what if the animal attacks your elderly mother?" and quite honestly at that particular moment, seeing as how Elderly Mother was blaming me for not keeping hold of "poor little Hansie, he must have been so frightened," and giving me looks that could have killed... well, let's just say the doctor wasn't exactly appealing to my better nature.
The orthopaedic people made me go back for x-rays for a full year afterwards to check there weren't any pockets of infection regrowing, but happily I haven't had any further problems with it. Except for having to 'fess up to it on medical and dental forms since, under the question that says "have you had any hospital admissions in the last ten years?"
Grr, yes, let's all have a good laugh about it, shall we..?
I'll probably leave the Daddy cat alone because Iv'e already been bit by a cat and gotten blood poisoning and been hospitalized because I was trying to break up a cat fight years ago.I'll just keep a close eye on everybody.I appreciate everyone's input...Thank you!
I love all pets, and love the people caring for them. I love the way nature takes care of nature.
Good luck with the kittens and Bootsie, Luckylu.
I believe that as part of the neutering programme the cat's ear is clipped - painlessly, I trust - so that it can be identified as already done. Might be worth checking before you bother with this one, if you can get close enough. Before I caught up with the neutering conversation, my internal response to seeing Susan's comment was "catching a feral cat is best not accomplished at all!"
The spay/neuter/return program:
Maybe someone knows the answer to the catching part. But I am pretty sure you pay for the neuter, then bring him home in a cage from the vets.
This is a difficult and emotional process, best left to the experienced.
There are cat people who do this work. It is an entire thing, full of controversy, and all time consuming if anyone starts to control the feral cat population in their own neighborhood.
Now that your hubs (congratulations) had his last day at work, he can put on the cat's pajamas and you both can celebrate by puttin' on the Ritz!
FF, All my pets got bottled water. And like Luckylu, they went to In N Out and got patties. Usually only on a car trip because it was more fun. Their weight was normal for spoiled dogs, I think.
Luckylu, I wanted to explain that you don't actually spray the cat with water. But if you don't want feral howling cats or racoons to wake the neighborhood, scare them away. You just loudly go for the hose, turn on (that noise is enough to scare them) the water, stomp your feet, spray the water in their direction as they jump the fence but don't return later.
Keep in mind, this is Southern California weather and they might enjoy a little spurtz when they are in heat, in the heat. It would be cruel to get a critter wet if it's cold or snowing.
Here in L.A., we get to choose between the cats howling or the neighbors swearing, or coming outside with a gun!
If you are feeding the feral cats on purpose, the Daddy cat too, then that will disturb Bootsie while she is in heat. imo. Have you heard about the spay/neuter/return program? Get him fixed, return to feral life?
Love the name Xanadu!
Wouldn't it be nice if people too would put their tongue away properly? Lol.
Or stopped being "catty"?
Or how about this one:
Cat got your tongue?
Goodness! What a long time ago it was, but it so doesn't seem it.
Laughing about the cat running around the house with a box of tissues on her head :))
I agree that cats must have access to clean, plain water at all times.
Prefer?
Ummmmm...
Mind you, they almost certainly shouldn't have chocolate either. Nobody mentioned that to my mother's weirdo Siamese, though. The one who also got her head stuck in a tissue cube and ran round the house like that with no one able to catch her and scared herself so much she went and wee'd in the corner.
World's stupidest cat. Or was she..? My mother felt so sorry for her she used to wear her, like a fox fur, and feed her on demand. Maybe not as dumb as she made out, then.