Sunday, March 26, 2006
Cat Tales
People really tick me off sometimes. I didn’t have time to meet with Brenda (The Cat Whisperer) today, because I am backed up with stuff again. This week is going to suck. But I did see Mehitabel last night, she is still pregnant, and I did feed her and give her fresh water. I wanted to take a picture, but my camera was full from all the shots I took in NV and CA. Grr.
About a month ago, an Eviljob co-worker (the one who asked me why I am stealing all the parking lot cats at one of our Christmas parties) sent an email asking me if I wanted a cat, because she had one that she desperately needed to get rid of because it was ‘just crazy’.
I forget to blog about a lot of things, or something even bigger happens later, and it overshadows minutiae, or whatever…this is one of those things.
I sent an email back asking if this was the same cat (kitten, really) whom I’d pled with her to not de-claw a few months back. This is what I had forgotten to write about; I knew she wouldn’t keep the cat indoors, I knew she wouldn’t commit to the cat for life (I have worked with her for a few years, and know her pretty well; I am not just automatically judgemental of people like that), so I asked her to please reconsider having the cat’s claws taken out. Not that I should really throw stones; when I received Romeo, I had him de-clawed in front at the same time I had him neutered. I didn’t know any better then. I do now, and in the meantime, Romeo has a Forever Home with me; I *owe* him that because I de-clawed him, I owe him a life 100% indoors and protected, and I owe him good medical treatment (on the grounds that under different circumstances, he could have gone to someone who showed cats—his mom was a show cat—or something, remained un-neutered and with claws, and would have received excellent medical care). The neutering isn’t really the issue, but the de-clawing is. So I asked my co-worker to please mull it over a bit.
Of course she didn’t. Reconsider, that is.
She de-clawed him, and he is now not only ‘just crazy’, but he still gets outside (or she *lets* him outside, rather). And of course it was the same cat that she emailed me about, wanting to get rid of. I told her at the time (I am too honest…considering what I am about to tell you, I should have just lied and taken the cat) that I personally couldn’t take any more cats, but I could take the cat and try to get it placed, and to PLEASE not de-claw any more cats unless she is 100% CERTAIN that she is keeping the cat FOREVER, and keeping it INDOORS…and ideally not even then, if at all avoidable. I should have just shut up and taken the cat. At the very least, I should have stopped short of explaining that some countries view de-clawing as *mutilation*. But I didn’t. I am so stupid.
Butsoanyway.
So he came home two weeks ago with a hurt back leg, and she *still* kept letting him out. And not taking him to the vet.
God, I hope someone does that to you some day. May you rot in a bed when you are in your eighties ridden with bed sores, and may your family just take their own sweet time to get around to you.
Butsoanyway.
So the leg became slowly worse, and when the kitten couldn’t walk any longer, she finally took it to the vet. So what she was emailing me for yesterday was to tell me about the craziness, the high vet bill, and the cat trying to get out all the time, and ask what she should do. Now it is on antibiotics, and she thinks the cat is too much trouble, too expensive, and ‘just crazy’. I offered to take the cat, but she ‘doesn’t want to give it to me if I am just going to give it away, ‘cos she wants to know that it is going to a good home’. Plus, her daughter really wants to keep the cat. Her five (or six, I forget) year-old daughter.
Is this bitch on DRUGS?!?
I suggested that she keep it in her daughter’s room if everyone in the home couldn’t be bothered to mind the doors (I left out that last part), and play with it more—get some farking cat toys; it is a damn *kitten*, for god’s sake; teach the daughter to care for and play with the cat kindly, not to let it out of her room, and let it be ‘her’ cat (under the guise of teaching her responsibility). And give the antibiotics on time. And I offered to take the cat.
She says that she will try keeping it in her daughter’s room until it gives up on getting outside. She liked the idea of using the kitten to teach her daughter responsibility. Internally I was alternating between snickering derisively and pounding my head against a brick wall at that one. Whatever.
I am going to keep offering to take the cat. Poor cat.
I need a break. I am *so* ready for this semester to be over. I want it to be August or September, NOW. Whine. Gripe. Moan.
I have to get back to work. And I was offered another job…now I have to decide if I can take on a third job (highly unlikely), or if I should let Eviljob or Job II go. Or turn down the offer.
I’m thinking, I’m thinking…
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2 comments:
I'm a little late on this, but perhaps the cat is "crazy" because it's declawed?! Feel free to tell the woman she made the cat crazy... maybe it will deter her from declawing any more cats in the future.
I'm actually partially serious. Like you, I once declawed a cat because I didn't know any better, and that cat grew up to be a nasty biter. I always treated it kindly (other than the declaw), and I owned it from the time it was about 8 weeks old until it died at age 13. It was affectionate but unpredictable, and I definitely feel the declaw contributed to the behavioural issues.
I agree with you. If I thought it would help, I would kick her butt; I am sure that she only compounded whatever 'problem' may have already existed. :-\
I told her (when I went off on her and told her she was talking about mutilating the cat, etc...) that if the cat really did have a behaviour problem to start with, that she only guaranteed it will get worse, or stay around for life. I think she didn't like the seriousness with which I treated it (to me, it *is* serious, but I have to remember that to other people it is a minor detail and approach them more calmly, but I keep forgetting to do that), and I handled it wrong so she just shut down. So part of this is my fault for not knowing how to better handle it when it was first brought up. :-\ I will keep asking (politely, and with concern) if she wants to give me the cat. I cannot keep it (I am at my max right now), but I am sure that I could find *someone* to give it an indoors life. And I have to remember the 'catching more flies with honey' thing if this ever comes up again with another person.
As for my de-clawing Romeo, I am so, so lucky that he didn't go psycho on me. He is just a normal kitty, for the most part. If I am petting him and he wants me to quit, he does give a sharp little bite (his way of saying, "ENOUGH!", and I never have punished him for that, because I took away his other options), but overall he is non-mental. :-) Fourteen years ago, I didn't know what in the hell I was doing when I asked that he be de-clawed in front when he was neutered; I honestly thought I was being a responsible pet-owner and being all proactive against future problems, and so forth (and I also thought it was like removing fingernails, that they would grow back, and I would have to take him in again to be re-declawed, but that only illustrates how stupid I can be sometimes). Now I know that I just lucked out, and could have ended up with a MAJOR behaviour problem, because he was essentially de-fingered. :-\ I regret having done that every single day, and wish I could go back in time and smack myself upside the head. If someone is in a situation where de-clawing is necessary (I have no idea what that situation might be, but I will allow that it may exist), then I guess it is okay, but I think doing something like that is a serious step that requires a real commitment, kind of like when a wife asks her husband to get a vasectomy, or something. That's a For Life decision that shouldn't be made lightly. I hope that Dingbat will let this be her one feline mistake as well, and if she does give this cat to me (or anyone else) and get another one, I will try again to explain that kittenhood 'behaviour problems' will go away in a few months, and to please not make them worse by de-clawing.
I tried suggesting that now that the cat is de-clawed, staying in her daughter's room should be uneventful since no one can get scratched, etc.; she seemed to like that idea the same way she took to using the kitten to teach responsibility thing (just shoot me). I did (kindly) explain that the cat cannot run as quickly, climb, and so on, so it just can't be let outside, and she seemed to be listening. I hope that if she does give the cat to me, that a little extra love and attention could maybe calm him down--though, knowing her, the 'craziness' is probably mostly just typical kittenhood; this lady's concept of 'cat' is something that sits in windowsills and looks cute. She should have adopted an older, calm cat; that would have fit in better with what she was looking for, but I guess someone else's cat wouldn't fit in with her conception of 'the family cat'. She's just very selfishly-oriented, and I would never say that to her ('cos it wouldn't help), but I can here. :-)
And I guess, in fairness, that the same could have been said about me some fourteen years ago. I have already gotten The Lecture about needlessly buying a pure-bred, de-clawing, and so forth from a few pet-friendly people. And I deserve it, so I always just shut up and listen. Romeo is my son, and I probably would get him all over again (his personality is one in a million, and I wouldn't want to live without it), but I should not have de-clawed him. I wish my vet at the time had said something, or I had done even a little checking, or...anything.
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