Monday, September 23, 2013

When you get a cat they don't tell you that you might have to pull things out of their butts. Surely that's misleading advertising...

My brother bought his partner a kitten for Christmas this year, and as a person who has been owned by a megalomaniac cat for many years now, I took it upon myself to give him some advice.  Here's the general gist of what I told him.

  1. Don't let your cat into your bedroom.  Trust me, it's all cute and snuggly at first, but soon enough it's deciding at three in the morning that your nose is a mouse and it MUST attack.
  2. Your cat will knock things off benches.  Breakable things, usually.  The funny thing is it won't do it while you're no there, only when you're in the room with it.  Just don't leave your iPhone anywhere it can get to it and you'll be fine.  
  3. Feed it the good stuff.  Shell out the extra for the vet brand food and the raw chicken.  It might seem like you're spoiling it, but you're the one that has to clean out the litter box and there's nothing worse that what a cat leaves in there after eating cheap canned food.  Do it for your own sake. 
  4. You can spend a fortune on cat toys if you're not careful, but a ball of wool costs next to nothing and I've never met a cat that wouldn't play with one for hours.

All pretty reasonable pieces of advice I thought at the time.  Sensible, not likely to backfire in any way.

Yeah ... I was definitely wrong on that one.

Here's the text conversation I had with him the other morning.



So, from the woman who spent most of the other morning on her hands and knees scrubbing the carpet with spot cleaner, and then most of the evening with the carpet shampooer, and from the cat who still has a haunted look in her eyes, consider this a public service announcement.  



61 comments:

  1. The only two things every cat needs. A box for sitting in. Paper for lying on. Oh, and a laser pointer!

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    1. Laser pointers are the best! I used to have one and Gypsy The Feline Dictator loved it! I wonder what happened to it.

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  2. Ah yes... pets.... no cats here, but I do so love it when one of our dogs starts making that noise like it's going to puke and then runs for the door and it's a 50-50 chance as to whether you and the pet will make it to the door on time, yank it open and get them outside to gag it up. Ah, yes... pets.

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  3. Yes, wool, yarn, string, tinsel on Xmas trees -- all are dangerous to a cat. Your brother's cat was lucky it was able to pass it successfully through its digestive system without harm. More often it results in an emergency visit to the vet, surgery or death. When HRH was a kitten, she loved to play with yarn but only under my supervision to make sure she didn't eat any. Call me a "helicopter cat person" if you will, but better safe than sorry!

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    1. I'm a bit like that too, but then Gypsy is an indoor cat. I suppose people who have cats that roam the neighbourhood aren't as fussy.

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  4. Hey...it's not just cats. My former sister-in-law had a dog who ate everything. Candles, tube socks, and even pantyhose.

    Imagine pulling THAT out of the dog's butt.

    I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. Thank you.

    -andi

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  5. My Lab was sick for days. He finally passed a holly leaf, pointy sides first, poor thing.

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  6. Yeah...you think they would know enough not to eat certain things...wouldn't you?

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    1. I suppose it's my own fault, I didn't realise there was a scrap of wool under the coffee table.

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  7. I have medium length hair and somehow my one cat seems to always ingest it so sometimes I have to pull poop hanging out of her butt because of that. SO GROSS.

    Also: they seem to love to vomit. My cats go outside, eat gross, come inside, vomit. All THE TIME.

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    1. My cat never vomits, I suppose I should be grateful for small mercies.

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  8. We have a dog that loves used dental floss. We have to make sure it ends in the kitchen trash can with a lid otherwise she'll get it out of the bathroom trash. Otherwise she'll end up with a piece of poop dangling from her butt. It takes 2 people to get the floss out. One to keep her still and one to pull it out.

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    1. Gypsy likes dental floss too, which is why I never leave it in the bathroom bin.

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  9. My friend's oldest cat ate a penny when she was a kitten. The surgery to get the penny out, which was lodged in the intestines, was almost 2,000.00, and the cat has had digestive problems ever since. Her other cat loves plastic of any kind. My cat eats rubber bands when she can get them :0

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  10. It's very kind of you to share these things, lol!! (I'm not laughing AT you, promise). :) Thank you for linking to Super Sunday Sync.

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  11. I love this post. I'm like Heather, our cat likes to eat my long hair and it's so much fun pulling it out unless she vomits it up which is equally as much fun, lol. I'm visiting from the SSS Hop. Thanks for sharing today. I'm already following you with bloglovin but I added you on GFC today. Hope you will come visit me when you can.
    Angel

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    1. I'm feeling rather grateful now that Gypsy doesn't eat my hair!

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  12. Purr-fect , just purr-fect ! Bwahahahaha .
    oops Sorry meant to say ~ so sorry about the carpet , poor kitty :)

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    1. LOL! The carpet came up okay after a few goes with the shampooer.

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  13. Duly noted...there won't be any balls of wool around here. Maybe it's a good thing that my cats seem to be fussy eaters. They ONLY like the good stuff.

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    1. Gypsy too. I think if I put cheap food down now she'd just give me that "what the hell, bitch?" look.

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  14. The same advice is also applicable to children!!

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  15. and don't put tinsel on your Christmas tree. I pulled some of that out of Bumpers (at least it was from the front end)

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    1. LOL! I made sure to get rid of all my tinsel when I first got Gypsy.

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  16. We once had a cat who started running around the house, behaving as if she were being chased. I got my hands on her and found dental floss coming out of her rear. I guess she found it in the trash and ate it.

    Love,
    Janie

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  17. Worms are the worst when they scrape their butt's along the floor to get rid of it....

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    1. Ugh, it's worse when things get stuck in their fur and then they drag THAT across the carpet!

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  18. Thanks.
    Here is one from me. Please don't put a flee collar on a kitty before checking with your vet.

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    1. I haven't heard of that one. Luckily Gypsy has never had fleas so I've never had to worry about it.

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  19. Ew. Acres and acres of ewwwww. Gross. Nasty. From here on out, with all the information you've dropped on us, there's no more romanticizing cute cat videos, GIFs or simple a grumpy cat meme addition. This is filthy gross. I've talked about STDs and leaky orifices, but this is beyond the pale. Yanking streams of wool out of a cat's anus like it's a silk worm (is silk just worm-poo by-the-way?) is just plain grotesque! Thanks to you and the commenters I shall never own a pet or a child ever again!

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  20. Just in case you are ever asked for canine advice (as your feline note seem spot on)...when dogs eat stuff that is left on the counter that is wrapped in saran wrap....yeah, I think you see where that is going...

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  21. Hey, Kellie...you don't think that the cat box stench and the last post about you being sick are related, do you? Hehe!

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  22. Despite their crazy wacky antics, I am a cat person through and through. Happy first day of autumn!!

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    1. Cats are amazing, despite the awkward wool-in-the-bum stuff ;D

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  23. That more evidence for my "cats are evil" portfolio. When enough evidence is collected, I shall be submitting this document to all world leaders and demanding international action.

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  24. So when you pulled the yarn out, did the cat start up like a lawn mower?

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  25. My little dog likes to eat strange things when she is on heat. Once she knocked over my handbag and ate a tampon (still in its wrapper of course). Off to the vet we go, who laughed and said "Well she is on heat and knew what she needed but just put it in the wrong end!"

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  26. That sounds awful, but I do know a girl whose dog once ate a knee-high sock and had to have it rectally extracted by a vet. And it was not cheap. Just be thankful nothing got stuck!

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    1. I suppose I should thank god for small mercies. At least I could pull the wool out rather than having to pay a vet to do it.

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  27. Cats are very destructive creatures. The two cats I have we got when they were kittens and within the first 6 months of their lives I'm guessing they did at least a couple hundred dollars worth of damage. They chewed through all of our phone and charger chords, broke several glasses, somehow knocked down a very large framed picture that was hung in our living room (destroying the frame), etc, etc, etc. No one had warned me about how destructive they can be.

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    1. Gypsy destroyed not one, but two couches, and she's happily making her way through my dining chairs now. But luckily she doesn't seem inclined to scratch my new leather couch.

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  28. Yes so true! EVERY WORD!

    (i had two cats for 16 and 18 years, respectively and they did everything you are saying and worse.)

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  29. Wow, I feel worse for you (does that make me a bad person?). At least it came out - I had to PULL some mega-long stringy thing out of the Chihuahua's behind that just wouldn't...you know...leave the premises if you know what I mean. She looked as horrified and violated as I felt. Yuck.

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    1. LOL! There's just something about animals, they can make you feel like the worst person in the world. Mind you, I'd probably look the same way if someone was doing that to me.

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  30. All Mocho needs is a box to lay on. In. Near. She's not picky. Oh, and a newly organized desk to knock stuff off of at 3:00 AM and make you think your house is being broken into.

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  31. Also, they will knock over glasses of liquid, usually when there's something expensive (such as an iPod) laying underneath and the water damage will void the warranty.

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