Before getting the cats, I didn't really think of myself as a cat person. I thought, if I had to choose between the traditional "cat or dog person", I'd choose dogs. You know where you are with a dog. You can play with a dog. You can train a dog. I like the idea of training a pet, particularly when it comes to toiletting.
But, I'm coming round to the way of the cat. Here's a brief list of my pre-cat concerns, and what's happened since the cats have lived with us.
Cats pee, puke and poo in the most inappropriate places
I like to read forums on the internet, and over time I've read a few cat based messageboards. Without a doubt, within the first 50 or so posts, someone will talk about their cat pissing on their bed, pooing under their bed and puking in the porch shortly before guests arrive. It's like some law of the internet. They will also, invariably, be perfectly jovial about it, and act as if it's no big deal.
Trust me, anyone pissing in my bed is a BIG fracking deal. A big deal. My bed is a very lovely place to be, and the bed itself cost a lot of money. So, I decided to institute a "no cats in the bedroom rule". One of R's major fantasies about getting a cat was curling up with it on the bed. But no! I said, no cats on the bed. No cats means no piss, right?
Well, the no cats on the bed rule failed, as you've seen from previous posts. They are only allowed in here when we are in here, and I must say, I quite enjoy a morning cuddle with a cat, or chatting to them when I get dressed. We have, sadly, had a piss-bed interface incident. It was just one of Nathan's droplets so nothing too major, but I was NOT happy about it, and now he's only allowed on the bed if there's something under him. He doesn't seem too keen to come on to the bed with us anyone, as it's really Natalie's domain.
We have had some puking, and there was one epic day where Nathan managed to puke in four different places in the house. Luckily I was at work and R had the joy of cleaning that up. They have puked a couple of times, but nothing too unbearable, and I've only had to clean up sick from hard floors, which seems to be a lot less unpleasant.
As for poo, well, we've had a couple of occasions where they've misfired from the litter tray, and I was the one that cleaned them up. It wasn't nice, and it wasn't pretty, but I can forgive a misfire and would rather have that any day than a cat turd curled out on my sofa. Yuck.
Scratches
A lot of cat owners have scratched arms and some of them make jokes about looking like self-harmers. This HORRIFIES me. I do not want my forearms getting slashed by some wildcat that I've given a home, feed and clean up after thank you. I decided that I was going to try very hard not to get scratched. I was lucky enough to be gifted "Cat Confidential" by Vicky Halls shortly before they arrived. What a lucky person I am. It's such a great book, explaining all about cat behaviour, how cats think, and gives case studies of where it's gone wrong, why and how to deal with it. I guess reading this book has really helped with all of the problems I was worried about, but body language has been a really helpful one. Of course, living with the cats is the only way to really get to know them, but it's cool to be able to anticipate what they may be about to do from a flick of the ears.
I think we're lucky, in that neither cat is at all swipey, and we frequently comment that they don't seem to know that they can use their claws against us. They usually turn or walk away if they want to be left alone. Equally, we generally try to respect them so that they don't feel they need to use their claws. It's a last resort, after all. They get plenty of space from us, and when we need to grab them for whatever reason, we do it at gently and safely as possible. Even when we were doing the pilling saga with Natalie, I think we only got scratched once each, and then not badly at all.
I could hear this weird crunching...
I also heard far too many horror stories about cats bringing in dead or nearly dead animals. Owners have been settling down for a night's sleep and looked down to see the cat under the bed crunching on a dead frog. Or the cat brings in a bird which isn't dead, but mortally injured which then flaps around the house, spraying blood everywhere until the grim reaper finally puts in an appearance. Or the cat brings in a half dead mouse which scurries behind the fridge and no one knows until it starts to smell. I can think of few things worse than getting home from work to find blood all over the walls of the house and a bird corpse to deal with.
Now, this may be beginning for us, as we've never seen them with anything until today, but it has been ok so far. We're lucky to have the option to stop them bringing anything in to the house proper, as we can shut them in to their room which is off the garden. Boring for them, but dealing with corpses with any regularity is not high of my list of things to do before I'm 50.
We just don't get on
Finally, I suppose I was just worried about how it would be. I'd never lived with a "proper" pet before and wasn't quite sure how it would work. Some of the stories in the Cat Confidential book were quite worrying. What if I didn't get on with the cats? What if they were impossible to live with? I think, perhaps, if they did some or all of the things I've mentioned above, I would definitely find it hard to enjoy them. But as it happens, they've really brought a lot to our lives, things we hadn't imagined, and I am enjoying having them. Scraping cat poo off a wall may not be the height of glamour, but when they burst out of a bush and rub your legs when you go in to the garden, a little bit of you does melt. And hey, I can pill fighty cats now. That's got to be a new skill worth celebrating.
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