Tagged: cat piss

Laser kitty PEW PEW PEW

The chronicles of Taco are neverending.

So I decided that since Taco is having a flare-up, we should try the laser therapy again. It’s not as expensive as you’d think, and my vet said that she has had success with cats who have worse flare-ups than Taco. Last time we only did one session, this time we’re going to try for the recommended 2-3. The weather is crazy windy out right now and for some reason that seems to freak Taco out more. I mean, I don’t like wind either, but it doesn’t cause MY mental issues to flare. Then again, my hormones do that for me once a month. That’s totally another story.

Cat got your tongue? Har har har.

Taco is again a laser kitty. I don’t know why laser sounds amuse me so.

I also went to the pet store yesterday, a real one, not one of those big fancy “we don’t really know anything about pets” places. I love small businesses. I swear, I have been a cranky old lady since I was 14. I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart. Anyway. I needed more cat urine cleaner. The one that I had sucked. Or Taco’s pee is just really really strong. Anyway, I got a new kind (still smells like pee, this last episode of his was a doozy, none of the other couch pees have been this strong especially after cleaning, AND it was on the boyfriend’s favorite seat…yeah, that went over well). And I talked to the pet store guy, who was super friendly and you could tell knew what he was talking about, like the kind of people who own businesses because they actually give a shit about what they’re doing rather than making a boatload of money. He made a lot of suggestions. And they were all things I’ve already tried. I could see the surprise on his face, I don’t think that he’s ever had such a thorough crazy cat lady asking for help before. He quizzed me on my number of litterboxes vs. number of cats (2 cats, 3 boxes) and then he THOUGHT he was going to stump me when he asked if I used 3 different kinds of litter…and the answer is yes. Yes, I buy THREE different kinds of litter. I felt like passing this test elevated my crazy cat lady status. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get me any farther in fixing Taco. When I say I have tried everything, I really really mean I have tried everything. I even spray the couches with cat repellent.

Here’s what I did do. Because, you know, my parents always taught me that you should always ask for what you want, because the worst answer you can get is no. So I emailed the cat behaviorist people. I told them I can’t afford their $225 phone consultation. I told them that I have done everything I can possibly do and I just want to help my kitty. So I threw it all out there and asked if I could barter. Granted, my skills may not be in their demand (I work in marketing, they already have a really nice website and it appears they don’t need any help getting business) but I can do copywriting, proofreading, research…I even threw in fantasy football tips (although this may not be the year to ask me those, I’m doing miserably). I did leave out crafts, I’m not sure “decoupauged tissue box” is a viable offer. I haven’t gotten an answer. But even so, I tried. I didn’t ask for charity, although I certainly would accept it from them if they offered. So if they say no, I’m no worse off than I was before. It at least made me feel good, because I’m not giving up. I’m hard headed like that.

I just wish extreme love was enough to fix. In a perfect world it would be.

Kitty mommy blues. Thanks for listening.

Taco peed on the other couch. The one that he hadn’t peed on yet.

This is ultimately frustrating. I consider myself a loving, caring, well-informed kitty mommy that tries really hard to give her boys the best life possible. I know he’s not doing it on purpose, but it’s a slap in the face.

 

I’m sure you’re all getting sick of me bitching about this. I’M getting sick of bitching about this. And I’m gonna be honest, I’m sick of hearing the boyfriend bitch about it. This isn’t to say that he’s wrong for being upset. But here’s what happens…he gets pissed about it. I’m pissed on a different level, like a “this is what mommies have to endure but sweet jesus stop” level. And sometimes I feel like he’s pissed on a “let’s get rid of the cat” level. This has not been expressly said. So then I am dealing with my own frustration, his higher level of frustration, AND trapped between that and defensiveness for my baby.

 

From a logic point of view, I see why this combo causes a higher level of upset for me. I understand (for the most part) why cats do what they do. The fact that I can’t figure out how to make Taco stop peeing on the couch is a frustrating conundrum but out of all the things I DO understand about cats, this one thing is a fraction. The boyfriend loves them. But he is not a crazy cat lady. He didn’t decide that he liked cats more than humans. He just decided he liked me enough to put up with a crazy cat lady for what is going on 10 years. He doesn’t GET them. What bothers me most is that he should know how upsetting it is to me just merely not reinforcing strongly that he would never ask that we re-home Taco. Just because he hasn’t said the words indicating that he wants to doesn’t mean I’m not afraid that he’s going to ask that. My boys are non-negotiable. But so is my relationship. So it hurts that he doesn’t understand this very big part of my life, the crazy cat ladiness. Or at least give in to understanding that he can’t understand and be on my side. And be upset WITH me…not because our cat peed on our couch, but because I can’t fix Taco no matter how hard I try. I don’t even know if this makes sense reading it. And he will probably be upset with me for being so brutally honest here, but frankly, I had to get it out.

 

Taco is my baby. He might be a lemon, but he’s my lemon. He’s at least in a home where he will not be abused for peeing on a couch. He gets the best I can give him. I can’t save them all, but I can at least give one a little bit of leeway for being an animal. I just really really really really wish I could stop it. Boyfriend, I would. I even spent my lunch hour trying to figure out how to become a cat behaviorist (I haven’t really figured that out yet, but usually if I can’t afford something I try to do it myself. This is proving difficult in cat whispering Taco).

 

And despite all this, I successfully completed week 2 of smoke-free weekdays. I wanted to smoke this morning when the boyfriend told me about the loveseat desecrating, but I made my boss talk me out of it. Knee jerk reaction when I get bad news. So I have that to be positive about! At least I have control over something…

Kitty mommy vent time.

I will never understand why it takes Taco two full days to stop hissing at Moosh when he gets back from the vet. It’s not like his scent isn’t EVERYWHERE. Sometimes I think they’re really smart, and sometimes I agree with the boyfriend about them having pea brains.


How can he not recognize his brother but recognize the couch as a place to pee?

 

This is where I vent.

 

I have no help with this couch pee thing. My vet has helped with all of the medical issues possible, and I’ve taken all the advice possible about helping him stay stress and FIC-flare-free.

 

Yet he peed on the couch again the other day. I don’t even really want to talk about it, because that means facing it, and yeah, I know, it’s a COUCH, but it’s OUR couch and while I’m totally ok with my crazy cat lady status, I’ve completely accepted that IS my life, I’m not ok with my house smelling like cat piss. I’d like to have people over. I’d like to utilize the couch for more than just the puppy pads that are currently adorning it. I’ve done everything to stop it. I don’t know what else to do. It’s a fairly new couch. Do I just accept that it’s never going to stop? Do we just get rid of the couch? What if we have it professionally cleaned and all and he pees on it again? What if we get rid of the couch and he just pees on the loveseat? I’m fully aware that there are worse problems in life. But this is MY life and I want a damn couch I can entertain people on. *I* would like to sit on my couch. MY usual seat was on that couch.

 

This brings me back to my failed bid at My Cat From Hell. When they responded that they wouldn’t be coming to Florida, they said that Jackson Galaxy sometimes does Skype consultations, and I could try. So I did. I got a response yesterday that he is currently filming and not available, but referred me to another cat behaviorist. So I checked that out. It’s TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS for a HALF HOUR PHONE CONSULTATION. I’m in the wrong effin’ business. Do I have to go to college for that? I’m already the go-to cat problem person for people I know. I need to start charging. Not trying to brag or anything, but over the years I feel like I’ve amassed enough cat knowledge through personal experience and my undying devotion to the babies that I’m probably pretty qualified already.

Jockeying for position on Ikea boxes.

Wow, what if the reason I always get the lemon cats is because one day (today?) I realized my calling? I’m 30 years old and I still don’t know what to do with my life. Maybe I’m supposed to be the girl Jackson Galaxy. I DO have tons of personality and tattoos. And I can thing of worse things than dealing with cats all day. And I could be MEAN to bad kitty owners, because I would get paid upfront, like these $225 consultation people.

 

But first, I need to fix this couch thing. So far I can’t find an answer. This is one of those times where I just want someone to tell me what to do, and I do it, and it works. This one is over my head.

 

So if anyone knows anyone that will help me help Taco to stop peeing on my couch for significantly less than 2 hundos, let me know. I’m tired of thinking about it.

YOUR LOSS, ANIMAL PLANET

Surprisingly, I received a response from the My Cat From Hell people, asking where I was located. In case you missed the post about how I answered their casting call, you can see that here. I was overly hopeful because in the past, they only asked for people living in the LA are, which, if you’re familiar with geography, is rather far from Florida, although not in the grand scheme of things. Hawaii is much farther. I am incredibly grateful that I was able to vacation there a few years ago but they really need to do something about the long plane ride. Frankly, I’m amazed that no one has come up with a less deadly version of the Concorde yet. How were they more technologically advanced in the EIGHTIES??? So back to the point, that they didn’t have a requirement, and the fact that they answered me back in what seemed to NOT be a form email got my hopes up that my cat pee couch dilemma was interesting enough for them to consider our little family of furballs.

Until I got the email that said “Thanks, but you’re too far.” (That’s not a direct quote, I paraphrased.) Oh well. I think Florida is a perfect place for Jackson to come. We have many unique kitty challenges, like not having real dirt, just a dirt-like sand that is the favorite of fleas, as well as not having a winter that gets cold enough to kill off the fleas, and even if you have indoor-only cats (which of course I do, because in addition to sociopaths and vehicles, we have alligators and supposedly coyotes but I’ve never seen one of those) fleas will come in unbeknownst to you clinging to your socks like a hobo on a train. They’re a bitch to get rid of. How come dogs don’t seem to have as much of a problem? They go out every time nature calls. And they ROLL AROUND in the dirt that the fleas love so much. Cat fur better? Everything cat is better. I could do without the fleas, though.

But alas, the boyfriend and I are just going to have to bite the bullet and do something about the couch and the figuring out of how to ensure that Taco never uses it as a litter box again. For now, though, I’m going to continue to procrastinate. Would have been so much easier to have someone to fix the problem for us. For a smart girl, I’m awfully lazy.

Kitty mommy guilt.

He luffs me.

I admit, sometimes I’m not the best kitty mommy. For example, I let the boys go without wet food for almost an entire week because I kept forgetting to go buy some (but then, I also forgot to take back my Redbox movies for a week too, I might as well just keep them at this point). In all fairness, there was a tropical storm going on earlier in the week that hindered errands a bit, and I do work two jobs. But I felt bad at my forgetfulness nevertheless.

Sometimes I forget to clean the litterbox. This is rather hard to do when there is a big stinko in there, but if there’s not or it’s covered well I’m prone to forget. Then I feel awful when I finally do and discover they’ve been slogging around in 10 pounds of waste.

I also don’t completely change out the litter every 2 weeks. I let it go sometimes. I’m pretty sure this is bad.

So forlorn and hungry!

When it’s kitty dinnertime, if I am doing something more important, I make them wait. I also don’t completely clean their dishes all the time, or at least as well as I should. This is shameful.

On occasion, I torture them for my own amusement, like holding them on my lap and laughing at them as they struggle to get away. The horror!

So tired from being mistreated.

Once, I left Taco in my car for 3 minutes while I went inside a store on the way home from the vet. It was a very nice and un-hot day, and I was parked in the shade, but I felt like I deadbeat mom as I waited in line and craned my neck to look out the window.

I’m not even remotely the best kitty mom in the world, but I justify it by telling myself that my love for them is so enormous that it eclipses my bad momminess. So far, that still assuages the guilt.

Cat food for thought.

Disclaimer: No hot dogs were harmed in the making of this picture.

I’m vegan. This is partially because I have never really been a big fan of meat, partially because I find slaughterhouse stories revolting, partially because I really like animals and helped along by reading Skinny Bitch.

It is absolutely AMAZING to hear the reactions from people when I tell them I am vegan. Sometimes they feel the need to defend their meat eating, as if I care. Some ask me “Well, what do you EAT, then?” Dirt. I eat dirt. What exactly do you think I eat? What do YOU eat that you think meat, dairy and eggs are the ONLY sources of sustenance?

My favorite is when people ask me if my cats are vegan.

You’re feeding me WHAT?

I am a lover of science. A devotee of evolution. A student of logic. I understand, know, and appreciate that cats are carnivores. Their little bodies are made to eat meat. I probably know more than I should about how they have different enzymes than humans do, to help process all the flesh they eat. How their stomachs are longer to digest, but have a smaller intestinal tract. Why would I buck the trend and try to perfect what Mother Nature already perfected? There’s a food chain. Some things are meant to be eaten. Some things are meant to eat. I could make the argument that humans are meant to be herbivores, but I’ll refrain here. Vegan conversion is not my goal, it’s my personal choice.

So yes. I feed my cats what they are supposed to eat. I am a little too squeamish to do the raw food diet, and with Taco’s Feline Idiopathic Cystitis, he’s on prescription food anyway.

Here is where I will rant. Cat food is CRAP. Total and utter crap. Grocery store brands? You might as well serve your cat roadkill that’s been sitting out for days and crapped on by other half dead animals. It’s disgusting. I’m sure there are plenty of people who think I’m ridiculous for only wanting to feed my cats organic food without chicken meal and grain and fill, but I wouldn’t stuff myself with fast food pink slime, so why would I do it to my cats? This prescription food he has to eat, it helps him not form crystals, avoiding a very expensive-to-fix blockage, but it is made with CRAP. My vet had an amazingly long discussion with me about my aversion to feeding him this ick. Because I trust her and because she had this amazingly long conversation with me about my aversion to feeding him this ick, I listened. In the end, he’s eating the ick. I’d rather not rush him to the emergency vet or have him die because I am too stubborn to feed him what is apparently the ONLY scientifically proven thing to help him. I tried feeding Mooshie the good stuff and Taco the prescription, but Moosh is a stupidly picky eater and will only eat the crap. He won’t even touch wet food, which I know is bad but I can’t FORCE him to eat it. I will shamefully admit that I have, once or twice, KIND OF smushed his face in it a little, just to nudge him into eating it. It doesn’t work. I just give them lots of water and leave it at that.

But I can tell the difference. Their coats aren’t as shiny. It’s amazing what they allow in cat food. It’s also amazing what they allow in human food, but hey, that’s why I’m vegan.

Toilet training for cats sounds so tempting.

I have two cats. I had two litter boxes. One preferred one, the other preferred the other.

The boys in a rare moment of sharing.

Then Taco started peeing on the couch and in my attempts to try everything to discourage this, we added a third.

They say that you’re supposed to have one box per cat plus one, but I had resisted this as there is really no good place in my house for various litter boxes. As I write this, I have one next to me, in the spare bedroom that serves as an office/craft room. Another is in my boyfriend’s bathroom under the vanity. The third, the one that I tried not to have, is in my “dining room,” which is really just a space with cat stuff. We tossed the table a year ago, we never ate at it and it was ugly. We keep meaning to get another, smaller one, but haven’t gotten around to that either.

I buy three different kinds of litter. I refuse to use clay, because, if you don’t already know, it’s incredibly bad for the environment, the cats and yourself. If you’ve ever poured a batch and inhaled the cloud of dust that ensues, you’ll understand. So I have S’wheat scoop, Feline Pine and Feline Pine clumping. Taco always preferred the pine and Moosh likes the wheat, and I did the clumping downstairs because it’s miserable to step on those f&^#&ing pellets.

Nothing really stops the stench, and now BOTH cats have taken to almost exclusively using the downstairs box…the one I would really prefer them NOT use, as it is right next to the kitchen.

I cannot fathom why. They both spend the majority of their time sleeping upstairs. Moosh’s current favorite place is in my closet, and Taco’s is under or on the bed. They have developed relationships with the boxes they’re already used to. Why is this new box so special?

They are both total opposites when it comes to USING the box, too. Moosh digs to China. He spends a good 15 minutes covering. This leads to what we have affectionately labeled “the poop face,” because he is covered in pine/wheat dust. Then he likes to do what we have affectionately labeled “the poop run,” which is running up (or down) the stairs excitedly, ending with a little prance. I assume he feels lighter and freer and wants to show it off.

POOP FACE!

Taco rarely digs. His poop run consists of dropping a deuce and then hauling ass, leaving the stench to permeate. And boy, is he stench-y.

So this is why, sometimes, I am really tempted to train my cats to use the toilet. In the end, though, I’m personally too selfish to give up the use of one of MY toilets to do so. Nor do I have the patience or time. Sigh.

My couch is not an effing litterbox.

Moosh Moosh laying on the couch in better times.

It’s really frustrating to have your cat pee on the couch. Taco, for all his shortcomings, isn’t a BAD cat, per se. But he peed on the couch because he has this Feline Idiopathic Cystitis.

I have a really great vet so I have a decent understanding of what this is, although apparently the “idiopathic” part of the name is a fancy doctor word for “we’re not really sure what causes this.” The best they can figure is that for some reason, some cats can’t handle stress as well as regular cats (and if I hear someone say “What does a CAT have to be stressed about?!” one more time I’m gonna punch ’em) which in turn causes their bladders to become inflamed. So then it hurts to pee. This is when they pee in places they aren’t supposed to. Which in my case, is my couch.

This is very unfortunate because a) I like to sit there and b) he’ll keep peeing there because he smells it. It’s not like I can just throw the couch in the washing machine with some vinegar. My vet told me to use the cat urine remover, then spray it with vodka. Still smell the pee. Granted, I have to stick my nose right up to it to smell it, but the lil furballs have a much better sense of smell than us.

Currently, my couch is covered with a shower curtain and puppy pads. Oh, and cat repellant. I didn’t know they made that and I don’t know what’s supposed to be repelling about it but it only worked for a little while. We went 2 whole weeks and then he did it again Friday. And then again today.

I am annoyed. Like, really really annoyed. I know it’s not his fault but SWEET BABY JESUS it’s frustrating. Three litterboxes and you can’t pee in ONE of them? I tried reasoning with him once — it was ridiculous, but I was tired of it. I cried… and told him to “stop it for Mommy.” He looked at me quite seriously, then reached out and swatted a pen on the floor.

He’s had a laser treatment for the FIC (I affectionately call this PEW PEW PEW) and about a bazillion other things, but I think his flare-up is over and now he’s just peeing there out of habit.

This sucks.