Why It’s a Bad Idea to Keep a 15 Year Old ‘Cat Mat’

Blue, Bettina and I attended a canine event in Gardiner, Maine.  It’s an annual event and typically we man the Maine Greyhound Placement Service booth but this year we decided to attend as part of the general public.  We met our friends Billy, Shannon, Trouble and Sugaree and spent the morning wandering around, meeting, greeting, visiting and chatting with all the dog folks out and about.

Looks perfectly harmless, right?

As we worked our way towards the exit of the park, we came upon a booth for a mobile veterinarian.  This group is there every year.  We stopped to chat with the vet manning the table.  It wasn’t long before both the vet and I noticed Bettina.  While Blue was people and dog watching, Bettina was laser focused on the vet’s table.  She was trying to work her way around a big box on the ground at the end of the table to get closer.  Despite dogs and people swirling all around her, she seemed oblivious to this bounty.

The vet had some papers and some information about canine weight loss on the table.  Bettina was desperate to get to the other side of this table and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why.  Soon she was barking her fool head off.  I thought at first, she was barking at the vet.  But she was not.  After several rounds of barking she tried to jump up on the table.  I pulled her back several times and scolded her.  She was not dissuaded.

The human vet and the human mumma are most definitely not sight hounds.  So we can be forgiven for the fact that it wasn’t until her second or third attempt to gain the summit of the table that we figured out what was so important to her.  I had not noticed it before, but the vet had 3-4 pieces of fur sitting at the back of the table.  They looked like cat hides and at first I was a little horrified thinking he had skinned some cats and saved their skins.  

It wasn’t as gruesome as that but nearly so.  In fact, they were ‘cat mats.’  This is a term I had never heard of before but apparently if a long haired cat goes un-groomed and gets too matted, the only solution is to shave the poor thing down.  What gets shaved off is a cat rug the size of the feline in question. 

I felt a little sad for any cats that ended up in this condition.  On the table was evidence of at least 4 cats who had ended up that way.  What was puzzling to me, however, is why anyone would want to save such a thing.  Maybe you save ONE as a cautionary tale to other cat owners.  But saving four of them?  That’s a collection.  That indicates a hobby.  These ‘cat mats’ weren’t in the shape of the Virgin Mary or anything.  There wasn’t anything special about them that I could see.

It went from strange to truly bizarre when the vet informed me that at least one of them was 15 years old.

Bettina, just before "the incident"

  Someone saved a giant mat of cat fur for more than a decade!  As I was pondering this, the vet took the rattiest of the four mats and held it out at Bettina level. 

Ole Lightning Fussypants did not look a crazy gift vet in the mouth.  She grabbed that nasty piece of fur so quickly that neither the vet nor I actually saw it happen.  The next thing we knew, she was shaking that ancient cat hair for all she was worth.  It must have smelled very cattish because she seemed convinced it could and should be killed.

I did have to agree with her on that one point, it should have been killed.  But the vet was of another opinion.  He started yelling that I should not let her rip it and other things I wasn’t paying attention to as I wrestled Bettina for her prize.  She was so in the cat killing zone that she just chomped on that fur fast and hard, paying no attention to my fingers that had been jammed into her mouth in an effort to pry her jaws open. 

I was eventually successful in prying open her mouth and grabbing the soggy, nasty old cat fur back, but not before she flattened several fingers between her molars.  I threw the thing back at the vet and he spent a little time petting and primping it before he replaced it with the other three. 

He gave me a wry smile and said, “Huh.  She’s high prey.” 

I took a moment to formulate my response as I massaged some blood back into my crushed fingers.  I decided that the response that would get me in the least amount of trouble was, “Yes.  Yes she is.” 

“I guess I shouldn’t have held that out for her to sniff.” 

Again I took a moment to mentally edit my response in the interests of politeness.  “No.  No you shouldn’t have.”

Unquiet On the Eastern Front

We’ve had a visitor! Since we live in the sticks, that is not a frequent occurrence. The whole house has been in an uproar.

This past Monday night at the last potty before bedtime, I let the kids out as I usually do. Only after they hit the back lawn did I look up and notice a pair of shining green eyes amongst the shamefully un-whacked weeds.

Oh Crap!!!! What the heck is that? Cat? Skunk (oh god please no)? Porcupine (oh god please no again)? It was too late; the hounds had already been released. I held my breath, waiting for the imminent fracas. Except my alleged sight hounds didn’t seem to notice the mystery interloper. Feeling like I had a chance, I nonchalantly sauntered down the steps and inched my way towards Bettina.

I knew that if anyone was going to get into trouble in this situation, it would most certainly be my Vice President of Checking Stuff Out. So when I reached her, I got hold of her then turned to deal with the beastie in the grass.

I made noises. I shooed. I stomped. I shouted. The eyes stayed right where they were. Blue and Bettina were staring at mumma clearly thinking that mumma has gone ‘round the bend.

I thought a few moments and then tried again, this time taking a few steps in the eyes’ direction and dragging Bettina along with me so I could keep my grasp on her. The weeds rustle. Out from the puckerbrush sashays a small cat. A cat. In our backyard, the wolves den. We haven’t had a cat in the yard since the neighborhood mouser tried it once just after the fence went up. Once was all it took.

Kitty strolled leisurely to the gap between the fence and garage then slipped out into the night. This entire episode takes place right under Bettina and Blue’s very noses and neither one ever noticed. Sight hounds my ass…

In any case, I figured problem solved. Kitty learns lesson, hounds no worse for wear. Except on Tuesday evening I was sure I was hearing noises every time I walked into the kitchen.  Eventually I approached the back door cautiously. We have curtains on the all-glass door. The curtains are sheer which ensures no one can see in during the day and you can’t see outside at night. I thought I was detecting faint movement through the curtain. I flipped on the porch light and jumped back at the unexpected sight of Kitty sitting on the back porch, meowing piteously to come inside.

I chased Kitty out of the yard hissing and shouting. I’d hoped to scare it off in order to avoid having to watch Bettina eat it. Kitty disappeared around the corner of the house and was soon back on the porch like some miniature furry peeping-Tom.

I had to chase Kitty out of the yard again in order to let the kids out for last potty without significant bloodshed. But Wednesday afternoon Kitty was waiting at the door for us right after work. Bettina, the sight hound, finally saw it and began frantically clawing at the door, poking a hole in my sheer curtains and barking madly.

Kitty waited patiently for me as I stepped outside and closed the back door on a major rumble of black fur and teeth trying to force its way out the door right behind me. Kitty was completely un-phased by this show of ferocity and she rubbed against my leg. I picked Kitty up. Kitty snuggled right into my chest. Darn cute little thing!

Still, I brought Kitty to the fence and stuffed her under the gate. Then I let the dogs out. Kitty hung out right where she was, just out of reach on the outside of the fence. Bettina lost her little mind and ran straight at the fence all barks, growls and fangs. Kitty stood her ground.

Completely flummoxed, Bettina amped up the Cujo factor and began again to berate and threaten Kitty. Kitty stood there just long enough to let Her Royal Highness know there was a new royal in town and that Bettina wasn’t fooling anyone with her shtick. Then Kitty leisurely ambled along the fence line, stopping occasionally to watch the whirling dervish keeping pace on the inside of the fence.

Eventually Kitty disappeared again around the corner of the house. I thought that this had to have left an impression on the pint size feline and I gathered Blue and the freak show that is Bettina and we all went inside. I’m not sure what made me do it, but I took a quick peek out the front door and…

there was Kitty still mounting her campaign to adopt me.

I broke down and fed Kitty some salmon treats on the front porch with Bettina serenading us from inside the house. Kitty began showing up every morning and evening after that. The plan is to take Kitty to the local shelter but she has an uncanny knack for arriving before the shelter is open or after it closes.

Bettina has made it exceedingly clear that she would LOVE to adopt the little hors de oeuvre. She hasn’t stopped telling me so, loudly, ever since she finally laid eyes on the furry little bugger.

Post Script:

I was successful at finally seeing Kitty during shelter hours and she is now on her way to getting a loving forever home. The shelter has named her Zig Zag and I’m just waiting for her to appear on the website so I can follow her until her adoption. Bettina is disconsolate and hungry.

Attempted Catricide and the Cure for What Ails Ya

Girly Girl and Blue’s Grammy recently fenced in her fabulous flat, obstacle free back yard. This has been a great boon to us all. We have always liked to visit Grammy but now there is even more reason to sneak over there every time we’re in town for a few quick hot laps before heading home.

These visits are always quite fun. Sometimes Grammy’s boys join us and Girly Girl, Blue, Fox and Crandall have a free for all for about 5 minutes. Then everyone stands around looking at each other until we give up and go inside for some treats or the three of us go home.

So one night last week we decided to sneak over to Grammy’s for a quick run. It was already dark but we knew the back yard so well by this time that I didn’t think much about it. I let the furry kids off their leashes and urged them off to work out the excess energy. They took care of the obligatory investigation and took care of covering over all the spots where Fox and Crandall had marked. They jogged back and forth a couple times and then they disappeared around the far side of Grammy’s house.

A way to tease the hounds suddenly presented itself to my diabolical mind and I turned and headed to the far side of Grammy’s garage so as not to be seen when they came back around to the backyard. This, I knew, would send them into a frantic search for me. I was giggling to myself when I heard the first cavalcade of canine feet begin from the far side of the house. Any moment they’d come flying around the corner of the garage and barrel into me, all in a panic that I had left them behind. Hey, I love them, but I’m still an evil, evil girl. This, I might add, is one of the many reasons I don’t have human children. Except it turned out the joke was on me and that was not even close to what came into view.

As I peeked around the corner of the garage, there came streaking from the side of Grammy’s house, Girly Girl. She was moving as fast as I have ever seen any greyhound move. That includes the greyhounds I saw running in the live races at Raynham when we were at the adoption expo. This was a hound that seemed not to have been told that she had a fractured hock. I stood marveling at how fast she was running. Then I marveled at the absolute beauty of her movements. The art and grace of a greyhound running at top speed with full intent and purpose.

Then I realized there was a reason for her laser focus, and she was NOT ALONE.

Not quite one whisker’s length ahead of her was a white ball of fluff, running for its poor, pathetic, furry, soon to be cut short, life. My brain started the calculations and I quickly ruled out the possibility of reaching the pair before Girly Girl had the desperate cat at the far corner of the yard in the 90 degree bend of the fence. I looked around and saw Blue trotting out from the side of Grammy’s house. His ears were up and he was watching the proceedings as I was though his expression was one of mild interest and amusement while mine was one of dawning horror as my mind rapidly went through and discarded the possible actions I might take. Run real fast and save the cat-yeah right. Stand there and pee my pants while covering my eyes and twisting my mind around the fact that I’m going to have to collect the pieces of someone’s cat in a plastic bag-that’s probably more like it.

I yelled for Girly Girl to break off the chase. I could almost hear Blue laughing to my left as he watched events unfold. If Girly Girl even knew of our existence at that point, she showed no sign of it. My ability to influence the outcome of this play was essentially nil. My brain started working up pictures of the murder scene complete with crime scene photos, a tape outline (actually many little tape outlines of the various pieces) and Girly Girl being led away in muzzle and cuffs. What is the protocol in a case like that, do you bring the plastic bag and try to find the owner or give the remains a decent burial and let the poor owners wonder what happened instead of knowing the awful truth?

Within a split second, Girly Girl had covered the distance between the side of Grammy’s house and the corner of the fence. She was upon the cat and like some very bad African documentary where they actually show the lion making the kill, I watched as she grabbed the cat by the back and began to shake it. At this point, I’m pretty sure I was just emitting squeaks. Possibly supersonic. Blue was looking at me strangely instead of watching the drama in front of us and there were a large number of bats gathering on the eaves of the garage.

At the last possible second Fluffy the White gave it one last college try and reached up behind him firmly attaching his front claw to Girly Girl’s cheek. This was enough to startle her (What? It bites back?) and she opened her mouth dropping said kitty who wasted NO time in beating feet. Girly Girl recovered her composure quickly enough and was soon back on kitty’s tail as they raced up the back side of the yard, along the fence line.

Kitty, apparently not one to make the same mistake twice, saw the approaching corner at the opposite end of the yard and decided he may not be as lucky a second time. He made a dive for the fence and scrambled underneath it. There was a small clearance there but without a doubt there is a white cat wandering around this week with newly coiffed reverse Mohawk who might be a bit tender and whose caretakers are probably very puzzled as to his disheveled state. If they only knew.

For her part, Girly Girl transformed from the steely eyed killer to my sweet Boo-Boo the moment the cat was out of reach. Like a miracle at Lourdes, she could hear again and came trotting over to cuddle up to mum who was on the verge of a breakdown, squeaking about “No Girly Girl, noooo…..” over and over again. She spent the rest of the evening hyped up on adrenaline, pacing back and forth. Alternately abusing toys and panting like some overgrown schoolyard bully. Then curling up with mum or Grammy and smiling in self-satisfaction over the successful hunt, making sure to show off the war wound where kitty had sunk claw in flesh.

And the next day she remembered that she had a racing injury which retired her and oh yeah, that’s why I don’t run so fast anymore. Girly Girl continues to recuperate from the adventure. I still have nightmares about white cats and Grammy says her yard has been cat free since that night. Seems cats talk and word is out in the neighborhood. The feline miracle cure is not recommended for anyone, not hound, not human, and especially not cat.