Dear Cat Romantics-

[akirlu]

Yer dreamin'.

Don't get me wrong. I'm quite fond of our moggies. But the elegance, cleanliness, and fastidiousness of cats? This is hogwash of the first water. Pure propaganda promulgated by deluded cat fanciers.

First there is Tinka, the Pigpen of the cat world, who leaves an impact crater of flung cat food twice the diameter of her bowl whenever she eats; who rolls and wallows in filth like a happy piglet and then drags every bit of it inside the house -- to the point where in summer I regularly have to invert my keyboard to shake the twigs and clots of dirt out of it, because guess who likes to come lie on my hands whenever I try to type; and who so hates grooming and being groomed that I have to cut the winter dreadlocks out of her fur with embroidery snips every spring. Tinka is also the one who managed to get into the top of my storage closet before disgorging a furball so that she could projectile vomit black tar all over the majority of my dress clothes.

Now we have Lefty, who not only drinks off the bathroom faucet, but also out of the toilet if the lid is left up, and regularly pees in the bathtub. And since Lefty and Tinka are still conducting a slow war for territorial dominance of the upstairs, now Tinka has taken to peeing in the bathtub as well, usually right after Lefty has. Yay! Bladder wars!

And who was it that dragged their unwashed cat butt across my pillow so it now smells like last week's litter box? I'm thinking Lefty -- the established mistress of the bedroom.

But despite Lefty's impressive innovations, Tinka is still the queen of the roughhewn bowery cats, as I was reminded again last night. She's bonkers for french fries. A crazed, ravening fiend for them. I can make her sit up and beg -- upright on her haunches like an alarmed prairie dog, with both forepaws grappling my fist -- if I will just dangle a Wendy's fried spud for her. We're fairly sure this bizarre craving is childhood nostalgia: a reminder of her former life on the mean streets of Seattle. Yes, we are the proud owners of a dumpster-diving street cat.

Not that we'd have them any other way. But let's please have no nonsense about the angelic tidiness of cats. It's bunk.

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Peeing in the bathtub is better than peeing lots of other places!

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Oh, believe me, I'm grateful that the cats have elected to conduct their literal pissing contest in a part of the house that is lined in porcelain and has a drain. My real concern is that they confine themselves to the tub and don't branch out.

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

I can make her sit up and beg -- upright on her haunches like an alarmed prairie dog, with both forepaws grappling my fist -- if I will just dangle a Wendy's fried spud for her.

This should be on youtube. It would probably give Broccoli Kitten a run for his ... broccoli?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

It's funny, I never think of shooting video. Our digital cameras can do it, but I never think of using that feature.

[mallory-blog.livejournal.com]

mine like to trot their cat litter crumbs across my bed, hopefully unmade bed so that it is like sleeping with sand, stinky sand -- they are minions...

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my little darlings have been known to leave litter crumbs in unwelcome spots as well.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

As a profession cat-sitter, I approve this message.

Since I am less allergic to cats than dogs

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I will always see cats as tidier. They're still extraordinarily gifted mess generators, but at least I can tolerate being around them. I can spend the whole day with one of our friends who has seven cats with maybe a sneeze or two at the end of the day, but a few hours with a golden retriever defeats even Benadryl.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Second water, perhaps. Compared to dogs, as a group, cats are tidy.

But certainly not on an absolute scale, as you say. That's one reason ours don't go outside. I notice long ago that the incessant grooming of cats didn't prevent them from leaving dirty smudges on whatever light-colored walls or furniture they were frequently accustomed to rubbing against.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Due respect, D., you are a dog bigot, and not likely to be drawing much of your estimation of the tidiness of dogs from extensive personal experience. The superior tidiness of cats is a cultural icon, it has nothing to do with facts.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Or perhaps it's because they bury their dung. Never underestimate the power of symbolism.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

That's part of it. I've also seen both dogs and cats eat. Cats can be messy, but not always; and most dogs are much messier.

I don't attribute it to personal habit; both "tidiness" and "messiness" are the characteristics of the species as read against human standards.

U. also has no idea what my personal experience of dogs may have been. My reaction to them comes from a long and often close history, and is in any case not directly related to this particular scale.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

How many dogs have you lived with, or been long term caretaker to?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I spent most of my childhood surrounded and besieged by neighborhood dogs. Including one in my house. I've stayed with friends who had dogs, including long-term (weeks) with three dogs at once. I've probably known more dogs than I have cats, especially as friends' cats are frequently shy and don't come out for visitors. Having had cats in the house for longer than dogs hasn't changed my impression of cat behavior much, so I think generalizations like this are a matter of opportunity to observe, which I've had, and not of deep expertise. That's my history with dogs, and I'm not going to play any macho "who's known more dogs for longer" games.

[billzilla.livejournal.com]

Thank god, at least, that your cats have chosen to pee in something porcelain with a ready supply of running water nearby. Our kitty bladder/UT drama wasn't quite as -- tidy. But yeah, cat lovers do tend to romanticize these things. Have you seen any of the kitty-cat fiction out there, with cats as protagonists? Not as creepy as furries, but gives one paws for thought.

B.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure my pancreas can produce enough insulin to dare venture into kitty-cat fic. Better safe than sorry. Yikes.

[maryread.livejournal.com]

I'll resemble that remark! We're having an increasingly elderly cat problem lately. But she seems to have her accidents on the cuddly sofa blankies which go into the wash, and we can tell what has occurred by her immediate aversion for those stinky things! Mr S has taken to pointing out to her the litter box in the middle of the living room every day or two, in case she's just back from Paris.

I heard you had to cover your sofas with plastic. We are just planning to throw ours out & replace the carpeting. In the mean time, that Arm & Hammer powder stuff kind of works.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

You're already aware of and using an enzyme-based cleaner, like Nature's Miracle, yes?

[billzilla.livejournal.com]

I highly recommend Nature's Miracle to neutralize the smell. It comes in gallon jugs and spray bottles, and is not cheap but works better than anything else we've found. And by better, I mean it works quite well. Pet stores carry it.

Is Elderly Cat just elderly, or does she have a bladder infection/UT issues? It may be treatable. Our Buster was looking for soft places to pee because softness = comfort, and he was in pain from crystals in his UT. He, too, would go on piles of couch blankets.

Our couches are not covered in plastic, per se; we have absorbent mattress pads (with plastic underlining)underneath the quilted covers, to keep the pee from getting into the couch cushions -- much harder to throw those in the wash than a blanket. :-)

B.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

It is a cause for sympathy, all by itself, that you think of the gallon jugs right off the bat. I've never purchased more than the 2-quart size, myself.

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

Obviously, Tinka is a dog trapped in a cat's body.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

This seems less plausible, the more I have cats.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem seems to be that cat romantics think of "covered in cat saliva" as being in the "clean" category. Not really. If anything but a cat gets licked by a cat, it becomes *dirtier*. Same with the cat itself, really.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Very true. As anyone who suffers from allergies or has had to get a bite treated can verify, the cleanliness of cat saliva is at best relative.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, the only reason cats have a reputation for being less messy eaters than dogs is because they are, on average, quite a bit smaller, and eat from smaller bowls, and therefore their messes resulting from their dining are consequently smaller in proportion to a given floor.

[paulcarp.livejournal.com]

As a deluded cat fancier, I am here only to promulgate pure propaganda.
Cats win.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

They do. Right up until the vacuum cleaner comes out, anyway.

[paulcarp.livejournal.com]

Fortunately for our strays, we don't seem to have any vacuum cleaners that actually work. I think they (the cats) invent or market them (the vacuums).

[maryread.livejournal.com]

Like primates are the best judges of cleanliness?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I certainly welcome opinions from other genera, but so far no one is speaking up.

[19-crows.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to say that I must agree with you. Yes, they're always licking themselves clean. Then they soon hork up a hairball, usually on something you treasure.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Plus, they have a side bet awarding themselves style points for producing a hairball when and where you're likeliest to inadvertently step barefoot into it, preferably when it's already cold but still slimy. It's still a tough call -- cat yakk or headless bird corpse -- as the highest point score for greeting the bare feet on the bedroom floor.