It's All About Love ... and Cats

How can you possibly love someone who sneaks into your room in the middle of the night? Someone who is carrot red of hair, amber-eyed, and has the damndest fingernail and toenail problem you've ever seen? Someone who not only sneaks into you bedroom, but climbs up onto the bed, right between you and your husband's feet - while you're sound asleep in groggiest dreamland - and pees!

He was so little at first. And faithful as a besotted beau to his new, clean litterbox. Faithful too to one brand of reasonably priced kitty food. It didn't matter that he loved my husband more. It didn't matter that he refused to sit in laps. After all, he WOULD fetch, and even come to his name some of the time - when it was my husband calling - and if he'd heard the cupboard open.

And now, two years later comes the betrayal. It started when we left him. In his OWN house. With one of his favorite people as a pet sitter. For only two weeks. And we called and talked to him twice - from Hawaii!

The very hour we came home, he peed on our bed. You could almost hear him mutter "That'll show 'em!". Of course we checked out all the obvious problems - to the tune of a healthy sum - to make sure he hadn't done it due to illness. Nada!

The next time was when I put his harness on for a day to get him used to it. We were taking him along this time. After I took it off, Bingo! there he went again. All my laundering, sanitizing, de-scenting gone for naught.

We kept the bedroom shut after that. His cries of anguish and frantic efforts to claw down the bedroom door made us relent, once. More laundry and more de-scenting.

Then he discovered the spare bedroom couch. I didn't discover his discovery for a day or two. When I came to clean the litter box I found plenty of little gift logs, but no clumps. No clumps? He's been drinking the waterbowl dry at least once a day! Uh-oh!

And now he seems to have developed some rather disturbing habits. Is no one safe? We are experimenting with counter-conditioning (leaving his food dish at the scene of his favorite piddle spot), brainwashing, and drugs. Yes, you heard me friends. I'm speaking of catnip and hairball remedy. If we give him enough other things to think about, maybe he'll forget this latest obsession and Santa can plan his arrival in safety after all.