Well, not my foot. It was my husband’s foot. But the important thing to know is that it was a foot, and pee was involved.
As most of you know, this past week has been 7 levels of insane; the awake to sleep ratio has been severely lopsided. So my husband and I were really looking forward to sleeping in this morning; we don’t have anywhere to be until 1:00, and we planned to take full advantage of it. We got in bed, smugly set our alarm for 11:30, and set in to enjoy some long, snuggly, sleepy-sleeps.
Which abruptly came to a halt at about 10am, when my husband leaped out of bed screaming, “Oh, you’ve GOT to be kidding me!” Our sweet little Mila kitty had so kindly peed…while we were in the bed…on my husband’s foot. Awesome.
Since the original incident almost a month ago, Mila had been behaving herself, and though we still wouldn’t let them in the bedroom while we were gone Mila was back to sleeping with me at night. I’d decided not to volunteer at the shelter, (I’m doing work for their website instead,) and we thought it would no longer be an issue. Then on Friday morning, she had the audacity to do it right in front of us while we were getting ready to go to the theatre. What the hell, cat? So we threw our sheets in the laundry, ran out the door, and proceeded to put in the same 16 hour workday that we’d been doing for about the last week and a half. And like our mail, the dishwasher, and Kyle’s aunt’s birthday (happy birthday, Sandy,) it was forgotten.
Until this morning. When we were forced to come to terms with the fact that we have an actual issue on our hands. According to the internet, (which is where I get all my valuable information from,) cats often use urine marking when they feel stressed and threatened. Now, I don’t know about threatened, exactly, but I can see how our household could be considered stress-inducing, as of late. In our attempt to put up a show in 10 days, we’ve been leaving the house at 8am and not returning until 11pm or later. When we did get home, it was a quick check of the e-mail and into bed. And the house was (and still is, though not as bad,) a living disaster area. Our clean laundry mountain was melding with our dirty laundry mountain, and when I got dressed on Saturday morning I wasn’t 100% confident that the underpants I was wearing were clean. Our dishwasher hadn’t been run in about a week. So, yeah, I can see how our house has been a little stressful as of late.
So needless to say, we’re going to take both kitties to the vet, just to make sure that it’s nothing physical. We’re also going to get the special pet pee cleaner and a plug-in that’s supposed to soothe them. And hopefully it will stop. But it breaks my heart that we can’t let them in the bedroom at all anymore. And it breaks my heart that our behavior is causing our pets enough stress that they feel they have to defend their home.
Any suggestions? Or would you like a free cat?
Well, I suppose you can be glad it’s just one and not both of them doing it?
I don’t know if it would be any help, but when we had our first dog at my parent’s house she would get really anxious when we were gone and tear into things. We started to leave the radio on for her whenever no one was in the house and it seemed to help. It’s a small concession and I don’t know if it’s the same with cats as dogs, but just a thought.
I’m sure glad Penny seems to be OK with me leaving her alone as much as I have.
Good luck!
I’m so not a pet person. I like everyone else’s pets (ok not everyone else’s, but I do like some people’s pets), I just really don’t want any of my own. The hair and the pee and the constant care. Yuck. Mila is a cute name though!
Welcome to the world of “motherhood-guilt”. It never ends, even when your “baby” is 23. P.S. Your Dad wants to know if Mila has ever heard of a “cat-apult”. And if you know that kitties bounce.