Lessons In Stalking: Adjusting to Life With Cats (2 page)

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Never Feed A Cat Grape Benadryl
®

It’s a horrible feeling of helplessness and responsibility, tending to a sick pet. When examining an ailing animal, it’s vital one be calm, levelheaded, and not concede to overreaction.

Luckily, I’m one of those rare individuals able to remain composed in the face of any emergency.

I demonstrated this skill when our cat became ill. We heard her firing off bazooka-rounds of sneezes. My husband and I came on the run. I took charge.

“Oh my God, she’s dying!” I wailed, flinging myself on the cat and wrapping her in a stifling embrace. “Dying!” I started to cry.

My husband ran a slow hand down his face. “Maybe she just has a cold,” he offered.

I raised a bewildered cat to eye level. “Tell Mommy where it hurts.”

My husband took the cat from me and examined her eyes, ears, and nose. “It’s probably just a cold,” he reassured.

“We’ll call the vet tomorrow.”

I remained doubtful but the cat was now hiding under the sofa, consciously suppressing her sneezes.

I called the vet first thing in the morning.

“Hello-I-have-an-emergency,” I said.

“Yes ma’am?”

“It’s my cat. She keeps sneezing.”

“Yes ma’am,” she said.

I remained silent, awaiting instructions.

Finally figuring out I expected her to say something else, the receptionist continued. “Um, is there any vomiting or diarrhea?”

My God, is this woman stupid? I would have had the cat at the emergency hospital at the first sign of vomiting or diarrhea. I took a deep breath and reminded myself to speak slowly, so she could understand me.

“No, it’s just sneezing. But it’s a lot of sneezing. She sneezed twenty times in a row. For five minutes straight.”

I waved away my husband who was trying to take the phone. As an accountant he has this hang-up about accurate numbers. I felt it more important to convey the gravity of the situation.

Dire possibilities, each worse than the one before, occurred to me. I burst forth with one nightmare scenario.

“Do you think she might be having an allergic reaction?”

I asked. “Maybe she has internal hives? I saw her scratching her ear earlier. How exactly would I treat internal cat hives?”

The receptionist did the only thing she could do, which was to put me on hold. She spoke cautiously when she returned.

“Ma’am, it sounds like an upper respiratory infection.

Pick up some alcohol-free liquid Benadryl
^®
and give your cat one milliliter per pound of body weight.* If that doesn’t do the trick in a few days, call us back.”

“Fine,” I muttered and hung up. No one cared that my cat was at death’s door. Even my husband was useless, tossing balls down the hall for the cat to chase. She was stoic enough to pretend to enjoy the diversion.

I trudged to the store and came back with the Benadryl
^®
.

“Grape?” my husband asked, examining the bottle.

“It was that or bubble-gum. Let’s just get it down her.”

He scooped up the cat, and I positioned the dropper in her mouth. One hour, three new droppers, and half a bottle of wasted medication later, we managed to get about an eighth of a teaspoon down her throat. She fled as soon as we released her. I went in pursuit to offer my apologies. I don’t care for grape flavor myself.

When I found the cat, my heart flip-flopped. There was white foam bubbling from her mouth. Even my husband paled.

“Call the vet,” he said.

I raced to the phone and dialed with trembling fingers.

I explained our beloved cat was now foaming at the mouth.

The receptionist giggled. I mentally planned how I would kill her.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she said. “Benadryl
^®
makes a lot of cats foam at the mouth. Don’t worry about it.”

“Benadryl
^®
makes a lot of cats foam at the mouth, but you didn’t think to mention that to me?” I wanted to be sure I had the facts right for my trial.

The receptionist sighed. “If it will make you feel better, why don’t you bring the cat in and we’ll take a look at her.”

I brought the cat in and the vet ran some tests. “Looks like a head cold,” he said. “I’m going to give you a prescription for something a lot like Benadryl
^®
. That ought to knock it out.”

My husband greeted me at the door as I returned. “What did the vet say?” he asked.

“He said the cat has a cold,” I said. My husband smiled.

“Not a word,” I warned.

He left without saying anything, but I heard him telling the cat it was now safe to sneeze.

He thinks he’s funny but I’ll have the last laugh.

The next time he gets a cold, I’m going to feed him the rest of the Grape Benadryl
^®
.

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Lessons In Stalking

She’s stalking us again. It makes me nervous. Not the stalking part, but the fact that she doesn’t seem to be very good at it.

She stalks us right out in the open, inching toward us on her stomach in the middle of the hallway.

“What’s she doing?” my husband asks, looking over his shoulder. “Is she sick?”

“Shhhh!” I reprimand. “She’s stalking us. Be supportive.”

“But I don’t want to be stalked,” he whines.

“She needs to learn. Now act surprised when she pounces.”

Attacks are generally mild. A quick paw to the foot, a snatch at a pants leg and she’s off.

Sometimes she’ll stalk us from behind the sofa. It’s not a bad ploy, except we can see her tail sticking out. I draw her attention, while my husband sneaks up behind her.

“BOO!” he yells, jabbing at her hindquarters.

It may seem harsh, but she has to learn.

We’re not her only prey. She also stalks the plaid cotton mice we procure for her. She’ll spy one resting in the hall.

Every muscle tenses as she flattens herself on the floor, tail flicking. Body rigid, she’s a tightly wound coil.

When the moment comes—did the mouse twitch?—she leaps into the air. We watch her descend, fangs and claws bared in case of counterattack.

Then she’s on top of the mouse, spearing it with her teeth, viciously shaking her head. She notices us watching her and freezes. Snatching the mouse, she bounds away.

“Well done sweetheart! ” I cheer. I elbow my husband.

“Uh, way to go,” he stammers. “You the cat.” He glares at me.

“She’s not going to improve unless she’s told what she’s doing right,” I explain calmly. “It’s called positive reinforcement.”

He walks away mumbling under his breath.

Although the cotton mice are fun, we find the cat truly enjoys moving targets. We discover this when a fly gets into our home.

The cat is all business. Darting eyes, shortness of breath, bushy tail—as she stalks the fly I think that she’s finally coming in to her own.

But then, “Click-aaack-aaack-claaack.” Dolphin-like sounds emanate from her throat as she sits with arched back, staring at the fly buzzing above her.

My husband races in. “What was that?”

“That’s the cat.”

“What’s she doing? ”he asks. “Is she sick?”

“Maybe,” I say.

I question whether our cat will ever get the hang of this stalking business. My husband and I grow weary of acting surprised every time we’re attacked. The fly went on to lead a long and happy life. My hopes center again on the cotton mice. And I just saw several of them lying, almost hidden, behind the couch.

I think they’re waiting to jump out and yell “BOO!”

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The Big Brown Mouse & Other Toys Our Cat Loathes

We sat the big brown mouse in the middle of the kitchen floor. The cat looked on disinterestedly. The mouse was a gift from our pet sitter; a sweet elderly woman who I’m sure had no idea the trauma her gift was about to induce.

“The mouse has a little switch in its back,” the pet sitter informed us. Flipping the switch caused the mouse to move about in motorized circles on the floor.

“Your cat will love it,” she assured us. “All cats love it.”

Our cat most certainly did not love it. When we flipped the switch, a great tremor enveloped the room as the mouse’s internal gaskets roared to life. We set the mouse on the floor and it raced about in jerky circles. Fast jerky circles. In fact, the mouse appeared to have overdosed on some form of an illegal substance.

Not that the cat would know this. She disappeared from the room at the first sign of life from the mouse. We found her an hour later, trembling under an upstairs bed.

We decided the motor and the presence of a big brown mouse was too much to take in all at once. We agreed we needed to “introduce” the cat to the mouse—as if they might agree to meet later for drinks if they hit it off.

The next night at dinner my husband retrieved the mouse and placed it again in the center of the kitchen floor, where it stayed for several hours.

The cat wouldn’t come near it.

I tried getting down on the floor and petting the mouse, to show the cat there was no danger. She looked even more alarmed at these actions. Perhaps she thought I was thinking of trading her in.

On the second night she acquiesced, somewhat, and agreed to be in the same room with the mouse. She sat atop a chair and didn’t take her eyes off the brown monstrosity.

Out of pity, I hid the mouse before we went to bed.

I don’t think the cat would have slept otherwise.

Night three was the same. The mouse was on the floor; the cat was on the chair. She left briefly to use the facilities, as my husband insists on referring to the litter box.

“This is stupid,” he said after she left the room. “She obviously hates that thing. Let’s get rid of it.”

I balked at giving up on yet another toy. After all, I had been the one to throw out the parrot on a suction cup that stuck to doors and “soared lifelike about your cat’s head,” promising hours of fun.

The cat never looked up.

I took back the catnip filled Garfield toys, the cat spa, and toys with random glitter and feathers stuck to them, all purchased in the hopes of enticing my feline to play.

She sniffed them once and walked away.

And let’s not forget the eighty-five dollar kitty jungle gym with carpet more plush than is to be found anywhere in my home, that was a “must” for indoor cats.

The cat climbed it once to prove she could and now won’t go near it except to occasionally sharpen her claws.

We use it as a plant holder.

But even I, who had envisioned hours of fun for the cat that didn’t involve me having to stand in one place and swat around a plastic fishing pole with rubber-fly lure attached, had to agree. The cat was just not getting into the spirit of things. I got up and threw the mouse away.

The cat walked into the kitchen to rejoin us and froze.

Eyes darting, her body language spoke as plainly as words:

Where the heck did that thing go?

She was obviously terrified. She crouched low and peered under the table, searching for the mouse. Nothing.

She slowly raised her head and examined what she could see of the table and chairs. Nothing. A bird chirped outside and the cat leaped, hissing.

“I feel bad,” I told my husband. “She’s still freaked out.”

“Yeah, maybe we should buy her a new toy,” he said.

“You know, something to distract her. I’ll see what I can find.”

The toy he came back with looked harmless enough— a musical ball that played various songs from the musical “Cats” every time it was nudged. The cat adores it, if only because she knows we’re slowly going insane.

She has us living on edge. We’re at the point where she was when she was freaked out about the brown mouse.

We cling to the edge of our chairs, bleary-eyed from lack of The Big Brown Mouse & Other Toys Our Cat Loathes 32

Lessons in Stalking sleep, swatting at shadows, afraid everything that moves might start to play “Mr. Mistoffolees.”

And the cat is laughing. She even goes so far as to occasionally hide the ball so we may experience the fear of never knowing exactly when we might be attacked by a bright blue orb winging down the hall screeching “Memory” at full volume.

But we’ll have the last laugh. We’re going out of town again and invited the pet sitter back. And we made sure to tell her how much the cat loved her gift and to please bring another.

Between the musical orb and the motorized brown mouse, I’ll take the mouse.

I have to.

My nerves can’t take any more.