Cat Psychology 101

Does this cat look stressed to you? According to his vet, that is what's causing him to behave in socially unacceptable ways around my house.

Last week I took Stanley in for his one year check-up and annual shots. I also had wanted to discuss an "incident" that recently occurred.

One day, as I was preparing to leave the house, I walked to the back hallway leading to the garage entrance. As I approached the door, I looked over to my left and saw Stanley with his backside up against another exit to the outside, called the "friend" entrance. The first thing I noticed was that his tail was sticking straight up and was sort of wagging, or vibrating back and forth with short, quick movements. Then, I realized he was urinating all over the door! I stood and watched this much with the same horrorific look I displayed when I witnessed my basement egress window flood with water this summer. It is such a hopeless feeling when you see an undesirable liquid streaming, gushing, and oozing into your home. What was even more distressing to me was that his litter box was just a few feet away from where he stood.

The worst part is, I didn't know what to do or what I could do other than watch. When your cat is in mid-stream, picking him up and moving him into the laundry room tub doesn't seem like an option. Screaming at him "Hey! What are you doing? Stop it...no, no, no!" and standing there watching him finish the job (which seemed like an eternity) seemed like the only thing to do. Of course, you're thinking, he's got to be almost done. After all, how much urine could be in that teeny tiny bladder? Then, when it continues to shoot out onto your hard wood floors and entry way rug, you begin to wonder if the cat has a beer keg, that you don't know about, hidden somewhere in the house and has been drinking from it all damn day. Then, the real kicker is that when he's finished with his "work", he doesn't even look remorseful or stick around to watch you clean up like he's thinking "Oh my God. I'm so sorry. I don't even know what came over me. I know you have a million things to do already and cleaning up this cat urine soaked rug was not one of them. I promise it will never happen again. Please forgive me. Meow, meow, meow, I love you mommy!" Instead, he simply walks away as if to say "All done!".

In veterinarian terms, what I had observed Stanley doing was called "spraying." This is his way of marking his territory against other cats and animals and declaring "mine, mine, mine, this stuff is all mine!" The vet asked me if we had other pets in addition to Stanley, to which I replied (in my head) "hell no." Then he asked if there was perhaps a stray cat lurking around the outside of the house, which would cause him to be stressed about someone else invading his space. I paused and thought about it for a minute. I explained to him that we live in a somewhat rural area with open yards and lots of trees and meadows nearby. I have a seen a stray cat wandering around off and on, but nothing of late. And, in addition to stray cats, we often have possums, raccoons, skunks, deer, mice, voles, snakes, and lots of other critters that happen to wander into the yard and onto the patio. Now, whether they are taunting him from outside by sticking their faces up to the window and saying "nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah" I couldn't say.

The vet went on to say that Stanley's issues were behavioral as opposed to medical and sometimes that can be more difficult to treat because you have to change the behavior as opposed to giving him a pill for, let's say, a bladder infection. To which I replied (in my head) "crap."

He proceeded to tell me about a couple of products on the market which are designed to help with this task. The first one is similar to a Glade plug-in air freshener which has a bottle of oil attached to it that is slowly dispensed into the air on a daily basis. The liquid consists of "feline pheromones." Apparently, it contains the same "familiarization facial pheromones" that cats use to mark objects in their territory. So, I guess the logic is that while this dispenser is wafting feline facial pheromones into the air, the cat will think things (like doorways and rugs) are already marked, and won't feel the need to urinate all over it, thus allowing the animal to not stress out. The box claims the pheromones are "species specific" and will not have an effect on humans, however, if you happen to observe Ed, Cameron, or me rubbing our faces all over the furniture or displaying other "cat-like" behavior, please get us to an emergency room ASAP.

The second product the vet mentioned is a litter supplement you mix in with their litter and it contains a scent that draws the cat to the litter box. It probably contains the scent of carpeting, rugs, and other inappropriate surfaces for urinating on. I suppose scientists must get creative to trick these clever little animals, we call pets. I can just hear the scientist now saying "Hey, I created this stuff you sprinkle in the litter box that makes the cat want to go in there and urinate on it. I call it eau de oriental rug."

So, like the desperate pet owner I am, I said "I'll take one of each and, if you have any cat diapers, throw those in there too." If none of these work, I suppose the next recommendation will be "the cat whisperer."

Hopefully, I have nipped this little cat anxiety issue in the bud, or perhaps I should say in the "butt!" Ha, ha, I think that's funny. Because, if Stanley thinks he's stressed out now, wait until he has to send out "I've moved!" cards to all of his friends.

K.I.S.S.

Most of you recognize this acronym for "Keep It Simple Stupid." Of course, in this politically correct world (which excludes Senator Joe Wilson (R), Kanye West, and Serena Williams) the current phrase would probably be something like "Keep It Simple Silly-Billy" or as Ed likes to say "Hilarious William", which would then make it KISHW, which really is not simple and just doesn't roll off the tongue.

Those who really know me know that keeping it simple is what I'm all about. Less is more. It is the simple stuff in life that I continue to find fascinating and derive great pleasure from. Even when it involves my "simple" mind.

Last week, Ed and I were running some errands and we passed a restaurant sign that said "auce Crab". I said aloud "auce crab? What is that supposed to be, sauce crab? What is sauce crab?" Then Ed turned to me and uttered the words "all you can eat crab". When I realized that he was explaining to me that "auce" stood for "all u can eat," I busted out laughing. "Wow, how did you know that? I asked. I'm 47 and I've never seen those letters used like that. Is that some sort of "guy" thing where you know all terminology related to all you can eat buffets? Of course, had the person doing the sign used spaces in between capital letters so it read "A U C E crab" I think I could have decoded it. Ultimately, we surmised that the restaurant's sign must be maintained by a proficient texter.

As we continued on, we stopped at the pet store to pick up some cat food for Stanley. I was overwhelmed with all the choices, and yet, I still couldn't find the healthy choice, natural food, blah, blah, blah brand I was looking for. I started focusing on each label with intense scrutiny.

The amount of choices for cat food was beyond comprehension! There was food for kittens, food for cats over one-year old, food for senior citizen cats, food with hairball formula, food for shiny coats, food for sensitive skin, and then I saw a label that indicated it was food for "multiple cats" and underneath it said "multiple chats." At first, I thought, multiple cats? What difference does that make? What will happen if I feed it to a single cat? And, what does multiple chats mean? Is it for cats who do a lot of meowing? Then, I looked closer and noticed that other phrases and descriptions on the bag were in French. I laughed out loud when I realized that "multiple chats" was the French phrase for "multiple cats." Ed and I had a good chuckle over that one. You never saw two people having more fun in the cat food aisle. It made the dog owners envious that they were in a different section. I guess I'm used to everything being in English and Spanish, not French. Do more French-speaking people buy cat food than Spanish-speaking people? Oh well, I was simply confused.

With Alex off to college, and my car lease recently ended, I thought it would be "fun" to save some money for a few months and not get a new car right away. Everyday since Alex left for college, I would see his truck sitting in the garage..paid for and insured. How ridiculous to go out and get another car right away. Once we learned that our auto insurance would temporarily drop over $1,500 per year, since we turned in my car and removed him as a primary driver on the truck, the decision was simple.

Okay, so what if it doesn't have power seats, a seat heater, or XM radio, I can adjust. So what if I can't reach the radio knobs without leaning forward and reaching over or park the damn thing straight on the first five attempts? And, so what if it's covered in Plymouth Wildcat and Kalamazoo Hornet stickers and makes me look like an overzealous sports mom who needs to get a life? I can do this. After all, I'm all about simple, right? So, Ed washed it, cleaned it up on the inside, tuned it, tweaked it, and set me loose.

My first full day of driving the Dakota was last week. I set out to Kohl's to return one simple box of coasters and, you know how they put the customer service desk in the back so you have to walk past all the merchandise in an attempt to distract you, well it worked. About an hour an hour and a half later I wandered back out into the daylight and stopped dead in my tracks. The first thing that came to my head was "what the hell...where's my car?" Then, I remembered I don't have a car. I have a truck. A simple truck that I had simply forgot about.

Later that same week I went up to Krogers to "pick up a few things." We all know how that works out. As I strolled the aisles, I started remembering things that we were out of and placed them in my cart. Next thing I knew, I had quite a few items. I checked out, started walking out to the parking lot with my cart full of bags, and then it dawned on me "Crap! I don't have a trunk to put my groceries in!" So, I began to stuff everything into the front seat and on the floor. One of the items I picked up was a package of eight plain white paper towels. Plain....white....not even select-a-size. Just a one size fits all paper towel. As I removed them from the outer wrapping to put them away, something on the label caught my eye. It said "Made under one or more following U.S. Patents/Amparado por al menos una de las siguientes patentes de EE.UU" (see, I told you everything else is in Spanish). Then it continued to list 38 patent numbers, each one consisting of seven digits! Thirty eight patents! For paper towels! Who knew plain white paper towels could be so complicated? Is there some tricky secret to making these little disposable quicker-picker-uppers? It seems like such a simple concept. I was simply blown away.

As I proceeded to put away my groceries I opened up the first bag of Brach's candy corn for the fall season. They were THE freshest bag of candy corn and it put a big, dumb smile on my face that made me look like a simpleton. They smelled all honey-like and were so soft and chewy. It's funny how a girl who appreciates a modicum of luxury (like seat heaters and Uggs) can be so delighted with the simple pleasures of SweeTarts jelly beans and fresh candy corn. I'm simply complicated.