In two previous marriages, I endured two Chihuahuas and one cat, respectively.
Wife #1's Chihuahuas, Popeye and Olive, were not only annoying, but she had trained them to go in a litterbox. And then kept the litterbox under the kitchen table. There was never anything so special in my life as having a little dog come and take a dump near my feet while I was eating breakfast.
Wife #2's cat Sylvia was originally Sylvester (as in Sylvester and Tweety) until it was discovered that he was a she. My second wife's sister was not the sharpest crayon in the box. In any event, we inherited Sylvester/Sylvia when she moved into an apartment she couldn't have a pet in. Sylvia was pretty low-maintenance, except that she took a strange dislike to my son-- she would hiss at him if he came near. (or "histle" as he mispronounced it).
My wife's cats, Helga and Mingus, are sister and brother, and complete opposites. Helga, pictured above, is clever-- too clever. She got very good at slipping out of the house. Last summer she slipped past one of us, went wandering and got mauled by some animal.
Her brother Mingus is not super-bright. He sits, perpetually, with a puzzled look on his face. Life is a complete mystery to him. Except food. If he gets much bigger, he'll need his own zip code. Hence his nickname, "Fatboy."
The only problem with them is that they use the furniture as a scratching post. This drives my wife nuts-- one of the things she walked out of her first marriage with was a decent couch set. Not that they limit themselves to that-- things like door frames, and my metal filing cabinet are fair game.
So she got them a scratching pad-- the thing that Helga's sitting on in the top picture. It came with a couple of bags of catnip that you pour into it.
Yesterday, I got home from work to find that they'd gotten at the box the scratching pad came with, and dug out the extra catnip. They tore the bag apart and went apeshit with the catnip. They ate both bags. Here they are post-nip, listening to Phish and watching Barney Miller reruns. I think they'd ordered a pizza for delivery.
14 comments:
I love that picture of Mingus - he does look perplexed, and a little pissed off.
Cats are sooo funy when they OD on catnip. Sputnik tore apart a toy the other day and wolfed down all the catnip that was inside. And then she sat on top of the fence, with eyes the size of dinner plates, and twitched.
Great story! You know what cures the cat from using furniture? If I yell at the cats for *anything* the little dogs go nuts. If I say the cats' names sternly, the dogs will run after the cats like they are T-bones! I have Cavalier King Spaniels and they poop outside - I can not imagine a litter box, even for cats! My cats go outside, too. Arizona is great because doggie doors are feasible, but in Connecticut I just put them out in the yard. Apartments are rough for pets.
One of my old cats was a total niphead. She would inhale it and then run around, stopping suddenly to stare at nothing, and then, just as sudenly start running around again.
Mingus is SO sweet looking. His sister is pretty too, but he does have a certain clueless quality that is pretty cute.
oFunny, I remember coming home from work one day to find that my two cats drug the catnip out of the pantry. They were totally high, laying around the house - and they somehow managed to turn on the VCR tape recorder. My cats taped Phil Donahue!
I could never have cats in my house because of our pet rats and my wife's allergies.
I'm so allergic to the felines, it's not even funny, which is sad, because I like the animals themselves, I just can't be around them.
Poor cats on a bender, I hope you give them a little hair of the dog to take the edge off tomorrow...
Cats are so enjoyable on the nip!
When you said 2 chihuahuas I thought for just a second that you said chinchillas and I was like "Hey, me too!" but then realized the error in my reading. But the litter box thing is pretty cool...if it weren't under the kitchen table. I'm picking up my new puppy on Friday and she is a toy breed and I am going to be a loser and litter box train her...
Barbara-
I think he is pissed off-- because things are happening in this world that he has no idea of
Anon-
I'm not overly fond of stepping on kitty litter in the pantry, where we keep their box. Guess I could try wearing shoes in the house.
Lu-
My neighbor's cat is a total niphead, and named Jerry, for Mr. Garcia.
Kristi-
The cats have never managed to turn on the VCR. Fatboy, though, began sitting on my laptop, which I left open on a kitchen counter, when I wasn't around. I guess it was warm.
He also sat his fat ass in front of the heating duct in the dining room. My wife had read something that ended up working-- she taped a couple of strips of aluminum above, and he never went near it again.
JR-
Wife #1 had had ferrets before the Chihuahas, and we couldn't let the dogs out into the sunroom, where the ferrets had been kept, because they'd go nuts from the smell of the ferrets.
I know that my wife would not let me or either of our kids keep a rodent in the house. Not even a Chihuahua.
Mob-
I was thinking of starting them on scotch...
Actually, I just remembered that my upstairs neighbors/landlords have a cat that drinks scotch. They always keep a bottle of inexpensive scotch, which is labelled "the kitty scotch."
Dirty-
That may be a good plan, depending on where you live-- I blogged before about coyotes-- small dogs are increasingly the prey of coyotes, even in backyards.
yensky, you're a serial marrier? I think I just fell in love with you.
We ad a cat named Mingus once. We were watching him for someone. He was all black with snaggleteeth and I loved him more than anything. No one else in the house liked Mingus. Once he jumped up from behind a couch and hit my roommate over the head. It was fantastic.
This post reminds me of Ten's cat ALex who used to get all nipped up and turn the lights on and off. I'll have to get her to do a post about him, he was pretty special.
I like the choice of Phish and Barney Miller, very discerning little stoners.
Ew, litter under the kitchen table. I just read that Jerry is named after Mr. Garcia. Now that's funny especially in the light of the catnip episode!
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