Adventures in momsitting: The college years

[apocalypsos]

What with all of the college talk, I don't think I told this story.

My mom went to the same weekender program I'll be starting in, except she was majoring in human resources. She'd never been to college before so she ended up taking a lot of basic courses. She had to do a few presentations before the class over the years, and one of them involved constructing an argument against a commonly-held misconception. Mom went with "Siamese cats are mean," unsurprisingly.

Cue Rudy. Rudy was our dog. Or at least he thought he was a dog. My mom has never raised a mean cat -- a few shy ones, but nobody who'd bite or claw anyone on purpose -- and Rudy was sort of the epitome of that. He was always downstairs when they had parties, always sat on laps no matter who called him or put him there, and loved riding in the car and going out of the house for anything at all, even vet trips. He was my dad's favorite out of all of the cats we've ever had. When my dad would go on trips, Rudy used to sit at our sliding glass doors for days with only food, water and litter breaks and wait for him.*

Mom took Rudy as a "prop" during her speech. She let him out of the carrier she had him in, and he proceeded to walk around the class helping her case by rubbing up against people's legs, letting everyone pet him, and generally being the social butterfly he always was.

About halfway through her speech, Rudy walked away from the students and over to the garbage can. Without bothering to make so much as a peep, he stood up and pulled it until it tipped over. My mom kept going with her speech, until one of the students pointed out, "Uh, I think your cat just used the garbage can for a litter box."**

Rudy trotted out of the garbage can, hopped up on the teacher's desk, and sat down as matter-of-fact as you please.

Without flinching, my mom tipped the garbage can back up, took the plastic bag in which Rudy had done his business out of the can, tied it in a knot to shut it, put it outside the classroom door, and went back to finishing her speech.

Which ... pretty much says as much about my mom as about the cat, I suppose.

* We have another one now, Owen, who does the same thing. My dad didn't even like cats when he married my mom. Now he endears at least one cat in any given group of them to abject obsession with him.

** He also once spotted one of us dumping the contents of a wet bag of cat litter into a bucket - the bag was wet, the contents were still dry - in our mud room and waited until we turned our heads to get in and use it. You can't really yell at a cat for something like that.

Comments

[liliaeth]

Honestly, it's nice of the cat to try and do it's business somewhere where it should be the least problematic to clean up, right?

[littlegothkitty.livejournal.com]

I don't know who is more awesome in that story; your mom or the cat. Both tied, I guess. :D

When I was raising a baby kinkajou (an animal which is known for its disgusting feces because their diet is straight fruit with a tiny bit of protein), I was able to tell whenever he was about to let loose because he'd peep a few times, which gave me just enough time to hang him over the trash can. It was AWESOME. Wrong, but awesome. :D

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

Hey, when a cat's gotta go, a cat's gotta go! Props to Rudy for McGyvering a solution to his problem so neatly.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, this!

I've never had a mean cat, either. I think I make them feel understood. One of ours has serious mean cat potential, but she's never fully realized it because she's had no need to. (Also, we sit on it.)

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

Honestly, if a cat is a problem, look to the owner. Nine times out of ten, mean cats are a result of a bad or clueless owner.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, but- there are cats that are more prone to "mean cat" status, and in general, it takes an experienced cat person to make them NOT be horrible mean cats. One of my Elder Cats has serious Mean Cat potential, and we've worked hard for the past 15 years to make her NOT realize this.

And there are also cats who really don't have any such Mean Cat potential, and they're a lot easier to cope with.

I've found that a Mean Cat is a combination of the cat's nature, AND what people accept as they're working with the cat. Yes, there are exceptions- but this does cover most pussycats, in my experience.

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

Edit: Oops, I accidentally hit the general "reply" button instead of replying to you, so I had to delete & re-reply.

We're in agreement here: there are definitely easy cats for beginners and difficult cats for old hands like me and my husband (and you.) We took in a Fearful Biter we found on the street, a very pretty cat with a collar who'd probably been tossed out by his previous owners when he bit them. Fearful Biters result from abusive situations but not all cats become Fearful Biters when abused. It took us a year of training to render him completely non-dangerous, but we had to consult with a cat psychologist at Tufts Veterinary Hospital to learn how to do it. I would not have wished this pretty-but-dangerous little guy on anyone who didn't have at least a a few years of Cat Lady experience! He put my husband in the hospital for two days!

What I'm thinking in terms of here, though, is that I'll visit a friend or relative and see a "Bad Cat" -- and it's always easy to see that the owner is behaving in a way that causes or encourages the cat's bad behavior. I get called in to play amateur cat psychologist all the time. I taught my aunt how to pill a cat with a bad heart who refused to be pilled last month!

[cissa.livejournal.com]

Now, one of our former cats was a complete horror with the VET... Poor guy was just totally terrified and went hostile instead of frozen. Never in any other context, though. And our current cats are either very unhappy or full of hate there, but they behave even at the vet's.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I've not (yet) had to deal with a Fearful Biter, thank goodness. Even Gigi, the feral momcat we trapped and adopted with her 2 surviving kittens, is not a fearful biter- now, she did BITE me right after we trapped her when we were trying to get her from the trap into a large dog crate for her spay and the first bit of taming, but that was only because I'd grabbed her and she was trying to get away. She bit only my hand, and it wasn't hostile, just firm. (Of course, I did have to get a course of antibiotics and a tetanus shot, and she had to be quarantined for rabies, and this was all after she'd gotten me THROUGH welding gloves!) But it all worked out and she's a sweet, if really shy, cat.

I don't think any of our cats have ever even threatened to lay a claw or fang on me in anger; sometimes I do get clawed if they're trying to get away when I need them in the carrier for the dreaded VET visit, but it's that they're struggling to get away, not that they're trying to make me drop them; the claws are not aimed at me, but at giving them purchase. And mostly, they don't even do that; I've picked up Mel when he was in Fullout Rage (he hates dogs), and he didn't lay a claw on me even though usually they're past rational at that point.

Very gentle, mellow cats! The 3 ex-ferals are great; the one with Mean Cat potential was one we got at a shelter- our daughter fell in love, and we adopted her despite some warning signs. She's not an awful cat, and can be very loving, but does want to run things, and we don't let her.