Tatty Cat

Way back in April last year, you may recall that Psycho Cat went to the vets to get the matted bits of fur shaved. As I said then, he’s a mucky little bastard – as yet I’ve still never seen him actually clean himself. I think he reckons that the dirty fur falls out, and that’s what keeps him *ahem* “clean”.

Come springtime, his fur gets all matted up into the feline equivalent of dreadlocks. It’s utterly revolting – if he’s deigned to let you stroke him (invariably at night, in bed, on dark sheets, so the white fur left afterwards looks as bad as possible) then you suddenly find your fingers caught in this lump of claggy fur. Utterly vile. And of course it makes it look like we don’t care for the crufty little git – other people on the street must be on the verge of calling the RSPCA half the time. (Mind you, if the RSPCA tried catching him, they’d need chainmail gloves, and faceshields)

Anyway, springtime has come, his fur’s disgusting, so today it was off to the vets for his de-matting. AKA “shaving the little git”. This involves a full anaesthetic for the cat, who is such a thug that when we make appointments for him at the vets, a bright red flashing warning comes up on their system about “teeth and claws” – the first time they tried it, the woman doing it needed stitches and a tetanus jab. Since then, the warning’s been in place. Can’t think why…

Of course, because of the general anaesthetic, we can’t feed him for 12 hours beforehand. So from 4am this morning he’s been starving, making as much noise as possible to get attention and get us to feed him. Not great on my first day back to work post-holiday. I could’ve throttled the little sod once he started running around under the bed and scratching the carpet to wake us up. But no, I was good.

I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ve done to him this time – I’ve asked again for a full poodle-esque trim, in the vain hope that he might be ashamed of the state he’s in, and maybe tidy himself up a bit, the dirty little fucker. I doubt they’ll do it though…

Paper Tiger

Recently, Hound has discovered that ripping paper (or cardboard, or plastic) to shreds is a very satisfying experience for a dog. It also helps that it normally gets some attention, but she tends to do it when she’s either bored, or feeling like being naughty. It’s one of those things where it’s also actually quite difficult to tell her off, because in general it’s quite funny to watch, and she doesn’t do it to anything useful, only to items that have been discarded.

Last night, however, all went quiet. We can only surmise she was bored. Anyway, we went upstairs to find the landing covered in shreds of paper. She’d found a brand-new roll of (unused) bog-roll, and had summarily shredded the lot. Everywhere.

*Sigh*

Chill-Factor

I must be abso-friggin’-lutely barmy.

That was my thought process at 7am this morning, walking Hound round the local park. She’d been a pain in the arse all night, primarily because Herself was out last night, so Hound didn’t get to see her. We also had Herself’s boss staying the night, which meant Hound was supposed to be on best behaviour.

Of course, that was never going to happen. She sodded about all day, and was her general pain-in-the-arse self. Mind you, so was Psycho Cat. He took every opportunity possible to wind up Hound, waggling his furry tangled backside in her face as he went out the door, and we had the full Mexican Standoff between them on the stairs, Cat glaring at Hound at the base of the stairs, and Hound hovering halfway down, not wanting to back off, but too scared to go down and run the gauntlet of Cat teeth and claws.

So this morning, rather than adding to the stress levels of all involved, I took Hound out before Herself’s Boss got up. And stayed out ’til she’d left for work. 50 minutes. In temperatures hovering around 0°C. Oh joy, oh lucky me.

Yes, I must be abso-stuffin’-lutely cracked. There’s no other explanation for it…