Pet peeves
Sunny
Sunny has been a maniacal whining lunatic lately. She gets fed at 6:20 a.m., 5:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. almost every single day on the dot. And yet this does not prevent her from sprinting directly into your path of travel, carooming off your shin and meowing at top volume to be fed if you walk anywhere near her food bowl. On more than one occasion, I have almost fallen victim to her Believable Hunger Spiel, only to find that Jason already fed her five minutes earlier.
Her early morning begging is particularly annoying because it’s accompanied by closet-door pawing, exposed-claws face-jumping, dresser-pull batting, liquor-cabinet opening and bedroom-shade rattling. Any perceived movement results in her grunting loudly and galloping to the kitchen, and once she’s determined you’re not following her, angry thumping back to the bedroom so she can stare balefully at you and whine her displeasure. You’d think she’d lose some weight with all the jumping up and down she does to procure food, but no.
Abby
Abby has taken to voicing her displeasure at not getting enough attention by peeing on Jason’s sandal, the nearby area rugs and the hardwood floor. It is not a UTI, as she uses the litterbox just fine, thanks. It is behavioral and not the first time she’s done it. Since Sunny likes to be a douche and ambush her for fun and Abby dislikes Shorty, Abby stays upstairs every night. Apparently, that’s not cool with her anymore. So we’ve made sure to take an extra 5-10 minutes a night to play solely with her. It seems to be working. Last night, she came downstairs and napped in her bed, and then went over to her scratching post and looked pointedly at Jason until he came over and played with her.
Shorty
Shorty is in the process of learning a new trick: rolling over. He can do it, but does so only after much army-crawling to steal the treat from your hand. Also, he repeated one of his old tricks last week: jumping over our 6-foot-tall fence. Jason dashed around the block to search for him, didn’t find him, ran back to get his truck, spotted police cars screaming toward the park two blocks from our house, said a prayer, and found Shorty two blocks away (in the other direction) sitting casually on someone’s front step.
Luckily for all of them, they’re cute.
Not pictured: Abby, because she was probably upstairs peeing on something.
Oy, when the critters act up it is so frustrating!
A. looked at the dogs last night, as they were being totally obnoxious and annoying, reminding us with Careful and Unwavering Staring, that they hadn’t had their J-E-R-K-Y yet. He said, “I can’t believe you guys haven’t been skinned alive yet.”
DOGS! CATS!
Comment by Artemisia — November 24, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
Ugh, my cat is SO ANNOYING with the meowing meowing MEOWING OMG SHUT UP ALREADY. I think I may say that to her too much, because yesterday I heard my not-quite-2-year-old go “No no, kitty. Shut up.” Oops.
Love the picture!
Comment by nonsoccermom — November 24, 2009 @ 1:28 pm
Oh man, I feel your pain 100%, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT.
Cody used to do the food thing in the early hours of the morning. We would give the cats wet food in the morning and in the evening, and then they have a full bowl of dry food to pick at all day. We eliminated the morning feeding, because she just kept wanting it earlier and earlier. after about a week of righteous anger on her part, she stopped expecting it and slept in like a good girl.
As for the peeing thing? OMG HATE. The attention thing seemed to be the issue with our Jackson as well. He would pee on our laundry, like jump in the hamper and pee, thus eliminating the ability to pick your shirt out of the laundry, smell it, and rewear it, but I did not realize that until I wore a pee shirt all day one day. He hates change, but the extra loves and attention seemed to help him too.
Getting the cat genie seemed to help as well, they all need a clean toilet, little jerks.
I used to have a doggers that looked a lot like shorty, and she’d jump over the fence too, just to run three feet and sleep in the sun. So scary.
What a madhouse all these animals make, eh? Also, how is it that you can look just beautiful sittin around doin nothing? Look at those lovely clavicles!
Comment by parkingathome — November 24, 2009 @ 1:53 pm
Wow. And I thought children were difficult! Your pets certainly keep you guys busy.
Comment by Shelly — November 24, 2009 @ 2:25 pm
Damn ingrates!
Comment by Shelly — November 24, 2009 @ 2:34 pm
oh i forgot to mention that we like “Dumb Cat” spray to eliminate the cat pee smell and make them not mark again
Comment by parkingathome — November 24, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
Charlie does the a.m. food thing too. From 4:15 on, if you so much as twitch he is turning cartwheels and barking and whining, thinking it’s breakfast time. It was funny once. Now it makes me homicidal.
Comment by Buster — November 24, 2009 @ 5:09 pm
Montana is weird about food too. In the mornings she hardly bothers to eat her breakfast, but after dinner she prowls around the house looking for remnants to snack on. We thought about just feeding her once a day, in the evenings, and just as we were about to start trying that she suddenly developed an appetite for breakfast. But she still looks for more food after dinner. So I don’t know what her deal is. But she’s at a perfect weight, so we know we aren’t starving her.
Comment by Jess — November 25, 2009 @ 10:17 am
oh what a great pooch. okay, the cute is cute too. Yeah, okay
Comment by jessica — November 29, 2009 @ 1:49 am
I know just what you mean! Luna is just like Sunny – if she isn’t convinced she’s being fed properly (for example, ALL THE TIME) she tears into the bread/cheerios bags on the counter. And spills them everywhere. And then eats the Cheerios and throws up everywhere.
So I try to keep the food bowl full, but every time I look it’s empty. Fat cat. I think she was a pig in another life.
Comment by amber — November 29, 2009 @ 6:58 pm
Cute, maybe. Nuts? Definitely
Comment by Ellie — December 2, 2009 @ 8:40 am