(Still Marble Cat.)
(Still Marble Cat.) |
The Joys and Tribulations of Marble Cat |
Janet named all the kittens when they were a few days old. This is why we ended up keeping all of them, instead of trying to get them adopted while they were still tiny and adorable. One of them was mostly brown, and had marbled fur across her face which is why Janet named her Marble Cat.
Marble Cat was very aggressive. She loved to chase the laser spot; she was always Number One in the pack of kittens frantically slapping at the laser spot, forever trying in vain to catch it under their paw. Sometimes they'd think they caught it (I put my finger over the beam just when they slapped at it), but they'd look under their paw and there'd be nothing there. (I think it's good to teach your cats to deal with eternal frustration.)
Marble Cat was also very inquisitive. If you brought a new interesting thing into the apartment, like an appliance box or a shopping bag, Marble Cat would be the first to try to find out what was inside, and to dig around in it, and slap it to see if it would react.
Marble Cat also liked to help me pour out the cat litter. After scooping the poops, I'd be topping off the boxes and Marble Cat would come in and stare intently at the falling stream of fresh litter. She'd stick her arm in there and wave it around, scattering particles all over. She was fascinated by little moving things that she could fixate on.
Sadly, for some reason, Marble Cat always had trouble with ear mites. The other cats might get infested with mites, and they'd have some small amount of black gunk in their ears which is ear mite exudate; but Marble Cat was positively plagued by them.
Life Cycle Of An Ear Mite: A baby ear mite hatches from its egg. It latches onto the wall of the cat's ear, and sucks some blood. From this it makes exudate (ear mite poop), and more eggs. It may also try to jump to the ear of another cat. Exudate looks like black ear wax, but I think it is all made by the mites and not by the cat.
There is an article in the Annals of Improbable Research, which won an Ig Nobel Prize (for feats that cannot, or should not, be repeated) by a scientist who put cat ear mites into his own ear. You can go Google for it; basically, the larvae would scratch for a while, then leave him alone for a while, then scratch again. He said it was unpleasant, but not so intolerable that he couldn't function. After a week or so he washed his ears with shampoo and warm water and he had no more mites.
Marble Cat wasn't so lucky. We tried using cleaning pads to scoop the gunk out, and we thought we were making headway, until one scary night.
I was taking the dirty dishes out of the catroom in preparation for feeding everyone and putting them to bed. Some of them, including Marble Cat of course, would always start following me around once it became apparent that feeding time was coming up. This should be easy for anybody but the most dense cat, since I would start talking to them and calling "Hello, ladies and gentlemen! Cat food! It's time for cat food!"
Then I noticed little drips of something on the kitchen floor. I started to groan, because I knew I would have to clean up whatever it was, and it was late, and I was tired. I brought the fresh food into the catroom, and then I began to freak out, because there was more liquid on the floor, and it was obviously blood. Then as I turned back towards the door, I saw several big splashes where blood had been actually sprayed on the walls.
We checked each of the cats, and fairly quickly discovered that it was Marble Cat who was bleeding. Janet took Marble Cat to the all-night emergency vet, and I stayed behind to clean up the blood.
It was easy enough to wipe up from the linoleum; and I was able to sponge it off the stucco walls with some dish detergent; and then Janet came back from the vet and said they'd put gauze in Marble Cat's ears and taken her for observation. We were worn out and went to bed.
The next morning, Janet called me at work after talking to the vet, and explained, "Well, the vet said that Marble Cat has a severe case of ear mites, and was getting polyps in her ears from it. They typically remove the polyps surgically, because they are painful. And Marble Cat was scratching the polyps, so they bled, and that's why all the blood was there."
"Is she hurt?" I asked.
"No, she's going to be fine. They gave us some medication we can put in her ears, and in everyone else's ears who has ear mites, to get rid of the mites."
"But what about the polyps, don't they need to be removed?"
"Not any more. Marble Cat must have got her claws real good and sharp, because the vet said she removed all the polyps herself. The vet said, She removed them very neatly and completely; she did at least as good a job as I could have done! So she doesn't need any surgery - she took care of it on her own!"
Marble Cat was one of the Cats Who Left -- since our divorce, she lives with Janet now. Janet says Marble Cat has since become EVEN MORE ANNOYING; now that there are fewer cats for her to compete with, she gets into EVERYTHING.
As an example: Janet got an electric litterbox that automatically scoops the litter. It has a motorized rake blade, which rides along parallel tracks on the sides of the litterbox. When a cat has finished answering nature's call, a sensor detects that the cat has left the box; after a short time, the rake blade sweeps across the litter, gathering the poop or whatever, and scooping it into a container at the end of the box. All you do is empty the container, and refill the clumping litter.
Marble Cat was fascinated by this machine. Whenever someone went in to use the litterbox, Marble Cat would soon follow, and she would stare raptly at it, entranced by the smooth ballet of mechanical wizardry; sometimes she would go over to the box and smack the rake arm in case it might be prey. Later she took to standing on the metal shelves that overlooked the litterbox.
One day Janet heard an awful grinding, clacking racket from the garage. She went out to discover that Marble Cat had knocked a litter-scoop off the shelf into the litterbox, so that the rake would run up against it, pinning it against the far wall of the box. The mechanism was wedged and the gears were slipping. Janet freed the rake, and all was well.
A couple days later it happened again, and again the day after that. Each time, Janet would come in to see what was the matter, and would pass Marble Cat nonchalantly going in the other direction.
Eventually the motor burned out. Janet examined the warranty; it gave a free replacement for cases of defects in workmanship, but there was nothing in there for "Intentional Sabotage, By Cat", so she had to give up and convert it back to a manual litterbox. I think she took off the rake.
Here ends the tale of Marble Cat: Hunter, Explorer, Veterinary Surgeon.