My wife is away for a while, being a grandma to Iliana. That would be fine with me, for a little bit at any rate, but our cat is not taking it well. The evil cat does not like change. On Saturday night, she leapt into our bed while I was sleeping, snuggled down in Mary’s spot, and then at 3am started horking up vomit all over the sheets.
So last night I banished her from the bedroom altogether. The whole rest of the house was hers to possess.
I get up this morning to find…
She had puked in the hallway.
She had barfed in the bathroom.
She had ralphed in the dining room.
She had upchucked in the kitchen. The kitchen was her masterpiece — she had tossed her cookies and then gone back to her full food bowl, chowed down on it, and then heaved up the barely digested contents of her guts all over the place.
I know it’s not pleasant to read about, but pity me, who has to clean it all up.
I guess I know which human in our household she misses the most.
The only thing necessary for evil cats to triumph is for good cats to do nothing.
The way to stop a bad voniting cat is a good vomiting cat.
Teh Grauniad’s famous Notes & Queries has the solution, “How do you stop
a neighbour’s[an evil] catscratching up your garden[vomiting all over the house]?”: “Concrete one or the other.”Maybe vets can prescribe appropriate doses of happy pills, that can gradually help the cat overcome past traumas and become calm /feel safe?
I once had a housemate who had two cats, who she called Punky and Penelope. I called them Pukey and Poopy, for obvious reasons.
Time to evaluate the purpose for a feline.
Time to go all Edgar Allan Poe on the monster and brick it up inside a wall.
Many years ago when I had cats I found that one particular food brand (cough 9 Lives cough cough) would make them vomit. Every cat I’ve owned, every time they ate it. Frustrating enough but then parents would buy it every time it was one sale.
So maybe try a different food. It might be more that than stress.
I second birgerjohansson’s recommendation to see a vet. Not so much for happy pills but to see if there’s anything amiss. On the other hand, it is a cat. Sometimes that’s just what they do.
You haven’t truly lived untill you’ve had to hold your hands in front of a terminally ill cat in order to catch the projectile vomit. Fun times.
I’ve taken her to the vet. I have tried changing her diet (tricky, because she is an extremely finicky cat). Nothing works. The one thing that we know: if everything isn’t exactly as it always was before, she gets upset.
Not only is she an evil cat, she is a conservative evil cat.
@11: if all she’s doing is vomiting, she’s not terribly evil. I lived with Evil Dogs who loved to use the kitchen floor as a toilet. And who were far more finicky than your cat. (Two weeks on a high end dog food and they’d stop eating it. Until their entire diet was changed…!!)
I put a big sheet of plastic on my bed when I get up in the morning and don’t take it off until bedtime. Cuts down on the barf, and a lot easier to clean.
@13: works with rabbits, too. Apparently, rabbits are very territorial and will pee on your bed to claim it as their own.
If you had a dog it would eat it.
Maybe an exorcist is the next step?
I second Ronald Couch @16. Dogs are great at hoovering up crumbs and bits on the floor, dead bugs and flies; and very gingerly removing Tootsie Roll™ cat turds from the litter box to eat as treats. No need to clean out the cat box! Or sweep the floor.
After the cat has lived out its natural life span, I recommend PZ gets a capybara.
They are very social, and will be great company for other adopted pets, regardless of species. There are smaller rodents but they may not be as extremely social.
.
Other pets.. I assume PZ prefers animals that will fit into a car? Porcine animals are very clever but the males can get up to 400 pounds, depending on species.
Advantage; if they kill a burglar you can get rid of the corpse before the cops get involved. Better than pit bull terriers that way.
Cassovaries will also be great for guarding your house, just wear a suit of armor around them.
birgerjohansson@18
Just don’t pick up a chupacabra by mistake (I hate it when that happens). Or a kookaburra though that might work out OK.
Capybara’s are also natural born anti-capitalists.
Your wife will come back to you PZ, and your granddaughter will still be adorbs.
Happy pills: ha ha ha! …for some people…. mmmmmmmaybe? :)
The stress to the cat of pilling the cat? Vomit inducing! The stress of taking the cat to the vet to be injected or the original diagnosis? Vomit inducing! The stress of having their food taste different? …yeah, you guessed it…
Me, I pick the cat up as gently as the cat will allow, and place the cat so carefully on the nearest linoleum floor. They’re less likely to claw or bite you because they’re in the middle of their barf-sequence. And cats are creatures of habit, so if they “magically find themselves” on the linoleum multiple times every time they hork, they will (sometimes) think it’s their idea.
@20: my old Meezer kitty Sammy would just jump in the bathtub and vomit. He stopped doing this at the very end of his life.
He was a smart damn cat. I miss him. He’s been gone almost four years and I still miss him.
Poor kitty’s a stress-puker. I understand, it sucks for everyone. Cat’s suffering the stress and the puking (no fun). You’re suffering the clean-up.
My cat’s sinister plan is, every morning, she waits until mere minutes before the alarm goes off, then climbs on top of me and cuddles up. Then, when my alarm goes off, she looks at me like, “Ha, you fool! Now you CAN’T get up and leave, for there is a CAT upon you!!!”
@23: Me “No, I’m not coming in today. Cat’s comfortable and I prefer my cat’s comfort over my job…”
At least it hasn’t shat on the bathroom floor. (yet)
we have a saying at our house ‘to live, a cat must barf!’
Aren’t capybaras oversized guinea pigs? If so do they still make all the squealing and purring noises except much louder? Do they well… https://youtu.be/MmLK3UytHE8
…yes they doo doo.
At least they aren’t oversized rabbits. I can’t even imagine what an oversized rabbit could do to your remote control after you fall asleep with them loose on the floor.
Hemidactylus @ 27
See Wallace and Gromit: “The Curse of the Were Rabbit “
@27: They’ll dig up your carpet, chew every wire, destroy anything wood…
@29, Sounds like republicans.