Blooming Where I'm Planted!

About cats…

I’ve been a “cat person” for as long as I can recall. When I was a child, we generally had 4-5 cats in the house at all times. This was partly due to my parents taking in strays and partly to do with us being so dirt poor that having the animal spayed or neutered was out of the question. It’s not all that hard to have a house full if you end up with 2 pregnant females from your 2 or 3 virile males.

Now the dog side…

I’ve never been a “dog person”. I don’t enjoy being goosed by a wet nose or being licked. Dogs are so needy and annoying. This has been my opinion up until 11 months ago when I first came home with our CockerBeagleBasset, Charlie. I fell so in love with Charlie that it broke my heart into many pieces on June 19th, 2009 when he wandered out into the woods and never returned. Luckily, on May 10, 2009 (Mother’s Day) I’d gone to the shelter and come home with Abby to play companion to Charlie, so after he’d gone, I still had her. And she’s my girl!

We’re a family…

Now we have 2 cats who’ve been with us for 5 and 7 years, and Abby and Bandit. Bandit came along in August to keep Abby company. That’s 2 dogs and 2 cats if anyone is keeping count! We’ve reached the point where the cats don’t hide anymore, which is fantastic. It’s so nice to sit here with a dog at my feet and see a cat walk right on by. Not afraid. Not worried. Sometimes they even stop to sniff each other. No worries. It’s wonderful.

Cats vs Dogs

Mike says he doesn’t like animals. He told me back when we were first together that he couldn’t “tolerate” living with more than one animal in the house. It’s been eleven years, I guess he’s over that. Of course if you watch him talk and play with the dogs OR cats when he doesn’t know you’re looking, it’s quite obvious he loves them all and thinks of them as family.

Michael and Eddie go back and forth over who’s better, cats or dogs. They try to pull me into it, but I always decline. There are things I like and dislike about both. I can’t pick one over the other. I declare myself an “animal lover” and leave it at that.

The scales have tipped.

Last night, Abby did something I’ve never seen a cat do or even attempt, and while it was disgusting, it was ever so convenient and has officially won a point for the “Dog” side of the argument.

I was sitting on my bed watching “Eastwick” last night on my DVR when there was a knock at the door.
“Mom, Abby threw up in the living room!” Eddie yells through the door.

Crap! *sigh* “I’ll be out in a minute. Next commercial. Stay away from it!”

Next commercial comes and I pause my show and come out preparing to grab the paper towels and a plastic bag and likely some febreez or some similar thing. As I walk into the room, Eddie looks up from the tv and says, “Never mind Mom, after she threw it up, she ate it again. It’s all gone.”

Now, my first thought was, “OMFG how totally gross!!”
But then I had a memory.

I recalled walking out of my bedroom, in the dark at 6am, and finding the damp, partially digested, tube shaped pile of cat food on the floor that was heaved up in the night thanks to a hairball.

How do I find them you ask?
Why, I step on them in the dark in my bare feet of course. There’s nothing quite like cat barf between the toes to wake one up in the morning! Well, I find headless mice the same way, but that’s a whole other story! LOL

SO! By my count, at this very moment…. thanks to Abby and her self cleaning attitude *shudders* the score is now:
Cats – 0 ~ Dogs – 1

Being a mom is an adventure, for sure. And not one for the faint of heart.

Happy Spirit Day,
∞ EL

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 9:31 AM and is filed under 4 Legged Family Members. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.