Mary, queen of cats

As any pet owner knows, a collar and tag are essential pieces of equipment.  If your favourite, furred friend is a wanderer at heart, chances are they could get confused on their way home. As any cat owner knows, the tendency of felines to squish themselves into the darnedest of places knows no bounds.  Often the smaller the entrance, the better.

This leads to a bit of a concern regarding the cat’s collar – not only must an owner make sure the collar itself is stretchable, so it can easily slip off if their wearer is in danger of choking or worse, but it should also be ultimately able to tear or snap to get them out of a jam. That being said, the collar not being as fixed as it could be does lead to the more rambunctious feline losing more than their fair share.

And this presents a difficulty in and of itself – what about the tag?  One can only have so many collars around the house, especially with a cat that goes through them like most people go through underwear.  And of course there’s no way we would allow Mary out without a tag on her collar.  If she were lost and someone picked her up, they’d have no recourse but to deliver her to the SPCA, which (like many well-intended animal organisations) is animal welfare- and not animal rights-oriented, and largely a bureaucratic farce, so definitely not a place I’d like my girl to ever see the inside of.  This is assuming, of course, that those who find her have good intentions and aren’t just out to steal her for themselves.  And who wouldn’t want to?  You’ve seen her pictures, right?

To cut a long story short, the pain of having to have a set of pre-engraved tags, or having to rush about looking for an engraver and/or pet tags while her majestic-ness sits at home growing more inclined to pommel any people-flesh she sees exposed with her incredibly long claws while we sleep, is not conducive to a healthy cat-and-person relationship.

Imagine our glee (srsly, glee) at finding a little collar called the Rogz – it’s a little plastic tag doohickey that allows one to scribble/print down the relevant details and snap the tag together themselves.  Also handy if you need to change said details.  You can check out their site for more info (and no, we’re not getting commission from them, just appreciating the product), but the pic below gives an idea of what it looks like:

Plastic Rogz tags

The following images show Mary wearing her own Rogz tags – obviously they suit her rather… er… active lifestyle:

Cat and tag caught unawares

And from another angle

Waking with a camera up the schnozz

Cat, unamused.

For those of you who’ve been hidden under a rock for the last few years, one of the most far-reaching Internet memes is that of the lolcat.  Since 2007, icanhascheezburger has been the single most influential disseminator of lolcat material, and while not all are winners many are… especially those that highlight feline behaviour:

So if you haven’t already, visit the site or subscribe to their feed – well worth it.

Being someone who truly appreciates animals, both wild and domesticated, for what they are and what they have to teach us, I’ve never been one to condone the ridiculous practice of clothing one’s pets.  The majority of people who do so, in my humble opinion, are anthropomorphisizing in a sad way, and generally using their animals as pseudo-people to make up for some lack in their lives and/or themselves.  And I’m not the only one who thinks so, thank your-deity-of-choice.

However, be that as it may, recently we found ourselves crossing this line with Mary.  Not for the reasons one would imagine, though – it was simply the least complex solution in order to stop our silly Siberian from over-grooming a wound.  The Victorian collar option was out, as the wound was outside the area, meaning she could still reach it with her hind legs.  We’d tried bandaging her paw, but that led to her toes becoming painfully sensitive for some reason.

As a last resort, we bought her a blue cat (or dog, more the humiliation…) shirt, tore off the very badly thought out sleeves – she could barely walk with them hampering her movement – and put the thing on over her collar.  Needless to say, little Miss Fluff was very indignant about the whole thing, but it paid off in the long run (+/- 3 weeks, cringe) as her wound finally healed.

Adjustments around the collar area.

Final tweaks around the collar area.

Finally shirt is on...

And not even a solid under-shirt scratch...

... can stop Mary keeping her distance from the those shirty savages.

When outside for the first time, Mary checks to see if anyone is watching her misery.

And like many before her, uses grass to feel better.

Heading out into the cruel world.

Finally at rest, plotting her revenge.