Mary, queen of cats

Here we go again. This time, I had my shoes included.

The vet said Mary has allergies that causes her to self mutilate. Fabulous.

Mary and I are having a petty little war. Every day this week (since being at the vet on Sunday), when we get home from work, we find our cupboard in this state:

Please note that it is only my clothes that are being ripped out of the cupboard. Not my partner’s, but mine only. All my nicely ironed clothes, crumpled and on the floor.

My revenge? Every time she annoys me while I am at home (specifically when she whinges and whines for no good reason), I give her a squirt with a syringe full of water. I started that this morning, and got her a pot shot in the middle of her forehead! She was really not pleased. But it seems the message got through – we came home today and there was only one item on the floor!

And before anyone jumps down my throat for animal abuse, chill. We used to discipline Mary that way. It is completely painless and harmless. It is just very undignified and annoying. She does something we don’t like, we do something she does not like. She learned very quickly where her boundaries are within the “pack”.

It’s been a while since I posted on Mary’s site. I took a bit of a prolonged break from anything computer related. Since the last post, Mary had to go to the vet twice, and we experienced quite a few “tantrums”.

The first visit entailed injections. We went to the vet to get more of her prescription food as she was all out, only to be told the food won’t be available in the country for the next 3 months as there is some or other problem with customs. We called around everywhere. All surgeries were out of stock. We fed her on ordinary cat food pouches. After 3 days, we noticed Mary’s irritable skin condition was back. This confirmed what the vet suspected: there is something in the food that irritates her skin. Makes one wonder what they put in it….

Anyway, so off to the vet we go. She got a shot to help relieve the condition. We were worse than dog poo. Oh wait hang on no, I was worse than dog poo because somehow this was all my fault. This put us in a difficult position. What is she going to eat? We can’t feed her ordinary food! The vet suggested some other food (which was ludicrously expensive, but there is no price on Mary’s health!), but madam rather starved herself for two days than eat it. We tried absolutely everything. We even bought her fresh raw fish. She just was not interested. We were desperate. We finally found a tin of food called Lucky Pet Supreme, containing whole pilchards or whole sardines in jelly. This she happily ate. I was worried at first that it was because she was so damn hungry she would eat just about everything and then as soon as her hunger were satisfied she would pull her nose up at it again, but so far so good! I don’t know what effect it will have on her skin because the injection lasts about a month or so, so we will just have to wait and see.

The next visit saw Mary stay overnight at the vet’s. She came in one morning with a fat bottom lip. Literally. By the evening the swelling had not gone down, so off we went to the vet. Somehow she hurt herself on her bottom lip and in the space of a day the wound developed an abscess which had to be drained. We had to leave her there overnight and pick her up the next day after work. It was painfully difficult to carry her to the cage and leave her there. I wanted to crack. My poor poor baby.

When we collected her the next day my partner and I were like little kids on Christmas morning! We could not wait to have kitty back with us again! She was equally happy to see us. All these visits meant she had to stay inside for a day or so after each visit – we did not want her to run away because she was upset with us (you never know with Mary!).

I am pleased to report that she is doing well and I sincerely hope it stays that way. I really can’t afford to lose the teeny bit of popularity I worked so hard to get!