Day 165

Cats Are Not Dogs

I am almost embarrassed to admit that my cat is being tortured and tormented. If he had thumbs he would probably be calling 1-800-4-A-CAT right now. 

When I woke up this morning, everything was going really well. My normal routine is wake up, stumble out of bed, and let two of my dogs out. Sheba prefers to sleep on the bed longer because she knows my routine. Then I go to the kitchen and pour myself a cup of coffee. The coffee pot is on a timer so I wake every morning to a hot cup just waiting for me. 

Coffee in hand, I head back to the bedroom, stopping to let the two dogs back in. Then I tell them to "lay down" because I sit on the bed (if it was winter I would be under the covers - but it's summer so I sit on the top of the covers) and sip my coffee, watch The Early Show, and check emails and FaceBook. 

Opie does his own thing in the mor-ning - his litter box is in the bedroom at the far end of the hall. I have a baby gate across the doorway so he has to crawl underneath to enter the room. This prevents the dogs from entering and doing unspeakable things to cat food and cat litter. 

Everything was just fine - I'm relaxing, sipping coffee, and all of a sudden I hear something like a tornado or hurricane come rushing down the hall straight into my bedroom. My first thought was, "Wha............??????????" Remember, I had just woken up 5 or 10 minutes earlier. The tornado was Opie. He ran into the bedroom, vaulted onto the bed, ran across, bounced off the wall and ran out. He does this sometimes - as his way of teasing the dogs and inciting them to chase him. 

Off he ran, back down the hall, into the living room and down to his 'room' again. Next I heard the baby gate crash to the floor and again he ran into my bedroom. Another lap around the room, but this time his claws got the side of my leg. The dogs are all excited now thinking this is just a wonderful game of tag and they're it. Dogs were in the hall and cat was in my bedroom, so I quickly closed the door to try to see what was going on. 

And there I saw my tortured, panicked little kitty sitting on the window ledge panting and wild-eyed. He had obviously gotten hold of a Walmart white shopping bag. I can't explain how, but he had the top of the bag tightly twisted around his 'waist' - if a cat had a waist. And the bag is now all shredded and full of holes around his hind legs. He is FREAKING OUT - so I carefully tried to remove the bag but it was so tightly twisted I had to tear portions and remove it that way. Once I got him free, he just stayed up there and panted while I cooed at him and told him it was okay. 

Again, my fault. Days ago I had left the bag in his room, thinking how cute when he would sit in the bag and roll around in it. Once I was sure he wasn't going to have a heart attack, I took a trip down to his room and replaced the baby gate - he must have run right into it and it came out of the door. A ten pound cat downed a baby gate!!! His collar was also laying on the floor. Break-away collars are such a good idea for cats. 

But overall, he was fine and ready to eat breakfast in 10 minutes or so. Then I realized that my leg was feeling wet whenever my pajamas touched my leg so I checked, and yep, I got pay-back from Opie for his panic-attack. I have some pretty good scratches across my leg. 

So hopefully, I think I made it up to Opie. I never had a visit from Animal Control today so he didn't call while I was out of the house. Phew!!! Looks like I will get to be a cat owner for a while longer. I hope tomorrow I will get to enjoy my whole cup of coffee.