Furry Friday: Feline Edition

Since this weekend is going to be filled with lots and lots of dogs, as it is Niagara's Annual Dogfest (annual, you say? yes, I never heard of it either), I thought I would make today's Furry Friday all about Felines. I give you Bella, Gracie and Linx:





I"m just going to say it, I'm not a cat person. See here. I've discovered however, that my fear is basically of unknown cats. Some of my friends have cats, and the more I am around these cats, the less I feel like running in terror. Perhaps it is just that I am now able to read cat behaviour a little better, and I know when they are going to pounce (not always though). Anyway, what I"m saying is, I'm slightly less scared of cats, but still slightly afraid. ANYHOO.

There are so many cats at the shelter during this time of year; they come in droves. Every week there is a new batch of kittens, who thankfully get adopted pretty quickly, because they are so EFFIN CUTE. I like when I stand at the desk by their cage, and all of a sudden I feel a sharp pain in my thigh/back, and try to turn around, only to discover that a kitten has attached a claw to me through the cage. Crafty devils. None the less, they are freakin cute.

Why don't a lot of people spay or neuter their cats? Seriously! A lot of people let their cats roam about at night, and did you know a female cat can have up to 3 litters a year? THAT's A LOTTA CATS. You can easily imagine how this could quickly turn into thousands of cats. It is so irresponsible as a pet owner to have an unfixed cat roaming the neighbourhood. This results in stray cats, feral cats! I mean, half the cats that come into the shelter, let's face it, more than half, cannot be adopted out, because a) there is no room, and b) they are FERAL. You think regular cat claws are scary? Wait till you meet, Old Feral Sammy, who has been living in a field with no human contact for two years. He will claw your face off, because dammit, he liked that field!

This irresponsibilty on the part of humans, the species who are able to logically connect the dots in this situation, is astounding. I'm just going to say it: do you know how many cats are euthanized at shelters each year around this time? SO MANY. And people want to get all up on their soap box and starting blaming the shelters, but the fact of the matter is, there is no room for the thousands of cats that come in every summer. People need to take responsibility for their own pets. If you don't want to spay or neuter, then don't let the cat out to roam.

Stuff like this makes me so angry, because why? Why it is even a situation? If people can't afford to responsibly care for their pet, perhaps they shouldn't have one.

I read about this really amazing local animal group who are implementing a program where they catch feral cats, spay/neuter them, then release them back into the wild. Awesome! I love when people step it up. So kudos to that group (I can't find the article now!).

Definitely stop by a shelter if you are thinking of getting a cat. There are so many, the shelter is literally filled to the brink.

It's Raining Dogs and Feckin Cats

I've always had an issue with cats. As in, they scare the crap out of me. I find them to be fairly unpredictable, and that makes me uneasy. They are cute and all, and I think kittens are hilarious, and I love watching them play at the shelter, but I am not a cat person.

I think this all stemmed from the days at my grandmas cottage. Her neighbour had 18000 cats and they were always underfoot. I was little and moved around a lot. This equated to me stepping on lots of cat tails, and subsequently getting the crap scratched out of my leg. I understand...getting your tail steps on hurt, and the clawing is just a natural reaction, but holy crap, I was small, and those cats scared me.

Every cat since then I've been leery of. I don't stare at them too long, for fear they will pounce on me, and I don't pet them too long for fear they will all of a sudden turn on me and claw my face to death.

The only cats I've really found that I can be around without fearing disfigurement, are my friend's cats Marley and Patches. I won't go as far to say I like them, but they don't scare me the way most cats too. Perhaps it is because they are my godkittens, and I MUST love them. Either way, they are relatively docile, and don't do that creepy "I"m randomly gonna jump behind your head now" thing that most cats are prone to doing.

Anyway, my other friend was away this week, so I agreed to go and feed her mother's cat. This is a cute cat people, with big green eyes. I went on Monday with no issue, and on Wednesday with no issue. On those days, the cat could really care less that I was there, she was just happy for me to fill her food dish and get the hell out.

So yesterday, I go to feed the cat for the last time. I don't know what happened between Wednesday and Friday, but cat darn gone crazy. She would not get out from around my feet. So much so that I could barely walk anywhere. Nonetheless, I feed her, I flush the toilet so she has fresh water. Then I am standing in the living room, doing various tasks, all the while talking to the cat so she hears some human voice, when all of a sudden, the cat rushes over, bites my leg, and starts hissing up a storm. ?? I have no idea what provoked this sudden attack, so I start thinking to myself, "has she gone crazy? Is she just warming up? Is my face next?". I know nothing about cat behaviour. I can read dog behaviour fairly well, but cat's...I got nothing. Because that biting and hissing fit came outta nowhere! So anyway, after this happens, I was pondering my options. "Maybe I can go out the back door, sneak in the front door, grab my purse and get out...but no, because then the back door will be unlocked". What resulted was me going out the back door, running to the front door, peeking in the window, only to see this demon cat staring me down. To the back door I go! But once I get there, there is the cat, staring at me..again. I repeat this pattern several times, with the cat stalking me all the while. After about 5ish minutes, I realize how RIDICULOUS this is, and decide to just go IN the back door. This is just a cat after all. A fairly tiny one at that. It's not a mountain lion, or a puma, or anything that could kill me.

So I open the back door, and there is this cat, hissing and staring away. "I must remain calm", I think. "Be rational. Animals sense fear". So I grabbed the bag of cat treats, and proceed to pour wayyyy too many on the ground. "This will stall her" I think, and I make my way for the front door. I grabbed my purse, the key to the house, my sunglasses, throw on my shoes and got the hell outta there.

I think my car made screechy noises as I peeled out of the driveway.

Over-reaction: most definitely.
Puffy bite marks on my legs: two.
Number of people I've ever cat watch for again: 0.

I'm sticking with the dogs.