Biggs disappeared sometime around the New Year. He had an infected cut behind his ear. Xy treated it with peroxide, but we fear the worst.
Shortly thereafter a new cat started hanging around. We call her the Crybaby because she cried a lot at first. But soon she joined our household and seemed to fit right in with the other cats. She’s a small gray tabby, very attractive and very well-behaved.
She was probably somebody’s pet but we have yet to track down an owner. She’s already caught at least one mouse, so I’m happy to have her.
Xy was convinced the Crybaby was pregnant. I thought she was just fat. We took her to the vet yesterday. They confirmed that she was less than two years old and, indeed, pregnant. There’s babies having babies up in here!
Well, not actually. It seems that if we have her spayed, the vet will abort the litter for just a few bucks extra. I’ll admit I was horrified by this prospect. What are the ethics of animal abortion? But Xy thought it was the right thing to do, and she made an executive decision. They performed the surgery yesterday. I’m supposed to pick her up this afternoon.
We’re also getting Milo fixed. He’s only seven months old, but he could be the father.
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Oh that Milo, what a stud. It’s good to see a tabby who is useful. Pogo and Oscar are decorative but all they do is sleep and shed. Oscar fancies himself a bird hunter but…
There goes the neighborhood!
Good moves on the feline front Darlin’!
I didn’t think our SoCal stud was old enough to do the nasty thing, but we now have 7 pretty large kids to go along with the four elders.
I see you’re referencing one of my favorite John Waters movies!
FWIW, Xy’s exec decision was the right one, IMHO (jeez, lots of abbreviations here!).
Lucky was only eight months old when he slipped it to Alice, and to everyone’s surprise (except mine) — puppies.
I was told it’s good for a male cat’s disposition if you get him neutered early. He’s not as likely to nip and stuff. At least that’s what a vet told me.
Damn, ya gotta watch out for those randy cats!
That litter would have guaranteed to make you and Xy infamous “cat people” for life, by the way…
Well, I’m a little sad about the kittens that will never be, but I suppose the reality on the ground in different there in N.O. with all the homeless animals and other important things to be done and such.
In any event, XY’s executive decision is better than what some of my husband’s relatives back in the Old Country do with kittens…
When we visted a family of disant cousings in Austria a couple of years ago, we petted some cute young kittens and a mother cat.
The next day, I couldn’t find the kittens and asked where they were. I was told (I was the only one who could speak German) that the kittens had been ‘taken care of’ early that morning.
I was appalled and thought hard to come up with my best, cool German phrase in order to sound cool and nonchalant, but earnest.
I pulled a teenage boy cousin aside and asked him, “Unter vier augen” [literally “under four eyes” or, “come ‘on, just between us”], what happened to the kittens?
In a sweet, comforting voice, he assured me, ‘Don’t worry Kelly, we just put them in a sack and hit them against a tree. That knocks them out and then they really don’t feel a thing when we put them in the river. It’s OK. If we didn’t do this, we’d have 100 cats around here.’ He really just accepted this as the way things were. I guess he would, as the designated deed-doer…
I like to fancy myself an open-minded gal, but the truth is: my cat-loving American self didn’t know what to say.
So I ran and spilled the beans in English to my American family in the other room, newly impressed by the differences between us and our Old Country relatives.