Thursday, February 3, 2011

The art of cat wrangling

Kevin Costner’s got nadda on me. Although I thoroughly enjoyed Dances With Wolves when it came out (and this recent bitter cold streak represents an excellent, if not captive, opportunity to revisit the Ol’ West), Mr. Costner wasn’t left to his own devices on the movie set.

Au contraire, I had to plunge head-long into the fray with Cali, my personal mega-cat, right before New Year’s Eve. Trial and tribulation has earned me the magnanimous title of Cat Wrangler in my mountain community.

I’m serious. There’s even some friendly banter at my expense on one of our local websites about The Situation at Casa Gatos Loca.

My girl, who exhibits every possible particle of Maine Coon-esque behavior known in the world of the feline, got pretty darned sick just as 2010 was preparing to segue into 2011. She’s 9 years old, so let’s just say she has entered what represents her middle-age years with quite a bang. Her partner in crime is Izzi, a contender at age 8 who is half Cali’s size and weight. Spirit-wise, however, they are a matched set.

The girls have always been the two proverbial peas in a pod. I have many photos of the two of them massed in a gigantic fur ball during one of their many midday siestas. The fact that they have similar coloration means that sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart without taking notice of certain bodily landmarks. Sounds sweet, doesn’t it?

I know what is normal and what isn’t for my girl gang. When Cali started to barf and then refused to eat and drink, it was anything but normal. And thus began a series of trips to the vet which now cause me to refer to my Just-Under-16-Pounds-Of-Joy as my Thousand-Dollar-Baby.

The problem came upon Cali so suddenly that my whole household went topsy-turvy with the spin of a pin head. My peaceable girls are suddenly ardent enemies. Izzi has somehow decided her original sister has been replaced by a replica Pod-Cat. Izzi, who stays safely ensconced inside and has never been allowed to venture outdoors, has always patrolled the perimeter of the inner grounds. In fact, it is not infrequent and out-of-the-norm to see her flying through the air with the greatest of ease over couches and chairs and at imaginary villains as she makes sure all is right with the outside world. She is the chief chic in charge.

But at this particular juncture, she has gone into Stealth Cat Mode. She starts to stalk Cali, something she’s never done. She gives Cali eyeball-to-eyeball ground-penetrating deep stares. She starts to guard the litter box and lord over the food dishes. I am watching a nature documentary unfold before my eyes: the strong preying upon the weak.

The initial trip to my local vet turns into a late-Saturday-night foray to the emergency vet in the flatland 30 miles away less than a week later. Cali has somehow tilted off her axis, and I am thoroughly convinced she is going to die that night. If I were legally capable of running lights and sirens during that 30-mile ride, I would have done so. Four hours later, I am sapped but returning home with my precious package of fluff. At this stage, I have inconclusive blood work results and an astronomical vet bill to show for the adventure.

The atmosphere in the casa becomes positively charged and hostile. With Izzi Sentry on guard, Cali is now traumatized and afraid to go anywhere on her own steam. Thus, I am carrying her between rooms, to and from the litter box. As a friend told me, it’s like I just had a child and I’m up every three or so hours for something or another.

I’m not proud to say finally have a nuclear meltdown. I am a puddle of tears wrapped in a thunderous headache. I am not fit for human association. I have had very few hours of sleep since this whole situation began, and adrenaline, like fumes, is becoming harder to muster.

The timeline moves along. Back to the vet for x-rays. Back to the vet for an ultrasound. At the conclusion of all this testing, we discover that everything is pretty much normal. The only thing that showed up during all the testing was a cyst in Cali’s pancreas. My vet, who I appreciate very much, tells me she doesn’t think it’s a terminal. Had it been, she told me Cali would be dying or gone by now.

The theory is that Cali was trying to cough up a fur ball and set off this extreme chain of events.

During all of the chaos, I have become the Administrator of Tough Love Central and have added the title of Cat Wrangler to my resume. A lot of this centers around giving the gato a pill. Here’s the mental image: Willingly stick your tender little pinkies into Jaws. Seriously….

We are cat dancing with each other now. She’s hiding under the bed. I have to get her out. She won’t come out. I have to get Izzi out of the bedroom, get the broom, close the bedroom door, get Cali’s cat carrier, belly crawl to the bed, push the handle of the broom to Cali’s location, scare the dickens out of her as I gently move the handle in her direction, watch her bolt into the bathroom to hide, risk life and limb by picking her up, ignore the growls and cries of distress (coming from both her and me), and then – and only then – put her into her carrier.

You see, the carrier is the only place she’s feeling truly safe these days since she’s clocked so much time there recently. The advantage of pilling her there is that she can’t back away from me or really get the claws revved up. After some contortions on my part, I manage to get the pill into her and then…

Everything is fine. At least for a nanosecond.

In all, I’ve spent more than a month getting up at O’Dark 30 to carry Cali to her food dish, or to the litter box, or to the bedroom, or back into the kitchen for a morning munch. But I can now proudly say the growling has lessened, and Cali is finally, finally starting to stand her ground with Iz The Terrible. I somehow have this image of Iz clawing imaginary notches –four at a time – whenever she prevails in the skirmishes. I’m sure Cali, who has always been very confident, finally got fed up.

What really seems to have turned the tide is a 99-cent squirt gun I bought from Target last week. It’s the team colors of the Denver Broncos, and Izzi is living proof that cats can make connections at lightning speed. After only two squirt gun corrections she’s knows that pushing the envelope and getting wet are synonymous. Haven’t had to use The Gun in days, in fact. All I have to do is make a squirting noise with my mouth, and she high-tails it away.

There is still enough posturing between the gatos to go around. And like the Hatfields and McCoys, I think the girls have forgotten what started the whole thing.

But I’m here to tell you one thing: I haven’t. I am Cat Wrangler. I walk tall and carry a big squirt gun.

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