January 22, 2010 · filed under meow
a really long post about cats, feel free to skip it really
We are now a family of three. And I don’t mean that in the way you might think – no, I am not pregnant! A few months ago we found a new home for one of our kitties, and now we just have one kitty left. Hence the three – me, Andrew, and the original insane cat Howie.
I didn’t tell you about it at the time because I was in a blogging funk, and well, it’s all just a bit embarrassing. In early 2005 we adopted our 2nd kitty, Hugo, a fat orange ball of love who was obsessed with food and freedom. And when I say obsessed, I really mean it. This cat was always hungry and would scarf down a bowl of food in mere seconds, come up for air and immediately start begging for more. Every time we opened the front door, all 22 pounds of him would sprint out the door, plop himself on our front stoop, and refuse to go back inside. Andrew often found this endearing, I found it maddening.
This is Hugo back in his Jenny Craig days. He got way fatter even though we didn’t overfeed him!
It gets worse, though. Hugo had a problem with peeing in the house. We couldn’t lay down a single carpet or rug anywhere in the house, or he’d pee on it. Sometimes if I left my gym bag or purse on the floor, he’d pee on it. Whenever we left town or had visitors stay at our house, he’d pee on the sofa. We tried everything to stop the peeing — we had 3 immaculately clean litter boxes, gave him kitty Prozac, tried Feliway, and consulted with the vet many times to rule out medical issues. But it just kept getting worse, and our house was getting to be quite disgusting.
When Melissa and Jen came to visit me last spring – you guessed it – Hugo peed. It was horrible! He peed on the couch and Melissa sat in it. Can you imagine anything more embarrassing than meeting and hosting a friend in your home for the first time ever and she sits in your CAT’S PEE PUDDLE? I wanted to die! (Thankfully Melissa happens to be an extraordinarily nice person who didn’t make me feel bad about it, but still! The horror!)
Plus, I just kept thinking, I pay an ungodly amount to live in this house (hello DC real estate prices) and I am too embarrassed to have anyone over? Seriously? I pay just how much for this stinkhole and I can’t even enjoy it?!
But there weren’t any good options, so for a long time we were stuck. Andrew loved this cat dearly, but we knew we couldn’t keep him. But what could we do? We could send him to the shelter we adopted him from, but we knew that was a guaranteed death sentence. We tried to find a no-kill shelter or foster home for him, but they were consistently full and not interested in taking a cat who wasn’t suited for re-adoption. I probably shouldn’t admit this publicly, but I considered euthanasia at a point when I truly thought we had no other options and it seemed the most humane thing to do. Thankfully, we tried one last effort on craigslist, posting an HONEST ad about Hugo, (we had done this in the past and gotten no replies) and HALLELUJAH someone wanted to adopt him.
Hugo really liked 1) food and 2) squeezing himself into too-small boxes.
This story is getting longer than I wanted it to be, but it really was a several-years-long family saga. There is a happy ending though. Hugo now lives at greenhouse/garden center on the outskirts of the DC metro area. He is the Official Customer Greeter and his new owners LOVE and ADORE him. They send us photos periodically. And he has several acres of land to roam, plus two indoor greenhouses, plus endless amounts of human attention 360 days per year. It’s kitty heaven on earth.
And my house is getting back to normal. The cloud of cat pee smell doesn’t knock you dead when you walk in the front door. We still need to replace the sofa, and the pillows, and put down some rugs, but we’re getting there. (Side note: OMG sofas are FREAKING EXPENSIVE.) We’re no longer woken up at ungodly hours by a starving, begging cat. We no longer have to break up death-match fights between our two kitties. We have about 1/5th the cat hair we used to have. Life is so much better, for me at least (Andrew is still sad). And no kitties had to be harmed in the process. Win-win, I say.
So you can imagine my horror when the other night at dinner my lovely husband suggested that we get another cat. Seriously. He thinks we can try again and get a cat who doesn’t have all these problems. He wants a lap cat. Of course, I told him no, and I assured him that my blog readers would back me up. Kinda like that time you vetoed the uber-sexual poem reading at our wedding – HAVE I THANKED YOU AGAIN FOR THAT RECENTLY?
So, back me up here, ladies. Tell us that one cat is enough. The next thing that lives in my house better be a baby. Or perhaps a Chia pet.
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Becca
January 22, 2010 5:17 pm
I vote for a baby over a cat any day.
Operation Pink Herring
January 22, 2010 5:36 pm
I witnessed one of Hugo’s unstoppable charges to the front porch. He really could NOT be stopped!
I sympathize so (SO) much with both of you. Been there with the peeing, the kitty prozac, the feliway and the deathmatches. A cat who will. not. stop. peeing is one of the most stressful experiences I’ve ever endured… and I’m counting moving, starting a new job, buying a house, and planning a wedding. The cat is not happy. You are not happy. The couch, rugs, and gym bag are not happy. It’s so awful.
We kept our poor peer until the day I had to put him to sleep (sobbing), but he was not adoptable. Who would take a chronic peer who was not cuddly, terrified of all strangers, unintersted in other animals, and on $50 a month of medications? And we were (mostly) able to avoid the things that triggered his peeing. Mostly.
So, I see your side. It is so nice not having to deal with the pills and the nonsense and the PEE. But… I also have my lap cat. I think our other cat is a lot like Howie — he’s not bad (except for the vet thing), but he has little interest in us. Sad, but true. I really love having one pet who loves me back!
Korinna
January 22, 2010 5:45 pm
I still remember when I started reading your blog and came across that picture of Hugo in the food box. It made me snort laugh. I also think I sent a link to a friend who also had a healthy-sized cat.
I think one cat is the way to go. You all know each other. No surprises. And if a baby does crop up in the future, then that’s one less resident to get used to being woken up every 2-4 hours.
Liz
January 22, 2010 7:48 pm
My opinion may not matter so much since I’m a dog person, but I’m a ONE DOG person. We thought about getting another but the hair, the potential problems, the cost, the hair…I’d rather give my current dog double the love until we have kids. And a bigger house. Then we can get another one as “their dog.”
jane
January 22, 2010 10:12 pm
No more kitties. Sure, you’d like a lap kitty, but I think only 1 in 10 cats ends up being a lap kitty. I vote baby.
alyndabear
January 23, 2010 2:26 am
Well I am glad that Hugo is in a new place – sounds ideal! (And omg, I’m slightly terrified because Oscar? Eats like it’s going out of style. No peeing but still… the begging. Oy!)
Oh, but I side with Andrew because I am just itching to get another kitty… maybe just a smaller, short haired one that doesn’t shed so much?
Katina
January 23, 2010 11:53 am
I know what you mean about the peeing–our cat had kittens (she was pregnant when she showed up on our doorstep) and did great with peeing in the litterboxes until the kittens started using the litterboxes. Ivy would pee right next to the litterbox because she felt that it was just too dirty. We had 6 litterboxes, and I cleaned them all in the morning, right after I came home from work and again right before bed. Plus i was mopping the floors every day because I didn’t want the pee smell to stay in the air/floor (we were lucky insomuch that we have stained concrete floors so the pee doesn’t soak in so much). The husband wanted to take her to the humane society which would have been a death sentence (black cat who’s psycho and has litterbox problems, yeah, she would have been a real winner). Thankfully once all the kittens were adopted she started using the litterbox again.
But I can’t say no to stray animals and am currently trying to convince my husband that we need the 8-month old cat that keeps hanging out in our yard. But no, I wouldn’t actively go adopt another cat.
Erika
January 23, 2010 1:51 pm
Our chihuahua pees on any rug, towel or anything. It drives me nuts. We have these makeshift doors to the kids’ rooms that they can step over just to keep Scrappy out. 2/3 of our house is hardwood floors and we have NO rugs. one floor is carpet and it’s nasty, yellow pee spots everywhere (not as pungent as cat pee, however). He is overweight because he eats everything the kids drop, and yappy at every noise he hears. I am so over it, but he is my “lap dog” and I feel so guilty giving him up, even though we have had several people who want him. I wish someone had told us to wait until we had kids to get dogs. I can’t imagine how much less work there would be without dog hair to pick up and having to keep food out of their reach.
the ambitious mrs
January 23, 2010 8:15 pm
I think if you have one pet you’re happy with you’d better just stick with him.
I’m so glad Hugo has found his piece of paradise.
Nathan Pralle
January 23, 2010 11:21 pm
I’d stick with one; you’ll get used to only having one feline around eventually and the reduction in cat hair, considering how busy the two of you are, is nothing less than a blessing.
We had our Leo, who looks almost exactly like your Hugo, up until Keston got old enough to actively grab for him, and Keston is horribly allergic to both cats and dogs, so we pined for ages about what to do with him. Eventually we were able to find friends who took him and he is in his own cat heaven, happily loved and wanted.
Sad to give him away, but our house is infinitely cleaner and the stress of having to worry about our son breaking out in horrible rashes is gone. Win-win, indeed.
Jen
January 24, 2010 7:11 am
well you know that I can relate to exactly where you’re coming from, having found new homes for both of our cats (OH THE PEEING.) It was such a looong process coming to the decision, but I certainly don’t regret it. Knowing they’re in a happy place (Scotty is now outside and has tons of room to roam and chase things and LOOOOVES it!, Gracie is in a quiet house with another quiet cat, no kids. Perfect for her.)
So I am 100% on your side with NO MORE CATS thing. ESPECIALLY if you guys are considering having a baby anytime soon, seriously. When I was 9 months pregnant (read: HORMONAL) I had a complete meltdown when my dad mentioned the possibility of getting rid of our cats after the baby was born because HOW COULD HE POSSIBLY EVER SUGGEST THAT? A year later, we were making plans for it. Because wow do your priorities change (and that’s not really a bad thing, just a fact)
I’m happy that things have all worked out for you guys and The Fat Orange Cat! The no pee smell is lovely isn’t it
lesli
January 24, 2010 12:50 pm
I am glad Hugo has a wonderful new home in a greenhouse as a Customer Greeter. You did a good thing!
I can’t really give you advice about getting another cat. I have 4 cats and a Pug, and while I probably wouldn’t add another cat into the mix myself, I would like to have a second dog. Yes, we live in a zoo, but we are not going to have any kids–I made that decision a long time ago.
Good luck and hugs!
Sara
January 24, 2010 1:18 pm
I am a self-proclaimed cat lady. The best thing about having multiple cats is that they entertain themselves, there is always one who wants to chill out on your lap while the others are hopped up on cat nip and you will never want for dead “presents” left on your doorstep. OK, so dead birds and mice isn’t really a good thing, but at least it will help your side of the argument, right?
Alexa
January 24, 2010 7:45 pm
i think if you started with a female, docile cat you could be having a different debate. But, you began your cat family with Howard. Howard is one crazy cat who has to be the only cat. So even if you didnt have a pee problem in HUGE-O, Howie would make the environment inhospitable. Call me, I am your cat counselor!
RA
January 25, 2010 7:53 am
Oh, man. If you could guarantee a well-behaved, well-contained (in the urinary way) way, then maaaaaybe I’d give in, but no, I have ice water in my veins. No more kitties, Andrew! Just say no.
terra
January 26, 2010 7:10 am
Cats are great but I think one is enough. With cats, like most animals, you never really know what you’re going to get and it would be horrible – HORRIBLE – to end up with another cat who begs like crazy and who pees on everything.
elise
February 3, 2010 2:30 pm
wow, late to the party on this one, but here’s my vote: NO MORE KITTEHS. KITTEHS ARE CUTE, AND ONE AT A TIME IS ENOUGH. Unless of course they came together and love each other and are already all adjusted and siblingy and all that. But to just up and add a new one, after all that? And oh my, you are a saint after all that…NO.
There’s my vote