As if killing birds, coughing up hair balls, destroying furniture, and trying to eat their humans wasn't enough, now we have a cat that is urinating in non-appropriate areas, the ultimate sin. This time it's the gray cat called Blue that causing problems. Why it's not called Gray has always been a mystery but as we all know, cats are mysterious by nature. Even Saint Ruth, in all her forgiveness, will not tolerate cat piss on the furniture. In the spirit of non-partisanship, I immediately volunteered for sniper duty but no, the Missus goes to the Internet for answers.
Two "solutions" were the most common. A: The cat has a urinary tract infection or B: Kitty is suffering from physiological stress. I don't know about A but B is a slam dunk. This is the cat who once had a seizure right before me, yowling and scratching and running and twisting and biting until she more or less passed out. Ever since then, her favorite pastime has been to search the skies for UFO's. At least that what it looks like when she stares upward, swiveling her head at every possible angle, much like a fighter pilot looking for bogies.
The other three cats, sensing mental illness, attack ol' Blue every chance they get in order to eliminate the weakest of the species and let the strong survive. By now, it should be obvious why I'm leaning toward answer B.
The Internet did not have a solution for B, at least one that dealt with three other predators in the house. At this point, I"m for locking the whole damn bunch in a small room for about a week with no food and let natural selection take its course.
I might make a simple correction regarding cat consequences. You mention that 4 cats would represent 4 times the trouble. That is not quiet correct.
ReplyDeleteStudies at FIAT (Feline Institute for Advanced Thinking) have clearly shown that the incidence of cat consequences is not linear, as you suggest, but is very much like the intensity of light. Light intensity varies as the square of the distance. This discovery was made by Dr. Claude Allot, who interrupted his main investigations on the effects of hairballs on global warming, to make these observations.
He found that if you follow the square rule law, 2 cats are 4 times the trouble as one, 3 cats are 9 times the problem and 4 cats are have a 16-fold incidence of negative consequences. This rule would ostensibly also apply to inappropriate cat pissing, but I am not sure if he has investigated that specifically, he has a lot on his plate as it is.
I am told that Claude's next investigation is to measure accurately the length and angle of individual leg strokes made by feral cats while swimming. Hopefully there will be videos of this interesting study for both cat lovers and for EMT personnel in training.