Day 5

Day Five: Talk about your pets


We used to have a cat. He was crazy. But we loved him anyway.

He used to try to escape the house every chance he got. We learned to only open the door enough to fit our bodies through, and to quickly close it behind us.


We learned to keep the toilet seat down. (Well, I already did that. Someone else in the house learned.)


Sleeping with toes out of the blanket was out of the question.


He liked me to carry him on my shoulder like an infant.


He liked biting my hair (which, coincidentally, my son now does).

Happy boy, wary cat.

We taught him to jump up into our arms (No, not really. He taught us to catch him as he jumped towards our faces. Kind of unnerving for our visitors when he'd do that to them though.)


He would play fetch for Mike...if he felt like it.


For some reason, he really disliked one of my nephews. (And the feeling was mutual. Right Brev?).


If there were more than 2 people visiting our house, he would hiss and growl. And yet, he would not leave the room. He wanted to be where the people were, but he would make sure you knew he didn't want you there.


He could be really sweet and pleasant and funny when others weren't around. (For some reason, nobody believes me when I say that, though.)

Both of these boys spent a lot of time staring longingly out the window

You had to know just how much to pet him and scratch his ears, because if you went a split-second too long or scratched the wrong spot, he would turn on you and attack. We knew him well enough to avoid that. But others didn't. (Sorry Mom!)


As he grew older, he got more crazy. He started freaking out if he made it outside. It was like the smell or something brought out the wild animal in him. A friend of mine nicknamed him Kujo after one such episode. (Sorry Cami!) The funny thing was, as soon as you got him back inside, he would start purring and act like nothing happened...like he didn't just about bite your head off 2 seconds ago. (Sorry Jenny Frame!)

Eyeing those fingers as baby boy smiles on oblivious

We finally had to give him away shortly after we brought our son home. He had been doing ok with the kid, but I didn't ever dare take my eyes off them if they were together. The final straw, though, was when some friends were visiting us and El Gato made it outside. He immediately turned into Kujo, but worse than ever. He was hissing and growling and screaming, and wouldn't even let ME near him. (Which was rare). But he wouldn't run away, he just stayed near the porch and screamed and hissed and growled (for all the neighbors to hear, and think what bad kitty owners we are). I'm pretty sure we had to send our friends out the other door to make it past him. After getting gloves and a broom (yes, that's how bad it was) to get him back inside, he immediately camped out near our kitchen table and continued hissing and growling at us. It was all very chaotic. And maybe a little traumatic. (I'm pretty sure our friends' little girl will never look at kitties the same). Nobody could go near the kitchen for hours. I had to leave and when I got back, Mike had already made arrangements to have someone take him. Don't worry, they were told about his...er...quirks. I was told that he went to a family with a large farm that wanted an outdoor mouser. Whether or not that's true, I'm choosing to believe that he's outside and happy. 


So anyway, that was the end of our pet owning days. At least for now.

He sure is a pretty cat, though.