To be slightly glad my DC ('dear' cat) never came home...

[rolloverandshitmarsbars]

Light-hearted, but serious
Since she disappeared 8 months ago I have not had to:

-Cover the worktops, fridge and cupboards with sellotape every night to prevent her sleeping all over them. No cats on worktops.
-Remove all traces of water droplets from around sink - she would lap them. No cats on worktops!
-Keep bathroom door closed so she didn't sleep in the sink/bath.
-Be sad about the nose scratches that appeared weekly on my other cats.
-Close doors to stop her sleeping on the baby.
-Open doors slowly, leading with a foot to stop her rushing through, upstairs and under the bed so that I get to lie flat, wriggle under and drag her out shouting and squirming.
-Tape cardboard and old bits of carpet to the lower half of all the doors I had to close because she scratched and destroyed them.
-Close all windows, even upstairs because she could and would get through them so she could get under the bed, or sleep on the baby.
-Discover poo hoards.

Unsurprisingly I got used to not doing these things quite quickly. If she showed up now, I'd be a little cross quite frankly.

Don't worry, at first I was sad and spent weeks coordinating house checks within a 2 miles radius, 3am night walks to call for her and I stuck a picture of her on top of the fridge so I could tell her off.
But, when I think of the additional work she created and what I have saved buying sellotape, I am afraid I just don't want her back. Unreasonable?!

[LisaMed]

Beastofburden welding gloves to hold evil cat down during an examination were at absolute necessity. She drew blood from old and battle hardened vets and ran rings around any newbies. It took two vetinary nurses and a vet to get a urine sample in the practice. After a while she was too frail to make the journey to the vet - boney growths on the spine as well as failing kidney - so the vet had to come to us every three months to check the meds were okay. I always bought chocolates. They were always justified.

Near the end when she was nothing but a furry bag of bones she still put up a spirited fight and it was never worth trying to get blood samples. It was only during the last week that she was too frail to declare total war on the vet and the vet was shocked.

I'm not sure sometimes whether I miss her or miss telling people what she had been up to and seeing their shocked expressions.

[SelectAUserName]

OP, I think you just misjudged the tone of your post. I think if there had been even just a little more of "I loved her to bits despite..." and "If she walked back in now I wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry" rather than a litany of all her negatives, it might have gone down better.

I understand that guilty relief when a pet is no longer around and you don't have to do all the chores associated with it - in my case, when we lost our Labrador to cancer, in amongst the grief and sadness was an appreciation of being able to have a lie-in, not having to go out in the pissing rain, not having to keep an eye on the time while out shopping so that he wasn't left too long.

It lasted about two months until the need for the good experiences of dog ownership outweighed the bad, hence SelectASpaniel

[Topaz25]

Some people use humour to deal with difficult situations, it doesn't mean the OP doesn't care about her cat. OTOH pet loss is a sensitive subject. This post reminded me of our cat Jamie. We adopted her and her brother and sister as kittens, they'd been born on the streets so were semi feral. Several months later she was starting to come around and spending time with us but then she somehow managed to get out and of course given her history went off like a shot. We looked for her everywhere but never saw her again. We still have her brother and sister, who have bonded with us and are happy family pets. Jamie wasn't always easy to get along with but I miss her a lot. I hope against hope she is still out there somewhere and has found another home or joined a feral colony, even though I know it's unlikely. For some people, pets are part of the family.

[RussianBlu]

A fair number of not very nice responses to the op. She was just being honest and it is pretty much impossible to train cats not to jump up on tables/work surfaces etc. It is also a complete nuisance to have a cat that destroys carpet around door ways etc.

I hear you op!!!

[BrianTheMole]

Take a bullet for the fooking cat? No way José!!

[MrsDavidBowie]

I have had a rescue cat for about 10 years , she' s about 12.
Yes I like her. I feed her, sporadically stuff her in a cat basket and take her to the vets.

She is making life a bit difficult at the moment by miawing at the bedroom window at 1am and waking me up.and has peed on the bathroom mat this week.
There is no way I would take a bullet for her as someone said upthread.She is a cat.

[Beastofburden]

@ welding gloves.

He was very easy going and accepting of things. The only thing he couldn't stand was surgical spirit. It made him foam at the mouth. When they inserted the cannula to euthanise him they used it, and I was because surely it doesnt have to be sterile if he is about to die anyway? But he sat there good as gold, then gave me such a surprised look when the drug hit him, just as he keeled over, sort of "what the f...."

[LisaMed]

Beastofburden he sounds lovely. Psycho cat would viciously attack any but a chosen few with extreme prejudice, but he let DH put in eye drops with only a hurt look.

When we had to give malevolent cat ear drops, however, that was a different matter. The vet didn't bother prescribing tablets for evil cat as he couldn't give them to her. Lovely next door neighbour used to hold evil cat down wearing welding gloves just for an examination.

[Triliteral]

I rehomed my cat with my mother when I moved to Norway. She always had a thing for sleeping on the clean washing. I really don't miss the hairy clothes. Equally, if she ever ate too much, she would just bring it all back, usually on the stairs. Delightful at five in the morning with bare feet. Can't say I miss that bit either.

[tobiasfunke]

The Op was being light hearted. I have lost cats. I have had cats PTS. I am a mad cat lady who goes to extreme lengths to keep my little darlings happy. But even I see that life can be much easier without them around. The one that shed his whole white coat daily and puked frequently due to hairballs -usually under a bed. Or the really fluffy cute one who liked to spray on floorlength curtains. As much as I miss them part of me is glad I don't have to deal with that anymore.

[Beastofburden]

and about not wanting your scars to fade, that is so true!

[Beastofburden]

It is sad. He was so ill by the end, that it was right to let him go, but it was sad he ever got that ill.

He had a lovely nature. Even with the enema, he just looked at me, more in sorrow than in anger, and rested his head on me until it was over.

[LisaMed]

Beastofburden an enema! I salute your courage!

I know what you mean. I was so lost when we finally lost evil cat, the last of the three. There is a gap. She gave a good scratch when I was helping her to get up on to the sofa on the last day and the scar lasted three weeks. I was sad when it faded.

You never think you would miss the 2am 'cuddle'. But you do. hugs. It is so hard to lose a friend.

[LisaMed]

We used to wedge the downstairs door closed with secateurs to keep malevolent cat downstairs at night. At night malevolent cat liked to PARTY! This included dancing on us at all hours and trying to eat our hair. When she passed and I was sleeping downstairs on a fold out evil cat used to push me out of bed so that I was on the floor and she was on the foam. Just because she was actually tiny and by this stage very skinny didn't mean she couldn't push me off things. We had some battles.

Psycho cat was just lovely.

[Beastofburden]

I never even attempted to bath our cat. When he was very, very ill I helped administer an enema, now that is scary.

We used to have decoy newspapers so that we could read without a large furry ginger impediment. We would pretend to read the sports pages avidly until he was nicely sttled on them. When we got iPads and laptops he twigged, so in latter years we would borrow one another's iPads and laptops for a decoy.

I no longer have to bolt the kitchen door at night to stop him arriving for a cuddle at 2am. I can leave butter unattended. Hell, I can carve a hot chicken and leave that unattended.

I used to have to come home every lunchtime to syringe feed him when he was really ill.

Since we had him put to sleep a few weeks ago I have had so much more freedom and the house is so much cleaner.

[MyBodyIsAtemplate]

we co sleep with our little cat. dh reasons she's afraid if the dark and needs her Daddy! he's seriously nutty over her and so am I.

the kids were never allowed in our bed.

[LisaMed]

I'd be more sympathetic about the scary balloons if the cats had actually been scared of them. The same cat book told us how to bath a cat. I still have the scar from malevolent cat and the bath was in 1994 - and never repeated!

I couldn't be bothered with the sellotape. Psycho cat did try and eat plastic string so perhaps it would be a bad idea

[Beastofburden]

awww poor cats with the scary balloons, that's like the bit in Harry Potter where the evil people have trained the dragon to expect pain when it hears a rattle.

If you don't want a cat to sleep in the bath you could leave the cold tap dripping a tiny bit. But actually, how often does a cat choose somewhere to sleep that is so easily cleaned? I would be encouraging that myself.

Still got this vision of a kitchen coated in sellotape. Why would you do that when you could just wipe down the worktops?

[LisaMed]

If it was shiny, maybe they skidded when they landed.

Apparently if you want to keep a cat off something or away from something then you make them scared of balloons. Then you put the balloons around the thing you want protecting, eg a Christmas tree.

You make a cat scared of balloons by blowing up a balloon in front of the cat. They are curious and come and see what is going on. Then you pop it. You do this several times, at the end of this the cat will run when it sees a balloon. That is what the cat book said.

Psycho cat was scared of the Christmas tree anyway (a bag of furry nerves the shape, size and muscle tone of a staffy), malevolent cat didn't like hearing the balloon inflated but looked with contempt when we popped the things, with an 'is that the best you can do' expression. Evil cat used to watch fireworks on bonfire night, a balloon didn't have a chance. We endeded up using orange peel for evil cat and hoped that malevolent cat couldn't be bothered (she usually couldn't).

I wish I had thought about cardboard over the bits that the cats scratched though.

[MyBodyIsAtemplate]

LisaMed love the cat attacking a vicar and a policeman.

cats are bloody ace, they couldn't give a crap but we still adore them. far more interesting than dogs who are just human slaves.

[FairPhyllis]

What's wrong with a cat sleeping in the sink or bath? If the cat is stupid enough to want to sleep somewhere cold, hard and quite possibly damp then that's its problem afaics.

And how does sellotaping a countertop even work? Sticky side up or down? Was it double sided tape?

[LisaMed]

Triliteral we had malevolent cat who was. She bullied people. She was the Naomi Campbell of the cat world. We had psycho cat who was a cross between Mike Tyson and Anxious Andrew and was bigger than a lot of dogs. I managed to stop him spraying a policeman once in the nick of time and he scratched a vicar. Then there was evil cat who was just evil.

We didn't want cats. We got given one as a wedding present. It all followed from there. I am now cat free but ds is starting to hint strongly about another pet. I suspect another litter tray is on the horizon.

I am really glad we had cats. I can see us having cats in the future. They do have their little ways, though.

[whois]

MyBodyIsAtemplate

Love it!

We apart from the poor OP getting a right kicking by crazy cat ladies, this thread has given me some laughs. In my mind I've got whole rooms covered with Sellotape, and now a tabby terrorist madly sprinting around the work surfaces dodging the spray bottle! :)

[MyBodyIsAtemplate]

Dear Catsnet,

posted here for more traffic.

think my human was a bit of a nutter, she out Sellotape over her fridge, she wouldn't let me drink water from the tap or cuddle up to the baby. I once caught her talking to a photo of me and telling me off.

decided she was a nutter and possibly dangerous so pawed it, got a really nice gaff now.

was I being unreasonable?

[LoonvanBoon]

Thanks.