practical cats

[freckles_and_doubt]

Generally speaking, I approve of cats. I like them; I wish them well; I am always ready, after we have been properly introduced, to scratch them behind the ears in a well-meaning fashion. I am devoted to our four felines, under whose furry thumbs both I and the Evil Landlord contentedly exist.

I do not, however, extend the above warm feelings to the fluffy black-and-white tom that has spent three days terrorising our cats; should it show its raccoon-face anywhere in my vicinity, we shall have Words. I had to rush Todal to the vet this morning, after finding her crouched on the Evil Landlord's bed, hunched, yowling and crapping all over the place. I thought she had some kind of massive internal problem; she screamed in pain when I picked her up, and she was yowling and panting all the way to the vet. It turns out the bloody tomcat calmly wandered into the house this morning and, practically under my nose, really beat her up - she has massive bites all over her tail, belly and back legs, and is severely traumatised. The vet pumped her full of painkillers and antibiotics, but she is so traumatised that she vanished over the back wall the instant we got back and I opened the cat basket. I tried to grab her, but didn't want to hold her too tightly because she's so sore. I'm livid that the experience has caused her to identify the house, her house, as a place of trauma rather than safety.

So, I've spent the day wandering out back and round the neighbourhood at intervals to call, uselessly - I know she's holed up somewhere in a neighbour's garden, recovering in that private way sick animals have. I can only hope that she comes in for supper.

And I'm plotting revenge. That bloody black tom turns up again, it will speedily find itself:
1. grabbed,
2. thumped,
3. hosed down with a hosepipe,
4. stuck in a box and hauled off to the vet, and
5. castrated.
The unpleasant-association game can work both ways, after all.

Comments

[d-hofryn.livejournal.com]

Is she ok? Did she come in for dinner? I'd like to personally bath that tom...in the toilet!

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

She did come in late yesterday afternoon, and spent the evening cowering under one of the living-room chairs, with her eyes like saucers (those hugely dilated pupils), starting and cowering at sudden noises. But she ate dinner properly, and seems more or less back to normal this morning, if a little jumpy and stiff.