Cat Sitting

My friend Elizabeth went out of town (out of state, actually) for a long weekend, so asked me to take care of her cats for her while she was gone. I was happy to accept, and even got paid for doing it (this was a surprise – I didn’t really expect that).

She has three cats: Thumbelina, Lumpy, and Moesha. All three of these cats are about five times bigger than my two combined! I’m always amazed at the size of normal cats…one of the draw-backs to having tiny girls, I guess.

Anyway, Lumpy is a gorgeous long haired grey cat. He’s a Norwegian Forest Cat, I think – he has papers, but since he was adopted from a homeless shelter, they got lost somewhere. He is a very sweet cat; friendly and loves to play with a feather on a string. He does have a few issues with the potty, so I had to clean up after him. Thankfully, he wasn’t as bad as my Alien – the clean up was just a matter of picking up the poop from the floor next to his potty.

Moesha is a mutt-cat. I honestly never even saw her: she hid out behind a pile of clothing in the closet the whole time I was there. I did see the occasional ear poking out, so I think she’s a chocolate brown colored cat. Elizabeth assured me that was normal behavior for her, so I wasn’t too worried. I did check on her each day to make sure she was still there, but other than that I didn’t have much interaction with her.

Thumbelina was the problem child. Contrary to what you might expect from a cat named Thumbelina, this girl is HUGE. I’ve never really seen a cat quite that large. Her name comes from the fact that she has extra digits on each paw – two thumbs for each foot. She is all nice and lovey-dovey to her owner… quite a different story for every other person on the planet. And unfortunately she’s the one who had to have medication administered each day.

She has a colon problem and gets her medicine smeared into her ear once a day (the ear provides quick access to blood vessels, allowing the meds to be absorbed into her system quickly and painlessly). Elizabeth showed me how to do it, so nice and easy.

Quite a different story when I tried it. Thumbelina turned into the Cat from Hell in about two seconds flat.

My first day, I attempted to do it on my own. I had a towel and threw it over her, then tackled her with the entire weight of my body. I actually had her down and immobilized, but couldn’t reach the meds so had to let her go. There was no second chance. Thumbelina was hissing, spitting, growling, howling, and running. And I have to admit, I was shaking. She can be pretty intimidating…

I let her calm down for about an hour, then went downstairs to the café and got reinforcements. Once again, a towel thrown over the cat – this time with somebody else holding her down – allowed me to very quickly smear the meds in her hear. In about 2 minutes it was done, and we left Thumbelina to recover on her own.

The following three days, I brought my roommate to help me. We managed to get her each time with minimal stress for all involved. Thumbelina managed to wound both of us, but not too badly. I think everybody involved was very happy when Elizabeth came home!