Sunday, March 4, 2012

Weaning Princess from her 100 Watt Habit

I think I know why I have so many cats. Apparently there's a big neon sign hanging over my house - invisible to humans, but easily seen by those of the feline persuasion - it reads:

The Sucker Lives Here!


Seriously, I'm just putty in their paws.


Anyhow, back in October of 2010 a little stray cat (who evidently saw the sign) took up residence under the big pine tree in my front yard.


Within an hour or two, I had named her Princess. See what I mean about the sucker part?


Anyhow, to make a very long story short... after trying unsuccessfully to get close to her, find her owners, trap her, coax her into a warm shelter or otherwise help this little kitty, I finally resigned myself to the fact that she was just a feral cat, and the most I was gonna be able do for her was to feed her.

But the thing is, it was winter, and I just couldn't bear to see this poor little cat out there freezing under my tree. I tried everything I could think of... shoved every imaginable kind of kitty house, blanket, straw, even heated bricks under the tree - all of which she completely ignored. I can still hear the neighbors muttering to themselves... "That crazy lady is out there crawling under the tree again..."


Then when the temperatures were forecast to dip to twenty below, and stay below freezing for a week, I got desperate. So we got an outdoor rated heating pad, and CatMan helped me rig a little covered platform for it and we shoved it under the tree in a place where she'd have to walk over it to get to the food.

It totally worked and within a few hours she was glued to it.
Then, about this time last year she finally decided that maybe I was OK after all, and started flirting with getting closer to me. One day as she was darting past me, I decided to stick my hand out and brush her fur, just to see what would happen. She whipped around... I thought she was gonna attack me, but no... somehow that little touch flipped some sort of switch in her and she started purring and snuzzling and literally climbed into my lap.


So at that point Princess became in indoor kitty.


But since several neighborhood strays had tested positive for FIV (the feline equivalent of HIV) I had to keep her isolated from the other cats for about 6 weeks until we could be sure she didn't have it. The only good place to put her was in the unfinished half of the basement, which stays pretty cold. Plus, she was totally covered with mats and pretty much had to be completely shaved.


So, to keep her warm, we moved her heating pad into the basement. You know, it seemed like such a good idea at the time, but the thing was she just stayed totally glued to the thing. After she got out of quarantine, I kept trying to coax her upstairs. I know I should have just unplugged it, but it was like the only source of comfort the little girl had. Did I mention her name is Princess?


So what did I do? I bought two more heating pads! She pretty much ignored them, but every once in a while she would come spend a few hours on the upstairs heating pad and I figured we were making slow progress, even though between the three of them we were burning about 100 watts 24/7. I know, I know... it's terrible... contributing to global warming and the destruction of all future life on the planet... but she's my Princess!


Then about a month ago, CatMan saw a report on the news about a house that burned to the ground, and the fire was stared by... you guessed it... a kitty heating pad!


OK, so at this point I finally decided that we were gonna have to pull the plug on the Princess Kitty. Still unwilling to see her suffer in any way, I went out and bought several microwaveable heating pads and came up with a complicated schedule of heating and re-heating them.


But a funny thing started to happen... Princess actually decided that perhaps there was more to life than the heating pad! It's like a miracle!


She's actually been spending time upstairs, and she's been climbing the kitty trees, and looking out of windows, and lying in sunbeams... I've even caught her snuggling with the other cats on occasion!


Maybe she wasn't quite as fragile as I thought after all!


Now... waddya think we should do with all the money we're saving on our electric bill...

18 comments :

  1. Can't you use cats to generate electricity by rubbing their fur? Static electricity, true, but then that seems like a fairly static cat. (When you're that good looking, you don't have to be especially kinetic.)
    Yeah, I'm full of good ideas. Or full of something, anyway.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha! Now THERE'S an idea I hadn't thought of! Much better than the hamster wheel approach. :~)

      Delete
  2. Does Miss Princess have the old Siamese crossed eyes? I'm afraid we would sit around and laugh at her all day, like our cats laugh at us all night.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yup, she's totally cross eyed. At first I thought that she probably couldn't see too well, and figured that was at least part of the reason she didn't want to stray too far from the heating pad. Her recent toy pouncing, counter jumping and brother chasing activities have convinced me otherwise though!

      Delete
  3. She is a cutie though, I can see why you were so determined.

    And since I am also cat-whipped, this story sounds perfectly normal to me! My boyfriend is even worse. He turns the heater on for the cats. He also leaves lights on for them (because he says they don't like the dark) and basically lets them do whatever the heck they want.

    I only had one rule, ONE. No cats on the counter. And that worked until last year. Fast forward to yesterday when all three cats were on the counter trying to figure out how to get the cat grass out of the top window sil. They're impossible.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I too used to have the counter rule... but we have an issue that one kitty is on a diet while the rest are not. Soooo, finally I decided that the only thing that really worked was to leave the diet food on the floor and put the high calorie food on the counter where the skinny ones can get to it but the fat one can't.

      I am definitely kitty-whipped!

      Delete
  4. I'm normally not a cat person, but awww, she is very cute :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She's a pretty amazing cat actually. Usually to shave out a cat's mats you have to put them under anesthesia. But little Princess (who is only 8 pounds BTW) who had basically not been touched for god knows how many years, just laid there purring and allowed them to shave her. The vet techs couldn't believe it. I could hear them in the back saying things like "Oh my god, she's purring, she's kneading..." She's one special kitty!

      Delete
  5. Cute kitty! Cat-whipped is a good term. We should start a club. Brie thinks humans are her heating pads -- I bet Princess will get to that stage, too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, I think she's already there... glued to my lap as I write this! She'll even climb right over one of the other cats to get to my lap at this point! Can't wait to see what she's like once she's truly comfortable here!

      Delete
  6. She is BEAUTIFUL! And you are a good soul. She looks a lot like my Lila, who my husband "trapped" in a covered cat bed w/heating pad + can of food + garbage bag loosely sewn onto the outside of the cat bed to keep it dry in case it snowed. He extension corded it out the basement window. South Dakota subzero temps are pretty serious and she was maybe 2 pounds and 6 weeks old. I'm happy to report she is a snuggly sweetheart who is turning 16 years old this year. Wishing you a happy future with yours too :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh my goodness... 6 weeks! That's barely weaned! My "kittens" (who are nearly 3 now) were about 7 weeks old when they appeared on my back deck. Turned out someone had dumped them in a box in the alley and somehow they had clawed their way out and made it all the way into my yard and up the stairs to the deck. I'm thankful that it was August so they didn't freeze, and that my eldest cat (Mr. Sputnik VonWiskars) saw them through the sliding glass door and let me know they were there!

      Sounds like your little sweetie sure got lucky to be found by the right people!

      Delete
    2. Mr. Sputnik VonWiskars? Love it!

      Delete
    3. Well, he was also a neighborhood stray. I called him Sputnik because he would arrive like clockwork, and I had just seen some movie about a kid (who later became a rocket scientist) who was captivated by the Russian satellite Sputnik, and would set his watch by it.

      But... before I swooped him up, I put a collar on him with a note (just to be sure he really was homeless) and it turned out another lady was feeding him too. She had tried to adopt him but he was apparently afraid of her other 2 cats. Anyhow, she called him Wiskars. So I came up with Sputnik VonWiskars to keep both names.

      Delete
  7. Oh, the things we do for love! What a lucky little princess she is. Long ago, I used to feed the stray cats outside my apartment leftover canned tuna! :)
    -Jaime

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha! Well, I always say that if you want a cat, just put out a can of tuna, and in a few hours you'll have a cat (or 4.) :~)

      Delete
  8. Oh how I can relate! The things we do for our cats! When my old sickly Siamese was on his last legs, I had to give him subcu fluids for over a month. I heated his food. I force fed him. I gave him fluids in stages so he wouldn't fall over from the weight of the full fluid hump. There were the heating pads and constant laundry from his inability to hold his bladder. Thinking back, it was crazy to most. But this is what us cat lovers do.

    And that Princess is adorable. I would've gone to those lengths too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks so much for stopping by...

      Oh I've been there with kitty nursing. I had a very sick cat who had kidney problems, and by the time it was all over we seriously had litter boxes strewn every few feet across the house. Oh how I miss that little sweetie.

      The truth is I'd do just about anything for my cats. I just can't help myself, they're my precious darlings.

      Delete

I welcome your thoughts so please leave me a comment and I promise I will respond.

On older posts I've had to enable comment moderation to prevent spammers, so don't worry if your comment doesn't show up right away - unless you're just commenting for the sake of embedding a link, in which case I really wish you wouldn't waste your time or mine because I'll just delete it.

Thanks, and have a fabulous day!