Here Kitty, kitty…

It’s no secret that I’m terrible at keeping pets. Sure, I go goo-goo-ga-ga over cute little dogs and laugh at little kitten antics but when one of the toughest fish in the world; aka the common guppie that normally survives in the dirtiest drains; goes belly-up on me, there’s got to be something really wrong with my pet-keeping abilities!

I’m quite scared of animals even when they bound up to me in friendly greeting. I don’t like feeling their wet sticky tongue and like them only when they’re lying still which animals weren’t made to do! Nevertheless, I believe I’m still more a dog person as most of my experiences with cats as a kid involved chasing after the neighbour’s cats who used to use our garden as their giant kitty litter tray!

Years later, in University, we made the mistake of giving our cat-mad friend a kitten for her birthday which caused quite a bit of havoc in our college and she was forced to give it away. I had to kitten-sit for her once when she went away for the weekend and was at an absolute loss at what to do. Dog person, remember?! The kitten refused to eat the food I put out for her and I ended up feeding her milk treats (which are just treats, not real food!) instead simply so that she’ll eat something! Definitely a fail in Pet-Keeping 101!

So what does all that history have to do my weekend? Well, this non-cat lover spent her Saturday morning scooping kitty poop! It started when J had to go off for the weekend and couldn’t contact his animal-lover friend to temporarily board his cats. So this non-cat lover offered to help him out with not one, but three kitties! His instructions weren’t that difficult. He just needed me to go over to check that all was okay with the cats and that the litter tray was cleared and sufficiently filled.

So I trotted over early this morning and oh dear! There were sh*tloads (literally! :P) of litter to be cleared! Maybe I’m just paranoid or biased but I find kitty poop really smelly and had to hold my breath while scooping them up to be thrown away! I was starting on the 2nd tray when one of the cats came by and for whatever reason, chose to pee all over the floor when a nice clean litter tray was right before it! Yes, I felt like killing the cat at that point! Another cat seemed to be ill as it had puked out remains of its food and didn’t seem to be eating much at all. So I cleaned up everything, replaced their water, topped up their food, make sure they don’t run out of the room each time I opened the door, groomed and talked to them a little and that was how I spent my Saturday morning!

I’m just hoping really hard that there wouldn’t be a repeat of this when I go back in again tomorrow morning! I think this incident has just reinforced my no-pets policy!

On my way home with my nose and clothes filled with “Eau de Cat Poop”, I wondered what possessed me, a non-cat lover, to do this. I think there was only one answer to that - love. It makes us do the strangest things!

P/S An update on Biby: He’s improved drastically and amazingly can actually communicate with us now! If he’s feeling hungry, he’ll peep through the fence and lick his lips. Otherwise, if he’s already been fed by his owner that day, he’ll just take a tiny peek to see who’s there then go back to playing with his bowl! He’s come a long way! :)

August 26, 2007 | Filed Under  

Comments

2 Responses to “Here Kitty, kitty…”

  1. Judy on August 27th, 2007 4:58 am

    Have you changed your mind about cats? I used to hate cats until my daughter got one. Once they are house trained, they are very clean animals with little care needed.

    PE says: No la, Aunty Judy :( Still don’t like them :P

  2. Aurelia on August 28th, 2007 10:04 am

    Aurelia and M on Cat Sitter Volunteer Programme for PE (if there is one). Cheers!

    PE says: Many many thanks for the offer but it’s been sorted out! :)

Leave a Reply