Wednesday, December 31, 2003
A few people have asked, so here's the situation with Ali Cat: she got a stay of execution. For now.
The background on the problem is that shortly after we moved into our new house in Fall 2002, and after we exorcised the Eau de Dimestore Granny air freshener favored by the previous owners, we found out that their weiner dogs had lacked bladder control for a long, long time. Translation: the dogs had peed all over the basement and main floor carpets. This, in turn, set off one of our cats (Ali) on the quest to thoroughly wet down any existing pet stains and add a few more of her own. We had wanted to replace the carpet anyway, so we had that done in early March, and figured that would stop the problem.
For some reason, Ali attacked the new basement carpet as if her measure of worth as a cat depended on soaking every inch with pee.
If you've ever been in a house where there have been kitty oopsies, you're all too familiar with The Smell. I grew up next door to a cat breeding family that was philosophically opposed to cleaning and didn't have airconditioning. In the summer, they would open the windows and the stink would hang in a humid cloud over their house and the two houses on either side. The cat family's last name was Chenenko, but the kids in the neighborhood always called them "CheSTINKo". By the end of this past summer, the Cheezwerks HQ cat pee situation was approaching Chestinko levels.
We finally quarantined Ali in two adjoining vinyl-floored basement offices while we launched repeated cleaning fits upon the carpet. (For the record, the smaller of the two adjoining offices is bigger than one and possibly two of the bedrooms in our house, so it's not like we stuffed her into an oubliette.) As of this week, it appears that the odor is largely gone. We're sealing the cement, replacing the padding and having the carpets treated in January. If that doesn't lead to 100% success in The Great Pee Stink Eradication War, we'll replace the basement carpet. Again.
The more complicated and emotionally charged issue has been what to do about Ali. Sean wants to "retrain" her; I want a guarantee that the cat will never pee on my carpets again. A neighbor of ours - who is sympathetic to my perspective - offered to take care of it for us using a method involving a pillowcase, a driveway and a moving vehicle. I probably shouldn't have laughed about that, except that she brought it up in front of another neighbor who is a dedicated Humane Society volunteer, and whom I've seen get teary-eyed about animal welfare issues on more than one occasion. He was probably horrified about poor Ali's prospects in our unforgiving, inhumane home. On the other hand, I notice he didn't volunteer to rescue and rehabilitate our cat...
In all fairness to Ali, the vet discovered that her urine was badly crystallized, which *could* be part of why she was going on the carpet. She has just completed a round of medication, has been switched from pine to clay-based litter and is on a restricted diet of a specially formulated kibble that costs approximately a month's mortgage per 3-pound bag. (I coulda beat Toby when I discovered - via his crack-addict act of suddenly appearing, smacking his lips, shifting his eyes and looking guilty, followed by a loud burp with that telltale cat kibble smell - that he had gobbled up an entire bowlful of Ali's food. This is the same dog who at age 3 STILL hasn't outgrown his fondness for litterbox "treasures", and who rarely sees the bottom of his own dish of kibble or experiences a night without a few juicy tidbits finding their way from our plates to his mouth, and therefore has absolutely NO PRACTICAL REASON to break into the offices to get to Ali's gold-plated food.) We are hoping that this clears up the medical problem, which might eventually lead to allowing her back into the carpeted areas of the house for a real test of the success of the treatment and rehabilitation efforts.
If not, I have the phone number for someone who can help us out with our cat problem, for roughly the price of a new pillowcase.
# posted by Amanda at 7:42 AM |
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