There has been a little bit of drama going on in the Wilbanks household this week. Two of our members recently underwent surgery and are now lying around the house making my life miserable.
It isn’t the kids. They already make my life miserable, but they aren’t the ones that went under the knife recently. My wife and I are also fine. No, the poor little surgical victims this time are our cats.
We adopted two kittens a few months ago, Scout and Willow, and we were informed by their vet that it was time to bring them in and have them spayed. My first response to the suggestion was to ask how much the surgeries were going to cost. My wife’s first response was to tell me to shut up and do what the vet told me.
So, I shut up.
We scheduled the surgery for a Monday, and we were told not to let the cats eat anything for 12 hours prior to their operations. Apparently, much like a person, if they have anything in their stomachs while under general anesthesia, it is possible that they could vomit and choke. Starving the cats would normally not have been a problem. Since the cats do not possess opposable thumbs, they can’t open the pantry door and get their own food. All we needed to do was hide their food Sunday night and they wouldn’t eat. Kind of like what I expect the kids will be doing to me in a few more years.
The issue that came up was the fact that whenever we want to catch one or both of the kittens, we normally bring out some cat treats and the little morons run right up to us and climb into our laps. Because we couldn’t allow them to eat anything, this particular strategy was off the table.
Instead, we had to go the old school route of chasing them around the house until they ducked under the bed (their favorite hiding place), then crawling under the bed to grab them by whatever body part we could get our hands on. We pulled them out from their refuge, growling and hissing with their claws fully extended and tearing large strips of carpet up from the floor as they were dragged unwillingly into the light.
As I picked up Scout, she began to purr, but this was not the purr of a happy, contented cat. Instead, it was the rapid, panicked noise of a tiny psychopath trying to decide who she wanted to maul first. She clearly knew something bad was happening; something that she wanted no part of.
I don’t know how they do it, but animals always seem to know when it’s time to go the vet. A cat that is normally curled up right next to you 24 hours a day, stuck to your leg like lint on Velcro, suddenly vaporizes and disappears when it’s time to go to see the doctor. Fortunately, my kids have never been that intelligent. Most of the time they just jumped into the car and we were pulling into the parking lot of the doctor’s office before they even thought to ask where we were going.
It seems the cats are smarter than the kids, but I think I already knew that.
Anyway, we did finally get the kittens into the carrying cases and my wife drove them off to their unpleasant appointment with the operating room.
They came home at the end of the day, slightly groggy from anesthesia and with plastic cones covering their heads like tiny space aliens from a 1950’s science fiction movie. Scout immediately darted out of the carrying case when we opened the door. She ran around the house backwards as she unsuccessfully attempted to pull her head out of the cone. Because she could not see where she was going, she bounced off of every wall and piece of furniture in the living room during her initial escape attempts. Our house resembled a pinball machine, only instead of a steel ball it was a furry, four-legged demon ricocheting against every solid surface.
After watching Scout for several seconds, I glanced down and noticed that Willow had not moved from her crate. She was just lying in her case like roadkill on Interstate 5. I reached into the crate and pulled her out, but she immediately lied down on the floor. Her eyes were glassy and unfocussed, and I think she still hadn’t shaken off the effects of the anesthetic.
It didn’t look very comfortable, so I picked her up again and moved her to the couch, where she again just lied down and refused to budge. Every time I relocated her, she collapsed in heap and looked at me as if to say, “Okay. This is fine, too.” She was so stoned, if she could talk, I think she would have been discussing philosophy and asking if there was any more pizza in the fridge.
A few days have passed now, and both kittens have bounced back pretty well. They are eating and using the litter box normally, so I think the worst of it has passed. They still don’t like their little plastic space helmets, but we have been told they need to stay on a while longer. Besides, it’s rather entertaining to watch them pad around the house banging their heads into things. I would think after this many days though, they would have figured out how wide those cones are.
Cats aren’t very bright.
And they’re still smarter than my kids.
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