A few weeks ago, kitty had a minor health issue, which meant a trip to the vet, some pills and a diet of their wet food.
Pills were no problem. Mummy and daddy (“her pushers”) got into a good pillin’ routine. Every morning and night daddy would turn some snuggles into a wrestling hold, and mummy perfected her aim and long-throw down the gullet.
The problem was the wet food. Kitteh is our little muffinpants and gets only the best organic pet food (yeah, we roll like that). As in, it’s made of real ingredients, very little circus animal.
The vet (who are in all other respects amazing) gave us a special formulation of Purina. I could barely stand the time I had to spend opening the can, portioning it out, and putting her dish on the floor. It smelled like feet. Angry, evil feet.
I tried to develop some fast PR skillz. Talking it up to her as I put it down. “Yummy yummy wet food!” “Oh boy, here comes the foot stank macerated pig snouts!” (<-what? She’s a cat. It’s all about the tone. I had good tone.)
No dice.
I’d put the dish down, and she would stop walking towards it. One paw still in the air, mid-stride. And she’d shoot me a look that very clearly said: “are you fucking kidding me?”
When daddy fed her he would actually try picking her up and putting her down in front of her dish. Patting her, and nudging her towards the bowl. He got more elaborate than me, and tried to shame her “you know, when I was a kid, and we were feeding MrMuffin, he loved his wet food so much that I would hold it up here, like this, and he would try and jump up to get it.”
“Well why don’t you feed this horsecrap to MrMuffin then, I’ll be in my room.”
We told the vet about her insolence, and they said the most important thing is that she eat, not that she eat the wet food. So essentially, they told us that in their professional opinion, kitteh had thrown an effective temper tantrum, and that we should give in and buy her whatever candy she wanted as long as she’d stop making a scene.
Kitteh: 1, team of grown-ups: 0. Why am I not surprised.
I love that cats seem to know that they can always get their way. Mine thought she was fucking royalty, with her head always held high, nose in the air. And when it came down to her will vs. mine, she almost always won.
Great post.