Steig, 2009
I don’t know what to do about Steig. Today I caught him squatting just outside the litter box — which Joel had just finished cleaning — pooping. I was carrying the baby with my left arm, so with my right, I picked him up by the scruff of his neck (which is mean, given how fat he is) and dropped him into the litter box. He jumped out, waddled over to a different part of the dining room, dropped a couple of little turdlets, and then ran away, freaked out.
But the real problem is the peeing. Oh my god, the peeing. I don’t think he actually uses the litter box to pee anymore, preferring the entry way and the dining room instead. This means a full-on olfactory assault as soon as you walk into the house and as soon as you sit down to eat. The peeing started years ago, but this unrelenting urine blitzkrieg coincided with the baby’s arrival. We made the mistake of keeping the nursery door open when we left for the hospital and came home to find three pee spots on the new carpet. I’m still finding cat urine in unexpected places, and that door stays closed at all times.
Counterattack
I was complaining to my brother-in-law about this, concluding, “I just don’t have time to care about the cats right now.” “And don’t they know it,” he responded. It’s true; the baby has absolutely replaced them. At the end of the day, after the baby goes to sleep and the cats want to snuggle, our capacity to nurture is pretty tapped. We are such bad cat owners; we’re aware of that. But I’m always going to choose Milo over the cats. I’ll have more time for them later, but this peeing/pooping thing is really eroding any patience or affection I ever had for that goddamn boy cat. And I’m worried about the hygiene aspect of it when Milo starts crawling, which he’ll be doing any day now.
Do I dope the pee cat with kitty antidepressants? It’s either that or … I never thought I would say this… shelter? Can you really take a cat to a shelter after you’ve had him 10 years?
Eh, no. I don’t think I have it in me. But don’t tell that to Steig.
I hate to say it, but yeah, maybe kitty antidepressants would help. They certainly helped me when I couldn’t stop peeing on the carpet.