The Scoop on Cats

I'm home from a week in South Portland, during which I ran a hospital for cats.

It was really more like a clinic, because I didn't have to do any surgery. The lady for whom I was pet-sitting has nine cats and a 13-year-old Wheaten terrier. The dog and four of the cats required daily medication, some of them twice daily. So I got pretty good at wielding the syringes and hiding pills in peanut butter.

There was a learning curve, of course. The first night, it took me an hour and a half to feed, water and medicate the troops. I felt like Nurse Ratched. One cat ran and hid whenever she saw me coming with syringe in hand. Another has an esophagus problem and he threw up four times in the first 12 hours I was in residence.

Eventually we came to terms. I learned to brook no nonsense, Pepper learned that I wouldn't hesitate to grab her tail as she tried to scurry under the bed, and Stuart Little restricted his vomiting to once a day.

One great thing that I took away from the experience: I lost my aversion to cleaning litter box. That "box" is not a typo. After cleaning eight litter boxes twice a day for five days, one box (which is what we have at our house) seems like nothing!