All not so quiet on the Western front ...

For about a week, W2 declared a temporary cease-fire, refraining from aggression on both of us. He'd stopped hissing at The Boyfriend and me, but had also started making himself completely scarce whenever The Boyfriend was around, coming out only when he was gone, with angel-pie loving chirps and purrs for me. (In his mind, making enemies with The Boyfriend was no longer an option because the consequences weren't worth it, but making friends with him wasn't an option either because that would have meant putting down his pride, sucking up and eating humble pie, so he just took option (c) and hid.) Yesterday, I'd spent the night at The Boyfriend's and came back to my place with The Boyfriend in tow. When we walked in, W2 ran up to me in joyful greeting, then when he realized I wasn't alone, he backed off, glared at us, turned tail and and ran upstairs, so I knew he was upset, but at least he didn't hiss. A couple of times in the next few hours W2 called to me from upstairs, wanting affection but refusing to come out near The Boyfriend in order to get it, so I graciously and generously accommodated him. After a little while he came downstairs and hung out near us for a few moments without hissing. I thought, "Maybe he's finally getting used to having The Boyfriend around and he won't act up any more." Once again, way too optimistic for my own good.

The cease-fire ended fifteen minutes later when The Boyfriend and I decided to go upstairs to bed. W2 glared at The Boyfriend as he walked past, and as soon as The Boyfriend was out of the room, he turned his bile on me, hissing at me. I yelled at him, but then he started rowling, readying himself to lunge at me. I threw a glass of water at him. He got a mouthful of water in mid-rowl but didn't budge, kept rowling. I brought out the towel, but he got away before I could snap him and went under the piano so the towel wouldn't reach him. He kept hissing and howling like a banshee, no submission, instead got even angrier, eyes completely dilated, positioned to lunge at me first chance he got and I let my guard down. I kept snapping, even though I was missing and he wasn't getting any punishment except a snap of air by his ears. Finally I got him once, and he ran into the bathroom. I chased him there to get some more snaps in, intending to press on until I got a final show of submission from him. He crawled into the covered litterbox so I couldn't get him and he started rowling even louder. Suddenly he lunged out at me with claws and fangs flying, and the towel came between us so his claws lodged firmly in the towel instead of me. I yanked the towel back and forth, but instead of letting go, he hung on. I kept yelling, "You want some more? You want some MORE?!!" and the louder I yelled and the harder I yanked, the louder he rowled but the more firmly he hung on. I'm sure I pulled his claws pretty painfully, but he didn't let go, he held his ground and just kept hissing and rowling.

At that point I heard a creak behind me. It was The Boyfriend, who had quietly moved into the room to offer backup assistance if I needed it. At last, W2 showed some submission, backed off and calmed down, so I could back off too. Went to bed, W2 didn't bother us one bit. The Boyfriend spent the morning here and again W2 kept himself scarce, and as soon as he was gone, out came W2, all angel pie lovin' again.

Cheese and rice ...

The Latest on the Wee Wee War ...

Well, this weekend was a *bit* better. Friday night W2 was very good in terms of not hissing or trying to attack The Boyfriend or me, and spent the night with us in my bedroom with no incident. No attacking us in the bed or nailing either one of us with claws and fangs as we slept - in fact, he was a complete angel pie, purring and licking me when I petted him. However, he was extremely nervous and washed himself every five minutes ALL night long, which kept us up all night, because when he washes himself he makes these really loud SMACK SMACK SMACK noises which can be heard in the next room. By dawn we were both quite irritated, The Boyfriend mumbled "F*cking cat" and I snapped a stuffed animal at W2 to get him to stop washing himself or at least get off the damn bed and let us sleep if he wasn't going to sleep himself, which I felt bad about because I didn't want W2 to feel like he couldn't sleep with me any more. He hissed at me and I had to snap the stuffed bunny at him 3 times before he stopped hissing and jumped off the bed and went somewhere else. The rest of the weekend he pretty much hid from us, but this morning he hissed at The Boyfriend again and out came the towel and more snapping of W2 until he stopped hissing and backed down.

Normally W2 has the same sleep schedule as I do, and sleeps when I sleep and is awake when I'm awake, and I never have a problem with him keeping me up. But this was my first night back at home in nearly 3 days, I'd been waiting out Hurricane Ivan at The Boyfriend's place and had left W2 at my place by himself. So I suspect he had been seriously wigged out by the hurricane and my absence during the hurricane, and his sleep schedule got all messed up because I wasn't there to "cue" him.

Yeah, I know, stop making excuses for W2 and being such a freakin' enabler.

Last night The Boyfriend/Marlboro Man revealed to a friend of mine who was inquiring on the progress made in the W2 War that he has shot cats on his family's ranch for lesser offenses than what W2 has committed. Lovely!
[sigh]

Just won the battle - we'll see if I've won the Wee Wee War ...

Saturday was the first time The Boyfriend had come over to my place since the last journal entry. W2 hissed at him a couple of times on Saturday but nothing more aggressive than that, and not enough in my estimation to warrant beating on him to show him who was boss. He even slept in the bed with us without incident, and was a little angel pie when I scratched his head and cuddled him in the middle of the night, purring and licking me and making his little “kitty love me” sounds. I even indulged myself in thoughts that we might even be turning a corner in our little situation and W2 was maybe finally getting used to The Boyfriend. Turns out he was just waiting for his chance to attack.

In the morning (Sunday) The Boyfriend hopped out of bed, went downstairs and started making me breakfast while I sat upstairs in my office doing a bit of work. W2 was okay with The Boyfriend staying in my bed, but didn’t like him actually moving around “his territory.” So he followed him into the kitchen and started howling at him like never before, truly a hair-raising banshee cry from the bowels of hell. Even my mom, who was on the phone with me when Wee Wee started howling, heard the sound as it drifted up from downstairs and said, “What the heck is that!?! What’s going on over there?!!!” She didn’t even realize it was W2 howling, because it didn’t even sound like a cat’s howl. He was out to create some real damage. He lunged at The Boyfriend, who quickly sidestepped him and yelled for me to come quick. I put the phone down, grabbed a hand towel, ran downstairs, ran up to W2 and, staring into his eyes the whole time without glancing away from him to show that I was the dominant cat, snapped the living cr*p out of him with the towel as hard as I could, again, and again, and again, and again, chasing him all the way upstairs with it, snapping him 3 times on the stairs, and yelling at him at the top of my lungs nonstop. Every few feet W2 stopped, turned back, crouched and hissed and tried to challenge me to let me know he wasn’t going to be towel-snapped into submission, and would have lunged at me probably if I hadn’t had the towel, but I kept yelling, chasing and snapping his arse all the way into the guest bedroom, snapped him hard a few times in the guest bedroom for good measure, and slammed the door and locked him up. Then I calmly picked the phone back up, and my momma was still hanging on the line waiting for me. She had heard the commotion as it was taking place and asked in her Alabama accent, “So, did you beat on him?? Sounds like you did good!”

Two hours later, I let W2 out of the bedroom. I was expecting him to be really ornery, but he followed me into my office meowing, acting completely normally, and loving on me like nothing had ever happened!!!!!!! The rest of the day, all Sunday night and all Monday morning, for as long as The Boyfriend was still here W2 hid in a new “undisclosed location” that I haven’t been able to figure out. The minute The Boyfriend left yesterday, W2 emerged from wherever his hiding place is, and started loving on me again, and was all up in my face for the rest of the day like white on rice, seeking out my lap every fifteen minutes.

Crazy godd*mn cat.

So. I'm "pussy"-whipped by my cat ...

Yeah, that's right. "Pussy-whipped" by Wee Wee.

Had lunch with a girlfriend of mine this afternoon and this is the unsettling reality that is staring me in the face now that I've conferred with her on the W2 problem. Being a longtime cat owner herself, she had some things to say about the situation and gave me what sounded like some pretty good advice. I'd at least give it an A+ for novelty. This is how the sista broke it down:

1. The whole W2 issue is a dominant cat/submissive cat thing.
He sees himself as the dominant cat/alpha cat/boss and me as the submissive cat, even though I’m his “mother”/food supply.

2. Now that I'm spending a lot more time away from W2, bringing The Boyfriend in the picture, etc., W2 feels very threatened and encroached upon and is losing control of his territory - and losing control of ME - and that's what he is upset about.

3. The power structure has gotten this way because I don’t physically discipline him and show him who’s boss. Evidently, cats do need to be physically disciplined on occasion when they act up, and the cat behaviourists' argument that cats aren't like dogs and don’t respond to physical discipline/restraint and respond only to verbal discipline is just wrong. And no, W2 won't hate and fear me like these so-called cat "experts" say he will if I smack him up a bit. She has always smacked up her bitches, er, felines whenever they've acted up and they never started hating and fearing her. So I shouldn’t be afraid to resort to physical discipline. After all, that’s what the dominant cat does to the submissive cat to stay in control.

4. When W2 dug his claw into my temple, what I should have done was, I should have chased him and smacked his furry arse, but I didn’t. Instead, I yelled at him and slammed the office door. This signalled to him that it was okay for him to make me his bitch and smack me up because there would be no consequences. And when he nailed my hand twice, I should have really given him a whupping but again, I did not, I yelled at him instead, and of course he didn't give a damn that I yelled at him. Big whoop. Now, if I make it hurt, that'll get his attention.

5. Next time The Boyfriend comes over and W2 starts getting postal on him, The Boyfriend must do absolutely nothing because it’s between me and W2 ... to quote Dr. Evil and Austin Powers, “this time, it’s personal.” What I need to do is make sure The Boyfriend does not react at all, and leave all the reacting and disciplining to me and I will just have to go “operational” on him, enough to cause a little bit of pain, and I must do this every time he shows aggression. If The Boyfriend gets involved in this it will just confuse and enrage W2 so that he lashes out at me. All the water-squirting, hand-smacking, towel-snapping, arse-kicking, etc. has to come from me, even if it's because he’s attacked The Boyfriend and not me.

6. It will take a few weeks for him to get it in his head that *I* am the dominant cat and *he* has to be submissive and share me, because he’s been the dominant cat for 10 years, but he will eventually get used to the new power structure and calm down and learn to share me with The Boyfriend, as long as I continue patiently and determinedly in this fashion.

Although The Boyfriend has been coming up with ideas on what to do, which is great, it’s basically on me now, which is fine with me. In fact, I prefer it that way since it’s my cat anyway and he shouldn't have to deal with this at all. I’m not afraid of W2. The cat can scratch the hell out of me and it may hurt like a bitch, but the little arsehole won't and can't kill me, and there's always Neosporin and Band-Aids.

Right now the little angel pie is sprawled across my lap trying to take up as much room as possible and keeping me from typing.

[sigh]

Wee Wee has gone postal ...

I think I'll kick off this blog with a little passage about the havoc my cat has been wreaking lately in my home sweet home. I have had my cat, Wee Wee, for 10 years since he was a kitten.


More on him at my Web page.

Now, W2 has always been rabidly crotchety, territorial, and possessive throughout the years. With me, he's always been a complete angel pie (until fairly recently), but as for anybody who is a close friend or loved one, he gets very aggressive toward them, always hissing and rowling at them, even rushing them and attacking them with claws flying, mostly unprovoked - he just goes after them, no fear. So basically I have to lock him up whenever I have guests over or host one of my parties. Otherwise my peeps and homies would have to strap on the leg guards and Kevlar vests whenever they come over to visit. He has severely scratched, bitten and terrorized friends of mine, literally run a roommate out of the house, and even bit the crap out of my mom's hand once when she attempted to feed him a cat treat. I have attempted twice through the years to get him a playmate, and both times it was a disaster and I had to give the new cat away. (He terrorized the first cat to the point where he quite literally scared the piss out of her every single day, all over the house, and with the second, a kitten, he didn't attack her, but he did go on a hunger strike and refused to eat for days until I gave her to a friend of mine. Drama queen.)

Curiously, however, he has never acted aggressively toward service repairmen, one-time visitors, or any of the guys I have dated over the years, not even toward the basket case my friends and I affectionately refer to as Train Wreck Craig (my last boyfriend, who was a raging alcoholic and, well, a train wreck ... TWC lived with me for all of 3 months till I could endure his obnoxiousness no more and kicked him out, and I am sure W2 must have positively loathed having him around). I guess because W2 knew they wouldn't be sticking around and his position as "Man" of the House was safe, at least for the long term.

But, now that I have a New Boyfriend who a) happens to be sticking around and b) seems to be a keeper, W2 has gone completely postal, and I don't quite know what to do.

The second or third night The Boyfriend spent over at my place, W2 lunged at him, intending to do serious harm. Fortunately, The Boyfriend's combat training picked up in Air Force Special Operations and his quick reflexes, which fortunately happen to be even quicker than Wee Wee's, enabled him to smoothly sidestep the lunge, avoiding contact with W2's claws and fangs and a gorefest worthy of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The implacable W2 then positioned himself under my bed, rowling and hissing loudly at The Boyfriend like I'd never heard before. I handed The Boyfriend a glass of water to throw at him and W2 got a mouthful of water in mid-rowl: "ROWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWfffffhhhhttttthhhpphtth." Then after The Boyfriend left, I walked into my office to start my workday, and W2 hopped on my desk for the usual morning-love ritual (where he butts my face with his head affectionately and licks me and purrs). However, instead of the morning love, I received a claw deep in my left temple.

I got a bit panicky at that point because he'd never done anything like that before. I got on the phone with the vet to see if they would recommend a cat behaviourist. They said that the cat behaviourist wouldn't see my cat unless he got a clean bill of health from them first. I was SOL here because I haven't taken W2 to the vet to update his shots for three years - the last time I was over there he attacked the vet and for revenge, he slapped me with a $300 bill - and I wasn't about to take W2's furry arse over there again any time soon, for either his punishment or mine, especially since he is a 100% indoor cat and never goes outside anyway. They recommended that I stop by the clinic and pick up this cat pheromone diffuser from them that supposedly "worked miracles" with calming stressed cats down and curbing aggressive behaviour, especially when a new person was introduced into the home. So I shelled out $80 for two of these suckers because I have a two-level home and they told me I needed one on each level.

Did they work? Of course not! Two days later, W2 again attempted to rush The Boyfriend and deeply clawed my right hand and arm when I tried to calm him down. That night, as The Boyfriend and I were peacefully sleeping, W2 positioned himself like a gargoyle from hell on the headboard above our heads, rowling ominously at both of us and threatening to jump down on us and rip us both to shreds at the slightest move or sound from us. I just muttered, "Shut up, Wee Wee" and went back to sleep. Then I moved my hand in my sleep, and Wee Wee nailed my hand in the same place he'd nailed me earlier that evening. BITCH!!!

The Boyfriend hasn't been back at my place since, not because he's afraid of W2, but because he's afraid of what he'd do to W2 if he attacks me or him again. I gave The Boyfriend authorization to kick some feline arse (as long as he did not break any bones or damage any vital organs, because for the reasons mentioned above, I just really, really don't want to have to take W2 to the vet) because in my opinion, that is just what he needs right now. I don't care what cat behaviourists say about cats not responding to physical discipline like dogs do. W2 needs to be taken down to the corner of Kick Butt and Whoop Arse and it's gonna go down pretty soon ... To be continued ...