A Difficult Decision

Chekov and the boys

Over 7 years ago, we brought a new kitten into our home.  When Jennifer and I first began seriously dating, I had two cats named Chekov and Sulu (the way they prowled the house somehow reminded me of the navigator and helmsman of the original Enterprise crew).  Several years after moving into our new home, we had to put Sulu down when she developed a brain tumor.  At the time, Chekov was getting old in cat years, but still kept chugging along.  Eventually, Jennifer wanted a new kitten.  I figured Chekov was too old to care (and I was right), so Jen went with the boys to a local pet store and Kira entered our life.  About two years after her addition, we had a friend who was moving to an apartment complex that wouldn’t accept animals.  We decided to take in her cat, Pumpkin.  Six months later, Chekov became too old and arthritic to take care of himself and, with heavy hearts, Jen and I took him to a vet to have him put down.  With the loss of our other original cat, our luck with these furry creatures hasn’t gone too well.

Kira & Pumpkin

Pumpkin lasted for a year and a half.  She wasn’t accepted by Kira very well.  Once Checkov was gone, Kira concluded she was the queen of the house and made sure Pumpkin knew it.  The culmination of her sudden domination happened one night as I was falling asleep and heard Pumpkin let out a high-pitched screech.  I don’t know what Kira did, but it couldn’t have been good.  Not long afterward, Pumpkin ran out of the house one evening when the front door was accidentally left open as we brought in groceries.  No one noticed her escape before it was way too late to try and find her.  During this time of being the only cat, Kira began to develop an annoying habit of deliberately peeing in the house.  It started with a towel laid on the floor in the boy’s bathroom—not sure why or for what reason.  It would happen every several months or so, but the towel was easily washed and that was that.  Unfortunately, she also started peeing outside her box on occasion; more difficult to clean, but we dealt with this as well.

Jonesy as a kitten

Then, about a year and half ago, a young kitten made an appearance at our back door.  By the time I was told of his arrival, it was already too late to try to ignore the fact that he was there (Jen and the boys had given him milk) so we took him in and named him Jonesy.  At first I thought he was deliberately dumped into our backyard, but as time passed, I became more convinced he was a feral kitten who had wandered into our backyard—he exhibited traits that gave the impression he had never been a domestic cat.  In the end, that was probably part of his problem.  Kira wasn’t very accepting of Jonesy either.  At first, she whacked him across the face whenever he tried to get close and treated him roughly.  As Jonesy grew, however, the pecking order began to change.  When Kira attempted to bully him, he would chase her away, but then he’d leave her alone.  An uneasy truce developed between the two.  Over the last six months, Kira’s peeing behavior moved from the occasional time on the bathroom floor towel to more specific places in the house.  I’m no cat psychologist and I don’t know what to make of it, but for whatever her reasons she started peeing on Ben and Isaac’s beds.  The boys felt she was doing it to them because she didn’t like them.  We tried different tactics to stop her and they would work for a time, but as soon as we started to let our guard down, she’d do it again several weeks later.

In certain ways, Jonesy adapted to being a house cat, but in others, he didn’t.  He had a mean streak that began to get worse, strangely enough, after he was neutered.  It became worse after we took in a friend’s Chihuahua for a little over a week while she was on vacation.  As soon as Jonesy realized he could push the dog around, something in his personality changed and his meanness poked through even more.  His habit of chasing Kira around the house suddenly became more aggressive.  I suppose Kira’s uptick in peeing may have been caused by Jonesy’s actions.  At the same time, however, her behavior began long before Jonesy entered our home.  The final straw for me was when she peed on our bed (we’d already had to replace Isaac’s mattress; luckily not Ben's); for Jennifer, it was when she peed on her clothes as Jen was changing into her pajamas.    We agonized over what to do.  Each time we considered removing one cat over the other these learned tendencies from both outweighed the positives we could list.  Again, with heavy hearts and to save our home from total disaster, we took them both to a local animal shelter today.  Our hope was that the shelter would be able to try and place both of cats, but they told us Kira was too old; no one would adopt her.  This was a difficult reality for Jennifer to face; even more so when they suggested putting Kira down.  Reluctantly, we agreed.  Jonesy they would try to place, but they could give us no guarantees.

A rough day, to say the least.  Cats are my favorite animal.  I’ve had at least one cat continuously in my life for quite some time.  It’s strange to not see a furry friend wandering around somewhere in the house.  I don’t think I’ll be able to stand this situation for too long.  At the same time, I have certain conditions that will need to be achieved before I agree to more cats in the house.  At the moment, the goal is to clean up Kira’s messes and get back to some semblance of normalcy.  After that, we’ll see.