Most people have this image of cats as cute, cuddly, finicky little furballs. Dogs usually have the reputation for being the gross ones with all the butt sniffing and drinking out of toilet bowls. Having had cats my entire life I've seen some pretty nasty behavior from my cats. This is a collection of my cats' finest moments.
Attacked the Trash While we were Away for the Weekend
When I was growing up, my family and I went on a scout camping trip for the weekend. We left our cats unattended for the weekend, which was the norm for these trips. They had food and water to last about four days, so they were fine. This particular weekend, however, we had run short on time and forgotten to take all of the trash out before leaving. My sister and I were dropped off first, as my parents dropped off the rest of the scout troop. My parents did that occasionally to stagger the showers when coming home from a long weekend. A family of six coming home with everyone dying for a shower is not fun when you only have so much hot water. I unlocked the front door, and as my sister and I entered, we noticed some shredded tissue. Thinking nothing of it, we hauled our luggage in, and my sister went to take her shower in the kids' bathroom. I saw more shredded litter on the floor as I walked through the kitchen. I walked into my parents' bedroom to use their shower, and I saw more shredded tissue...and piles of red fibers I didn't immediately recognize. Not until I turned on the bathroom light did I realize what was strewn about the house. Used tampons. I don't know if it was the smell or something else, but one of the cats went completely crazy chewing and clawing every last one in the trash and scattering them everywhere. I cleaned it all up before everyone else got home, but it was disgusting. Most people are grossed out just taking out bathroom garbage that has tampons in it. Now imagine picking up every last bloodstained fiber from a week's worth of shredded tampons. I hated those cats.
Performed Acrobatics While Using the Facilities
I still don't know which one of them did it, and I obviously never will know, but one of them had a really upset stomach. It was my turn to clean the litter box. Oh joy! It smelled lovely, and I could tell one of them had left me a pile of something fairly recently. It smelled as if a cat had eaten taco bell and drank tequila the night before. Expecting to simply find a fresh soggy pile, I took the lid off of the cat box to begin the task ahead. What I didn't expect to find were streaks sprayed on the sides of the box. Upon further inspection, the rest of what really was one long streak was discovered in the lid of the box. That's right, one of my cats made it to the box by some miracle, but due to the propulsion of the rocket fuel they were ejecting, flipped while spraying in every direction. It was all I could do to not throw up as I hosed out the box.
Housed Maggots
We had this awesome cat named Gramps. We called him that because he had these crazy grey puffs of hair that stuck out from behind his ears. He was a gorgeous solid black cat otherwise, he just had these silly grey hairs sticking out. Gramps liked to go outside and go exploring. He would always come back for food obviously, and sometimes he would come back with evidence of what he did in an average day. Leaves in his fur, dead lizards to present us with, that sort of thing. On one particular occasion, he came back with a wound on his back. We couldn't tell if he'd been attacked by a coyote, a dog, or what, but he had a nice tear in his back. We treated him with an antiseptic, antibiotics, and bandaged him up. We didn't let him leave the house for a couple days to try to keep him as clean as possible. We changed his bandage regularly, retreating with each change. After a couple days, we decided to let his wound air out since it had pretty much formed a scab, and was no longer weeping. Pulling that bandage off, we discovered Gramps had tenants. He had a few maggots crawling on his wound, which we attempted to wipe off, to no avail. Over the next couple days, his infestation got worse, however his activity level did not diminish, nor did he really seem ill. In consulting with a vet, we were told that the maggots he had would only eat dead tissue, so we should just allow them to run their course. So we had a perfectly happy and healthy cat wandering around with maggots crawling around on and into a smelly wound on his backside. Yeah, that was fun. They did eventually go away, and he did eventually heal. Nasty cat.
