Oh, A Cattery!

Cats drink from fish tank

We faked our way into this house and pet sit. The homeowner explained to Frank and me over the phone that she operates a cattery.

“I breed cats. They’re Orientals. Two males live in the garage. You don’t have to go in there. I have someone who comes over and feeds them and fills their water dish,” she says.

“There is a mother cat and her three kittens in one of the bedrooms. You’re responsible for cleaning their litter, filling the mother’s dish with hard food and setting out soft food for the kittens. They share the water bowl.”

“Are you still there?”

“Yes, we’re listening,” Frank says.

“Okay. What’s most important is that you don’t let the mother cat out of that room. She’s very aggressive and it’s difficult to catch her.”

We listen carefully as she describes the lifestyle of her other two cats, spayed and neutered.

She tells us of her two medium-sized dogs, one who is hyper and wears a shock collar because of his incessant barking and the other who follows his habits.

We arrive late afternoon and walk through the house listening to her explain the importance of each animal.

Her three large fish tanks are pushed against the walls in the dining room.

The mother cat, hidden kittens

The stench wafting from under one of the bedroom doors overwhelms the lemon-scented deodorizer hanging from the doorknob. We step inside and are hissed at by the skinny mother feline as she scampers under the bunkbed. Her kittens squeak.

“If you don’t want the other cats to sleep with you, you need to keep the master bedroom door closed,” she says.

With a few written instructions in hand, we stand at the front door and wave goodbye to the homeowner.

Only two incidents are worth mentioning. First, I forgot to close the master bedroom door one morning and one of the ‘regular’ cats jumped on the bed and pooped. Another day, Frank forgot to close the door to the cattery and sure enough, the mother cat escaped. We set up a low jumpable barrier at the cattery door which the mother hopped over easily and returned to her darlings.

Life is a cabaret!