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| Amber. The eggcup-sized moggy |
We weren't actually looking for a new pet, but we'd kind of decided that after Sammo - a black short-haired male cat that we got from the Cat's Protection - we wanted a girl cat, as they seem more affectionate and far less obstreperous.
Amber turned up by word of mouth. A neighbour asked if we were interested in a little girl kitten and she didn't have to ask us twice.
We discovered she was living in someone's garage, which didn't bode well, but off we went to go see whether we'd want to take her. Actually, whether we wanted to wasn't really an issue. We had already decided that provided she had a heartbeat, we'd want her.
She is the smallest cat I have ever had in my hands and our first kitten; our other cats both being rescue cats and fully grown when we got them. Amber, we were told, was just three months old and not a lot bigger than the eggcup she's photographed beside. Her mother was a tiny marmalade-coloured tabby, while her father was a ginger tom - hence the sort of biscuit colour she has. The name Amber just seemed spot on for her.
Once home, she took to us immediately and shared herself between us, which is more than can be said for Sammo, who was a right vindictive bastard. He didn't like to be touched anywhere other than his head and then only sometimes. He was rarely demonstrative with his affections and only very occasionally graced Pen with his presence. He was marginally better with me, but still left me with numerous scars and reasons to use his insides to string my guitar.
Amber however has proved she is happy with both of us and we definitely feel we made a good choice in taking her in.
De-fleaing
All has not been sunshine and roses though, as Amber came to us with a very bad flea infestation - something we didn't notice in the gloom of the garage we saw her in. Anyway, we bought a flea collar and the problem did lessen, making her a much less itchy cat, but it did not alleviate the irritation from the dirt the fleas had deposited. So we figured that some anti-flea shampoo and a good clean-up would probably do the trick.
Now, we were both avid watchers of programmes on Discovery back in England like, 'Animal Cops - Houston' and had often seen the guys at the Houston SPCA, shampooing kittens to rid them of fleas and their dirt. It didn't look difficult - in fact, the animals concerned always appeared grateful and never got violent in any way.
Well the truth there is that it was either trick photography and the wonders of Hollywood, or they had been tranquilised. Cats are notoriously hydrophobic and Amber was no different. However, at this stage, I was under the misguided impression that since she was so young, she might well take it in her stride and realise as soon as the warm waters began rinsing away those blood-sucking parasites, it actually felt good.
Dream on, buster.
Regardless of how she was going to take it, I took her upstairs to the bathroom feeling a little like Androcles - with a very small lion. We had thought about giving her her treatment in the kitchen where it was warm and the surroundings familiar, but once we'd read the instructions on the flea shampoo and the fact she was going to have to sit around for five minutes before being rinsed off, perhaps the bath was the best place to do it.
It seemed such a good plan.
We were not stupid enough to tell Amber what was in store, I mean, even our Rotty was able to spell well enough to know that 'W', 'A', 'L', 'K', 'I', 'E', 'S', meant fun, so we were not about to take it for granted that she wouldn't suss out that she was in for something she wouldn't like - even if that dislike was just out of some cat-only-knows principal.
I gently placed her in the bath and set about arranging the towels and shampoo within easy reach, while her mewling got louder and louder, a noise that worsened as soon as I turned on the tap to run the water until warm.
The agitation clearly showed as she tried her damnedest to get out of the bath. I couldn't help laughing. She looked so comical as she slipped and slid around the bath, going star-shaped a couple of times, but at the same time, I could tell she was scared and didn't want to be there, her plaintive cries tugging vigorously at my heart strings.
"It won't take long," I told her as comfortingly as I could, but my words fell on deaf ears.
Regardless of how much discomfort she felt right then, I knew doing it would make her feel a hundred times better. I had to see this through and picked her up, taking the shower and getting her wet for the shampooing stage. As I doused her with the gentle running water, she became even less happy with this than she had been - which isn't saying much, and who can blame her? Despite her tiger-like stripes, it didn't in any way mean she was a water lover.
Clearly, she wasn't one of those.
Worse, she seemed to shrink in size, her normally fluffy coat lying slick against her tiny body, making her look small enough to fit into the eggcup. In her bedraggled state, dripping and looking extremely forlorn, my heart strings were once again tugged - only harder this time. It's really difficult in these situations to believe that what I was doing would be for the best.
I placed her gently in the bottom of the bath, to get the shampoo, making soothing noises and trying my best to placate her, while her big eyes seemed to be imploring me to stop and as soon as I let go, all hell broke loose.
She made her extreme dislike of the bath and my impending plans abundantly clear, by trying even harder to escape, slipping and sliding around and occasionally managing to get her claws into me as I leaned over the bath - which was bloody painful.
"It's alright," I said as soothingly as I could, placing the shower in the bath then turning the water off, thinking that that may calm her.
Clearly, it wasn't alright and my soothing noises were having absolutely no positive effects whatsoever.
Now, not only was she wet, but she was probably thinking that I hated her and was trying to do something nasty - as if dousing her with water wasn't sufficient - but then I think she caught sight of the shampoo bottle and turned from bananas to completely schitzo.
I took the bottle of anti-flea shampoo and read the instructions again, just to make sure I got it right. Meanwhile, Amber's plaintive cries were getting louder and much more insistent. She was also beginning to struggle a lot more and keeping a firm hold of her was nearly impossible.
'... using 1.5 ml per kilogramme of cat ...' said the instructions and I wondered just how I was going to be able to lather up a whole cat with just 0.75 ml of shampoo. In fact, I wondered what 0.75 ml of shampoo looked like, trying to associate less than a fifth of a teaspoon in shampoo terms.
I just used a little spot of shampoo and began lathering the cat, which set her off into an even higher gear. Her howling could possibly have woken the dead and coupled with my own squawks as claws dug into my wrist, the bathroom suddenly became extremely noisy.
At this point I can only say that transmogrification - or in this case, trans-moggy-fication is factual. The normally placid little ball of fluff suddenly transformed into a cross between a set of twenty ninja stars and an out of control chain saw.
The good thing was the dirt that dripped from her fur was astonishing. She may not have been happy, but she was clean.
Worse was to come though, as although she calmed slightly when the rinse cycle was applied, I had to repeat the process, this time with a five minute wait in between the application and the rinse.
As I tried to repeat the process, I have to question the logic in producing flea shampoo for cats that is going to be used by the general public. If it's not difficult enough trying to give a cat a pill or put it into a carrying basket, the concept of giving a cat a bath can't even be considered in the same league - especially not for the average cat owner.
My arms, wrists and hands were systematically being mauled, slashed and generally eviscerated and something that dry, fitted on the palm of my hand had become something else entirely. It was akin to fighting an octopus with a cutthroat razor on the end of each of its tentacles.
Definitely not for the faint of heart.
Probably worse was the way this little beasty made me feel afterwards. I mean, I cut the process time of the shampoo down to three minutes as I simply couldn't take her yowling anymore. I dried her off and went next door into the office to cool off with her wrapped in a towel. She was shaking and I have to confess to wondering whether I had done her irreparable damage - unwittingly, you understand.
Well the truth there is that it was either trick photography and the wonders of Hollywood, or they had been tranquilised. Cats are notoriously hydrophobic and Amber was no different. However, at this stage, I was under the misguided impression that since she was so young, she might well take it in her stride and realise as soon as the warm waters began rinsing away those blood-sucking parasites, it actually felt good.
Dream on, buster.
Regardless of how she was going to take it, I took her upstairs to the bathroom feeling a little like Androcles - with a very small lion. We had thought about giving her her treatment in the kitchen where it was warm and the surroundings familiar, but once we'd read the instructions on the flea shampoo and the fact she was going to have to sit around for five minutes before being rinsed off, perhaps the bath was the best place to do it.
It seemed such a good plan.
We were not stupid enough to tell Amber what was in store, I mean, even our Rotty was able to spell well enough to know that 'W', 'A', 'L', 'K', 'I', 'E', 'S', meant fun, so we were not about to take it for granted that she wouldn't suss out that she was in for something she wouldn't like - even if that dislike was just out of some cat-only-knows principal.
I gently placed her in the bath and set about arranging the towels and shampoo within easy reach, while her mewling got louder and louder, a noise that worsened as soon as I turned on the tap to run the water until warm.
The agitation clearly showed as she tried her damnedest to get out of the bath. I couldn't help laughing. She looked so comical as she slipped and slid around the bath, going star-shaped a couple of times, but at the same time, I could tell she was scared and didn't want to be there, her plaintive cries tugging vigorously at my heart strings.
"It won't take long," I told her as comfortingly as I could, but my words fell on deaf ears.
Regardless of how much discomfort she felt right then, I knew doing it would make her feel a hundred times better. I had to see this through and picked her up, taking the shower and getting her wet for the shampooing stage. As I doused her with the gentle running water, she became even less happy with this than she had been - which isn't saying much, and who can blame her? Despite her tiger-like stripes, it didn't in any way mean she was a water lover.
Clearly, she wasn't one of those.
Worse, she seemed to shrink in size, her normally fluffy coat lying slick against her tiny body, making her look small enough to fit into the eggcup. In her bedraggled state, dripping and looking extremely forlorn, my heart strings were once again tugged - only harder this time. It's really difficult in these situations to believe that what I was doing would be for the best.
I placed her gently in the bottom of the bath, to get the shampoo, making soothing noises and trying my best to placate her, while her big eyes seemed to be imploring me to stop and as soon as I let go, all hell broke loose.
She made her extreme dislike of the bath and my impending plans abundantly clear, by trying even harder to escape, slipping and sliding around and occasionally managing to get her claws into me as I leaned over the bath - which was bloody painful.
"It's alright," I said as soothingly as I could, placing the shower in the bath then turning the water off, thinking that that may calm her.
Clearly, it wasn't alright and my soothing noises were having absolutely no positive effects whatsoever.
Now, not only was she wet, but she was probably thinking that I hated her and was trying to do something nasty - as if dousing her with water wasn't sufficient - but then I think she caught sight of the shampoo bottle and turned from bananas to completely schitzo.
I took the bottle of anti-flea shampoo and read the instructions again, just to make sure I got it right. Meanwhile, Amber's plaintive cries were getting louder and much more insistent. She was also beginning to struggle a lot more and keeping a firm hold of her was nearly impossible.
'... using 1.5 ml per kilogramme of cat ...' said the instructions and I wondered just how I was going to be able to lather up a whole cat with just 0.75 ml of shampoo. In fact, I wondered what 0.75 ml of shampoo looked like, trying to associate less than a fifth of a teaspoon in shampoo terms.
I just used a little spot of shampoo and began lathering the cat, which set her off into an even higher gear. Her howling could possibly have woken the dead and coupled with my own squawks as claws dug into my wrist, the bathroom suddenly became extremely noisy.
At this point I can only say that transmogrification - or in this case, trans-moggy-fication is factual. The normally placid little ball of fluff suddenly transformed into a cross between a set of twenty ninja stars and an out of control chain saw.
The good thing was the dirt that dripped from her fur was astonishing. She may not have been happy, but she was clean.
Worse was to come though, as although she calmed slightly when the rinse cycle was applied, I had to repeat the process, this time with a five minute wait in between the application and the rinse.
As I tried to repeat the process, I have to question the logic in producing flea shampoo for cats that is going to be used by the general public. If it's not difficult enough trying to give a cat a pill or put it into a carrying basket, the concept of giving a cat a bath can't even be considered in the same league - especially not for the average cat owner.
My arms, wrists and hands were systematically being mauled, slashed and generally eviscerated and something that dry, fitted on the palm of my hand had become something else entirely. It was akin to fighting an octopus with a cutthroat razor on the end of each of its tentacles.
Definitely not for the faint of heart.
Probably worse was the way this little beasty made me feel afterwards. I mean, I cut the process time of the shampoo down to three minutes as I simply couldn't take her yowling anymore. I dried her off and went next door into the office to cool off with her wrapped in a towel. She was shaking and I have to confess to wondering whether I had done her irreparable damage - unwittingly, you understand.
The next day
Now this was a complete turnaround.
Prior to being given her bath or shower, she was itchy, which resulted in almost constant biting at herself. The day after, this had all but gone. She was bouncy, soft and gentle, displaying those typical behavioural patterns one normally sees in kittens.
Since then, it has been like owning a different cat: one that almost constantly has us in stitches thanks to her exploits.
The shampooing did the trick, but I really wouldn't recommend it.
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