Our One Year Check-Up

Well, who ever would have guessed that my two demon-cats, Dinah (left) and Harley (right), would live to be one year old??? Between them doing stupid things that would endanger their lives and doing stupid things that made ME want to kill them, I certainly wasn’t sure they would reach that milestone…and yet, they have. They actually turned 1 back in May, but we just had our one year check-up at the vet’s on Thursday evening.

That was an experience. Because I was taking them by myself, I thought it would be easier to just put them both into the same carrier, so I didn’t have to try and carry two. I guess I should have realized when it took about 10 minutes to get them IN to the thing (I’d get one in, and when I’d open the top to put the other in, the first one would jump out and go hide under the bed), that this was not going to be a good idea. Halfway to the vet’s office, I heard Dinah make a strange meow – and she NEVER meows – and then came the unmistakable sounds of a cat barfing. If you have cats, you know this sound.

Well, in the close quarters of the pet carrier, poor Harley didn’t have any place to go to escape the spew, and she wound up being thrown up on by Dinah. Then, to make matters worse, she laid down in it.

When we got to the vet’s, there was only one other person waiting, so I thought they’d call us back fairly quickly so that I could get the cats out of the carrier and clean them up. Ha. I don’t know what I was thinking. As I waited, the other person was called back with her dog. Then, two more pet owners came in with their dogs, and THEY were called back before me. Finally, one of the assistants came to tell me that the vet we were supposed to see had gotten an emergency case right before we arrived…and after having us wait for 30 minutes, they had finally decided to have us see another vet. They’d be with us in just a few minutes.

A few minutes later, the new vet’s assistant came out to apologize and say that she’d be taking us back in a minute. I asked if there was someplace that I could let the cats out of the carrier so that I could clean them up while we were waiting, and she immediately took us back to an exam room. She then took the carrier and washed it out for me, which I thought was really nice. The vet came in a few minutes later, and let me just tell you, my cats acted like I have never seen them act before, hissing and growling like there was no tomorrow. I guess they still remember last November when they were spayed and declawed.

They were so bad during the exam, getting their shots, and Harley having the vomit cleaned off of her with a towel, that the vet wasn’t even going to weigh them. I, on the other hand, insisted, “Oh, they’re fine,” dragged Dinah back out of the carrier, and plopped her on the scale. She weighed in at just over 9 pounds. I would have done the same with Harley, but, well, she still had some puke on her….so the vet took her out to the dog scale and weighed her inside the carrier. It’s estimated that my little fatso weighs over 13 pounds!

And now, let’s review just a few of the adventures that these two have had during their first year of life:

• Harley (when she had claws) loved to climb my bare legs whenever she got the opportunity. This would usually take place when I was busy preparing their food and had my back to her.
• Dinah chewing through the power cord to my monitor
• Harley sticking her foot into the wet, green paint I had just put on the wall and then running across my mostly-black rug….and leaving little, green, kitty footprints
• Dinah knocking over (and shattering) Cosmo’s fish bowl
• Harley trying to convince Jane to mate with her when she went into heat
• Dinah running out the apartment door and all the way down the stairs to the bottom floor when *she* went into heat…and me having to chase her in heels.
• Harley trying to jump from the ledge above the kitchen cabinets over to the pendulum light fixture that hangs in the kitchen.
• Dinah being next in line on the ledge to try to make the jump.
• Harley cartwheeling off the top of the refrigerator when she was trying to get back up on the ledge….oddly enough, I have not seen her try to get back up there since that day!
• and Dinah’s newest trick – jumping up to and sitting on top of the shower stall in my bathroom.