Psycho Kitty - Qu'est-ce que c'est? Part II

HAPPY SPRING!!!

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Sabina's zaniness intensifies. It's Beau's fault; he's making her evil, and she's loving it.

Beau and I have very different views on pets. Being a country boy, and spending a large chunk of his life breeding and working with horses, to him, they're utilitarian. Horses in the pasture, cats in the barn, dogs running around scaring potential bad guys or other varmints. Pets are animals.

I love having pets! As a city girl, they were companions who we kept inside (for the most part) and loved and stroked and were happy to share our bed with. They were gentle creatures, family members of a sort.

I've always treated Sabina with kidgloves. I stroke her and scratch her and carry her around like a doll. She sleeps up against me at night, and gazes out the window by day. She's my baby kitty. So, when Beau started messing with Bina, pushing her around, stepping on her (in jest), picking her up and jostling her around like a washing machine, just basically being pretty rough with her, I was alarmed.

"Hey careful! You'll make her mean!" I'm always afraid of cats going mean. I remember two cats from my childhood that "went bad." Not their fault. They both had been abused. I'll never forget the day when I was 13, arriving at a neighbor's house to babysit their son, to walk into the living room and find him swinging his new kitten around the room, helicopter-style, by a long string tied round its neck. No blaming that cat for hating people.

So, when Beau tosses Bina around, smooshes her with his foot, and being who she is, reacts rather dramatically with protest mews of great volume, and claws and teeth bared, I get nervous. It takes a bit of pushing to get her to respond, because I have taught her that to bite Mommy is a VERY BAD IDEA, so it was some time until she would go into immediate attack mode at the obnoxious probing of Beau. No need for probing anymore. I always know when he's messing with her, because a great whiny howl will just rise up out of nowhere, a sound I'm just not used to coming out of this cat. I used to get mad at Beau, thinking he was always instigating things. He protested. "She's a cat! She loves it! She starts it, really!"

"Oh sure, she starts it. What are you, five?"

"She does! You have to watch!"

Sure enough, Beau and Bina have developed a sort of sick game between them. He sits down at the computer to email or play Civ IV, and Bina will nonchalantly walk up to him and slowly lay down across his foot. There she waits. As soon as he moves a single toe --- ATTACK! What makes it so funny, is that while she is attacking him, she cries out in her "mews of protest" voice, as if she's the one being assaulted. I didn't even believe Beau, but have now seen her do this on a daily basis. Sabina the Psycho Kitty now lives to bite Beau's feet. And there is no holding back, teeth and claws dig in until I start hearing Beau howl himself. And the more he tries to pull his foot away, the more aggressively she attacks. He must remain perfectly motionless to prevent a confrontation. Of course, she doesn't dare do this to me; I would drop kick her across the room, baby kitty or no. With me she is still a gentle, soft cuddler. With Beau, she is all tiger. Well, that is, unless they're taking a nap on the air bed together.

"Now she's finally acting like a cat!" Beau proclaims in smug satisfaction.

A crazy, schizophrenic cat.

On the bright side, her lick-herself-til-she's-bald disorder has lessened, though not disappeared. Maybe getting out her frustrations on Beau's feet is a sort of therapy.

Lord help this family.