Dear Dodge (evil black one, 1st born) and Charger (beautiful, fat,loving, stupid, docile, 2nd born)
Let me start by saying I love you both, very much. As you know I paid for you to fly here last year, I bought special dog crates and cried as I left you at the airport. The 2 of you were the part of moving to England that worried me the most and gave me sleepless nights.
Dodge when you went missing for a whole night as a kitten and I stayed awake on the sofa with the front door open in case you came home (of course you bloody did, you are far from stupid!)
Charger you are the most undelicate, non cat-like cat in the world. You have broken more things in this house than the small boy.
But yes I love you both…BUT…
Charger – from a small kitten (now 4) you have never been great with the whole wee goes IN the litter tray thing have you? I accepted that a lot you would wee NEXT to the litte tray, front paws in it even but you didn’t quite get that your back legs and arse had to be in it too. So newspaper and pampers changing mats around the litter tray sorted that (kind of.) And so then to the random weeing around the house, meaning having to buy the expensive cleaner as it is the only thing that works. Hours I have spend on my hands and knees sniffing carpet & sofa to find the cause. But yes I love you…
The latest adventures in weeing are a treat..I can’t deny the spraying (even though neutured) up against any surface is easier than on the carpet, easier to find that it, well espeically up againt my white divan sheet. Those yellow circle wee stains don’t REALLY add to the general look, but a few points for trying sweetie.
The vet has now decided that you have cystitis and of course I had MASSIVE guilt for all the times I have been cross about the weeing everywhere. 1-nil to you Charger, you get to wee everywhere and I feel guilty. And even better it is caused by stress apparently. Yes Charger , you are stressed bless you. And that leads me to the next point…your little obsession with food.
The vet did tell me that you are not THAT heavy..for a large cat, but you my darling little ball of snuggles are not a large cat. Well O.K. lets face facts, your body is large, very large, but not so much your head.
You love food, and I am that guilty pet owner who has allowed you to love it, all the time. After our last trip to the vets and a stern telling off for me you are now on a diet, well I should say you are on expensive diet food. But you don’t seem to be getting the concept too well and still trying to eat ALL the food in the whole world. And I have decided that the middle ground is that you love food but must have less. You are never going to be a cat that eats till they are full, so I am not going to make your like totally miserable. Treadmill maybe?
And now onto my first born, the first love in my life, Dodge.
You came to me from the hard cold streets of Belfast, found as a feral kitten, a little scraggy ball of black fluff, covered in fleas and mites and grot. A vet (that funny we never went back to) told me to give up on you, I didn’t. I washed you, cleaned you up, let you sleep on my chest for hours at a time and gave you your evil powers back, and I am not sure you have ever used them for good as we had discussed.
I know you have never forgiven me for bringing home first a man, then the other cat and then the biggest crime of all…A BABY. But you have to admit grumpy arse that the whole baby thing had its benefits, all those new cat beds (pram/cot/bouncer/crib) for you to leave your evil black hair on the white sheets.
After 6 years of you owning me Dodge you have never let me forget for a day who is in charge of this relationship, and tonight again with a brief swipe of your paw and the blood dripping from my hand you showed me your special way of dispensing love. We have issues don;t we Dodge? Issues with you being somewhere I don’t want you to be and me trying to persuade you to move. It ususaly involves hissing, blood and fear. The amount of nights I let you sleep on my bed in recent years, knowing you will wake me at 2 a.m with a claw in my scalp as it is just the safer option. But I still love you, and given the chance you still sleep on my chest (probably to restrict my breathing enough to remind me again who is in charge)
When no one is watching you, or you think no one is watching you love nothing more than embracing your inner kitten, chasing a feather (oh yes you are the hard cat) closest thing to catching a bird you will ever manage, rolling in the grass or snuggling up to Charger and cleaning him. And that is exactly how you redeem yourself.
So my darling little kittens, I may threaten you with eBay when once again Charger you have got under the netting on the vegetable patch and then ripped it to shreds before doing a poo as a finale, and Dodge you may have conned me into thinking you were on your last legs for a whole weekend only able to eat freshly cooked Waitrose chicken breast before recovering at the mention of the vets, but you are my 1st & 2nd children, and I love you very much (except when standing in wee at 6 a.m. in bare feet)
*must not look at kitten pictures too long as will be going to find another one*