Tyranny of the Cat

A feline wailing. The stench of urine. It is a reign of terror.

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I’m starting to resent my pets.   There are six of them.   Let this be an airing of my grievances. A animal Festivus if you will. I will list them, starting with the smallest first.  

 1. Ozzie the hamster. 

Would it kill you to use the wheel once in a while? It is expensive and squeak-free; wheels don’t grow on trees.  Living with creatures that want to play with you (but not healthy play; healthy play does not end in death), eat you, or simply put you all (little) pawed up is difficult. I cannot afford hamster trauma or PTSD therapy.  Mine alone is already expensive enough.  Your hair looks like you used to play bass for Meatloaf.  It’s 2025, not 1983. 

2/3 . Mortimer and the other one—the two guinea pigs

Sorry you did not each get your own commentary, you seem to have a Borg like connection.

I feed them daily—but honestly I have forgotten one of their names. This may speak to a distance growing between us.

Mortimer Snerd was one, but we lost one during COVID-19; I don’t think they would have vaccinated him anyway. So many sad trips to the forest with a shovel after hamster #3 or guinea pig #2 paws up. I walk down the stairs in the basement and hear you screaming for lettuce and carrots, it is like a rodent orchestra is tuning up.

I hope there is a pet heaven or at least something for dogs. 

In Switzerland, guinea pigs are social creatures and cannot be kept alone. But when there is a big age gap, this puts you in an endless guinea pig cycle. As to grievances, I am sorry. I didn’t know you didn’t eat meat, but you go through more hay, apples and cabbage than most real pigs. 

Your squeaking is very manipulative. I thought I'd stuff my bar fridge with cabbage just to shut you up, but that didn’t last long, and after the last beer and cider run, I couldn’t find much room.  I swear you hear me coming, and you just put this guinea pig squeak show on; it’s an act, it’s a con.

For creatures of your size, you crap a lot; at times, I have used a real shovel to clean out your run—far too much fibre.

I apologise for the number of creatures in the house that want to kill you; I put that grill on the top, and I will ask Masha the cat to stop glowering at you.

Your defecation to body weight ratio is amazing; if humans were like that, our septic system would last about three minutes.  My garbage bags and I are your septic system.  Be more considerate.  And I am not trying to kill you.

You could show a little more affection. It’s like being married or having a family. Every time I come downstairs, you hide in your plastic igloo.  If you want me to get you a phone, you could pretend to be texting and stay out.

You don’t need to be so obvious.  Additionally, you need water to live. Crapping in your water and knocking it over is not in your best interest.  You will not always get old watermelon as your fruit snack.  That hay isn’t giving you a lot of hydration.  

Masha, the Demon Geriatric Cat.

4. Where do I start? I walk by you, and you hit me. Sometimes, I think you just get angry when anyone shows any sign of joy. You killed a rabbit, and that is why you wear the bell. It is not coming off. You have lived on a raccoon-infested, busy road as an outdoor cat during the summertime, so you are not stupid.

   So, considering this, do you think pissing on white carpets is appreciated, especially when your litter box is in the next room?  Why did you use my folded, fresh out of the dryer, some ironed, the jeans, clothing on the walk-in closet floor as a litter box? You pissed on the whole works, five loads of laundry and an unforgetable incentive to keep the door closed.

   And yet you stand outside a bedroom door, meowing so loud my ears bleed and finally I just head up the stairs and open the door.

   And you are no longer a teenager; you don’t have the right to be so picky about food.  How many times have you meowed so desperately, you acted like you’d been trapped in some foodless Mad Max dystopia for years, and then I give you tuna or that cat food sludge, and it’s two sniffs and out of there? 

   And then Malibu eats it, and she gets fat. 

   Also, can you tell me what you accomplish by pissing on laundry piles? Is it a comment on my fashion sense?

   Is this resentment over the Halloween costumes?  Anger because I make you wear the Ukrainian flag and put you in my mother-in-law’s room? Did Baba hit you because you interrupted her dream about the glory of the Soviet Union, the wonder of Putin and three-hour lineups for toilet paper?  Did she convert you to communism, and this is a protest? Get in line for that.

   I’m sorry that the dogs’ gang up on you; it’s elder abuse, perhaps, but if you swipe at them, they run away.

   Back to being smart, when someone has left for the day, meowing for 30 minutes straight outside the door will not open the door.  It is not a cat meowing operated door, there has to be a human inside. It will just make our ears bleed.

   You are a tyrant. A whiskered despot. In her dotage you have elected, with feline malice aforethought, to weaponize every petty grievance, every lifelong bitterness, and unleash them in a campaign of meowing and pissing so relentless it would make Stalin himself blush.

   Consider the evidence. My mother‑in‑law, poor martyr to this domestic jihad, discovered that Masha—our furry secret police—had not contented herself with some discreet sock‑soaking or an unsanctioned puddle behind the couch. No, subtlety is for amateurs.

   She went for the full bedspread. A bedspread! The entire battleground drenched, like some territorial declaration of war. Doors have since been slammed in terror; the household now operates under a state of siege.

   But the terror does not end with urine. Oh no. Our oppressor has perfected the art of acoustic torture.

   She stations herself outside any closed door—be it my wife’s office, my daughter’s bedroom, my mother‑in‑law’s quarters—and unleashes a banshee wail so piercing it echoes into the basement like an air‑raid siren.

   It is not a meow; it is a war crime in the frequency of E‑flat. I have resorted to noise‑cancelling headphones, a pathetic civilian defense against the nightly bombardment.

   She is a little terrorist, offering no quarter and no compromise: pick your poison. Either surrender to sleepless nights and bleeding ears, or risk the random piss—terror by roulette wheel. At six in the morning, you take your chances: will this dawn bring shrieking or soaking? Both? She seems game for either.

   And what makes it truly maddening—what would make even a saint reconsider their vows—is that she does it with the hauteur of a dictator addressing her subjects. Not the slightest hint of shame. The dogs do shame. But Masha?

   No apology. Only the tyrannical certainty that this house, this bedspread, this fragile peace of mind, are hers by divine right.

   

    

   Malibu, Boo.  Younger Dog. 

   You have dragged Toby into this cat-chasing lifestyle.  Masha is 95 in human years, chasing Granny is bad manners.

   Your toilet habits still seem to be based on personal convenience - sometimes you just prefer crapping indoors; the wood is a nicer touch than snow. You have eaten six TV remotes, and Bell is unhappy with you.   Furthermore, you have chewed up one calculator right before my son’s math exam.

   You have taken out five pairs of shoes and one huge bag of white guinea pig litter.  But you are doing better now; nobody uses the shoe rack, and the shoes are usually there when we go downstairs.  Why did you never chew up my mudders?

   But can we talk about squirrels? Hurling yourself at the glass and running into the backyard with Toby like you just found out where Osama Bin Laden was hiding is a bit much. What do the kids say?

   ‘Extra’?

   Okay, Osama was a bad example; he has not been up to much lately.

   

   

   You are eight inches off the ground; you will never get that squirrel on the fence.  Never.  Give up.  And when we are having the backyard redone, which is a mud pit, you need to stop manipulating me with those big eyes and the scratching at the glass.  You are already getting three walks a day.  

   But let’s talk about walks.  You are a female; you don’t need to mark every fifteen feet like your brother.  And if you see a squirrel, please refrain from forgetting that you are on a leash. You will rip my arm off.  Why is the direction that you want to go always never forward down the sidewalk?

   Could you also walk on the same side as your brother on walks? And when I forget a poop bag, do you have to pound one out as someone is sitting on their deck?  Your whole back is into it; you might as well put a sign the size of a realtor’s and have it say, “I am taking a dump.”

   Then I have to find a Tim Hortons cup or some piece of litter; nobody believes you’re peeing. Maybe you eat too much fibre.

   The $600 vet bill, because you discovered you liked Tupperware, was not appreciated - but I’d still spend it, even if they added a zero or two. 

   But although this is only about grievances, I appreciate you scratching on the bathroom door when I’m there. My form when you come in is rarely flattering, and you are most gracious.  

   Also, when I took you to my university class, you got kicked out. I would say I have never been so embarrassed when you took a shit on the floor, but I once farted in church, so you realistically probably didn’t make the top ten.

   Well, okay, Malibu, this was not a dog-friendly class. There was something wrong with them, and they made you nervous.

   But crapping on the floor was not the answer, and running out of class, up the stairs, onto the elevator, with students hot in pursuit and then getting a permanent ban from university? I don’t think the security guard needed a bullet proof vest; Malibu is a Canadian dog and does not have a carry permit.

   Well, I know how you feel. I didn’t crap on anyone but Hamas, but that’s not allowed in some places. But I’m not talking about that here.

   Elder abuse example below. As well as their reaction to grandma’s no dogs on the couch policy.

   

   

   Toby, the big brother, dog.

   I appreciate you like homemade dog food, but when Malibu is being picky, that’s not an invitation to gluttony. She does not have a supper eating window, and outside of it, it’s fair game.

   And food—it’s my fault for giving you scraps, but I’ve created a monster; you hit me with your paw and is that growling I hear? I am the leader of the pack; you are nine inches tall. You are not starving. 

   The word tubby has come up more than once at the vet, but you have slimmed down.  You are much better than Malibu when it comes to cat elder abuse.  I can’t fault you for sleeping on the living room furniture; it’s hard when you live with five people, and everyone has different rules.  It’s like living with divorced parents.  

   But Toby, do you have to stop every twenty feet when we are walking?  And stop trying to mark in bushes, on bad slopes, back and forth; it isn’t working. Only fences, Toby.  Fences.  And you don’t just stop, you lock up the brakes, you practically separate my shoulder.

   The remarkable thing is the defiance—the swaggering confidence with which you brake mid‑stride, as though guided by some private divine revelation. Paul being struck down on the road to Damascus was, frankly, less dramatic.

   And yet each time, you behave like an amnesiac rediscovering the very concept of grass. Enraptured by a wilted weed, a crusted patch of Rottweiler discharge, or the ghost of a long‑departed squirrel. But do you mark?

   No. You loiter. You tarry.

   You hover like a mystic unsure of his next prophecy. You patrol the fence like a drunk surveyor—ten feet, twenty, thirty—none of it deemed worthy of your golden autograph—finally, a tree. Sniff. Hind leg twitches. No. Abort. Not today. Then suddenly: level ground, epiphany, target acquired.

   The leg lifts. The stream begins. Triumph. Except, of course, you’re pissing exactly where you did yesterday. No one respects your territorial claim.

   It’s called a walk. That is the noun. I prefer the verb.

   The difference is intentional, Toby.

   I’m trying to get you to cut back, but it’s called a walk, not a urine-sniffing expedition.  Do you think your pee sprays are impressing the Boston Terrier down the street? 

   Do you think he goes, “Oh no, Toby was here, no more walks through the forest, it’s Tobyland?”  Your marks are not respected. You might as well just let it all go at once.  

   Toby you are like an airline pilot who loves landing but hates taking off. You always slow down, not because you are tired, but because you smell something interesting. I know dogs have good noses, but is urine like fine wine to them?

   “Is that a light mix of pork and cabbage in that pee with overtones of citron and alabaster, a four-year-old retriever perhaps? What say you, Rover?”

   Napolean Complex

   Respect, my dear Toby, is earned—and you are twenty bloody pounds. Growling at pit bulls like a Napoleonic drunk in a biker bar is not bravery; it’s Darwinian suicide. It’s me waltzing up to a tattooed MMA fighter, flicking his pint, and quoting Voltaire.

   They built the small dog run for a reason. Your sister—unlike you—possesses at least a faint pulse of situational awareness.

   Then there was the Coyote.

   Yes, a wild predator stalking you and Malibu while my daughter trembled. And what was your response? A whimpery optimism—“It’s not a predator, it’s a friend!” You, Toby, you seemed prepared to launch the inaugural meeting of the Coyote Friendship Association.

   Meanwhile, my neighbour Monica—poor soul—was left to puzzle over the neighborhood mystery: why is the lunatic next door hurtling down the street at eleven o’clock at night like a man possessed? Chasing a coyote, no less.

   This is the same Monica who—quite sensibly, really—dismisses hydrangeas as “petty, fickle, pH‑oversensitive creatures,” a verdict hard to dispute if you’ve ever tried coaxing one into bloom.

   She is sane, measured, the normal yardstick against which my lunacy is cast. Perhaps she might even support my campaign to scare the hell out of a coyote. The animal might not see me as a threat, but maybe my sheer madness will keep him off the street.

   But back to you, Toby. This isn’t LinkedIn for wildlife. That’s not a future playmate; that’s a four‑legged mugger eyeing you like a canapé. If a man with an AK‑47 followed me through a mall, I wouldn’t suggest we invite him home for a seminar on restorative justice. But you? You lobby for a meet‑and‑greet.

   And yes, I’d do it again. Sophia or you gets messed with, and hell itself will keep pace as I defend you.

   But Toby—your squeaky little bark, in coyote‑speak, doesn’t mean “let’s be friends.” It means “I’m injured and delicious.”

   Barking.

   Toby, listen: the other dogs on this street live here. They are not invading Mongols. They don’t need to be warned off daily like some canine re-enactment of the Cuban Missile Crisis. They know you’re here. The mailman knows.

   Hell, the squirrels have filed formal complaints.

   

   You’re not some lone sentinel at Pearl Harbour, bravely awake while the rest of us snooze. You are barking at a lovely Italian family with a poodle and two toddlers. Not Hezbollah. Your bark isn’t Churchillian defiance—it’s an airhorn in a library.

   And still, you puff out your chest and unleash your throaty declarations of sovereignty, as if the Crips were rolling up in a minivan.

   I keep threatening to buy a BarkBox, brandishing the Amazon page like a holy relic, but of course, you don’t understand. And I don’t follow through.

   Because I, too, was a little bastard once. I mouthed off to so many teachers in grade seven that the secretaries had my name on pre-printed detention slips.

   In grade five, they had brought back the strap just for me—yes, officially banned, but Mr. Smith decided that the joy of leather-on-hand outweighed the risk to his future in school administration. I wish I were kidding.

   So how could I blame you, Toby, for lacking impulse control? Barking is your only act of defiance in a life otherwise dictated by leash, homemade dog food that mixes blueberries, fish and ground beef, and neutering—bark on, you ridiculous fool.

   I’d probably bark too, if someone put me in a harness shaped like a pumpkin.

   Big Toby. You still rule.

   A Final Bone of Contention

   Furthermore, thanks to the recent warm weather, You both - Toby and Malibu - have taken your neurosis to new operatic heights.

   Though descended from fierce Scottish ratters—you have instead become the world’s worst security system: hypersensitive, spectacularly inaccurate, and wholly incapable of learning from experience. I’ll be sitting peacefully when Toby unleashes a low, seismic growl, as if the Huns are breaching the gate.

   Malibu hurls herself at the glass door with the force of a dog possessed, convinced there’s a rodent riot in progress outside.

   They charge into the yard like tiny Valkyries headed to war—and find absolutely nothing. Not a burglar, not a raccoon, not even a rogue breeze. Just the same friendly Italian family barbecuing next door, as they do every weekend.

   And yet this same ritual repeats itself every five minutes. Bark. Charge. Nothing. Return. Repeat. I’ve become, through no consent of my own, a full-time doorman to two furry lunatics with battlefield enthusiasm and the IQ of a carrot.

   They seem genuinely convinced that my sole purpose in life is to open and close the sliding door 400 times a day.

   But alas, we carry on. Their vigilance is unwavering, their track record unblemished—by a single correct call.

   And yet, despite their absolute lack of success—despite the zero-for-a-thousand detection record—they return from each false alarm with the swagger of conquering generals.

   The Doorbell

   The worst part is the Ring doorbell. It chirps once — a moth, the wind, a neighbour sneezing three blocks away — and suddenly Toby and Malibu transform from snoring rugs into DEFCON‑3 security personnel.

   They’re in the basement with me, of course, and the noise triggers a scene straight out of a low‑budget disaster movie. Toby, crafty little bastard, wedges his paw in the door and swings it open like a furry cat burglar; Malibu, less subtle, throws herself bodily at the door, slamming it shut again and howling at me for assistance.

   They explode from the man cave, charge two heroic steps into the hallway, and then… stop. At the bottom of the stairs. Barking at oxygen. They will rarely go up.

   Any burglar clever enough to stay on the main floor or upstairs is perfectly safe; they could host a rave up there and Toby and Malibu would simply glare upward, trembling with indignation, like firefighters gearing up for a blaze and then refusing to get on the truck.

   

   But when we are upstairs and I bring them back inside Malibu prances across the kitchen tiles as if she’s just personally repelled a siege at Constantinople.

   Toby does his slow, smug victory lap, casting glances as if to say, You’re welcome, citizen. The backyard is safe—again—thanks to their courage and finely tuned psychosis.

   What makes it all more maddening is their apparent conviction that I am not a person with thoughts, needs, or an inner life, but a butler with opposable thumbs and no other duties. They look at me not with affection, but with expectation. Actually with affection too.

   Open the door. Close the door. Offer the treat. Repeat. I have, in their eyes, no identity beyond the role of concierge to their delusions.

   And so, I live under the paw of two benevolent dictators: one growling from the shadows, the other flinging herself at the glass like a lunatic mime.

   I love them, of course.

   But if one more growl rises from the depths while I’m mid-sentence or mid-sip, I swear to God I’m going to install a revolving door and start charging rent. But I won’t.

   I have to go. Toby wants in.

   

But I still love you all. Most of my camera roll is dog pics.

I just had to get this out. Maybe the yellow stain on the white rug set me off, but you are alive, and the rug is just stuff. Pets are a loan from God. I am so grateful.

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