The "poor cat/dog/rabbit/ferret, he/she's so...." item.

Jul 27 03:26 UTC 2000

I admit it.  I do horrible things to the family cats.

Cats are predators, and ought to be free.  But my
family keeps ours cooped up indoors.  This keeps them
from living anything like a natural life, with a
natural lifespan, natural stresses, natural maladies...

I twist and warp their predatory instincts.  I drag
fake, inedible "prey" past them and allow them to chase
it, in a cruel mockery of what they should be.  Sometimes
I even use a hand-held laser and deprive them even of
the materiality of an object to chase.  I often do
this for half an hour or more.

Then there's the physical aspect.  Some cats hide when I
approach, so they escape this part.  But the ones who are
too slow, or have absorbed enough of the "is that REALLY
wet paint?" mentality from humans... they get the full
treatment.  Chin rubs.  Ear rubs.  Most cats have good
coordination under normal circumstances, but too many of
them suffer a loss of directional sense under a concerted
attack of ear-rubs.  Trying to get away, they go in circles
and keep bumping into chair legs, table legs, walls, ankles,
and anything else in the vicinity.  

Let me not forget the back-scritches.  Most cats will stick
their backs up in the air to try to get them out of reach,
but this only puts them closer to the source.  Some cats have
tried to protect their backs by rolling over onto them, making
them inaccessible.  This just makes them vulnerable to belly-rubs.

Some cats eventually make good their escape, but others get
scritched into a comatose state from which they may take an
hour or more to recover.

What kind of stuff do you do to YOUR pets?