Bloody Caturday

Molly planned to eat Nemo's liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti serve.

Nemo and Molly decided to ratchet up their hatred this morning instead of letting us sleep. Normally they get uppity around 5-6 AM because they want to eat. On workdays, not a problem, feeding them is part of the daily ritual but there’s no such thing as a non-workday for the troublesome trio. This results in them being kicked out of the bedroom until we’re damned good and ready to roll out the food. Why? Molly has a bladder condition requiring special food which is expensive and just like children, the other cats want to eat it. This stuff has a higher fat content too so Molly the butterball is also rationed. Life was easier with the all-they-could-eat buffet yet I don’t want a huge cat-food bill or another $800 operation to remove stones from Molly’s body.

We figured this Sunday would be no different than any other with them. They’d start making noises, one of us would get up, trick them into leaving the bedroom with false hopes and then close the door. Usually, they proceed to bang on the doors of Somara’s office, poke a paw under the bedroom door or whine. Instead we heard a blood-curdling scream from Nemo. This either meant Molly was hurting him (Miette prefers to run away) or his bum leg is caught on something and he was injuring it further. Somara arrived first to find him Nemo hanging off the cat tower upside down, hind leg entangled, extended like he was caught in a snare trap. Meanwhile, Molly was attacking him, probably exerting her Alpha status. Then Somara foolishly approached him, forgetting what happened the first time they met. Nemo lashed out, cutting her foot in multiple places, sending her back into the entertainment stand. While she tried to stem the bleeding, I fetched a towel to blind Nemo, then I could free him. Molly jumped in for another round and I knew she was serious; when the base of her tail is thick, she’s not playing, she plans to hurt somebody. Once I had her shoo’d away, Nemo attacked me and I had no other choice but to cut the string.

Somara hobbled to the bathroom with a trail of blood. I rounded up Molly, confined her to the carrier as if she were Hannibal Lecter. Nemo fled to hide under the bed, his standard tactic when the couch isn’t available. Miette joined him, she’s not terribly smart. Then I proceeded to clean up and put bandages on Somara’s cuts the best I could; they’re doing fine, we’ll be redressing them one more time tonight, thankfully she doesn’t need stitches. Meanwhile, Molly kept banging on the carrier’s door in protest until she grew tired. Nemo was pried out from under our bed and given a bath because he crapped on himself during his ordeal. This resulted in another round of his screaming, biting and clawing since he feared we would drown him.

As of now, Nemo is sulking under the couch. Molly is staring out a window, letting the sunshine warm her up. Miette is walking on eggshells probably out of fear she’ll be caught in another fight. I need to take Molly to the vet anyway. Maybe Dr. Todd has some advice about her heightened aggression after Wicca’s death. Somara is fine too. She took some pain killers, called in sick at HEB and is wearing a couple of my mateless socks because her shoes hurt the affected foot. I hope this remains an isolated incident between those two cats or else Somara will have to wear steel-toe boots just to feed them.