When Pussy Attacks!

My husband and I share our house with four pussies. They are furry, sometimes cuddly but beneath their angelic and sweat demeanour there lurks a darkside. A darkside so malevolent and vicious it’s best strangers approach our kitties with caution or face the dreadful consequence – being mauled! You see our furred critters are emotional and dangerous little souls and every now and again their tempers and tantrums take me by surprise and I left me wondering, why do I share my house killers.

Killer Pussy will eat anything she can lay her little paws on. If it is not guarded, covered or sealed she will seek it out and devour it whether it’s broccoli or potatoes – she has no preference. Her absolute favourite snack is a vitamin and catnip enrich cat treat which she gets every afternoon. So when the treats were finished, a couple of weeks ago, and the shops ran out of stock our little pussy was not amused! Then the tantrums started.

We were ignored, she would sit in the corner of the bedroom sulking, scratch us when we picked her up and when her passive aggression failed to yield the desired result she went to Plan B – breaking stuff. Two broken plates, a torn curtain and a punctured pool lillo later, the shops eventually acquired her favourite treat just in the nick of time, as I suspect Plan C would have involved murder by suffocation – I wonder who she would have killed first, my husband or I? So now she’s back to her normal routine which are the plotting and scheming about how to break into our pantry (the food room as she calls it), furthering her nuclear ambitions and setting her plan for world domination into motion.  She really is one ambitious and very dangerous cat!

Fur Monster is one of our eldest cats and she doesn’t like strangers and despises children (little humans). The fact that she was barren for so long and struggled to have kittens of her own may have something to do with her hatred of offspring. Whenever we receive visitors we always have to warn the guests of her violent streak. Many children have been emotionally and physically scarred by her and many adults have too, with my late mom included.

A few years ago Fur Monster’s sister had kittens and my mom and her housekeeper wanted to see the litter/kindle. They forgot about the saying “curiosity killed the cat” and they went into my garden cottage while I was out. They didn’t make it past the kitchen. Fur Monster and her sister Sly Monster cornered them and held them hostage, literally, in my kitchen for well over an hour. Eventually I received a hysterical call from my mom “Your cats have attacked me! I’m in your kitchen! Can’t. Get. Out!!! Oh God have mercy!!! H E L P MEEE!!!” and in the background I could hear the housekeeper praying "Jesus, Mary & Joseph" and the cats hissing and growling. Careful hostage negations followed and both my mom and the housekeeper were released bruised, bleeding, traumatized and forever fearful.

Cute Monster is the middle child and the fruit of Fur Monster’s loins. She’s not the sharpest tool in the shed and the only thing she does well is eat, fart and look cute. She has never mastered the art of tree climbing and is still trying to learn how to play but without any notable success or improvement. The one skill she recently acquired is the much envied skill of paw-to-paw combat.

Seeing as she doesn’t know how to play nice she settled for second best – fighting. She picks fights with her mother, her aunt and her adopted sister and she usually loses. Did I mention she isn't that bright? Every other day all hell breaks loose in our house and it’s a choir of hissing, growling, screaming with fur and pot plants flying everywhere. Breaking up a pussy orgy of violence is near impossible and after two attempts and some loss of blood later, hubby and I decided to leave them to sort out their own problems. If it involves violence so be it!

Apart from eating and shitting the garden the only thing our pussies enjoy doing together as a family is kill things. This is where our youngest comes in Lover Pussy.  And as his name suggests he is a gentle soul and is more a lover than a fighter.  However, he also loves hunting and he's fiercely good at it.  He also usually leads the family hunt.  Like a ruthless pride of lions (which I swear they think they are) they stalk their prey on the African plains that is our garden. Many a bird-, lizard-, moth-, butterfly and lady bird family has lost loved ones at the claws of our feline predators. So when a flock of weaver birds decided our leopard tree was the perfect spot for them to raise their families, last summer, their fate was sealed and the bodies piled up!

Last Saturday we experienced the worst massacre since bloodshed Wednesday of 8 May 2007. It started at roughly noon. I heard a commotion in our back garden and didn’t pay it much attention until the commotion made its way to under the dining room table. Killer Pussy caught a juvenile weaver bird and was busy interrogating and torturing the poor thing North Korea Style, while the other four Monsters were watching. I tried to save the non combatant but Killer Pussy would have none of that and ran outside. We intercepted at the pool and I tried to pry the screaming bird from her fangs but she refused to loosen her grip and punctured two of my fingers.  I considered getting a tetanus shot but then realized the hospital would asked too many uncomfortable questions so I took my chances.

Then I realized the non combatant is doomed anyway and feeling like a horrible human being I let the murder continue. In the lounge I was close to tears as I heard the bird's screams become fainter as the minutes passed. The bird’s parents, family and neighbors all tried to save its life, but one-by-one they too were interrogated, tortured and killed. At sunset the screaming stopped and our backyard was a scene of utter horror and devastation. There are now only four weaver birds and eight eerily empty nests left. Every day and every night our monsters patrol the leopard tree and soon the surviving weaver birds will be no more.

Sharing our home with temper tantrum killers, admittedly is not always fun. But even though I sometimes pitch up for work with arms, legs and hands looking like I shoved them into the blender, I love my little monsters dearly and can’t imagine my life without them. Our backyard may be littered with the skeletal remains of countless avian victims, the bird population on the plains of Africa may be living in fear but my pussies are a delight to have and one day, may just one day, the birds will stop screaming.

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Till next time.