Me: I smell cat pee.
IZ: No, you smell the dog.
Me: Put your nose RIGHT THERE. (me pointing to a spot on the futon) That’s cat pee.
IZ: That’s dog.
This conversation played out over and over last week. By Friday, I was so convinced I smelled cat pee “RIGHT THERE” that in a small rage, I flipped the futon over all by myself; but not before I had emptied half a bottle of Febreeze “RIGHT THERE.”
I have to tell you, I’ve been a bit offended by the repetition of this conversation and its implication. (This is part where I tell you more about my dog’s elimination practices than you want to know. No, you may not SKIM, Mary!) I’ll have you know, my Miss Sophie has a very distinct way of telling you she needs outside. She “looks” at you. It’s sophisticated, really. But then, that’s my dog. In her mind, she’s making eye-contact. And if she jumps down from her bed and makes eye-contact, you only have to say, “Want to go outside, Soph?” for her to spin around in circles and head for the door. This is an elegant solution and I’m proud of my dog for her ingenuity.
The problem arises when YOU don’t make eye-contact and she does. Like, say, you’re in the laundry room, head buried in the dryer. Can she help it that you didn’t see her making eye-contact? Or when you’re asleep and she’s boring holes into your back. Still, NOT HER FAULT. Ahem. So, sometimes, the eye-contact method doesn’t work out and I look up to puddles. But for the most part, the dog and I are in sync. And the one thing she and I both agree on is that her pee doesn’t smell like the stench emanating from “RIGHT THERE.” We are in agreement: IZ is nuts.
Saturday dawned at noon and as I’m sitting in my pj’s I noticed it again. I smell cat pee. RIGHT THERE. Which was odd, because only yesterday my flipping of the futon and baptizing with febreeze had made a very clear dent in the assault on my nose. But then, then it happened.
IZ: There is a wet spot. RIGHT THERE. It’s, it’s, it’s DOG!
ME: Walter Tango Foxtrot!
IZ: It’s not dog?
Me: NO! It’s not dog. It’s a wet spot. And it’s CAT PEE. YOUR CAT’S PEE. MY. DOG. DOESN’T. PEE. RIGHT. THERE.
Ahem.
That prompted a quick check of the cat’s liter box. Imagine. A box full of cat poop, but no pee. Why? Because his cat has been peeing “RIGHT THERE” for a week. And he’s been blaming it on my dog, for a week. And all I have to say is:
Walter Tango Foxtrot
Yes, I have to admit, I really was in denial. Surely kitty had resumed normal behavior after having her kitty box made available to her again. Surely whatever you were smelling (that I wasn’t) was the dog. After-all, she has a certain, um, stink to her.
But I was wrong. Walter Tango Foxtrot, I was WRONG. Why would kitty go to the trouble of peeing on the couch but walking to poop in her box? I just couldn’t get it. But, removing all possibilities, no matter how improbable, the answer was staring me in the face.
Indeed KITTY had done the unimaginable… Walter Tango Foxtrot!
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You never miss a moment to suggest that my dog stinks. She smells like DOG! Thank you. ~W
As a culture, we Mormons are famous for making up non-expletive-expletives (see: “What the Flip?!”). But I’ve never thought of Walter Tango Foxtrot. That is too funny!!!
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Hee… we call that fake swearing. And I wish I could take credit for the Walter Tango Foxtrot, but it’s something I saw in the Etsy fora. 😀 ~W
Took me a minute to decode your message but it was received. Too funny. Greg is always the one who finds where Ruby peed on the rug and I’m always in denial, too. See, she communicates similarly to Sophie — intense stares. She also has ready access to the outdoors via her dog door. But, then again, unless one of the kids has taken to peeing on the floor, I think this dog does it when she doesn’t want to go outside for any reason at all. 🙂
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It must be a terrier thing, the eye-contact signal. 😀 ~W
Well, as a cat person, I will say that their pee has a very distinctive and nasty odor. I’m glad MY cats never pee around on the furniture. I went through the whole slide show of beautiful photos (only one with the officiant! 🙁 ). I love those shirts, BW looks GREAT and so does IZ and I really like the groom with his parents. The bride is stunning and it looks like it was a just plain fine wedding. Nicely done!
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It was a lovely wedding. And be thankful for the ONE photo… if I’d had my way about it, there would be no photographic evidence. 😀 ~W
Cat pee is unmistakable. We have a stray cat that marks in our garage, which is SO annoying. I love your WTF, so clever.
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Clearly not THAT unmistakable, since IZ keeps insisting it smells like my dog. OY! 😀 ~W
aw MAN! And that smell does NOT go away. It’s like nature’s energizer bunny or something. You could burn that futon and 3 years later int he ashes you’d smell bonfire… and cat pee. WTF.
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Yeah, well… she killed the futon. For those of you keeping score that would be:
Kitty 3
Wende 0
But we’ve fixed her, oh yes we have. She now spends evenings and any time we’re all out of the house, in the basement gym. Where the floor is carpeted with industrial grade carpet over concrete… and there isn’t a couch in sight! ~W
MoC called me to tell me how much this post made her laugh. Now that I’ve read it, I agree. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Now that I’ve hahahaha’d you … I can empathize. A little. And every time I see TFC, I say, “thanks for not peeing on the couch! Love ya!”
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Heh, it makes me laugh to think of your mom calling you about my posts. Seriously, I should hire her to promote me. And I don’t even want to talk about that darn cat… NO.
I have no idea why my comment had the odd spacing … but … I think it fits. 🙂
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(watch Wende NOT walk through a VERY open door… good Wende, Good! )
I don’t know a lot about cats, but it seems that I have heard that when a cat starts wetting in places like that, they might have a bladder or kidney infection. It seems hard to believe that even though she had the unfortunate previous episode that she would continue to do it on areas she hasn’t before.
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That was our first thought, actually. But alas, she is perfectly healthy; so it’s an issue of re-training. Cats will do this when they’ve been traumatized… and I’ll spare you her toileting habits, but being locked out of her box for so long would have been a VERY BIG issue for her. Even once we got home, she only wet on the couch when I left one of Sophie’s towels on the couch for her to use to hide. Ahem… poor baby. Sadly, an infection might have been easier to treat than retraining her. However, she’s doing fine in her new “suite” at night and has NO issues, using her new box.
Unfortunately, there is no mistaking the horrific smell of cat pee. At least not for me. YUK. Try putting some aluminum foil where she is peeing. Cats will not walk on it. Inconvenient, but it can work. Put the litter box nearby.
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Yeah, I was worried that that might not stop her… since she doesn’t seem to mind tin-foil. And we didn’t want the litter box in our living room. 😀 But we have terrific space for her to hang out while we all sleep… and she’s doing just great there. In fact, it’s a good solution, because now she doesn’t interrupt G’s sleep when she has to use the litter box! 😀 ~W