Test Drive One: Epic Fail

cute harness, grumpy Sophie

I should have known things wouldn't go well when Tomo started to fear his collar this morning. Or when Sophie wasn't too tolerant of her polka dot harness. However, in a rare fit of optimism, I decided to continue with the practice drive as scheduled.

The route for the day was, in theory, a short, easy loop through town. In reality, it was 10-15 minutes of panicked meowing and near hyperventilating from Tomo while Sophie quietly huddled in the back of the cage. Oh, and Tomo peed. Which was awesome. (For those of you not familiar with the ammonia-filled properties of cat pee, it is not a pleasant substance.) On the upside, the bottom half of the cage is solid plastic, so the car upholstery was unaffected by the incident.

Since both cats were in one cage, they were now both in immediate need of a bath. Double awesome. I should note that my cats do not like water. At all. Tomo is afraid of the bathtub even without the presence of water, or the sound of the faucet running. I really wish I could have taken pictures of the bathing debacle, but keeping the chaos in check took priority over photo documentation. Words cannot accurately capture the experience, but it involved lots of hissing, meowing, clawing, and general flailing escape attempts.

*Note to self: running shorts and a t-shirt is not the most protective outfit for climbing into a bathtub and trying to scrub an angry cat. I might need to invest in something neoprene and/or kevlar if this happens again.

They were both quite grumpy post-bath, and not very cooperative with any towel-drying attempts. Notice that Sophie has her claws securely fastened to my shoulder in the picture, so as to avoid any chance of returning to the tub.

I gave them canned food as a peace offering, which at least seemed to alleviate some of the hissing.

Both cats spent the rest of the afternoon in hiding, obsessively cleaning and drying off while I addressed the post-apocalyptic appearance of the bathroom. It looked like a tiny hurricane had passed through, depositing water and cat fur everywhere... because when cats are stressed, they shed. In mass quantity. Additionally, the bathtub drain was not meant to handle that volume of fur, but an entire bottle of professional grade drain cleaner seems to be helping.

The bathroom is now presentable, the fleece bed and puff toy were promptly disposed of, and the cage has been thoroughly cleaned. Sophie will be getting her own, smaller cage to avoid having to bathe both cats in the event of future accidents.

And the vet will be getting a call on Monday to discuss drugging options.