Cats

So over the Christmas break, I offered to take care of the Lester boys' cat, Schrodinger. Even though I've never owned a pet, I was told that cats are fairly low maintenance. How bad can it be?

Cat-sitting 101

Assuming that all the materials are there already, I was told about three things:

Food - Schro is fed this combination of ... supposedly dried up pork and various other meats. Sounds a bit sketchy, but cat food companies know a whole lot more about cats than I do. He goes through about a bowl a day. I was told that cats never overeat (unlike stupid humans at all-you-can-eat sushi bars). Interestingly, they really shouldn't drink cow milk, since, you know, it's from a cow and cat stomaches doesn't like that too much, even though we see it on TV all the time. One could note why humans can drink cow milk and be okay...mmm...but then, humans eat everything. Come on. Just look at Chinese people...

One deviation I did make for Schro's catfood diet is I fed him haddock. I saw some cheap haddock on sale (and after checking with the cat's extensive 'do-not-feed' list), I went ahead and gave him some. He took three bites, and promptly fell asleep. Talk about itis...

But when I woke up the next day, he ended up eating all fish I gave him. Maybe he's shy. But (see section about litter)...

Water - Fairly straight forward. I give him a bowl of water. I add more when it's low. I rinse it. Maybe I should've tried giving him orange juice...

Litter - Perhaps the most 'interesting' part of cat-sitting technology I was introduced to. Cat litter, which appears to be small little rocks (the label claims it's advance technology) that Schro can sit in and take a nice #1 or #2, whichever suits his fancy. My job regarding this involves...walking Schro's litterbox over to a garbage can, and using a pooper-scooper, dump his crap into the garbage can. Now...somehow, his catly by-products sticks to the litter, making large rock-like objects that I need to remove. I guess cats can't be trained to use toilets.

I've noticed that, whenever Schro is extra jumpy or extra affectionate, it's not usually because he hasn't seen people around for a while...because as soon as I change his litter, he does his business. Now, I'm sure parts of his urgent purring whenever I open the door has to do with wanting other animate objects moving around in the same spatial region, but given that he reverted back to his hand biting ways right after I scoop his poo... well.

What have I learned?

Physical Interactions - The cat likes to claw, and he likes to bite. And be purring while he's at it. So he ENJOYS biting people. You know life would be bad when the first question I got from his owners the day after they left was "have you been bitten alive yet?"...so gloves are rather beneficial. I've also observed that the cat likes dangly things, and have clawed long hair, scarfs and stray shoelaces. I've had a bit of fun, throwing threads across the room and watch him bolt after it. He, however, doesn't like to bring it back.

Cat Hair - It sticks to everything. I think if I lost hair at that rate, I'd be bald -_-

Sleeping Cycles - He sleeps alot. He seems to have taken a liking to shoulder bags, because I see him curled up on Keith's and my shoulder bag quite often.

Conclusion
The cat is certainly alive. I probably wouldn't mind a cat in the future, if it wasn't for all the cat hair on my stuff. Certainly one that is less anxious to get his claws and fangs into my arms.