Corner a Cat and it Will Kill You

Ever heard the saying? There's a step before this.

Give a cat a bath and it will put you in the hospital.

I'm not one of those people that gives cats baths regularly. Neither of us particularly enjoy the task very much. So I only do it on certain occasions that warrant it. For the most part, I let kitty manage her own grooming.

However, she's an overweight cat. I've put her on diets for years and she just doesn't lose weight. She's finicky and won't eat anything except dry food. You know. Kitty junk food. I almost had her switched over to higher protein wet food once, but I went on vacation, she reverted, and hasn't touched it since. Kitty equivalent of refusing to eat her vegetables I guess.

I also haven't been successful getting her to run on the treadmill.

Anyway, because she's overweight, she can't reach certain places to clean herself. I don't mean to be gross, so I hope you're not eating breakfast reading this. She was walking around yesterday and I noticed she had 'cling-ons'. You know...clinging...err...bits..
.from going to the litter box and...things...getting trapped around her butt fur.

I don't want her walking around the house, sitting on things, with that stuck in her fur. So kitty needed a bath.

I forgot to trim her claws first. I usually do before giving her a bath. She usually digs into my shirt trying to climb up me like a tree to get out of the bath. I forgot.

The bath went ok, actually. She wasn't squirming around, and for the most part, I was able to rub the shampoo in her and rinse her off. I thought we were all done, so I started pulling her out of the bath. I guess she had enough and she started flailing her paws around wildly, trying to grab hold of something.

Unfortunately, she snagged my ear. I felt the worst searing pain in my ear. Like an ear piercing without an unaesthetic. And her claw was stuck. I started screaming.

My fiance had to unhook her claw. Yeah, that was unpleasant. Fearing infection, I wiped it off with alcohol. Yeah, that burned like a thousand suns.

After wiping it with alcohol, I tried to look at it in the mirror. She clawed the back of my ear, so it's hard to see. But what I saw, freaked me out. I decided to go to the clinic, just to be sure I didn't need stitches.

The doc took a look and said she thought it would be ok. There was a small laceration, but she thought it was sitting right and I didn't need stitches. She told me to clean with peroxide daily and gave me an antibiotic to prevent infection.

I really, really hate antibiotics. But I know that when I got the cartilage in my ear pierced, the ear heals very slowly. Also cat claws are notoriously bacteria ridden, even if she did just get a bath. So I'm grudgingly taking it.

In the meantime, we're both pretty ticked off at each other. I was born year of the Tiger, and I have cat like tendencies myself. So right now, we're both hissing and growling.