Cat

This is my cat. Sorry if you typed "shaved puss" into Google and all you got was this, but consider it a testament to what one might find on the internet, and click "back" if what you wanted wasn't an ode to my cat and her new haircut.

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She may not be long for the world, being the most miserable domestic feline ever. We have kept her, fattened on expensive prescription cat food and adequately veteranized for more than ten years now, and no amount of general anesthetic will produce that selective cerebral infarction necessary to improve her personality.

Periodically, her behaviour "issues" come to a head, and her matted fur, pulling on her skin and making her even more miserable than usual, must be shaved. Every six months or so, we must take her to the vet, where they don heavy-duty, shoulder length, leather eagle taming gloves in order to get close enough to administer a happy-cat shot, which renders her briefly unconscious. The frenzy of activity that must inevitably follow the gradual slithering to the bottom of the cat carrier and reduction in volume of the curses, hurled, in Cat (which would undoubtedly leave even the most foul-mouthed sailor or hardened trucker speechless, if translated to English), at the perpetrators of her shame, is timed to the second, so as to be complete by the time she comes to. She is shaved, her nails trimmed, her teeth checked, necessary vaccinations administered, and she is crammed back in her carrier double quick. She has a red flag on her chart at the vet's: EVIL.

When she wakes, safely (for the vet's staff) back in her carrier, protesting with renewed energy at the indignities forced upon her, her growls, hisses, and bodily protests strike fear in the hearts of even the most seasoned vet. They say she does not like them; well, she doesn't like us a whole lot better. While she rarely takes an unsolicited swipe at any member of her family, my children would sooner soil themselves than step over her to get to the bathroom.

For days afterward, she withdraws into the little pocket created when her pendulous belly tucks over her back paws, and slinks around, as if she is truly embarassed. And really, she is, em-bare-assed, with the great wattle of flesh at her abdomen exposed for all the world to see. And to add insult to injury, they leave the fur on her head, tail and legs long and fluffy. She looks like an oddly coloured, endomorphic, miniature lion in hooker boots, needing a major tummy-tuck, and looking for all the world as if she is taking down numbers and hiring contract killers to exact revenge on the inhumane non-cats responsible for the disgraceful and humiliating state of her fur.

Perhaps, it is her name: Joe Boo, shortened to Boo, and further and more commonly derived to Boozer. Perhaps it is the dogs, who think she is also a dog and want to "play" mindless, slobbering, smelly, dog games, with her, as dogs do amongst their own kind. I tend to think she needs a nice little old lady to dote on her... unfortunately, I am not a good salesperson, and anyone who may have considered taking her off our hands runs screaming in fear for their life when I describe how she lies on the sidewalk and whacks anyone who dares to trespass on her patch of sunshine.

So time will tell whether this cat will continue to receive her bi-annual salon treatment or whether one of these times the difficult roommate mentality will push enough of her benefactors' buttons that she gets, rather than the happy-cat shot, the sleepy-cat shot. In the meantime, we feed and litter her, trying not to snicker behind hands, and hope she does not someday choose to murder us in our sleep, for regularly bestowing on her a feline mullet, even if it is for her own good.

Shorn cat, free to good home. Needs some TLC. Any takers?