My Parents’ Clowder of Two

As I pulled into the driveway of my parents’ house, Friday evening, I thought – “why am I continuing to look in on their cats every weekend? This is becoming a make work effort and I should be staying in the city, at my place, and getting my affairs in…well…order. Just because I feel guilty that these two pampered pets are left alone for an extended period while my parents are away is no reason to blow off my own responsibilities or down time. The elderly neighbors are feeding them and that will have to be enough.”

And then I stepped into the downstairs rec room and saw the blood. A large rusty patch on the floor that trailed around the desk and spatter on the wall.

Cats are said to be "the perfect carnivores", having highly specialized teeth and a digestive tract suitable to the digestion of meat. The premolar and first molar together comprise the carnassial pair on each side of the mouth, which efficiently functions to shear meat like a pair of scissors. While this is present in canines, it is highly developed in felines. The cat's tongue has sharp spines, or papillae, designed to retain and rip flesh from a carcass. These papillae are small backward-facing hooks which contain keratin and also assist in their grooming. Unlike most carnivores, cats eat almost no vegetable matter. Whereas bears and dogs commonly supplement their diet of meat with fruits, berries, roots, and honey when they can get them, cats feed exclusively on meat, usually freshly killed. In captivity cats cannot be adapted to a vegetarian diet because they cannot synthesise all the amino acids they need from plant material; this contrasts with domesticated dogs, which commonly are fed a mixture of meat and vegetable products and have been adapted in some cases to a completely vegetarian diet. Contrary to popular belief, cats should not be fed cow's milk because it is difficult for them to digest (Wikipedia).

I guess I’ll be checking in most weekends while my parents are away.

I guess I will now always see those cute little furry babies as the sociopaths they really are…sociopaths in Ewok suits.

And maybe I need to look in to investing in some cat bibs from Wild Arc.