Amalgamating Smells

The kitten hissing at our house has ceased. Sort of. There is still the random slappy fight or a tail chomp out of the blue. The worst was the who-the-hell-is-that-other-cat-on-the-bed shock at 2am. Let's just say we have not been sleeping very well this past week. Every day I would explain to Clementine (the cat who didn't go to the vet who was attacking her sick sister) "That's your sister. We adopted her the same day we adopted you. You are sisters from the same litter of kittens." and she would just look at me puzzled, with the expression "red alert! red alert! there's a strange cat in the house!" The worst part was that Sweetpea, after being on the receiving end of a hissing attack, would look at us, like, "What the f*#ck?" In the morning she would sullenly sit and stare as if she was the loneliest, misunderstood, under attack kitten in the whole wide world.

When I explained to the vet that the actual trip to the office was creating more havoc in our house than the sick kitten (who is all better now, whew) she apologized for not warning me about the whole territorial cat thing. She also recommended this product called Feliway that helps to difuse the behavior of sparring cats. Get this -- it's a plug-in! "Feliway is an synthetic analogue of the feline facial pheromone which reproduces the familiarization properties normally produced by a cat when it deposits its own facial pheromones in the environment." I was explaining this to someone at work and they said, "Do you think that is a real thing?" like I had seen it on some television ad in the middle of another sleepless cat hissing night. Only $9.99! Order now! It does sound made up. The vet also told me "you can buy it on the internet" which also makes it sound like a Ron Popeil product. We figured that by the time the Feliway plug-in arrived in the mail that the cats would be sick of each other, which is pretty much what happened.

We did use the cheaper "towel technique" method, which involves rubbing a towel on a cat and then yourself, and then the other cat, and then yourself, and then the other cat, and so on and so on and so on, and how much fun are we having?

Amalgamating smells is a good way to spend the time, but I'm glad it's over. Aside from the occasional slappy sister fight and tail chomp out of the blue.

Next time, BOTH cats go to the vet, BOTH cats will smell exactly the same.