Introducing Moseley

Moseley is our fourteen-year-old shorthaired tuxedo cat. He is not so much talkative, as a complainer. “When am I going to eat? Will you let me out? I need you to pet me,” are all verbal commands he gives us. I’ve often thought he must have some Siamese in him and he is just as “communicative” with the other cats. “Stay the hell away from me! If you come near me…I’ll, I’ll run the other way! I have a perfect right to be here!” All these phrases are squeaks, peeps, hisses, spits, growls and full out meows. His nickname is Peeper because his every move comes with a peep or squeak…that and he pees outside box. He has some other nicknames too, but I won’t share them here.

Moseley is our problem child. He is now the oldest and did not transition well into a multi-cat household when I brought him into our new blended family. I had two cats originally, but my orange and white boy, Bustopher passed away in February 2008 when he was fourteen. Bustopher was my first kitty after a long drought without.

Moseley came to me through my stepdaughter, who moved back home a year or so after I’d gotten Bustopher as a kitten. Two years later, my stepdaughter moved out, taking with her a toddler and a fiancé, but leaving her cat. Moseley and Bustopher got along okay as long as Bustopher did everything Moseley told him to do. Moseley guarded the water bowls and never missed an opportunity to pee on something Bustopher had slept on or played with. My partner at the time did not like cats (Moseley wasn’t helping any) and wanted a lot of rules to keep the cats away from most of the house. In his effort to explore, dominate and assert his right to be here, Moseley broke every one of the rules on a constant basis, subsequently imposing his ever more restricted world onto poor innocent Bustopher.

When I moved Bustopher and Moseley into my new situation, there were already four adult male cats in this feline “Yours, Mine and Ours” (the “Ours” would come later) and suddenly big man on campus Moseley, sank to the bottom of the totem pole. I learned all about what a pariah cat is – shunned and picked on. Moseley also has a condition that causes him to walk oddly and have poor coordination. So what should be a smooth two foot leap from floor to chair, ends up as a couple of false starts and a clinging to the edge while scrambling up the side (squawking all the way). It’s gotten worse with age. You can see the expression in the other cats’ eyes when Moseley saunters by drunkenly. “Man, you are a freak!” They might even swat him in the butt as he passes if he doesn’t pick up his pace. He just yells at them as he runs.

We feel badly for him and the best we can do is keep him sequestered while he lives out his life. He has an entire bedroom for himself. It has a window with an active birdfeeder stuck on it. His door was replaced with a screen door so he can see and smell what’s going on and be part of the household, while being safe. Vinyl flooring was installed to alleviate our pee cleaning duties. He has two litter boxes, one hooded, one open and he uses both as well as the throw rug two feet away. He is the only cat in our colony who is on a veterinarian prescribed diet of canned food for his urinary tract issues. We mix it with water to make a gravy meal three times a day because he needs extra water. We also give him some crunchies just for variety.

He is allowed out of his room (and outside in the cat enclosure) on supervised occasions several times a week…we found that every day was just too much for his anxiety and caused him to pee a little more often. On his excursions into the rest of the house, he sometimes wears pee protection. We tried various sizes and types of diapers (for humans and doggies), but they were too big and he had even more trouble walking, so DP created a pad lined thong that fits around his thighs and over his tail covering his hoo-hoo. He has a black one that matches him and also a stylish pink one, when we want to show it off.
He no longer cleans himself so we brush him regularly and bath him about once a month. Every morning we give him a little blue pill for anti-anxiety, and at thirty bucks a month, we pump “happy thoughts pheromones” into the air of his room. When everything is humming and our schedule is routine, he does not pee outside the box at all. When anything is off just slightly…well, we keep a roll of paper towels and an eco friendly spray cleaner in his room for those days. Truth be told, Moseley is not our favorite cat, but we are committed to giving him a decent life for however long he insists on living.

DP and I make jokes about us being retired old ladies in fifteen or twenty years, still having to stop what we are doing at noon to feed and clean up after Moseley.

He's not a bad sort really, if he were the only cat, he'd be someone's constant companion as he craves a lot of attention. I hope you've enjoyed meeting Moseley. Thanks for stopping by! Lisa Co9T