I'm sorry Ludwig!

So, a few nights ago, Didgeman and I got this natural shampoo for cats that's supposed to be moisturizing. We got it because we were thinking maybe it's dry skin that's causing our lovable muffin head of a...disadvantaged yet very loved cat to overgroom.

Ludwig was born with a few, uh, physical disadvantages, including wonky back legs, missing and stunted teeth, a misshapen head, he's deaf. Oh and now apparrently he's balding, but that's another story. He's a big suck who acts more like a dog than a cat and he very much wants to be where you are, or in what you're doing, at all times. Which is cute/annoying. He's extra cute ( to us, anyways) and is basically a living teddy bear in terms of agressiveness and look.

Anyways, basically since he is lacking any physical ability to pick up cues for danger, he had no idea what we were doing when we picked him up and brought him wo the bathtub, all ready to go with lukewarm water and the shampoo. He didn't really realize the severity of the situation until the first tub of water came down his back.

And then he went batshit crazy.

This is the calmest cat who regularly sleeps through drumming jam sessions (deaf, remember?) and happily snoozes on the carpet with full party going on and plays in the bathtub on a regular basis anyways, and he was spazzing the frig out. But, we lathered him up and rinsed him off and toweled him off and released him into the apartment to sulk. It was the most intense two minutes I have had in a long while. The cat was thrashing and making low level meow sounds and clearly the theme in his head was the shrieking violins from any stabby horror film. Reee! Reee! Reee! Reee! It was a horrifying situation. He was on panic/escape mode at full throttle.

Finally he let off a yowl that told us it was time to let him go. We toweled him off and he made it really seem like we had broken his spirit. I mean, he trusted us and then we tried to KILL him or some such thing. Anyways, when we opened the door, Molly was there with a tail poofed up like a feather duster and her fur all fluffed out. She kept smelling Ludwig, but that might have been the cherry scent. She also wouldn't let us touch her for a while. Because we tried to kill Ludwig, you see.

A day later, Ludwig was letting us touch him, and he purred again, and two nights later, he graced us with his presence on the bed (well, wrapped around my head, but whatever, you know what I mean).

I mean, we were back in his good books. For now, anyways. It'll be a while before we try that again. So far, he may be licking less, but he hasn't stopped, so the next step is the vet, it's looking like it's check-up time.

Ahhhhh! My first cat story. My friend Alan told me this day would come. This is funny because I grew up in a no-cat household, and never 'got' cats or cat owners. Photo albums full of cat pictures, owner's exclaiming, just look at his face Isn't he precious? Well, I haven't done that yet, but I've definitely come around to the whole cat thing. So technically, I suppose with this post, I am eating crow a little bit. Only a bit!

You can call me on it when I release a photo essay on the magic of my cats or some crap like that.

heh.