My cat decides to bring my guests... gifts.

[Ben551]

Allow me to tell you a story...

Firstly, the thing to understand about Bundle (the cat) is that he is an active rodent hunter.  He is doing his part to save and protect the local New Zealand ecosystem by knocking off rats and mice on a grand scale.

Rats and mice are not native to the country and were introduced accidentally by early settlers in the late 1800's, so the eco system is not designed to cope with them.  These little pests are one of the primary reasons that several species of bird, only found in New Zealand, are close to extinction (some are already extinct).  So we all get behind pest control in a big way, with traps... bait... the works.  It's part of the job of being an environmentally responsible resident. 

It was in the news last year (and I'm quoting the headline) that the rats and mice of New Zealand had a better than normal season in the bedroom.  Since then, we've noticed our Bundle bagging himself quite a number of pests, sometimes up to 15 per month.  Our house backs on to about 10 acres of forest, so it's not unusual.  I'd say the mix is mostly mice.

Now, Bundle is a good clean boy, so he likes to wash them in water first (places a dead one in a water bowl, bats them with his paw, then sniffs to decide if clean enough to present to his people).  Then he, much to our delight and pleasure, places them on our outside doormat as a neatly washed little wet parcel of ratty (or mousey) goodness.  Sometimes we get a "meow" to let us know it's there, and he expects a knob of butter or some fish as a reward.

Of course we thank him for these little treats, as he's doing a good job.  Plus, apparently it's psychologically damaging for a cat to be told off after working to feed his family (our vet says it's one of the reasons cats run away).

I'm sure you've worked out where this is going.... 

Yes.  Bundle has decided that guests are also part of the family and they need parcels of ratty goodness too!  Whilst I'm sure he's now working twice as hard to feed both us and the guest cottage, I'm fairly sure (if discovered... hasn't been yet) that guests will take a pretty dim view of Bundle's idea of a dietary supplement.... any day now we're going to have to explain this... to someone. And it's going to be awkward.

~ Ben

[Susan1028]

Yes, thanks so much for lightening things up @Ben-0

I can't wait to visit NZ...but I'll leave my pets at home with a co-host lol...

[Huma0]

@Ben551 

Much as I love my kitties (as you have seen from my comments in your spider thread) and much as most guests love them, sometimes they are a bit of a liability when hosting.

None of mine have ever left the kind of 'gifts' for guests that yours have. Being urban cats they don't hunt much and when they do catch something I have found it before the guests.

However, this week, one of them (I suspect the fluffball that is Merlot) has been sicking up hairballs all over the house. Worse still, and this is the first time in hosting well over 400 guests, one of my cats peed in a guest's suitcase, all over her clothes. I was mortified. All I could do was apologise profusely and washed her clothes immediately.

Luckily she was understanding (she really likes cats) but I was dreading her mentioning it in the review. She didn't, but she left me 4 stars for cleanliness. 

Many guests leave their door open because they want the cats to come in. Now I feel like I need to warn them to keep their suitcases closed, but it then makes it sound like my cats aren't house trained, when they are. I had recently been away on a couple of work trips, so I am sure that's why the little monster did it. For a cat a suitcase can = evil.

[Christine1647]

Sorry, it's Christine again - Cats.  We have an elderly cat, Stanley.  We love cats but not everyone does but worse is that some people have really dreadful allergic reaction to them.  I've seen it happen.  Perhaps you could use that idea to get guests to shut their bedroom door in case the next guest in there might be allergic.  

They can make friends with your cats [as indeed I would] in the common areas of the house but not in the rooms.

Just a thought.  Good luck with it.  Peeing in her suitcase?  Perhaps your cat wasn't the first and was just responding to a message already left there by someone else's cat.....

[Huma0]

@Christine1647 

I try not to encourage someone who is severely allergic to cats to stay at my place. You mention you have a cat, but I have three, and I think someone who has a severe allergy would be crazy to stay with me and I don't think I should have to take responsibility for that craziness. I have had guests with mild allergies choose to stay, but they are warned that I have cats beforehand, so it's really then their responsibility to decide.

Some of the guests who say they are allergic still pet the cats with no ill effects so maybe it's just psychological! I don't know, but luckily I've never had anyone have any strong allergic reaction while staying here. Then again, the bedrooms are cleaned within half an inch of their lives over and over again so that probably reduces the traces of dander.

As for another cat already peeing in or leaving some scent in her suitcase, as you and @Ben551 suggest might have happened, I hadn't considerd that. However, much as this guest loved cats, she was a student living abroad and didn't have one of her own.

I have read that cats can get separation anxiety when their owners are away and a way of showing that this is not okay with them is to pee or poo somewhere in plain sight as a warning to not do that again and a suitcase is a popular choice because they are smart enough to associate that with your departure. That is what I suspect may have happened.

Then again, there are so many guests coming in and out with suitcases and this has never happened to them! I can only imagine that when a cat discovered an open, unattended case shortly after my work trip, it decided to demonstrate in that, confusing it for my case.

[Ben551]

Oh god @Huma0 you poor thing, having to deal with that... I love cats, but if one peed on my guests clothes I’d be lost for words... I’m really sorry you had to deal with it. It probably means they had the smell of another animal in their clothes and suitcase, which confused your cat. Merlot was probably also a bit stressed by the stranger because of the smells and her current bout of sickness.

Do you keep a litter tray inside or just allow outside access 24/7? I ask because the only time we’ve had toileting issues is when one wasn’t feeling well and she didn’t want to brave the outside weather. The only problem is, she then decided thereafter that the rug was a toilet, so we had to remove it then add a backup indoor litter spinner.

At least it happened to a very understanding guest, that’s all you can hope for...

Cats have the same elements in their pee as a skunk, called thiols (sulfuric equivalents of alcohol) which come from glands. This means sometimes the only way to get the smell out is by soaking clothes in hot water and lots of white vinegar (not an easy process), depending on the cat.  Simple washing is mostly not enough, sadly. If it happened to my guests I would launder their clothes myself, since that much vinegar is expensive. Let’s hope you never encounter this problem again!

[Huma0]

@Ben551  My cats do go outside, but yes, they also have a litter tray inside and they don't normally go around peeing where they're not supposed to, even Merlot who was an almost feral stray when he turned up here.

I think you're right that there is always a reason when a cat pees where they are not supposed to, especially if that's not something they usually do. Sometimes it can be a sign of sickness, as you say. When Merlot got a bladder infection due to a careless cat sitter, he decided going on the bathmat was a good idea, but stopped when he was well again.

However, I think that sometimes it's a deliberate message to their owner (as detailed above in my response to @Christine1647). 

As for the smell, well strangely, there was no smell of cat pee at all. I don't know if it's because the guest discovered it straight away (she left her door open when she went to take a shower and then found the clothes in her suitcase were wet when she got back). There was no smell of pee on the clothes or in the room, nor on the clothes after I washed them. I guess it hadn't started to pong yet (urine only really smells when it starts to go 'off') because I can't think of any other explanation for her wet clothes other than a cat peeing on them!

[Sarah977]

@Huma0  I'm not really a cat person, but have had several over the years. When my girls were young, I was out of town for a couple days and had a good friend staying with the girls. She found a stray kitten, the girls of course immediately fell in love with it, but my friend said they'd have to ask me when I got back if they could keep it (Childless people don't get these kinds of things at all- nice old ladies in public would offer my kids some candy, right in front of me, saying "but your mom has to say it's okay", so if I say no, I'm now the evil ogre). So I grudgingly said okay, and it became my oldest daughter's cat,  sleeping with her every night. But as I had a large yard, the cat didn't have a litter box- it went outdoors. She had a couple of litters before we got her spayed, and one of her kittens, who we failed to find a home for, was psycho. Altho it had been born in our house and certainly never abused in any way, it was terrified. It would meow just inside the door to be let out, but you had to stand as far away from it as possible, gingerly reach over to turn the doorknob, but even then, he'd sometimes freak out, run upstairs and promptly pee in my clothes basket.

I had a glass roof over my back porch- once I was out there and heard a weird scratching sound, looked up to see that the cat had pooped on the glass roof and was scratching at the glass, trying to cover it up. He simply disappeared one day, good riddance.

But that mother cat was actually lovely and was around until she died at 15. She was a jet-black cat and I wrapped her up in an old black velvet skirt I had and buried her under the plum tree. Once I accidentally locked her in the house when we went away for the weekend. As there was no litter box, on return,  I found that she had been using the bathtub drain to do her business. That's pretty smart in my book.

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

I think cats are just like people in the respect that they can be so different in their personalities, even if they have grown up in the same environment, i.e. it's a combination of nature AND nuture. Pinot and Grigio are twins and I got them when they were only ten weeks old, but they were already like chalk and cheese from day one, just like my brother and I.

RE the bath drain, yes I caught one of my cats doing this and I have to say I was impressed because he aimed so precisely, there was not a drop of evidence! I wouldn't have known if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.