Features Apr 10, 2019 at 4:00 am

What it's like living with a cat in heat.

Juno yowling. Nathalie Graham

Comments

1

I'm glad you found Juno -
and some needed silence at home

2

yet more evidence cats are creepy and gross. At least dogs can understand the expectation that they somewhat control themselves.

3

Cats are awesome. Neuter and spay, people. Well, not neuter and spay people although that's not a bad idea either.

4

3 thats more than a not bad idea. It is profoundly required if humans will continue to inhabit this earth in any kind of civilized manner.

5

Cats are good. I feel bad my girl won't ever have kittens of her own.

6

See, commas can avoid so much misunderstanding.

Good on you for getting the fix done right.

7

Been there, done that too. You had more patience than I did, though. I let her have a litter but she immediately went into heat again so off we went to the vet. I still have a yowler though, I kept one of the kittens and man is he noisy.

8

Awww... that was awesome Nathalie. My first two cats, being the breeder sluts they are, (or were I suppose), went into their first heat at barely six months old or less. Cat #1 was a major howler too. Of course, they both had to get hormonal right around the time the vet was busy or on vacation. At least they weren't bad about escaping. Cat #3, the extremely sweet one, was on the list to get fixed, but holidays, guests, etc... forgot. She was late developing her girly bits, but one weekend she woke up, had a snack and started singing. "Boys! Beautiful boys! Handsome handsome lovely boooooyyyyssss!!! IIIII waaaaaannnnnttt aaaaaaa boooooyyyyyyyy!!!!!"

Monday was an eternity, believe me. Hats off for your patience as well.

9

I've learned to never take pet information for granted, after my sister adopted 2 cats. One was, they told us, a half-grown un-neutered male, and the other a 3 year old spayed female. When she got them to her vet, the half-grown one turned out to be a spayed female, and the 3-year old was actually a 12 year old male with Feline Leukemia.

I've had similar results with adopted iguanas. The "full-grown" always-been-brownish one doubled in size and turned the brightest green I've ever seen on a non-juvenile, and the big female turned out to be very male and very bothered by my perimenopausal hormones. I had to have my teenage son care for him for several months as a result.

Moral of the story: Always doublecheck with your vet.

10

PS: You haven't suffered until you've had a Siamese in heat.

11

A couple of years ago I found several barn homes for a local feral cat rescuer who told me all her cats were spayed/neutered and vaccinated. It turned out that she had imported an entire van load of feral cats from kill shelters in SoCal, and some of them were NOT spayed/neutered, so the adopters got saddled with taking care of that huge problem.

There is absolutely no excuse for importing cats from other states given that dozens of shelters and rescue groups in Washington are knocking themselves out to help homeless feral and friendly cats and do bother to get them fixed before rehoming them. Lying about not getting them fixed is beyond the pale. I later found out this woman had pulled this same bullshit on several other cat rescuers, so I put placed her near the very top of my fecal roster right below tRump.

12

I'm glad you got Juno back, Nathalie---and had her spayed. She might not immediately tell you so, but I'll bet Juno appreciates the newfound silence and mellow atmosphere as much as you and your roomies do. My last cat was a handsome, mellow neutered male from a no-kill cat shelter. He must have once lived with dogs and kids---no yowling.
@11 Mud Baby: I hope you reported that awful woman.

13

@9 iguanas pick up on human hormones? That's my science learning for the day, just under the wire!

14

News flash male cats spray which some would say is worse then female cats going into heat. That is just another reasons they are annoying pets.

15

@14 A Machiavelllian troll was misinformed: News flash: my male cat never sprayed because he was already neutered when we adopted him. If you don't want to deal with cats or dogs spraying or going into heat, have them neutered or spayed.

16

Why to deny a cat its right of mating. just asking?

17

@16,
Because there's too many cats already. Unless they start becoming endangered or something, there's no need to keep breeding more of them.

18

I'm against involuntary sterilization. However, it makes more sense to "fix" humans than cats. There are a lot more humans destroying the Earth than cats. DYK 1 in 10 kittens and puppies never wake up from the anesthesia for an operation they didn't need, since they weren't broken in the first place? The people who do this think that's good, less "problems" to place in homes. @4 @5 @16 @17 People who think there are too many cats are judging by the Great White Father idea that a cat that a human doesn't want to adopt has no right to exist on their own terms. The people who want to spay and neuter all cats and dogs to reduce the "unwanted" population (not unwanted by their moms) have been trying this for many decades, but it never works. The most clever cats and dogs will always defeat them. It's the inevitable evolution of the prey to outwit the predator.

19

@18 Wordwizard: Agreed. I'm generally okay with cats & kittens, dogs & puppies, myself. Cats are especially cool. Personally, I think there are waaaay too many clueless dog people out there. Usually they're just as clueless about having and raising kids as they are about canines.

20

Am I the only reader who thinks the author of this article is not very bright? I was fascinated with her complete lack of biological knowledge about the animal she chose to live with in her home.

21

@20 Alisonb98: In addition to her lack of basic kitty-mating knowledge, what concerns me most about Nathalie is her bizarre ongoing fixation of serial killer, Ted Bundy.

22

I find the the image of Juno up in the Venetian blinds equally disquieting. I had a cat who almost hung himself doing exactly the same thing--trying to go outside through the front window. It was lucky we caught Jay and got him freed before anything fatally tragic happened to him.


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