Is It Normal for My Cat to Create a Bidet for Himself?
Rufus the weirdo-alien-skinbag-kitty, has surprised and confounded us once again. A few days ago, the Hubby walked into the laundry room, which doubles as the cat and dog feeding station, to find Rufus's wrinkly little butt hovering over Emmie's water bowl and PEEING in it!
Ru looked up at Hubby, gave a slight 'sup? nod of acknowledgement, and continued to pee while making unbroken eye contact until he had fully emptied his bladder, then sauntered peacefully away. Hubby was dumbfounded. He found me in the kitchen, and wordlessly, he guided me into the laundry room and pointed to the water bowl, which I thought was full of beer, because that seemed more plausible than the alternative. "Honey! You can't give the dog beer!"
"That's not beer," he whispered. "That's Rufus wee."
So I have to ask: is peeing in another animal's water bowl a normal cat thing?? I mean, I know Ru doesn't operate within many of the normal cat parameters, but this seems pretty fucking out of bounds, does it not?
And this wasn't the first weird thing. Somehow, Rufus had gotten locked in the laundry room the previous night. It happened while we were asleep, so we didn't know until the next morning when we went downstairs for coffee and heard his furious yowling. We let AngryBoy out and discovered a puzzler: since there's no litter box in the laundry room, he was forced to poop free range and he chose to do so ON THE COUNTER, just inches away from his own food bowl. Again I ask, is this a normal cat thing???
A lot of you catfolk are going to say it's a sign he has some sort of medical condition because that's the first thing you're supposed to assume when a kitty pees or poos out of the ordinary. But he doesn't have any other symptoms, and he was checked by the vet recently because he was doing that whole 'peeing on our napping sofa' thing (which my psychic friend diagnosed as Rufus needing to stake a claim on the spot that the ghost of our Great Dane, Duncan, is still sleeping on). But Ru stopped peeing on the sofa once he was given the aura of a panther, so that issue is all settled and couldn't possibly be connected to this water bowl offensive.
I suppose it's possible that what the Hubby witnessed was actually a second tinkling. Maybe Rufus had already widdled in Emmie's water bowl while he was locked in the room overnight, and we just didn't notice until Hubby saw him re-perpetrating the crime later that day. But if that's the case, why did he go back for the additional assault once he was set free? My theory is he thought it felt nice and cool on his tushy, and he wanted to enjoy a refreshing bidet rinse one more time. Is that normal cat behavior??
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