When Your Cat Inadvertently Tries to Destroy Your Life

I am an owner of a cat called Dante (which my vet tells me is quite a common name for a cat…who knew?!).

Well I say I am the owner, however I’m pretty sure Dante owns me. He has managed to manipulate all possible emotions to make me do anything for him. I even want him at my wedding (although my sister says this is a step too far).

Dante is not a lap cat. His brother (who sadly passed away) was very cuddly to the point he would take a running jump at you when you came in from work (or came out the bathroom) just to be able to cuddle you for as long as he possible, before becoming a pain with his incessant purring.

Well Dante isn’t like his brother, in fact, he has a rather nonchalant manner about him that somehow seems to entice me. You could say I like my men like my cat (which sounds very dodgy indeed) but what I mean by that is he somehow manages to make me adore him despite swiping at me every now and again when he wanted the attention in the first place.

*Disclaimer: My fiancé has never taken a swipe at me and could easily be compared to more of a Husky puppy dog (sorry babe).*

So Dante isn’t allowed on the sofa. This rule is not something he adheres to. It has now gotten to the point where I layout all manner of obstacles on the sofa every night before I go to bed in order to deter him from sitting on it, and at first it worked. But now, not so much. I think it lasted a good week before I would get bleary eyed, walk into the lounge in the morning, and see him strewn across the books, DVDs, remote controls, washing basket, etc. that I had meticulously laid out the night before.

I can hear what you are saying: “Shut him out of the lounge” which of course is the ideal thing to do. However, Dante loves the sound of his own voice so much so that he will meow outside my bedroom door for a good two hours before I finally let him in. At this point it will be five in the morning and he’ll make one of two decisions. The first being that he’ll jump on the bed and take over at least six eighths of it or the second, he’ll terrorise me by crawling under the bed to get to climb up the radiator below the windowsill where. He then breaks every ornament that is dear to me by deliberately dropping them to the floor.

Yet, as I write this, he sits perfectly on his little cat chair (a cat that owns a chair, Lord give me strength) where he is allowed to sit, purring away and looking like butter wouldn’t melt and for some reason I adore him.

I say "inadvertently" because I’m not sure if he is making a conscious effort to destroy my sofa, sleep pattern and prize possessions on purpose or whether it is just in his nature to see me as a lesser species and therefore treat me in this manner. I’m hoping it’s just because he’s going through the terrible twos but I have a feeling he may just go straight into the teenage phase.

In any case, I have a plan to deter him from the sofa by covering it in plastic bags which tend to scare him. It was that or leave the hoover on all night but I feel that would only bring me closer to the edge of insanity which seems to be looming in front of me.