Advice—January 2007

Dear Sparkle,
When my human first brought me home from the rescue place, I was the only cat, and that was just fine by me. For a year or so, it was just the two of us, but for the past six months there has been some really crazy stuff going on! My human keeps bringing home strange cats, but they never stick around. It always starts the same way—she shows up with a cat carrier and sticks the latest cat in a room all by itself for a few days. Then after a while, the cat is usually let out to wander around the rest of the house. Sometimes they are okay and sometimes I don’t particularly like them. If there’s a cat I particularly dislike (that really annoying tortie who was briefly here, for example), my human sticks it back in the room by itself—I’ll give her that much. But then, just as I’m getting used to having the cat around, she takes it away again! I am not thrilled with this at all—my human has turned my happy home into a roadhouse! What is going on with her?
Signed,
Extremely Annoyed

Dear Annoyed,
At first I was puzzled by your situation, but now I think I know what your human’s curious behavior is about. I bet she’s bringing home cats from that rescue place where she found you and is “fostering” them! Basically that means that she’s keeping them at your home temporarily because either 1) they’ve run out of room at the rescue or 2) they have “issues” and need to adapt to being around humans or 3) they have the kind of personalities that do better in a home than at a rescue with a bunch of other cats. I wouldn’t be surprised if you started off as a foster cat yourself. (I bet that never occurred to you!) While it’s very nice and generous of your human to do this for these kitties, I do have to agree that it’s really annoying to have all these cats passing through and disrupting your peaceful routine. I can only conclude that it can’t annoy you all that much, otherwise you would have made your displeasure clear by either rejecting your litterbox or beating up the other cats. And if you had done that, your human probably wouldn’t keep bringing all those strange cats home. So I’m not really sure what your problem is. Maybe you’re just one of those cats who likes to complain. If you are, then I suggest you complain to your human. She is the one who can do something about the situation, not me.