My friend loves to travel and she loves pets. That can be contradictory because pets have a way of keeping you close to home. However, if you have some crazy friends who are willing to catsit, you can do the occasional big trip. That’s how I came to be friends with Suzy Q.

Suzy is the naughty cat of my friend, Bettie. When she was young, it was easy to scoop her up and take her to my house where she would play with my cats. Suzy is an alpha female cat. My Mollie is an alpha female cat. Just like two alpha female humans can’t live together harmoniously, it doesn’t work for cats either. As she got older, she became more alpha.  But that’s not why she was evicted from my house.

The beloved husband is cat tolerant (he actually loves them – I have often caught him scratching them and talking to them). He is not fond of poor behavior in animals. He has had dogs and cats along with four kids and he says he’s tired of raising living things. My cats are very well ummm….trained. (Beloved husband would think that was a stretch but it’s true!) We don’t have furniture damage, no litter box issues, just an occasional hairball or midnight wail.

Enter Suzy Q – she lives with a dog so she is more aggressive. She is also a little hyperactive and she bores easily. On her last stay here, she was making my cats nuts. They are a little older than she is and she insisted on the prime real estate in the house.  That always belongs to the resident alpha cat unless she allows another cat to sleep there. The topper came when she eyed the guitars that hang on the wall in the music room – the Martin and two Gretsch guitars that are the love of my beloved husband. Suzy climbed up on the amplifier and proceeded to start banging the guitars into the wall. It amused her. It did not amuse beloved husband.

She was back home within the hour and can no longer come stay with us. I do go visit her to exercise and feed her. I feel sorry for her because her dog buddy goes to a relative but she doesn’t do well there either. Maybe on the whole, she is better off at home with a nice cat-lover like me and another friend to come and amuse her.