Zoo

You'd think that moving into a nice, big apartment with your boyfriend and joining your animal families together would be peaceful and joyous. Well, I've found that a bigger apartment plus three animals equals a lot more cleaning and a lot more drama.

To start, Wiley (Nick's cat) terrorizes Thumbelina (Thumbs for short, my cat). He stalks her, attacks her when he can, and I think he's even trying to prevent her from using the litter box (someone has been going outside the box, and neither of them ever did when they lived separately). Ting-Tong (Nick's chihuahua) has learned to defend herself already, but even still, Wiley still likes to get in her business. He'll sometimes stretch out on the floor near TT's food bowl and casually drape a long paw right into the food as if to lay claim to it. He's a terror! One night, swift as a shark attack, he pounced on poor Thumbs, leaving behind a whole puddle of blood. We called the emergency animal clinic and got a busy signal, but luckily Thumbs was okay. The next day at the vet's office we were told to just keep an eye out for the formation of an abcess, which luckily never occurred.

Another time Thumbs climbed up our roof and then got too scared to come back down. So I had to rescue her myself. (Pic above.) Another time, Ting Tong started making a weird huffing sound, and after a frantic web search for "pet Heimlich maneuver" and some well-placed squeezes on her tiny ribcage, she calmed down, though we suspect she wasn't actually choking. This all happened while Nick was still scraping poop out of his slipper soles from his early morning "surprise." It never ends around here with these guys. But, we figure it will be good preparation for child-rearing, when that day comes.