If you’re friends with me on Facebook, or if you have ever read my blog, you’ll know exactly who Cha Cha is. He is my youngest daughter’s crazy cat, and I have been telling stories about him for years.

Lauren got Cha Cha as a kitten back in 2007, when she was still in high school and living at home. He was such a sweet little kitten, but then….he grew up into a beast of a cat. Cha Cha is like an attack dog and feet are his prey. As he grew, he started to resemble a panther.

He even hunted like one of  the big cats, but with a scary edge.

Cha Cha would watch training videos on youtube so he could learn to stalk birds.

He terrorized my household, bringing in dead and alive animals, demanding food whenever the pantry door was opened. I swear that cat stalked me, waiting to  pounce at any and every opportunity.

Even poor little TT was scared of him. I tried to tell people Cha Cha was crazy, but no one believed me. They thought Cha Cha behaved the way he did because he thought I didn’t like me and so, that is why he was terrorizing me.

Then that glorious day arrived when Lauren announced she was moving out and getting her own place. In the span of two days, she packed up her room, piling boxes up and picking out the things she would take with her to her apartment. Naturally, Cha Cha was going to go with her, and somehow, he figured this out….and he was not happy with the idea.

The night before Lauren moved out, TT brought us the lower half of a squirrel she had found in Lauren’s room. Everyone knows Cha Cha never eats the heads, so I sent my husband back to Lauren’s room to investigate. He found a squirrel head in one of Lauren’s boxes.

We figured it was Cha Cha’s way of letting her know he was not happy with the move.

Eventually though, Cha Cha settled into his new home and didn’t give Lauren too much trouble. She would occasionally bring him to visit and he even made friends with my new kitten, Grable….sort of.  But each time when Lauren would take him back to her apartment, he would act out. He even started peeing on her couch, something he did at my house to show his displeasure when I would capture and release some of the live animals he would bring in from the outdoors….such as birds, squirrels, moles, voles, rats, rabbits, and once, a flying squirrel that bit me when I was trying to save it.

But again, he would always settle down into a somewhat happy existence in Lauren’s small apartment. Although, he continued to put on weight.

 

He was already a big cat, but now, he was an obese monster!

 

 

He got so big, Lauren took him to the vet…and he was not happy when the vet put him on a diet.

But he got over that too….eventually.

 

 

 

Then around the first week of July, Lauren went to the lake for a week. As she has done in the past, she brought Cha Cha over for us to cat-sit. He settled right in as if he had never left. Only, he took over. He ruled the roost once more and had TT staying out of his way and Grable following him around with worship in her eyes. When he napped, they all napped.

He was happy, and honestly, he didn’t bring the first animal into my house, alive or dead. He was on his best behavior and I think, he believed he was home to stay. Of course, he was happy to see his mama, Lauren, when she came home, but he believed she was staying too. And, he was not happy when she packed up his toys and took him home.

 

According to Lauren, he began “acting out” again. He would claw at the carpet edges, race up and down the apartment stairs, and pee on the back of

her sofa and not just once in a while when he got mad. He started doing it all the time. He would walk up to the sofa and “let her rip.”

Then one day last week, Lauren noticed blood in his urine. So, she made an appointment with the vet.

The vet did all the right tests, checking for kidney disease and/or a bladder infection. I’m sure the vet bill wasn’t cheap. All tests came back negative. So, the vet began asking Lauren questions and examining Cha Cha’s behavior.

The final diagnosis? The blood in Cha Cha’s urine is the result of deliberate straining. Cha Cha is acting out in a most inappropriate manner. He is forcing himself to urinate so he can “punish” Lauren for “moving” back to the apartment and he is straining so hard to pee on “command” that he is rupturing the tiny blood vessels in his urethra, which results in the trace amounts of blood Lauren has been seeing on her sofa and carpet.

The vet then diagnosed him with a severe anxiety disorder and prescribed Prozac. The catch? They do not make kitty Prozac, so Lauren had to pick the prescription up at the pharmacy… a regular people pharmacy! She laughed and said she wondered if the pharmacist would think the prescription was for her, but simply shrugged and went to pick up the cat’s prescription. When she got there, the pharmacist laughed because the vet had phoned it in for Cha Cha, not Lauren. Needless to say, the pharmacist was greatly relieved that there was no human living in Granville County named Cha Cha Glass. Perhaps if there were, that would explain his anxiety issues. Being a grown man named Cha Cha could definitely cause a bit of anxiety.  We’re just hoping the drugs work on an overweight, slightly evil, but somewhat lovable neurotic cat.