*GUEST POST* Demons with paws

A warm welcome to Molly as he makes his debut as a Monstress-wannabe.

(Thanks, Molly - you submit this offering on the very day I tell the teen that of course she can have a kitten for Christmas.)

In 1997, Karen Allen, a PhD at the University Of Buffalo, studied 48 New York City stockbrokers being treated for hypertension, all of whom had lived alone for more than five years. She found that the 24 participants selected at random to have a cat or dog introduced to their lives showed far reduced levels of hypertension during stressful situations than the 24 participants in the non-pet-owning control group.

‘This study shows that if you have high blood pressure, a pet is very good for you when you're under stress, and pet ownership is especially good for you if you have a limited support system,’ Allen said.

This is but one example of the myriad of studies undertaken on the benefits of pet ownership.

After 11 years of living alone and being nagged by friends (mainly The Monstress) about getting a pet because it would be good for me, I finally succumbed and acquired a furry child in the form of a small grey kitten.

What studies, such as Professor Allen’s, fail to highlight is the demonic side of your average pet.

The following is one such example, which I’m sure would have had a significant portion of her study group trying the windows on the New York Stock Exchange.

One Friday, I was awoken about 3am by the furry child making a racket. He was suitably chastised, but did he take this as a sign that Daddy wanted to sleep? Sadly, no.

I used all my self control to ignore him and, sure enough, he lost interest and went away.

I then heard, through the darkness, the sound of him scratching in his litter tray.

‘Ah,’ I thought, ‘that’s what he wanted. How can I be mad at him for that?’

What I heard next defies description. The best analogy I can give is the sound that a bottle of dishwashing liquid makes when you squeeze the last of its contents out. This got my attention as thoughts of emptying the litter tray first thing when I got up began to pervade my mind and I heard ‘scratch, scratch, scratch’ ringing once again through the night.

The furry child reappeared at the foot of my bed and proceeded to walk up onto my pillows and over my face, purring in a way that seemed to say, ‘See how you like this!’ Light on, examination of the bedding, no little marks, no smell… Sleep overcame me, again.

Move forward another three hours and it’s time to deal with that litter tray. I’m faced with a substance that’s the consistency of melted ice-cream (but does not smell like ice cream!). Now, despite the fact he has a litter tray the size of an Olympic swimming pool, it would appear he stood in the middle, parked his business end over the edge, and sprayed this mess all over my floor and partly up one of the internal doors.

Rubber gloves, paper towel and every last scrap of self control to suppress the gag reflex saw the unholy mess cleaned up and the offensive material bagged and placed by the front door to be deposited into the garbage bin.

I was driving to work and had just crossed the flannelette curtain that separates the northern suburbs from the civilised world, when I suddenly realised, ‘Bugger – I forgot to put that bag in the rubbish bin.’

At the end of the working day, I got home, dropped off the car and headed off to a social function with no thought of the bag.

I returned home several hours later and, remembering the rubbish, went to put that bag out. But it wasn’t there. I checked the bin – not there. In my slightly inebriated state, I tried to recount my movements that morning and afternoon. While doing this, I walked into my bedroom, the only room in my house with carpet.

The shredded remains of the plastic bag and its contents were strewn across my bedroom floor. The furry child had somehow dragged this bag 10 metres from the front door to my bedroom at the back of the house and proceeded to rip it open for me to enjoy AGAIN.

So, I was forced  to don the rubber gloves and clean it up a second time. Had I a spade at that moment, I would have dug a hole in the back yard and buried it deep – along with the cat…deep, deep underground so it may never have appeared again.

And so, Professor Allen, if you’re going to undertake a study on the benefits of pet ownership, don’t sanitise it – tell the whole bloody story. Pets are not the cute, furry all-loving-and-good-for-you things you espouse. Cross them and you will discover, to your peril, that they really are – demons with paws.