Well, that second day worked out - erm - somewhat ok... In the morning I found a little present in a corner. Couldn't identify the culprit, so I just picked it up and dumped it. Washed off the place with vinegar to keep the cats out of there. A little bit later I spotted Franky in the same place, squatting and getting ready to... well, you know. Picked him up by the neck, dumped him in the litter pan. Lesson learned. That much may be told, Franky is a fast learner.
The I found Benjy. Same corner, but enhanced by a little puddle. Same procedure - pick up, dump him in the box, scold, wipe, vinegar. I call that the Caught-In-The-Act-Maneuver. When I'm finished, I see Benjy, having raced out of the box ("meeeoowwwww - don't lock me in here, I have to go soooo bad!") squatting in the next corner and flooding the laminate floor. Same maneuver, and again, he just sits in the box and looks terribly afraid but makes no move to accept that as a loo. That one might be a little bit more difficult.
On the plus side, we're having a lot of fun with the cat toys, they just love the long straw with the attached feathers. They also seem to love the scratching post. I lured them there with the feathery toy and they have accepted it for scratching and climbing as well. Yay!
Benjy still doesn't like me petting him. He runs.
Oh, and we had the second installment of the worm treatment in the evening. I called my friend Elke, a seasoned can opener, to get instructions how to hold the cat and get it to open it's mouth. First part of the lesson: don't give in. When the cat want to get away from the vicelike grip around the head - well, tough luck for the cat, right? Medicine goes in the mouth first. So I lured Frankie close, grabbed him by the head and tried to make him open his mouth. He didn't want to. But after a while of silent struggling he just had to voice his anger and disappointment and went meow. Had the tip of the nozzle between his teeth before he could get to the E and the OW was drowned in white paste. Yesterday he had accepted that with surprised swallowing, but this time I let him go too early. I heard that young cats cannot spit something out. Well, that might be true, but they sure as hell can throw stuff from their tongue by rapid head movement. And this is how it all ended up on my carpet...
In the end I went through the whole procedure with both of them, locked into the bathroom where they couldn't run away and hide, and they more or less got all the stuff. Of course my status went from 'accepted playpal' to 'most despicable person ever' in the blink of an eye, but we'll work on that tomorrow.
Oh, almost forgot one thing: I sneezed a couple of times and got a runny nose once while playing with the cats. Hope it's not an allergic reaction...
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