Backdate: Thursday 8 March 2007: Conan the Kleptomaniac

(Please note: this is being transferred from a Yahoo! blog which I don't want to use any longer)

For a start, I can't believe I'm writing a blog on a pet. However after waking three times last night to my crazy cat delivering presents from other peoples' washing lines to under our bed I just had to record this somewhere. Plus I'm not travelling or doing anything remarkably interesting other than working, studying and teaching at present so here I am on the blog train...

Conan was a belated wedding gift (strange I know) given to us when he was three months old in May 2006. He's a sepia classic tabby variant of Tonkinese cat and was just so dead cute when we got him. Until he started crying. Every. Night. We were told that it would subside, and it did, now he restricts miaowing for when he a) is hungry, b) wants a treat, or c) comes through the cat door to announce his arrival.

I was a cat hater. My friends Kat and Kat (oh the irony!) had a kitty each that I admittedly fell in love with - Smurf is the cutest big fluffy thing out who had hilarious quirks like acting as an alarm to get Kat out of bed, and Molly is just this tiny, sleek, perfect little Burmese cat. so that built me up for Conan. Matthew and I love that thing like a child, I'm embarrassed to admit it!!

Then, Conan started to eat things. I caught him with a sock from the washing and he'd eaten huge holes in it... which admittedly we thought was pretty cute. Then half my jerseys (mainly the nice merino wool ones) started turning into Kitty Couture. Huge holes in elbows, sleeves, collars, and one jersey even looked worse off than a bad block of Swiss Cheese!! He'd of course then proceed to store it in his stomach, then vomit it all over either our new carpet, the tiles, or once it was on the bedspread. More on the kitty couture later.

So last night Conan falls asleep on our bed as per usual, taking up so much space I'm nearly falling off my side of the bed. I wake up at 1:30 to hear him scratching around my books under the bed, and pull him onto the bed but he's gone nuts! I discovered a mouse (thank goodness it was dead and not bleeding) under the bed. Nice present Conan!! GROSS!!!! We were woken again at about 6am by a muffled miaow coming in the cat door, because he had a sock in his mouth that he'd stolen from someone else's washing. To add to another he'd left under the bed in the morning!!

So to date Conan the Destroyer (or now Conan the Klepto) has clocked up the following:
Socks from our washing: 3
Socks stolen from the house behind's washing: 6
Beanies and gloves nicked from the builders: 2 of each
Foreign mouse cat-toys that I never bought: 1
Complicated cat-toys I never bought: 1 (toy in mouth, string and stick dragging behind)
Tennis-ball sized kids cuddly toys he stole: 2
Curious George toy stolen that was as big as him: 1 (that was hilarious)


that's not including the toys or clothing he's destroyed that we had. Simba the lion was a quadriped, he is now a biped. Giraffey? Triped.

ARGH!!!