Ugh, have you ever met someone who just infuriates you so much?
Background info, I moved up to Brisbane over the New Years period, into a house with my partner and his mother. He pays rent, and while I don't pay rent as of yet, I've been sharing in household spending for groceries, and I've been the one paying for ALL of the medical bills for the cats despite only having partial ownership of one. My partner’s mother is driving me absolutely insane about the cats.
My partner’s mother was the one who originally took in Mumma, the pregnant stray we have. Before I came into the picture, she had no long term plan for any of them. She just planned to drop the kittens at a shelter as soon as they were old enough and keep Mumma hanging around.
When I came into the picture, I was the one who finally set wheels in motion. Despite being completely new to the area, I called around Veterinarian clinics to find the best one and consulted them about desexing, microchipping and vaccinations. While we were waiting for Mumma's milk to dry up, I was the one begging my partners mother to PLEASE keep Mumma inside the house to prevent her from becoming pregnant again.
Her reply? "If she gets pregnant again, I'm kicking her out and she's on her own! I've given her more than enough chances!"
Which... I don't even understand? Is an un-desexed cat just supposed to think "Oh, I have it pretty good here! Better just ignore my biology."? Surely if anyone’s to blame for an undesexed female cat getting pregnant, it’s the person who thought it was a suitable idea to let her outside in the middle of kitten season!
I was the one who actually went out of my way to find homes for the kittens. I was responsible for the re-homing of the 3 kittens we did find homes for.
As soon as Mumma was dry, I'm the one who took her into the clinic and payed up front for the desexing (despite being unemployed). I also paid for her to be microchipped under my partners Mother's name because she considers Mumma to be her cat, as well as the vaccinations, worming and microchipping of the kitten we were keeping (which are ongoing). Apart from the odd “Oh, I should pay you back for that sometime.” She’s made no attempt at compensating me and I really don’t expect to ever see it, at this point in time I just consider it to be compensation for the rent I’m unable to pay.
We now have 3 cats. Mumma, and her two Kittens Twinnie and Parsnip who are now… just over 4 months old I think. My partner’s mother is adamant that 3 cats don’t need any more than a single litter box between the three of them. When I asked she says “I’m not going to be a person who has more than one litter box in their home!” or “I’m not cleaning 3 litter boxes!” (which makes no sense to me, because I’m the one who cleans the litter box, and it’s not like less litter boxes make a cat go to the bathroom any less), and thanks to that we’ve had a host of toileting trouble with the kittens going outside the box, usually right beside it. When I tell her that the Vet says the rule of thumb is +1 for every cat, she scoffs and says “Yeah but they’re not the ones who have to deal with it!” To top that all off, she’s been giving the cats full-cream cows milk every day and they’re starting to have diarrhea, and she won’t listen to us when we tell her it’s not good for them, “Oh I’ve always given my animals milk and nothing bad has ever happened, but then again what do I know?!”
The stress breaker for me was today. The plan was originally to surrender Twinnie to a shelter if we couldn’t rehome her, but my partners mother recently said she wanted to keep her around because she couldn’t stand the thought of giving her up. Then this morning she bursts in with “You won’t have to worry about Twinnie anymore, I’m sending her to the pound! I’m tired of them waking me up by playing in my room, and the way the kittens wrestle is too rough, Twinnie is going to hurt Parsnip, so I want her gone!” And she’s started to pack their toys away of a night time because their playing with them is too loud and wakes her up (she’ll never take the initiative and actually CLOSE HER BEDROOM DOOR), but also can’t understand why they destroy the house during the night either, she can’t fathom it’s because they’re BORED. But knowing how she thinks, I’m wondering if she expects the kittens to sleep all night like a human does.
So now I don’t even know what’s going to happen to Twinnie. This woman is incredibly unpredictable and you can never really take what she says seriously because she never seems to follow through, but she seems to have these irrational outbursts and I can’t trust that one day we won’t wakeup and Twinnie just won’t be there. We’re trying hard to find a home for her, but we’ve hit a brick wall. Everyone we’ve asked either already has a kitten or doesn’t want one. I just want her to have a nice home, and I’m scared of the idea of her sitting in shelter for the rest of her life and being euthanized, unloved and unwanted. I’ve been tearing up all day because of it.
I just needed somewhere to vent this all out.
Background info, I moved up to Brisbane over the New Years period, into a house with my partner and his mother. He pays rent, and while I don't pay rent as of yet, I've been sharing in household spending for groceries, and I've been the one paying for ALL of the medical bills for the cats despite only having partial ownership of one. My partner’s mother is driving me absolutely insane about the cats.
My partner’s mother was the one who originally took in Mumma, the pregnant stray we have. Before I came into the picture, she had no long term plan for any of them. She just planned to drop the kittens at a shelter as soon as they were old enough and keep Mumma hanging around.
When I came into the picture, I was the one who finally set wheels in motion. Despite being completely new to the area, I called around Veterinarian clinics to find the best one and consulted them about desexing, microchipping and vaccinations. While we were waiting for Mumma's milk to dry up, I was the one begging my partners mother to PLEASE keep Mumma inside the house to prevent her from becoming pregnant again.
Her reply? "If she gets pregnant again, I'm kicking her out and she's on her own! I've given her more than enough chances!"
Which... I don't even understand? Is an un-desexed cat just supposed to think "Oh, I have it pretty good here! Better just ignore my biology."? Surely if anyone’s to blame for an undesexed female cat getting pregnant, it’s the person who thought it was a suitable idea to let her outside in the middle of kitten season!
I was the one who actually went out of my way to find homes for the kittens. I was responsible for the re-homing of the 3 kittens we did find homes for.
As soon as Mumma was dry, I'm the one who took her into the clinic and payed up front for the desexing (despite being unemployed). I also paid for her to be microchipped under my partners Mother's name because she considers Mumma to be her cat, as well as the vaccinations, worming and microchipping of the kitten we were keeping (which are ongoing). Apart from the odd “Oh, I should pay you back for that sometime.” She’s made no attempt at compensating me and I really don’t expect to ever see it, at this point in time I just consider it to be compensation for the rent I’m unable to pay.
We now have 3 cats. Mumma, and her two Kittens Twinnie and Parsnip who are now… just over 4 months old I think. My partner’s mother is adamant that 3 cats don’t need any more than a single litter box between the three of them. When I asked she says “I’m not going to be a person who has more than one litter box in their home!” or “I’m not cleaning 3 litter boxes!” (which makes no sense to me, because I’m the one who cleans the litter box, and it’s not like less litter boxes make a cat go to the bathroom any less), and thanks to that we’ve had a host of toileting trouble with the kittens going outside the box, usually right beside it. When I tell her that the Vet says the rule of thumb is +1 for every cat, she scoffs and says “Yeah but they’re not the ones who have to deal with it!” To top that all off, she’s been giving the cats full-cream cows milk every day and they’re starting to have diarrhea, and she won’t listen to us when we tell her it’s not good for them, “Oh I’ve always given my animals milk and nothing bad has ever happened, but then again what do I know?!”
The stress breaker for me was today. The plan was originally to surrender Twinnie to a shelter if we couldn’t rehome her, but my partners mother recently said she wanted to keep her around because she couldn’t stand the thought of giving her up. Then this morning she bursts in with “You won’t have to worry about Twinnie anymore, I’m sending her to the pound! I’m tired of them waking me up by playing in my room, and the way the kittens wrestle is too rough, Twinnie is going to hurt Parsnip, so I want her gone!” And she’s started to pack their toys away of a night time because their playing with them is too loud and wakes her up (she’ll never take the initiative and actually CLOSE HER BEDROOM DOOR), but also can’t understand why they destroy the house during the night either, she can’t fathom it’s because they’re BORED. But knowing how she thinks, I’m wondering if she expects the kittens to sleep all night like a human does.
So now I don’t even know what’s going to happen to Twinnie. This woman is incredibly unpredictable and you can never really take what she says seriously because she never seems to follow through, but she seems to have these irrational outbursts and I can’t trust that one day we won’t wakeup and Twinnie just won’t be there. We’re trying hard to find a home for her, but we’ve hit a brick wall. Everyone we’ve asked either already has a kitten or doesn’t want one. I just want her to have a nice home, and I’m scared of the idea of her sitting in shelter for the rest of her life and being euthanized, unloved and unwanted. I’ve been tearing up all day because of it.
I just needed somewhere to vent this all out.
