Blog du Wren

Herding Cats

I now know where the term "herding cats" comes from and all too well what it means.

I'm at a new housesitting job this week where 2 cats are my charge. In the housesitting realm, I consider cats to be the easier of the household pets–no walking, no scooping poop (unless they are indoor only cats), etc. The instructions read "At night, bring Gus into the house and put Baily into the garage. They might need some coaxing with a can of tuna."

The first thing I realized when I went to bring the cats in for the night is that I didn't know which one was which. Hmmm... But worse, there were 3 skittish cats running around the yard to choose from. So not only did I have to pick which one went where, but I also had to deduce which ones to herd in the first place.

In both instances, I let fate decide. I got the opened a can of tuna, placed it just inside either door, and lied in wait. The first cat* to fall for the tuna-in-the-house trap got to spend the night in the house. Same with the garage. I mean, each should know where they belong, right?

Wrong. Since that first night, I ran into the neighbor at frisbee* and he let me know which was which. It turns out that I got the right cats but the wrong places. Alas. But since I've known, garage kitty has wised up to the tuna baiting, so I'm going to need to develop a new strategy anyway.

Yep, house/petsitting is a good job. But it ain't always easy.

Wednesday June 9 2010

File under: work

Toggle Comments (2)

comment?

on Wed 09th Jun, 2010 01:09 pm PDT mindi said:
I am awfully fond of the action shot of the "fat" cat.
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on Wed 09th Jun, 2010 03:29 pm PDT mely said:
your life is full of cute things. :-)
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