We Just Need a Sample, Please

Back when Chatham was at the vet's, I mentioned that I had a story about DH getting a urine sample from him on command, twice.

Well, it's now up to three times.

First, in case you've never had to get a urine sample from a cat, let me tell you how it's done. The vet gives you a sample cup and a small bag of plastic pellets. You clean out the litter box of everything. It is recommended that you use the litter bags; put this over the box as usual (or per instructions if you haven't used them before). Instead of pouring in a lot of litter, you pour in the handful of plastic pellets. The idea being that it's pretty easy to pour urine out of plastic - after all, it's not being absorbed.

The pellets are supposed to be a subsitute for the litter. Like a cat can be fooled into pawing at a few ounces of plastic instead of digging into litter. Yeah, right.

Chatham got really frustrated by this. He didn't want to pretend squat in pretend litter. So he yowled and paced and got in and out of the box. Finally, DH himself got frustrated, lifted Chatham's tail and said "Go ahead and pee already!"

To his surprise, Chatham peed. DH caught the stream in the cup. So now, when the vet wants to check Chatham's urine, DH just follows him down and waits for him to pee. Chatham doesn't seem to mind.

P.S. As I type this, DH tells me that this is not all entirely true. He sez he doesn't command Chatham to pee. He just does it.

And I'm lighting a cyberspace candle for my Aunt Doris, who was born on this day, and passed away almost two years ago.