Spain the Cat is completely brain damaged, I swear to God. She's a great kitty, don't get me wrong; but she ain't the most brilliant or coordinated critter with which I've ever shared space.

Yesterday she was sitting on the floor in the cat-turkey yoga pose, giving herself a bath, and she began the breastbone slurp. You know what I'm talking about -- that open-mouthed directly downward swipe of the tongue. It's especially funny to watch long-haired cats attempt this hygiene maneuver, because on the upstroke, they catch freshly removed fluff -- and then they try to fling it loose from their tongues before closing their jaws again.

moriarty6 has a sound effect he happily supplies every time he sees Spainy trying to swab her own deck. Rendered phonetically, it should look sort of like this:

MWLAWM, MWLAWM, MWLAWM.

So I was sitting at my desk working, and behind me the cat was merrily bathing herself ... until the peace was broken by a frustrated snuffling sound. When I turned around, she was hunchbacked and grumbling, shambling around in circles. "Kitty," quoth I. "Are you all right?" She snorted in response and started to whine. Her hunkering spiral became tighter and more frantic, and she kept her head down, buried against her chest.

Perhaps you can gather where I'm going with this.



It took me ten minutes to corner her, calm her, and remove her collar so I could un-bridle the poor beast. Somehow, she'd lodged her lower left fang into a tiny metal loop -- and it was stuck but good. Lucky for us both, she wears one of those "safety" collars that breaks away if you give it a tug, so once I finally got my hands on her, it was an easy thing to undo. But for all the fight she put up, you'd have thought I was trying to hold her down and bite off her toes.

For awhile she was a bit drooly and I thought she was favoring that side of her mouth, but today she seems all right. She was pretty demanding about breakfast, anyway, and since she flat refuses to touch wet food -- that meant hard kibble.

I'm pleased to report that she chowed with her usual gusto, but I'm still keeping an eye on the little moron.