The good, the bad and the greatly improved

SOI CAT Thong has just come home after a week and a half at the vet’s recovering from a terrible puncture wound on his tummy.

The vet had to cut the infection out. The resulting surgical wound is huge, reaching from one side of his abdomen to the other, almost 13 centimetres long!

The wound is nearly healed, and Thong shows no sign of pain. He’s more upset about having been kept in a cage so long. My dog and the other cats try to touch noses with him, but he’d rather wander around the house screaming his little heart out.

Best friend Thep, who’s spent a long, lonely, depressed time while Thong was away, hears the screams too. He runs into the house, and the two cats greet each other with lots of nose-touching and cheek-rubbing. They groom each other a lot, too.

I’d like to keep Thong inside, at least for one day, but he needs to check out the soi. As soon as I open the door, he rushes outside, but Thep stays where he is.

I’m a bit puzzled. It’s usually much more difficult to keep Thep inside than Thong.

I soon find out why. Thep has industriously moved from floor to floor in the house, spraying any vertical surface he can.

Because he’s been neutered, his urine smell is not so strong, and I don’t detect it immediately, but the dog and the other cats follow me around, pointing out where the boy has sprayed.

On the first floor, Thep’s waiting for me. He jumps up to the TV. To my horror, his tail goes up, and he sprays all over it, front and back.

He’s also smiling at me, a happy, relaxed cat.

Cats, both males and, to a lesser extent, females, spray to mark their territory. Throughout the house, I’ve installed the pheromone diffusers that are supposed to keep cats calm, so they won’t feel the pressure to spray. The diffusers usually work, but in the grip of strong emotion (his extreme happiness about Thong’s return), Thep’s need to spray has reappeared.

Perhaps he’s also leaving markers for Thong, just to indicate where he’s been.

A vet tells me that we can stop Thep’s spraying permanently. The neutering removed only his balls, but by surgically removing all his male sexual parts, he’ll be forced to urinate like a female.

Some transgender people undergo similar surgeries, and they have my sympathy for their suffering and my admiration for their determination. Thep, however, is not a candidate for gender reassignment; he’s perfectly happy the way he is.

The surgery wouldn’t benefit him, but me – and my TV.

Alas. Thep’s spraying has killed the TV, and I end up in a department store, talking to a TV salesman. I want to buy a simple TV that I can hang high on the wall. He wants me to buy a TV that comes with Internet, Facebook and Twitter connections.

It can probably make coffee too, but it’s not constructed to be hung on a wall.

“This is the TV for you,” the salesman insists. No smile here: he’s annoyed. Perhaps he gets a commission for every TV of this brand he sells. For him, hanging it on the wall isn’t so important.

We all have our needs: that salesman with his commission, Thep with his spraying, and me with protecting the TV.

I go, of course, to another store, and now I have a simple TV hung so high it practically kisses the ceiling, far away from spraying cats.

Good news. Thep still smiles at me when he comes in for a meal. He’s definitely not a salesman, just a happy cat.