Requiem for My Nemesis

RP's Film Debut


In the Cat Run

You may not be aware, but I have a nemesis.

The Perry the Platypus to my Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz was RP the Cat, the smartest, fastest, and most ferocious representative of the species Felis silvestris catus that I have ever met.


In late 2011, I caught one of the colony of feral cats in the area with the goal of adopting it.

It was RP the cat, and much mayhem ensued, all of which involved much blood loss on my part.

She, we later saw her with her litters, found a way to get into and out of the house

When we adopted cats from the Humane Society, RP came into the house and ate the cat food, a fact that we verified with a time lapse camera.

At this point, Charlie named the cat Rodentia Phage, eater of rodents, RP for short, though after my escapades with the cat, RP came to stand for Ravage and Pillage.

We were unamused with the situation, as RP brought in things from the outside, most notably fleas.

At this point, this cat came to be my great white whale.

So, I set up a "Have a Heart" trap that fed into a cat cage (about 1m x 1.5m x 1m), and when that did not work because RP knew not to step on the touch plate, so I used more computing power than was used to put Neil Armstrong on the moon to improve the cat.

It worked, but I never managed to tame her, and eventually I slipped up, and she got out, and she was in the house, but had forgotten how to get out, so for the next 5 years she was in the house skulking around and successfully evading us.

Two days ago, we noticed some blood on the couch, and after examining our cats, realized that it had to be RP.

I searched, and found her in an awful state, barely able to move, with a wound on her neck and trouble breathing.

She was feeble enough that I could catch her and get her to the vet.

The diagnosis was that it was an abscess that went septic, and there was nothing that could be done, so we had her put to sleep.

Valhalla has added its most hard core new resident.

I will be downing a bourbon in her honor tonight.

What follows is a list, in chronological order of my interactions with, and reflections about, RP the cat:

1. It Appears that I Do Have Time to Bleed
2. All that Blood, So Little Cat
3. I have a Cat Infestation
4. Who Knew that I Would Be the Proprietor of a Cat House?
5. This is Not Going to End Well………
6. Well, I got the Cat Trap Together
7. No Cat in Trap Yet………
8. How I Vanquished the RP!
9. Light Posting Tonight
10. Moar Katnip, or the Dog Gets It!
11. An Old Home Remedy that Worked for Me
12. Squee!!!!!

Squee!!!!!

There is a colony of feral cats in our neighborhood.

Today, I saw momcat, a tortoiseshell, and one of her kittens, a ginger tabby, who was nursing at the time.

I watched for a bit while momcat stared daggers at me.

They were likely part of RP's progeny.

Seriously cute.

An Old Home Remedy that Worked for Me

They are such cute merciless killing machines

With a feral cat in our house, the infamous RP the Cat, our decidedly non-feral cats, Meatball/Mousetrap and Destructo have suffered from fleas.

This has particularly been hard on Destructo, as he is a long hair.

I have tried the normal treatments, Frontline^® and Advantage^®, but they have been of limited effectiveness, I think that the fleas have developed resistance, and they are rather pricey, and Destructo must have the back of his head shaved (he hates this) for this to work, because otherwise it never makes contact with his skin.

I had heard that brewers yeast ameliorates flea infestations, so twice a week, we take a can of wet cat food, mix in two heaping teaspoons of brewers yeast.

The cats love the wet food, and it works like a dream.

Destructo is now almost completely free of flea sores, and their fur is thicker and more luxurious.

It's easy, cheap, and it involves no cat induced blood loss.

Moar Katnip, or the Dog Gets It!

I could see RP the Cat doing this.

Light Posting Tonight

I had to apply the flea treatment to RP, and there was some blood, mine, not hers.

Not a whole lot of blood, enough to freak out my wife and my son, but not enough to freak me out.

I'm not sure why they were freaking out, it was my blood, after all.

No need for stitches, just some band-aids.

I have concluded that we are not going to get the feral out of this cat, and since it knows how to get into and out of our house, trap, neuter, and release in our neighborhood is not an option.

Anyone know of somewhere in a 100 mile radius of Baltimore that takes care of stray cats?

How I Vanquished the RP!

RP is now in custody.


How I constructed the cat-trapinator, the video


How the motion detector works

My readers may recall my travails with RP the Cat.

Well, I have finally defeated RP, an animal with a brain the size of a walnut, using my allegedly superior brain.

In my first encounter with RP, as a kitten about 2 years ago,  when we caught her in a "have a heart" type trap.

We brought her in, and when she was released, she ran around the basement at relativistic speeds, and then she beat me up, and ran up into the basement suspended ceiling.

She found her way out of the house the next day, so I chalked it up to experience, until, a couple of months later, when we got our new cats, she started venturing back to eat their food.

Sharon^* told me that the cat was going in and out of the house, but I was dubious until until I caught it on time-lapse video.

Well, the other day, I got a frantic call from my wife:  RP had lured Destructo into the ceiling, and she and kids had to rescue him.

So, I decided to get serious about catching the cat.

First, I used a bunch of wire ties to attach the have a heart trap to the travel cage we used to transport Lavi and Tudza when we moved from Texas to Maryland.

Then I put food, water, and a catnip sock in the cage, and we took to locking our cats, Meatball/Mousetrap and Destructo in the bathroom in the evening.

Unfortunately, this did not work. RP was too smart: She stepped over the trigger plate of the trap.

So, I had to figure a way to detect her, and trigger the trap.

First, I bought a remote controlled electrical outlet for twelve bucks at Home Depot.

I plugged my Dremel tool into this outlet, and then tied the business end to the trap plate, so when the power goes on, it triggers the trap.

Then borrowed my Son's phone, and installed Motion Detector Pro, which uses the camera as a motion sensor, turned off sleep mode for the phone (It's under development in settings), and put it on top of the cage.

I then tested the motion detector using our cats, and it worked.

Finally, I got myself a Ustream account, put the Ustream app on my phone, and used my laptop's webcam to stream an image of the cage to the web.

Well, at about 2:00 am Saturday morning, I got the text, and I looked at the video, and the cat was there, so I hit the remote, and headed downstairs.

Much to my surprise, I had caught the cat, so I removed the trap from the cage, put a tray with some kitty litter inside, and went to bed.

Now we have to decide what we do after she gets spayed (she has already had 2-3 litters).

In the short term, we are trying to see if she is amenable to being adopted.

If not, we find her some place far away where she can live as a barn cat.

So, by using more computing power than was available to the Apollo program, I finally managed to catch the cat.

And there was much rejoicing.

^*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

No Cat in Trap Yet………

Though my cats are relieved to be out of the bathroom

Well, I got the Cat Trap Together

Our cats are locked in the bathroom with food, water, and a cat box

The trap is armed, and baited with wet food, dry food, and catnip.

I still think that RP is going to find a way to embarrass me.

Wish me luck.

Took me the whole evening to get the apparatus together, and since my prime blogging spot is near the trap, I am signing off.

This is Not Going to End Well………

The regular reader(s) of my blog may be aware of my travails with RP the feral cat.^*

The short version is that we caught her in a Have-a-Heart trap, and brought her in.

When I let her out she freaked, and ran into the basement ceiling, but not before biting me and giving me puncture wounds through oven mitts.

The next day, I saw her outside, so she figured a way out of the house.

When we got our cats, RP continued to come into the house somehow, and eat our cats food. (Video here) We still haven't figured out how she does that.

A few weeks after that, RP fell out of the ceiling, and I caught her, and she peed on me and clawed the hell out of me.  (I did not blog on that particular affront to my already limited dignity)

I even made a cat shelter outside in the vain hope of giving her an alternative to going into the house. No such luck.

Well, this morning, I got a call from Sharon^†. RP was in the house, and had lured our kitten Destructo into the ceiling.

The kitten had gotten stuck (or maybe just confused)and was panicking, and my wife and kids had to reach into the suspended ceiling to get him out.

While this was going on, RP was watching with what my wife describe as smug amusement.

It's on. It is totally on.

I'm halfway through cobbling together a trap made from the cat travel cage and the aforementioned Have-a-Heart trap, and if it works, we will either try to tame the cat, or take to a shelter and get it the f%$# out of our neighborhood ……… and my house.

I do realize that I have been channeling Robert Redford playing John Dortmunder in the 1972 film, The Hot Rock

Dortmunder: Not me. I've got no choice. I'm not superstitious. And I don't believe in jinxes, but that stone's jinxed me and it won't let go. I've been damned near bitten, shot at, peed on and robbed. And worse is gonna happen before it's done. So I'm takin' my stand. I'm going all the way. Either I get it, or it gets me.

Considering my record with this cat, I can only conclude that the chances are remarkably good that it will get me.

There is a part of me that fears I am so going to get killed or maimed by this f%$#ing cat.

^*RP stands for Rodentia Phage, or Ravage and Pillage, or maybe just RP. I don't know for sure, but it is a cat, so it does not come when it is called.
^†Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

Who Knew that I Would Be the Proprietor of a Cat House?

No, I don't mean a house of prostitution, I mean a house for cats.

You may recall that I have a bit of a cat infestation.

We have still been unable to figure out how the cat is getting in, so I'm attempting to provide an alternative place to escape the weather.

The first floor overhangs the basement by about 2 feet, so I've used some plywood to make a shelter, where we can set out food, and the feral cats in the neighborhood can shelter there.

Hopefully RP, the cat that has found a way to break into our house, will find this a suitable alternative, and stay the F%$# out of my house.

(on edit)

I added a picture of the little cat shelter. It's not painted, but the cats don't care.

Also, as to the folks that would argue that my making a cat-house would be giving into terrorists, all I can say is, "Welcome to life with cats." It is what it means to love cats.

I have a Cat Infestation

No, really.

The cat that beat me up when I attempted to adopt it has apparrently found a way to transit into the house, and score food from the cat dishes in the basement.

I've got to figure a way to co-opt it, because in a conflict, mano a gato, it will kick my butt, because it already has.

Catnip, I need lots of catnip.

BTW, this is the first time that I've ever used Windows Live Movie Maker.

This is chapter 3 of the tale of RP the Cat.

All that Blood, So Little Cat

Well, it looks like catching that stray cat last night came to naught.  It jumped up on the shelving, and found its way into the ceiling of the basement, as I noted last night, and it appears that there is a passage between that and the outside.

When I came home, I saw it running away from the (still somewhat full) cat dish of food.

It's a bit of a relief actually, because I was concerned that I would have to cut a hole in the ceiling to rescue it.

We do want to get another cat, but I think that we will go the Humane Society route.

Now I have to get all the ceiling panels back into place.

This is chapter 2 of the tale of RP the Cat.

It Appears that I Do Have Time to Bleed

Since Tudza has died, we have been trying to catch/adopt a young (my guess, less than 9 months) stray cat in our area.

Well, with the aid of a rescue trap, we got him, and he's hiding in the basement ceiling now.  (I'm giving him a few minutes to cool down before I try to extract him)

In getting him out of the trap though, he expressed his displeasure with his treatment in a most forceful manner.