The Unusual Suspects

I have my suspicions but I don't want to believe it.

Several years ago, we adopted a male tabby kitten out of impulse. Even though we had always been a one-cat family and were already enjoying the company of our black cat, Edwin, the kids still asked us to stop in at the local pet shops to check out the kittens for sale.

When we saw Jake, my girls were smitten. And when I held him in my arms, I have to admit that I didn't want to put him down. And so, we walked out with a companion for Edwin.

Except, Edwin was having none of it.

Admittedly, having an adult cat and a kitten isn't the best combination. The high-strung youngster, a ball of energy, always wants to play with the adult, and Jake was all over Edwin, rarely giving him a moment's peace. Being an outdoor cat, Edwin chose to only come in when he was hungry.

Having two male cats in the house also wasn't a great idea. We already knew that Edwin was an alpha male, and he had had several scraps with the other cats in our neighbourhood. He wasn't one to look for a fight but if one came to him, he wouldn't back away. I once saw him cornered by two other cats, and when they closed in, he took them both on. And won.

But little Jake also saw himself as an alpha cat and would try to dominate Edwin, much to his detriment. As I said, Edwin didn't start fights but he'd finish them, and we saw lots of times when we would see Jake taunting Edwin, only to watch as Edwin pinned the kitten down, growl, smack him in the head, and then let him go.

Jake became stressed at these encounters and as a way of dealing with this stress, he would hop on DW's and my bed and use it as a toilet.

The first time, we treated it as an accident; the second time, we knew that this was going to become a pattern, and we realized that Jake needed a home where he was the top—and preferably, only—cat. We lucked out and found a university student who was a cat lover and who desperately wanted one to care for. For the first year that she had Jake, she would send us photos of him, cuddled on her lap or playing with toys.

He looked happy and healthy, and we knew we made the right decision.

When our youngest kid begged us for a kitten that she could call her own, we cited the issues that we had with Jake. But she had done some research and convinced us that if the kitten was a female, there would likely not be the same power struggle that Edwin had endured with Jake. DW also suggested that we get two kittens, so that they would play with each other, rather than torment the adult cat.

I agreed, and we adopted Lily from the Humane Society. But we didn't get another kitten at the same time. We figured that we would see how Edwin got on with another kitten before we committed to a second. And while Lily was always looking to play with Edwin, he'd set boundaries that she seemed to respect.

When Camille was brought into the home, she was a perfect addition. Slightly older than Lily, she would play with the kitten while gently bonding with the adult. Camille would distract Lily from Edwin, but it was clear that Edwin was her favourite. It wasn't until after Edwin died that Camille would spend more time with Lily.

Last fall, when we brought Cece and Finn, we hoped that the cats would get along. Cece and Finn would play with one another and the other cats would tolerate them, having been used to several cats in the house. But that's not how it went down.

Lily, who still behaves like she's a kitten, likes to play with Cece and Finn. Finn is head-over-heels in love with Lily, and he loves to curl up with her.

But Camille has never taken to the kittens. She keeps her distance, and if either kitten gets near her, she'll hiss and take a swipe at them. She never flat-out fights them, and there are even times when she'll curl up on the same sofa, the same bed, or in the same cat tree to sleep. But it's clear that she's not as open to the kittens as Lily is.

Over the past week or so, Camille has become a bit more aggressive toward the kittens. She'll emit a long, low growl when they're in the same room. She'll move toward them to slap them. And if she jumps on my bed and finds one of the kittens have beaten her to it, she'll hiss and try to knock them off the bed.

I thought something was unusual when, a couple of weeks ago, Camille hopped onto my lap while I was at my desk, in a meeting. She rarely displays affection unless she wants something. This time, she was content to just be with me. And last week, when I headed upstairs to go to bed, Camille would follow me and want to be on the bed as I was winding down.

Except, the kittens also wanted to be on the bed.

I was in a deep sleep when I was awakened by the feeling that one of the cats was rummaging around the duvet at the small of my back. I didn't know which cat it was so I reached out, eyes still closed, to pet my furry companion. When the rummaging continued, I rolled from my side, onto my back, and that's when I felt it.

A puddle.

DW spelled "PEACE" on our signboard. The day before

the incident, one of our kids removed a couple of letters.

Did one of the cats read it and become inspired?

I tried to remember if I had a drink at my bedside and whether one of the cats had knocked it over. I remembered that I didn't have a drink next to me and, even if I did, there was no way that a cat could have knocked it onto my bed unless it had picked up the glass and lifted it more than a foot.

I smelled my wet hand and came fully awake as the pungent scent of urine filled my nostrils.

"Somebody peed on the bed," I said, sitting up.

DW also woke with a start. "What? Where?" I lifted the duvet and could feel a spot that was soaking. The mattress underneath was also wet, and as I got out of bed I realized that my pajamas and underwear, at the small of my back, were also soaked.

"Oh my God, the cat peed on me and it's run onto the bed."

"Are you sure that you didn't wet the bed?" DW asked, obviously still waking up.

"What? No! The front of my pants are dry, and unless I've grown some strange orifice above my butt, I'm pretty sure it was one of the cats."

Finn was at the spot, sniffing it and trying to cover it up. Cece was perched above us, on the bed's headboard, looking curious about the commotion. Camille was sitting on the floor by our bathroom door, trying to stay out of it.

As DW and I scrambled to strip down the bed and as I changed into another pair of pajamas, our youngest daughter, whose room is next to ours, heard the commotion and came to see what was going on. She sought out her cat and found that Lily was curled up on our family room sofa, sound asleep, oblivious to what had been going on upstairs.

So, who did the deed? Camille, Cece, and Finn had all been spread out at the end of our bed when DW and I turned out the lights. Our bedroom door was ajar, so if one of the cats needed to pee, they had a clear exit from our room. In the more than three years that we've had Camille, she's never had an accident. The kittens have been with us for about seven months and they have always made it to one of the litter boxes.

Finn was the one who was rooting around the crime scene, though he might have been trying to clean it up. Or play with it. I don't know what goes through a cat's head.

Cece is just a bit on the far side of crazy. She has freaked out, on occasion, and has done a pretty good impersonation of the Tasmanian Devil, but she's always been a clean cat.

I can't help but look toward Camille. She's already shown that she likes to pee in our bathroom sink, but if she had wanted to do that, she could have. That door stays open because we also keep a dish of water for the cats so that they have a place to drink without having to go downstairs at night.

She's been grumpier than usual and has been giving signals that she considers me to be her human. In addition to hopping on my lap—she's done it a couple of times since the first instance—she talks to me, letting me know when she wants to go outside. She often joins me in the bedroom when I want to watch a TV show that the rest of the family doesn't want to see. And she sometimes bites me, gently, on the legs, in what I've guessed is a loving gesture.

Was she marking me as her territory? Was she sending a message to the kittens, to back off? Or is she indicating her stress in the only way she knows how?

I'm also wondering if it's an indication that she has a physical health issue, and we've made an appointment with the vet to look into this. While DW took the sheets to the laundry room, I examined Camille to make sure that she was tick-free. If there was a health issue, I wanted to rule out this possibility.

Since this incident, there have been no more 'accidents.' We're not sure who committed the offence. We have three suspects, but this is highly unusual behaviour for any of them.

And the question is, if this happens again and we discover the culprit, what do we do?