Keeping Kitties cool

It's got to be about 90 plus degrees in our condo today. When it's hot like this, my kitties, Missy Sophia and Zoe, become active during the cool times and extremely inactive during the hot times. Today they mostly spent the day sleeping, with Missy Sophia laying spread-out on the window ledge.

I got up from my work to put my water in the freezer because it got warm almost immediately, and when I walked back to my husband's room (and kitties' room and music room and soon to be zit's room -- I'm slowly leaking again), I glanced into our bedroom to find poor long-haired Missy Sophia collapsed on the ground near the door looking hot and very sad.

I gave her some pats and love, and then went back to my husband's room to send him an e-mail telling him of the sad scene. He told me to suck-it-up and get a rag wet and wipe it on her to cool her down. While I was fearful for my life because Missy Sophia is not one to enjoy being bothered with, especially if water is involved, I decided I should go ahead and get her a bit soaked.

I got a rag wet, went to where she was (back on window ledge), and started squeezing out copious amount of cool water on her. Since she is long haired, most of it ran off onto the window ledge. She looked at me like, "hey, what the f**k! Stop that, woman!" but I kept ringing out water on her and smoothing it out. Finally I rang out water on her head, and this was when she took her chance to run away. I grabbed her, smoothed her out again, and let her go.

Seemed like a grand idea. Worked for another long haired cat we had. But what did Missy Sophia do? She then spent the next 15 minutes licking herself trying to get all the water off her top coat. And since it's hot, having to spend the time trying to remove water from one's fur is not the most fun thing to do. And probably just made her hotter.

I still have all my limbs attached, no scratches, and she doesn't quite hate me as much as I thought she would, so maybe it was okay in the long run.