Yowling

Pandora Kitten has taken to yowling. She has taken to shouting at me in weird ways for no apparent reason other than she can.

'Yeeeeeaaaaoooowwwww.....eeeeeeoooooo.....oooowwwwwww....' she goes, staring at me in a yowly way. She follows me about the house, yowling. She sits on the front door mat, yowling. She sits on the stairs, on the landing, in doorways, yowling. Every time I emerge from the bathroom after paying a visit (like you do), she is sitting outside. And she yowls at me. Like she is telling me off for going into the bathroom in the first place. (Occasionally, she adds a 'grrrr', so the yowling becomes growling. A signal to put on my bee-keeping gauntlets, just in case.)

'You're a vet,' I say to Andy, when the yowling becomes especially loud. 'Why is Pandora yowling at me?'
'She loves you,' says Andy.
'Oh, like sometimes she bites me because she loves me?' I say.
'Exactly,' says Andy.

His other theory is that, although he has spayed her, he may have left a teeny-tiny bit of uterine material behind (this happens sometimes) and Pandora is experiencing a minor effect of being on heat.
'So she's calling for a mate?' I say.
'Yes,' says Andy.
'When I'm calling yooooooo-oo-oo-oo-o-oooooooooooooooo!' yowls Pandora. (She is yowling now - can you hear her?)

Okay, it's not a health problem. Other than for me who may suffer perforated eardrums, the occasional lightly chewed finger and near-death-by-falling-downstairs-over-a-crazy-yowling-cat. But it's weird to live with and it's quite funny sometimes, and of course, like when a child is having a hissy fit, I laugh, which probably doesn't help matters.

Sometimes I feel like yowling. Sometimes I do actually yowl, which takes Pandora by surprise. (I think she believes she owns the Much Malarkey Manor rights to yowling. Any other yowling by a third party is therefore unauthorised and likely to be clamped.) Yowling can be very therapeutic, and is something I recommend to alleviate moments of deep stress and frustration, but make sure you close the curtains first. Maybe put on some opera.

Something else I am finding therapeutic at the moment is reading the works of Deepak Chopra. Have you read him? I've just started his book about developing one's inner leadership, and it makes a lot of sense. In fact, in light of all the yowling going on at the moment and my disinclination to compete with Pandora Kitten on this front, I am going to retire to the chaise and have an hour quiet reading whilst I wait for the jacket potatoes to finish baking. Cold, windy and rainy here today. Very much the weather for a nice cheesy jacket potato.

And, it seems, yowling.