Rude Awakening

Well, I got rudely awoken this morning. First, my alarm was set for 7:30am and about 6:30 Shadow (cat) woke me up as he too often does, by tickling my face with his whiskers. He does this because he wants me to pet him. Well, with only an hour left to sleep I didn't want to play the game so pushed him gently away... several times. He's a lucky boy because in my younger years I wasn't quite so gentle about it and my cats soon learned not to bother me when I sleep. Reba (dog) realized I was awake and also came over demanding attention by pushing at the bed and as much of me as she could reach. I gave her a quick pat and went back to sleep.

When the alarm went off I hit the snooze button and snuggled back in. The pestering by both animals started again and I just pushed them away. I noticed a couple times that Shadow got down off the bed just to get chased back up again by Reba. Again, nothing out of the ordinary. Then suddenly I felt, just in one spot along my left side, warm and wet. What the ???????? Yup, Shadow peed on the bed!!!

When Shadow was about 6 months old, his mother, Smoothedge, died. She had apparently been hit by a car and had to be put down. It was very hard on both Shadow and D-O-G, the dog I had at the time and who was very close to Smoothedge... and on myself. We all morned in our own ways. Shadow was peeing on the Papa San chair, something I didn't realize until a friend was over to visit. Ooops. I quickly put a stop to that by taking the cushion out and washing it, leaving it off the chair for awhile to give him time to get over it. I also washed the carpet underneath the chair with lots of vinegar to kill any other odor. Amazingly there was no noticeable odor from the cat pee.

Now Shadow is 16 1/2 years old and this is the first time in those 16 passing years that anything like this has happened. I don't know if it's because he had to go so badly and couldn't get to his box thanks to Reba, or if something else is happening for the old guy. Both animals are now outside, the bed is stripped and cleaned with vinegar and the sheets are in the wash, the sleeping bag that was on the bed is next to go in the washer.