Suspicions confirmed

Unusual behavior often provides clues to an underlying problem, one perhaps not immediately obvious to those around.

A kitteh has certain classic responsibilities in a home garden; the primary is to patrol and keep at bay all of the local SAMs (“Satanic Agents of Mayhem”, aka tree rats, bushy tailed rodents, plus the more common name “squirrel”).
This is an instinct that is so burned into the DNA of any cat that when it doesn’t rise to the surface, once can be assured something has gone wrong, perhaps very wrong.

Yesterday, I once again had to step over the monster kitteh in order to shoo away one of the above mentioned vermin from the back of the yard. Monster’s behavior was unusual, especially for a cat on a sunny spring day when the area around was filled with all sorts of critters and birds moving about without concern for the “predator” on the patio. Maybe they knew something we didn’t……

Fearing the need for an intervention of sorts, I watched from a distance then set up a hidden camera in a quest for the truth (the investigative reporters of the television network’s Atlanta affiliates wouldn’t return our calls):

We documented acute feline lethargy:

We also captured episodes of irrationally gleeful rolls about on the patio, mostly with the monster on his back:

Had this been a dog, all would be accepted as normal. But this is a monstrous 20 lb. kitteh, the alleged “king of the beasts (domesticated version), a supposed cold calculating primal feline predator, independent and always in the “instincts on” mode.

With patience, one can always discover the truth. We knew this kitteh is a catnip junkie in the warmer weather; he pesters me any time I am in the yard for a quick “fix” of fresh catnip leaves. Oddly, he has never shown any interest in the catnip bed itself.

Until now.

The catnip is coming back strongly after the mild winter and it would appear that the catnip-stoned-monster-kitteh is now going directly to the source. We have evidence:

God help us all.