Kitten on a Leash, First Attempt

Gus, the crazier of the two kittens, has energy to spare, so much so that my small apartment cannot contain his nutsiness. A couple of times when he got out, he tore up and down the hallway with such cheetah abandon, I knew he needed more exercise.


I live on the third floor of an apartment building a stone's throw from a major highway and I see way too many run over kitties to feel good about letting him go outside, not just because he's the proud owner of half of one brain cell. Someday if I have a house and yard, maybe. But now, he was going to get walked.


After doing a bit of research I bought this harness and a leash. While waiting for my purchases to arrive in the mail, I was plagued by feelings of doubt and embarrassment. I really was becoming a crazy cat lady: middle aged, childless and overly indulgent of my feline babies who would not hesitate to eat me if I dropped dead in my apartment and it took a while for the super to figure out where the smell was coming from.



These were somewhat uncomfortable feelings that I figured would ease with time. But in the course of one Saturday morning, I saw one woman pushing her dog around in this and then a second woman carrying her dogs (two of them) around in something even bulkier and weirder than this. After that, I started feeling that it was perfectly normal to walk my cat if for no other reason than it made use of his God given legs.

The first step was getting the harness on him, which was much harder than it sounds. Unlike puppies, kittens are not trained to sit, and would prefer that you fuck yourself. But Gus loves attention of any kind, and though part of him suspected malfeasance, the other part of him (perhaps the other quarter of his half brain cell) loved the contact.

Eventually I got it on him and he immediately commenced to twisting himself into pretzel shapes in an attempt to chew the harness off his body. This goes on for a while but eventually we're in the hallway and he's just a wicked spazz, trying to back up out of the harness, jumping in circles to escape the harness, etc etc. After a few minutes of whirling dervish shennanigans, I decide it'll do for a start and take him inside. Since he doesn't understand treats as food, I give him lots of pets and kisses for his efforts. We can only go up from here. I think.