Bad kitties

My job is mildly hazardous. I work with caustic chemicals and sometimes psychotic animals on a daily basis. I'm a very cautious person, though, so I tend to have less incidences than my coworkers.

Yesterday, though, was particularly nasty. Bad nasty, not feces nasty. Though, there was that, too.

Cats give me more trouble than dogs. They're less predictable and have easier access to you through the kennels. A dog can't bite you through its cage, while a cat can easily grab your shirt or anything within a foot of the bars.

My first encounter with a bad cat yesterday was Sassy Susie.

She did the fresh, short scratch. I let it go, assuming that it was a play grab and not an aggressive attack. It happens a lot, especially with younger cats and kittens. I was cleaning a different cage, so I wasn't looking at her. When I was cleaning the kennel below her, though, she attacked my head through the bars, and as I stood up she had that crazy cat face: ears back, mouth open and hissing. She was pulled from the public room. She had given other staff members problems before, and this was her final strike.

the faded crossing line is from where my arm rests on the laptop

Later on, in the same room, there was a kitten who played very rough. He was nice, but his easy play was worse than Zsasz's rough play, which is pretty bad. I was worried about him scratching a customer, so I was in the process of taking him to get his nails cut. As soon as the door opened, though, he spazzed out and scratched me. It bled for a good while. Hopefully he'll be taken by a rescue because he's too much for the adoption floor.

Zsasz, however, is the source of most of my scratches. For example:

The red line is one from a few days ago. My arms and legs are covered in small scratches.

The white arrow is pointing to a scar, my first one I got at work. That was Horvath, who I wrote about in May. In that first photo above, you can see another old scar, from a kitten that I believe is back in the sick room. That was an accident; it was just really excited to get out of the kennel. Like, leapt-from-the-cage-right-at-my-face excited.

I've been stealthily cutting Zsasz's nails while he's sleeping in my lap. If he scratches me, I try to make a mental note of which paw to target when he zonks out. It's not perfect, but it works. He won't sit still long enough to get all of his nails done at once.

We also had an ear infection scare with him, but it turns out he just has dirty ears. We (I) have to clean them about once a week. As if I don't have enough ears to clean.