SPIDER SEASON MEETS PAW PATROL
Two Cats, One Mission
Keeping Merle out of my bed
September is spider season. I don’t agree that fall is “spider mating season” because I’m pretty sure they do the deed year-round. But as the weather cools, they seek warmer spots — like my house. I am not a spider peacenik. I am not comfortable with spiders weaving webs in the corners, like it’s early Halloween or something, catching bugs and whatnot. You do you, but nope for me. But I don’t necessarily want to kill them, mostly because eewww. That crunchy feeling is just too goosebumpy for me. And nobody likes to clean up spider guts. Or wipe up their little dismembered legs. So I try to trap and release.
Or I used to. Over time, it became more about if it’s the middle of the night, and how big, or not-big they are. If they are big, hairy, and fast, sorry, they gotta go. (That’s also my rule about men.) For house spiders, if it’s cold out and the middle of the night, they are likely to be taking that last, swirly swim.
But things have changed. A little over a year ago, I inherited my daughter’s two cats, and that changed the game. The Tabby, Missy, will alert to spiders. Her alert is “Merle.” It’s a special vocal sound she uses when she sees a spider. Not the chirp, like when she is spotting birds outside. It sounds like “Merle.” All spiders who make their way into the house are named “Merle.” It doesn’t apply to moths, or the occasional fly. Just spiders.
The Tortie, Mrs. Maisel, aka “Maisy” is Missy’s hunting partner.
Watching them “hunt” together was a revelation to me. I bought them an electronic smart toy, a rubber ball with a string tail, that operates like a Roomba vacuum, sensing when it hits corners and coming back out from under chairs and tables — only at hyper speed. When they first got it, they loved it. One day, they got distracted while playing with it, and it disappeared, just like that. They looked confused. “Where did it go?” I said. “Go find it.” They met in the middle of the room, touched noses, and walked past each other to search their half of the room. That wowed me. I didn’t know cats did that, hunt as a pair, dividing up the hunting area by instinct. I guess I haven’t watched enough nature shows on big cats.
But when it came to spiders, I found out that they really don’t want to kill them. I had gotten rid of the first one, and somehow that final decision became my job.
The first time I saw these two hunting partners "catch" a spider, they were contentedly in breadloaf position on the kitchen floor, facing each other. The spider was between them, curled up, playing dead. I discovered that it was not, in fact, dead, by nudging it with my foot, scaring the crap out of myself.
Worried about my karma, instead of killing it, I trapped the little guy and tossed it out of the window through the hole in the screen, the one that I will get around to fixing any day, or year, now.
The second spider incident was when Missy spotted the eight-legged intruder on the living room ceiling. I tried to save it by reaching up with my telescoping Swiffer duster, hoping it would crawl in and I could return it to the wild. The girls watched this operation intently, tails twitching. I only succeeded in making the spider — Merle — drop down over, or in, or behind the sofa. I pulled the sofa away from the wall, and pulled off all the cushions. This sent the girls wild. Now the hunt was on! Wow! Mom is really into this! The cats loved that mom was now involved, and Maisy contributed to the hunt by running sideways across the back of the sofa, like a feline Spiderman. Spidercat. To be honest, Missy had been trying to teach me to hunt for a while, and I think she suspected I was a slow learner.
Missy crouched in front of the sofa, blocking potential escape from below. The hunt went on for fifteen more minutes before I gave up. I never found that spider — we didn’t — and I sat on the leather chair for the next two days.
Two nights later, I heard Missy say "Merle." Maisy was with her in the kitchen. I got up. I looked. Sure enough, they were hunting a spider, trapping it between them on the kitchen tile. It was nearly midnight, so I just ...walked away. Let nature take its course, I figured. They will kill it eventually and get a bit of exercise doing it. I went back to bed.
About an hour later, I get up to pee. I turn on the light. The cats are right by my bedroom door. A spider, maybe the same one, maybe not, is trying desperately to climb the doorframe. Missy, the Tabby, gently knocks it to the floor, and Maisy, the Tortie, nudges it towards my feet. They look up at me with their big, glowing eyes. Their pupils are so big I suspect they went on a catnip binge earlier in the evening.
But no. They are just excited to see I am awake now, ready to recieve my gift of a live spider, and do my part of the hunt.
They were herding that damn spider into my bedroom! Probably into my bed, the same place they bring the catnip mice to me while I'm sleeping.
Missy looks at the spider, then looks at me.
"Merle" she says.
Nowadays, Missy and Maisy have a job. They have to scan the ceilings for bugs with me, especially spiders, and especially the bedroom ceiling, before we go to bed. Then we can all go to sleep, safe from Merle.
