Good Kittens Make Good Neighbours

In another installment of “Weird Things I Saw For Sale”, I came across this ad the other day. When I saw the picture, I thought it was strange, because apparently you’re not allowed to sell pets on Facebook Marketplace, but then I saw the description and realized that this was, in fact, NOT a pet but a very skilled little feline who is worth every penny of his $123.00 price tag.

Now, it never occurred to me that you could use a kitten for this purpose, just like it never occurred to me that you should hold a kitten like it’s an ice cream cone, but then I gave it a little more thought. I came up with this clever quiz for you to demonstrate how much a kitten has in common with a sheep/goat fence. You need to read the items on the following list and decide whether they apply to kittens, sheep/goat fences, or both:

1) Can be used to keep out sheep and/or goats
2) Adorable
3) Comes in a variety of colours
4) Might have fleas
5) Needs lots of maintenance
6) Enjoys the outdoors
7) Potentially electrified
8) Poops in a box
9) Hisses if you try to cross it
10) Vomits on your rug
11) Kills birds and small rodents
12) Very long
13) Metal or wood

OK, let’s see how you did.

Exclusively kittens: #8 and #10. Exclusively sheep/goat fences: #13. Both: All the rest.

Now, you may be saying, “I don’t think—” but I’m going to interrupt you in order to explain.

1) “Can be used to keep out sheep/goats”. According to the ad, this kitten CAN be used to keep out sheep and/or goats, and I take the word of the expert who owns the kitten and not some blog reader who owns a sheep and/or goat farm, KEVIN. Also, the ad says it’s a TEMPORARY fence; otherwise, using a kitten as a sheep/goat fence would be very unrealistic.

2) “Adorable”. I have seen MANY adorable sheep/goat fences in my time. In fact, just the other day, Ken and I were driving around the countryside and he said, “Look at that cute fence” and I said, “We should stop and take a picture of it” and we did, because it was adorable.

3) “Comes in a variety of colours”. I mean obviously sheep/goat fences don’t come in as MANY colours as kittens, but they come in several shades of gray or brown, so that counts.

4) “Might have fleas”. I said “Might”.

5) “Needs lots of maintenance”. Fences and kittens are both high-maintenance what with their potential for rust and needing to be amused constantly.

6) “Enjoys the outdoors”. This is obviously true of both because sheep/goat fences live in the outdoors, which they wouldn’t if they didn’t enjoy it, I would hope, and kittens are always making a run for the door to get out of your house.

7) “Potentially electrified”. I said “Potentially”. Also, what do you think makes a kitten’s fur stand on end? And have you ever touched your kitten and gotten a shock? I rest my case.

8) “Poops in a box”. I don’t think sheep\goat fences defecate, and if they did, I can’t see a farmer providing them a box to do it in. Although you never know with farmers.

9) “Hisses if you try to cross it”. This one is predicated on the sheep/goat fence being electrified. In which case, it’s true of both. It’s also true of the Canada Goose, affectionately known as the Evil Lake Chicken.

10) “Vomits on your rug”. This could never be true of a sheep/goat fence because you wouldn’t have one in your house with access to a rug. Unless you also keep sheep and/or goats in your house, and then it would be like a baby gate or something, and I still can’t see it vomiting on the rug, although the sheep and/or goats might. But if you’ve ever owned a kitten, you know they do this all the damn time, and especially when you have company over for dinner, and right as you start eating, the kitten comes in, makes an unearthly yowling sound, and pukes on the rug. Kittens have impeccable timing, which they also have in common with sheep/goat fences. I should have put that on the list.

11) “Kills birds and small rodents”. This is also predicated on the sheep/goat fence being electrified. It also depends on the voltage. Ken has touched electric fences before but he’s not home right now, so I’ll ask him later if he thinks it could electrocute a field mouse. Update: Ken says that the voltage probably wouldn’t kill them but would give them a good jolt, so I’m changing 11 to “Wounds birds and small rodents”.

12) “Very long”. I’ve seen long kittens. Fight me.

13) “Metal or wood”. There’s no way I can stretch this to make it apply to kittens, at least not the living kind, so I’m giving number 13 to sheep/goat fences.

Overall, as you can see, kittens and sheep/goat fences DO have a lot in common, so I think the person who posted the ad should be asking a hell of a lot more than $123.00. A much better deal than the ad for used rocks at a dollar a piece.

(On a personal note, I woke up on Tuesday morning to an email telling me that I’d been nominated for a Best of the Net prize for my story in the Ekphrastic Review titled ‘Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus’, which you can read here if you’d like, although a lot of you already have. It was as unexpected as a kitten being used as a sheep/goat fence, but it made my day.)

53 thoughts on “Good Kittens Make Good Neighbours”

  3. A well trained sheep dog is better than any fence, and I suppose a kitten could serve the same function.
    Also, I think a fence can be any colour. I painted a rainbow on my fence. Also a mermaid. Fences are easier to colour than kittens, though my oldest dog Herbie is still listed at his vet as “white, black, and teal” because the first day I called to make an appointment for him as a puppy, I’d been refinishing a dresser and he’d gotten a little frisky around the paint, so I jokingly added teal and the lady wrote it down and it’s been a permanent part of his medical history for 11 years.
    Also, on length. Our newest puppy is a wiener dog (breed wise, not a moral judgment). Are there possibly wiener cats? Sausage cats? Salami cats?

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  6. $123 for a non-adoption kitten? Are kittens…. I mean, goat fences a rare commodity up there? If you have a cat who gives birth to goat fences around here, the only way you’re going to find homes for them is to give them away. Nobody pays for goat fences, and that looks like a plain, gray tabby goat fence.

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  7. Also: kittens and sheep/goat fences are things you should never urinate on. If Ken were home I suspect he’d confirm that, although hopefully not from his experience with an electric fence. And I have to add that I’ve never attempted to urinate on a kitten and even if I wanted to do such a terrible thing I think it would be nearly impossible because kittens are always in motion except when they stop to throw up on the rug. I know that because I lived with a Siamese kitten who was very sweet but also definitely electrified, or at least full of energy. She was also long except when she stopped to throw up on the rug and her whole body seemed to compress.
    Anyway congratulations on your nomination! I look forward to your acceptance speech in which you thank everyone from Breugel the Elder to all the kittens.

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    • I heard about the issue with urinating on an electric fence–Ken said he’s never had the pleasure–or pain, from what I understand. And if you’ve ever seen your kitten cross from one couch to another without touching the ground, you know how long they can get!

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  9. Oh wow, you made great on the list, lol. I mean especially since it’s a sheep/goat fence kitten. Who would have thought of all those things to compare and contrast….oh wait you did! Also, congrats on your nomination, Best of the Net is a big deal, like that kitten who can be sheep/goat fence! When I grow up, I want to be just like Suzanne Player One!!

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    • Well, that’s lucky because it means you never have to grow up–I certainly haven’t! And thanks–the nomination was wonderful, especially since I’d been having a couple of down moments about writing:-)

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  10. A quick re-read of that story reminded me that it is one of my favorites I’ve read from you and it clearly deserves “Best of the Net”. I know I’ve been rather monomaniacal about my newest Canadian TV obsession lately (Trailer Park Boys), referencing it every chance I get, but as I was reading about the $123 kitten, all I could think of was Bubbles trying to open Kittyland in the Sunnyvale Trailer Park only to be upstaged by Ricky who opened Garbageland on the adjoining property. A temporary sheep/goat fence would have solved that problem easily.

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  11. Congratulations on your nomination! Our cat doesn’t come in a variety of colors, but he does vomit in a variety of colors. He also meets the criteria of numbers 2, 5, 6, 8, 10, and 12 if you replace “very long” with “very heavy.” So, yeah, our cat really needs to get to work and earn his keep:)

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  12. Now listen here, I won’t have you underestimating kittens. We go one, oh, 5 or 6 years ago. He’s now a cat. We haven’t had a single sheep or goat in our yard. You can call that temporary if you like, but a permanent wave doesn’t last half as long.

    He does not have fleas.

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  13. I never knew that kittens had so much in common with a fence. How enlightening. Someone left a feral momma cat and her two feral kittens in our barn. We’ve been trying to figure out how to capture them. Perhaps they’ll just serve as a fence in case anyone else gets any ideas about dropping off cats! And congrats on the story. I’m heading over to read.

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  15. I read the ad slightly differently and thought the kitten was being offered either as a temporary sheep or alternatively as a goat fence. I know when my sheep goes on annual leave I need a stand in for a couple of weeks and I often use a kitten. When the sheep comes back, the kitten does make an excellent goat fence. But I have no need for a goat fence. So that can be quite awkward.

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  16. This really confused me… See, my mother has this very passive-agressive cat, and often when I visit my parents’ house, the furry thing will wait for me to go to the second floor and then block the staircase, so I can’t walk back down. She isn’t a kitten anymore, but she is A1 at fencing, and that got me thinking…

    Could I be a sheep, or a goat????

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  19. Pingback: I had a dream… – Cyranny's Cove

  22. Yikes. GoatSheepKitten Fence – reminds of when I was doing research for my thesis and I came across spider goats. Yes, you are reading the correctly. I was writing about genetic engineering. (What else did I have to do! you might wonder. Never mind, I had a full time job at the corporation…I needed something to keep me occupied in my spare time, but I digress.}
    “The goats with spider genes and silk in their milk. Prof Randy Lewis shows Adam Rutherford genetically modified goats at a farm at Utah State University, US, which produce large quantities of a spider silk that is among the strongest substances known to man.Jan 17, 2012”
    Then there is the Geep. I even have pictures in my thesis. That is: “A sheep–goat hybrid”.
    Funny where the mind goes with this free association stuff. Trying to not worry about the kitten in the picture.
    Congrats on your story. Such a subtle comment on how we see, but do not see what’s in front of us.

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