Where the &*#@ are my balls?!?

...which is precisely what the cat will be saying next Wednesday morning. Manny will be going in for Ye Olde Snippe ande Clippe, which is fancified for declawing and neutering.

He's a lovable ball of fuzz, but he's also getting older. He's discovered that the chairs/doors/other cat/humans make lovely scratching posts. Thankfully he hasn't started piss-bombing everything to mark his territory yet. I come home and the Mac smells like ammonia? Cat discovers low-altitude flight very quickly. So, this is to preserve our sanity as well as the cat's. This way, we aren't paranoid about him clawing or peeing on everything in sight, and he's not worried about us constantly waiting to squirt him if and/or when he does.

It's necessary, but it's also something that a guy doesn't want to do to another guy. I mean, when was the last time you heard something like, "hey, Bob! What say we head over to the doc and get rid of those pesky testicles of yours?" Probably never. Well, unless your wife has given birth to your ninth child and it's either the doc does it or she does...

Still, this'll mellow him out; keep him from antagonizing the other cat too much. We're not trying to turn him into a lap-kitty or a vegetable; just want him to be a happy and healthy indoor kitty. He doesn't need to make more cats, and we really don't think he needs to whittle our furniture down to splinters nor is he in the cat version of Fight Club. He doesn't need to defend himself against anything except the dreaded sparkly ball, and he can admire the ladies from the windowsill.

I do imagine a period where he'll be intensely displeased with us. We're prepared, however - the cabinets have been stocked with cat treats and tuna...