by Felicia Simpson

Created on: February 07, 2007   Last Updated: April 30, 2007

If you think that it's scary when human females are on their period, then you DEFINITELY haven't seen a female cat in heat. Don't get me wrong, female cats, from what I've seen from my cats, don't really get bitchy like human females, per se. It's just that their behavior can be a bit off-putting if you don't know what to expect and have never been around a cat in heat.

While my cats, Tippy & Snickers, were alive, we hadn't been able to get either of them fixed. And up until that time, I'd always had animals who'd been spayed, so I had NO idea what to expect or what to do.

Tippy went into heat first, but she was relatively easy-going about it. She was just VERY vocal with deep-throated howling yowls that were meant to attract the attention of prospective suitors (or just about anything that could possibly mount her and make her cool off) and would proudly display her upraised hind quarters if even so much as a breeze blew across her rump. But her fertile time didn't last but maybe a week or so and then she was relatively back to normal.

Snickers, on the other hand..........Holy cows and donkeys. For the next 2 & 1/2 weeks, it seemed that her little butt was just permanently a higher elevation than her head, even going so far as to display herself to Tippy if Tippy walked behind her (and sometimes Tippy would try to oblige Snickers' invitations), she seemed to forget how to shut up, howling and yowling at ALL hours of the day (and night) to the point where I thought that my husband and I were going to go nuts.

And being that Snickers was an INSIDE cat, I SERIOUSLY can't figure out how she managed to get pregnant except to think that maybe she got knocked up during a 5 - 10 minute time span in which she escaped as we were trying to get our things loaded up to get moved from Texas to Oklahoma. But whatever happened, she delivered a beautiful litter of 6 female kittens a few days before I birthed my second child.

So, the moral of the story: Your cat in heat is generally going to yowl to the point where "de-barking" her is going to seem tempting, you're going to get MANY un-blocked views of her backside.

In other words: When she goes into heat, there won't be ANY question about what's going on. You'll know.

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