Bad, BAD kitty!

Josie has been so awful to my hibiscus plant ever since I brought it into the house a few weeks ago. She just will not leave it alone. She chews on the leaves, and she seems to think the flower buds are special toys. The buds come on the ends of the branches, and there are seven branches, all of which should have buds and/or flowers on by now. There are only two branches that do, because she's chewed the rest off. She also likes to snoop at the potting soil, so there's usually bits of that on the carpet all around the pot.

Yesterday morning, there was finally a flower on the plant, way up at the top. I took a picture of it, because I just KNEW it wasn't gonna last. Here's the pic. If you click on it to enlarge it, you can see how sad some of the leaves look.... not to mention the ones that are totally missing. (She doesn't eat the whole leaf. I usually find them on the floor, along with lotsa little chewed bits.)

The goofy thing is, when she goes after the plant, she warns me with a funny little "hmm?" sound. So I get after her and start yelling. That seems to work the best... she doesn't like yelling. Then she'll walk a few steps away and lie down and watch me... to see if I'm watching her.

The flower survived all day yesterday.... till after supper I went down to the basement for a while and closed the door so the cats couldn't come down. When I came back upstairs, I noticed a tiny bit of 'something' on the floor by the kitchen sink. I picked it up and noticed it felt wet, sorta fresh. It dawned on me what it might be, so I started looking around. I found this near the hallway:

And here's the rest of the story:

Pretty sad flower.

But considering that hibiscus flowers only last one day, anyway, I got most of the day's worth of enjoyment out of it, at least. If only she wouldn't chew off the buds before they got a chance to open up!

Of course, in getting to those top branches, she's also tipped over the entire plant 3 or 4 times. *sigh*

On another Josie note... she has this goofy habit of pawing at her food bowl until some of the food spills out onto the floor. Numerous times during the day, I'll hear a thumping coming from the entry, and I know exactly what it is. At least she usually eats it up after she spills it, which is what she's doing below, in a most relaxed manner.

What a cat! But I love her. And I'd get rid of the hibiscus before I'd part with her! :)