I have a dilemma....

Did I even spell dilemma right?

We have two cats and a dog. The dog is great-she's wonderful and well behaved. No problem there.

The cats on the other hand, are a different story. We have had Eric for just about 8 years, since he was a kitten. And Sadie we have had about 7 years-but I believe she was a bit older when we got her. Anyway, these cats have done everything short of completely ruining every place we've ever lived. We never declawed them, so that's our fault. We thought declawing was bad and painful so we decided not to do it. We never really thought about the fact that they would ruin all of our furniture, curtains, etc. with their stupid claws. And they have.

Their hair is EVERYWHERE. I vacuum the couches way more than I want to because you tell them and tell them and tell them to get off of the furniture, and they don't. They apparently have the memory span of about 5 minutes. You get them off the couch and next time you turn around, there they are again.

Sadie is apparently "stressed out". For like the third time since we've had her, she is licking all of her hair off. Yeah. It's disgusting. She's so skinny and half of her hair is missing. I know she's not sick because she still eats and everything. She just likes to lick her hair off. Ya know what else that means? Hairballs!! How delightful. I clean up her puke several times a week. What a joy.

And then there is Eric, who does the most charming thing of all. He shits outside of his litter box. Oh, and sometimes pees outside of it too. He doesn't do this daily. He just does it when he feels like it. And it doesn't matter if you just cleaned the litter box, he still will go right outside of it. It's disgusting, it's not hygienic, and I'm sick of it. We have tried everything. We have given him two litter boxes (which one is gross enough and we don't have room for two), we have tried different litters, we have shampooed carpets so that it smells fresh and should make him not want to go there anymore......I'm done.

We have always been animal people. We have rescued all of our pets and we believe in treating your animals well. But I am so far gone with these cats...I just don't know what to do. I CANNOT continue to live like this. ESPECIALLY because we are moving into a brand new house and having a baby. I WILL NOT let them ruin our new home. I will not let my child get sick because their hair and puke and shit is everywhere.

Ryan and I have been over this time and time again. We can't stand living like this anymore and dealing with this shit on a daily basis-but what are we supposed to do? We don't abuse them-but it's definitely gotten to the point where we hardly pay attention to them anymore because they are ruining everything and we are so sick of it. We obviously feed them and clean up after them, but it's not like they are sitting on our laps or anything. I can't imagine that's any kind of life for them either. I feel like they should live with someone who has no other pets and wants to cuddle with them and make them their priority. Every time the conversation comes to getting rid of them, we both get sad and defensive and realize that we can't do it. We've said, "well, we are stuck with them until they die, and then we just won't ever get cats again." Do you know how long cats can live??? We could easily have them for another 5+ years. That's plenty of time for them to ruin our new house. I don't know what to do. I really don't. If we take them to the humane society, they probably won't be able to find good homes for them and they will have to euthanize them. I can't stand the thought of that. I can't do it anymore. I really can't. I don't know what to do. But I need to come up with a solution quickly.