When I was growing-up I once had a cat that was accidently locked in the garage as it was being "bombed" with an aerosol insecticide. The poor creature was never right after that. It would relieve itself wherever it happened to be at the moment. It was skittish to the point of paranoia, even to a familiar hand. It was prone to flights of mania and near-violence. It ceased to groom itself with the attending matted fur and haggard appearance. It was wild-eyed and crazed and my liberal mother refused to have the animal put-down in the name of Mercy. It lingered for years--stalking, nay, haunting--our home until its own inability to care/fend for itself lead it into a ditch whose cold, fast-moving waters left it hemmed in discarded fishing line where it eventually drowned and/or succumbed to hypothermia.
This is the cat I think of when I think of the expression, "Skinner is herding cats."
