Things go mostly well here, but there are times that show even this household has its moments!
Yesterday, I was in my glider, Dougy was on his ottoman. He is a great big soft furball, and pleasant to pet or hold. He loves the former, and is not real thrilled about the latter.
I’ve learned not to hold either Andy or Dougy longer than they feel comfortable. In past, when they were kittens getting over an illness caused by ingesting an infected grasshopper, they had many baths. Many. In addition, Dougy had to have eye drops for an infection in his left eye a couple of times. They associate being held with stuff they don’t like!
Aw, well. I associate holding them with something I do like, so I hold them a little bit until they start to get wiggly or act distressed. Little by little, they tolerate more holding. Especially since they haven’t had to have a “poop bath” in nearly a year and a half!
They remember, though, they remember….
Yesterday, again, I was in my glider, Dougy was on his ottoman. He was irresistible! I had to hold him! I scooped him off the ottoman, which required prying his front claws from the fabric since he knew what was about to happen: “Don’t love me! NO! Don’t pick me up! You washed me. Washed me in water! NOOOOOO! And you just might do it again!”
Such drama!
I calmed Dougy down with a head rub, then I rolled him on his back to cradle him like a child. Bad move! He associates that position with eye drops! Rats! What started out as a good moment, now required some readjustment of his position to one more comfortable: topside up, and faced out so he could leave at will. For the moment, all was well, then, out of nowhere, Andy hops up onto the side table with a loud clatter! Dougy, frightened, breaks away from my hold and claws my chest with his hind paws in the process.
Andy has lots of practice being a bad boy!
I got out of the chair, and shook my index finger at Dougy: “Bad boy! You are a very bad boy, Dougy!” He ran into the next room. I returned to Andy, by now on my new computer chair that he’s clawed up, where he was, well, clawing up my new computer chair: “You are a very bad boy, too!” Then he ran off to the next room.
I went to the bathroom to clean my wounds and bandage them if needed (it wasn’t), and I reminded the boys they were very bad boys when they came in to watch.
The rest of the day, Dougy acted very sad. He would come around and look like he wanted to get on the ottoman, but then he’d walk away. I tried to encourage him up. By this time, of course, I realized he wasn’t a bad boy, he’d just reacted to Andy’s noisy arrival, and I just happened to be holding him at the time. I reassured him he wasn’t a bad boy, that I was sorry! (I am, too! Poor Dougy is more sensitive to criticism than Andy.)
I got the feather toy out. Well, an extra long feather toy session, and Dougy felt a lot better. I could tell! But not enough to get on the ottoman again. Andy, though, got over it very fast, and stretched out on the end table shortly after “the incident”. He’s cool!
This morning, Andy had a hearty breakfast of trout-salmon mix wet food. In fact, he ate Dougy’s share, too. I fixed more for Dougy since he’d been in the bathroom on the towel in front of the shower when I put the food out. The boys tend to eat together when the food’s on one plate, take turns eating if the food’s on separate plates. Today, the food was on two plates, and Dougy was slow to come in.
I sat down to watch the news, the boys came into the front room to assume their usual places, Andy on the end table, and Dougy, with a little prompting, on the ottoman!
I reminded him that he is a good boy, brushed him (which he likes), and rubbed his nose. For good measure, I got out the feather toy, and played with him for an extra long time! Dougy is doing fine again. Andy got over scolding shortly after the incident happened. The claw marks barely show today, no infection since I know better to clean this type of injury quickly and thoroughly.
They are good boys! I know that, but I hope they understand that, too.
I agree about the ‘poor specimens,’ but not sure about ‘humanity.’
In collecting pictures on animal abuse and exploitation of all types, including domestic creatures, industry, entertainment, trophy hunting, pure sadistic enjoyment of torture, etc. I can’t believe what I am seeing. I will spare you the gory details as it really is horrible.
Believe me, if you had been looking at what I’ve been lookiing at, you would see that the word ‘ghouls’ would be far more appropriate.
They are so vulnerable, though, bless them. Animals also can be very forgiving… perhaps too forgiving sometimes which is one of the reasons they are generally speaking a target for so much abuse.
How true. There are people, too, who don’t think animals feel pain. I don’t understand such ignorance, but these poor specimens of humanity exist.
Cats certainly can be touchy, do sulk, and do get their own back. And it would not be true to say that many animals (apparently including parrots) are not emotionally manipulative – actually one of the things I personally find so cute and loveable about them – so like us…
I am so glad you have Andy and Dougy and I’m so glad they have you! They DO know that you love them and care about them! And they’re smart, so they know that sometimes they might frustrate or hurt you. But all will be forgiven…:-) ’cause that’s how true families are. 🙂
HUGS!!! 🙂
Trust is one of those things, though…! I saw one yesterday about how it takes 20 years to build trust and five minutes to destroy it. I thought, at the time, “true enough!” Then, instead of writing it down with attribution, I promptly forgot about it until this moment. In cat (or dog or horse or…) terms, there is less time to build trust, but that five minute principle still applies.
Sometimes cats hold grudges for a while. I’m sure they see that you’re sorry for yelling at them. I can’t blame you for feeling bad about it. I would too.
Dougy isn’t completely happy with me, though he wants to be! He stayed on the ottoman until he thought I might pick him up, as evidenced by how he moved farther away from me. Andy, on the other hand, could care less. We have a new thing he likes: interior/exterior ear rubs. Dougy otherwise is the same.
Funny thing how animals don’t forget what happened in their “childhood”! You are very patient with your companions. They are lucky cats!
You have to be because they, of course, see the world through different eyes than people. I hope I understand their “point of view” most times so I don’t upset them for doing the natural thing, like Dougy did yesterday.
Totally understood and Ali also associates being held with her belly up with medication for her eyes or oral medication.
When we adopted her at three months she was a mess and we didn”t know it til we got her and she got really sick.
She spent three weeks at the vets with an internal parasite and also was full of ear mites.
Even if we had known if we had known all of her medical needs we would still have adopted her. She and hubby made eye contact as soon as he saw her and they belonged to each other.
Our old girl, The Fuzz, had died from cancer several months before, and although Ali, didn”t take away the loss, she helped our hearts heal, and emptied our bank account<:)
She is worth every dollar the vet got.
So if I hold her on her back she fights and thinks she is getting medication.
I sneal up on her with her monthly advantage treatment.
Love that photo of Andy trying ot get whatever is in the drawer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfWJY_S7pIA
It’s a screen print off of this video, which shows much of Andy’s repertoire of naughtiness. He was especially spoiled as a kitten because he was critically ill to the point I thought he’d die. Anyway (speaking of huge veterinarian bills and no regrets), it was because he had to spend time in the clinic (a couple weeks) early on that his equally sick brother Dougy and he got to play with each other again as part of a litter of four that was in quarantine with their mother. The both had to spend a second round of several days in the clinic again not too long after the first time, shared a cage, so became even better buddies in the process.
I was like you, my cat was so wonderful to hold it was difficult to resist picking him up which he wasn’t keen sometimes at least – sometime he liked me to – as his kittenhood wasn’t the best. It wasn’t bad either though. He had lots of fun and wasn’t mistreated. I would tell him that I loved him often several times a day, so at least he knew that. He couldn’t go in and out though as I was living in a flat and he used to wait in the corner to come in, which wasn’t right but there was nothing that could be done about that except move which I did. I ought to have cuddled him more but I wasn’t at all well at the time and in a not good relationship with his dad.
I thought I heard the cat man say some cats love being held like babies but some hate it?
Really they are angels. Mine was. It was me that was bad and wrong sometimes. He used to give me a filthy look too sometimes because I didn’t understand things and didn’t listen, and various things like I didn’t take out enough time to play with him. Much of it wasn’t my fault but due to extreme illness. So many things I regret and I wish I had the time agin, but I know so many people would say the same thing, but it doesn’t do any good thinking that way now.
Dougy is a very sweet cat. Andy will resist me if he wants to do something and I don’t want him to. There are some videos of this Andy cattitude posted elsewhere, in fact!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebCyurjQz-A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4P2-xVEfZg